Does reflexivity separate the human sciences from the natural sciences (original) (raw)
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A Naturalistic and Critical View of Social Sciences and the Humanities
Worldviews, Science and Us - Redemarcating Knowledge and Its Social and Ethical Implications, 2005
This article focuses on the relation between worldviews, sciences and us. Its point of departure is the significant mutual influence of the Western worldview and sciences. It shows how the intertwined construction of science and worldview has modelled our conceptual selfunderstanding, our being and our acting. The issue is considered from a philosophical-anthropological stance, with due attention being given to past delineations and future alternatives. It is argued that, within the framework of the Western worldview, self-realisation is considered essential for being a human self. There is a tacit, yet conscious, agreement that the way to attain self-realisation is through the gradual development of two potentials: the rational potential and the potential for self-expression. The authors recognise that both are indispensable in forming the human self, but point out that the nature of the development of these potentials can conceptually be misinterpreted, causing 1 problems on the individual, societal and ecological levels. In order to prevent the development of the rational potential and the potential for self-expression from receiving undue emphasis, two more potentials are introduced on the conceptual level, to wit the ethical potential and the potential to be situated in and oriented towards a larger and meaningful whole. The assumption is that bringing these to the fore will also affect the very definition of self-realisation.
Reflexivity and Selfhood: An Introduction to the Volume
Our principal thesis is that reflexivity is a fundamental and defining attribute of humanness itself. Here this thesis has it roots, most basically, in the philosophical anthropology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and his ontology of the betwixt and between. What we have in mind by "reflex-ivity", then, is not to be confused with or misconstrued for the relatively recent anthropological movement that also centered on a notion or notions of reflexivity, and had its beginnings in the 1970s. Granting its impact, provocation, and appeal over two to three decades, that movement was for the most part a matter of taking reflexivity as a methodology for rethinking anthropological research in light of postcolonialism and other ethical concerns of ethnographic practice. In contrast, we see reflexivity as significantly broader than a social scientific scholarly performance or a prescription to guard against our own cultural givens. Insofar as we see a connection, it is this: when considered as a defining feature of the being and becoming of the human, reflexivity emerges as a normally unseen, because natural, platform on the basis of which the word "reflexivity" was, in productive but cognitivistically circumscribed ways, understood by that previous anthropology.
New Approaches Towards Thinking About Reflexivity
Academic researchers are affected by their surrounding when conducted their research. They are bombarded by their own beliefs and the ideologies that are enforced within their surrounding. As researchers they learn to use their social lives as a tool to reflect on while during conducting research. Pierre Bourdieu referred to this action as reflexivity. This term refers to reflexivity as a concept that analyzes the ways in which a researcher can affect their work through their reflection on themselves and their environment. The research question I will answer within this paper is how can Pierre Bourdieu"s concept reflexivity be improved in order for it to account for an academic researcher"s privilege and bias that occurs due to their race, class, gender, and identity? I argue that in Science of Science and Reflexivity, Bourdieu does not consider how race, class, gender, and identity can affect a researcher"s perspective on their work. The term reflexivity is in need of improvement because it does not clearly mention the privilege and bias an academic researcher can bring on to their work if they are not thoroughly reflexive. This paper will present Pierre Bourdieu"s concepts reflexivity, habitus, field, and different forms of capital (scientific/symbolic, social, cultural, and economic) in order to present an in depth analysis of his work and the impact it has on researchers.
In this article, we propose an understanding of reflexivity based on the effects of degrees of indeterminacy in the most diverse situations and contexts. We conducted an analysis based on a pragmatist sensibility to outline a model of reflexivity, examining how the concept has been thought in social theory. We explore the epistemological reflexivity (Pierre Bourdieu); the tradition that associates reflexivity and personal forms of internal deliberation (Margaret Archer); approaches connecting reflexivity with devices allowing an objective apprehension of the world (Bernard Lahire); and perspectives in which reflexive action is linked to indeterminacy (John Dewey; Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot). We combine routine, experiences of destabilization, catastrophe, and different high levels of reflexivity, seeking to open social theory to new research agendas on reflexive action.
Outline for a Reflexive Epistemology [Epistemology & Philosophy of Science 42(4):46-66, 2014]
Epistemology & Philosophy of Science 42(4): 46-66, 2014
This paper addresses the notion of a “theory of knowledge” from the perspective of sociological reflexivity. What becomes of the meaning of epistemology once the ontological status of knowledge is taken seriously, and its political dimensions impossible to ignore? If the knower is no longer an impersonal, universal subject, but always a situated and purposeful actor, what kind of epistemology do we need, and what social functions can we expect it to play? Sociological reflexivity embraces the historicity and situatedness of knowledge understood as a cultural product and a social practice. It therefore enables us to cope with the collapse of our absolute and universal epistemic foundations and frames of reference, and to redefine the existential and practical meanings of knowledge for social life. In so doing, it also gives political meaning to epistemology itself, understood as a sociological theory of knowledge, not a normative one. Reflexivity can be envisaged as both a “bending back” and a “bending forward” of knowledge as praxis. As a bending back of knowledge on itself, it entails a rigorous understanding of the social conditions of possibility of our thought and our values, and hence a critical assessment of what our world-views and notions of truth owe to the social order in which we are inscribed. As a bending forward, it turns this objective understanding into an instrument of existential and social emancipation, by delineating the structural spaces of freedom and agency that allow for a meaningful and responsible scholarly practice.
Reflexivity and its Consequences
European Journal of Social Theory, 1999
The work of Pierre Bourdieu owes much of its distinctive qualities to its reflexive character, to the incisive and recurrent analysis of what it means to practise social science, to be an academic, or to speak out as an intellectual. The sociology of the intellectual world for Bourdieu is not so much a particular research specialty as an indispensable precondition for social scientific research. Reflexivity in this sense is a working method, recognizable in all of his various undertakings, whether they concern his research and teaching, the publishing of Liber and Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, or his current activities in finding ways to redefine and revive the critical role of intellectuals. 1 If, in contrast to this reflexive stance, there is anything lacking in Bourdieu's writings, it is indeed the plain and spontaneous adherence to the established intellectual models. Bourdieu never quite identified himself with what was readily available, neither with the professorial fate of the academic specialist, nor with the Sartrean figure of the 'total intellectual'. For a young French philosopher, originating from a province at about maximum distance from the capital, who had made it to the École normale supérieure, it was rather unusual, to say the least, to start ethnographic and sociological fieldwork in Algeria. Bourdieu's subsequent work, marked by an unfailing refusal of the predominant dichotomies (theory/ research, objectivism/subjectivism, holism/individualism), testifies to the same unease with the primary divisions of the academic universe. His inability and unwillingness to be satisfied with the existing options is aptly illustrated by the dictum he quotes from Karl Krauss, the Viennese critic and writer: 'Were I forced to choose between two evils, I would choose neither one' (Bourdieu, 1997: 129). This inclination, visible in his way of constructing sentences and developing arguments, is at the root of acclaimed innovations in various research fields, and has, more generally, led him to conceive of social science as a reflexive endeavour. Bourdieu's use of neither-nor reasoning is no rhetorical device, commonly employed to nestle oneself comfortably in the middle of two (often fictitious) extremes, but a way of gaining distance from the dominant views, allowing a reflection upon what is at stake for whom, and why some things are conceivable from one point of view, whereas others are not. This reflexive urge, which simultaneously questions a specific object and those who question the object in question, is present from his earliest work onwards.
2019
This article aims to critically examine three approaches to reflexiv-ity in philosophical texts, specifically the case when the textuality becomes its own topic. The first approach is when there is no re-flexivity at all. It is just describing how-according to the author-things are. As an example of this approach I take German media philosophy. This tradition is specific because reflexivity is supposed to be its very topic. However, the media philosophers succeeded in touching the indefinability of mediality itself. Another method is to question one's own and possibly also the reader's position. I have chosen Annemarie Mol's empirical philosophy as the example here. The problem is that despite following the "ontological turn", the author remains (probably inevitably) also to a large extent trapped in the fact that he/she describes the world, that is, in sub-ject/object dichotomy and therefore, in epistemology. The third way to write aims to make readers feel what the author tells. My example here is the varied work of Walter Benjamin whom I for the purpose of this article consider more as a prophet rather than the precise thinker who he (also) by all means was. While using the second approach myself, I discuss advantages and challenges of the three and find their points of touch.
Vojtěch Kolman, Tereza Matějčková (eds.), Perspectives on the Self. Reflexivity in the Humanities, de Gruyter, Berlin, 2022
The volume develops the concepts of the self and its reflexive nature as they are linked to modern thought from Hegel to Luhmann. It is structured around the following axes: Self-making and reflexivity – theoretical topics; Social self and the modern world; Literature – self and narrativity; Creative Self – text and fine art. Among the contributors are some of the most renowned specialists in their respective fields, including J. F. Kervégan, B. Zabel, P. Stekeler-Weithofer, I. James, L. Kvasz, H. Ikäheimo and others.