Piet Strydom - Contemporary Critical Theory and Methodology

Contemporary critical theorys methodology is currently taking shape under the impact both of transformative internal developments within the discipline, and of external pressures and incentives arising from a series of international debates.

In this book Piet Strydom presents a groundbreaking treatment of critical theorys methodology, using as a base the reconstruction of the left-Hegelian tradition, the relation between critical theory and pragmatism, and the associated metatheoretical implications. He assesses extant positions, presents a detailed yet comprehensive restatement and development of critical theorys methodology, compares it with a wide range of current concepts of social criticism and critique, and analyses leading critical theorists exemplary applications of it. Besides immanent transcendence and the sign-mediated epistemology common to the left-Hegelian tradition, special attention is given to the abductive imagination, reconstruction, normative and causal explanation, explanatory mechanisms and the communicative framework which enables critical theory to link up with its addressees and the public.

Contemporary Critical Theory and Methodology is recommended reading for senior undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as professionals working within disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, political science, critical theory and cultural studies.

Piet Strydom is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, School of Sociology and Philosophy, at University College Cork, Ireland. His research interests include areas such as critical theory, the history and philosophy of the social sciences, and cognitive social science, in which he has noted publications.

Edited by Martin Bulmer

The Social Research Today series provides concise and contemporary introductions to significant methodological topics in the social sciences. Covering both quantitative and qualitative methods, this series features readable and accessible books from some of the leading names in the field and is aimed at students and professional researchers alike. This series also brings together for the first time the best titles from the old Social Research Today and Contemporary Social Research series edited by Martin Bulmer for UCL Press and Routledge.

Other series titles include:

Principles of Research Design in the Social Sciences

Frank Bechhofer and Lindsay Paterson

Social Impact Assessment

Henk Becker

The Turn to Biographical Methods in Social Science

Edited by Prue Chamberlayne, Joanna Bornat and Tom Wengraf

Quantity and Quality in Social Research

Alan Bryman

Field Research

A sourcebook and field manual

Robert G. Burgess

In the Field

An introduction to field research

Robert G. Burgess

Qualitative Analysis

Thinking, doing, writing

Douglas Ezzy

Research Design (second edition)

Catherine Hakim

Measuring Health and Medical Outcomes

Edited by Crispin Jenkinson

Methods of Criminological Research

Victor Jupp

Information Technology for the Social Scientist

Edited by Raymond M. Lee

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Research

Tim May and Malcolm Williams

Research Social and Economic Change

The uses of household panel studies

Edited by David Rose

Introduction to Longitudinal Research

Elisabetta Ruspini

Surveys in Social Research (fifth edition)

David de Vaus

Researching the Powerful in Education

Edited by Geoffrey Walford

Researching Race and Racism

Edited by Martin Bulmer and John Solomos

Statistical Modelling for Social Researchers

Principles and practice

Roger Tarling

The International Social Survey Program 19842009

Charting the globe

Edited by Max Haller, Roger Jowell and Tom W. Smith

Models in Statistical Social Research

Gtz Rohwer

Managing Social Research

A practical guide

Roger Tarling

Martin Bulmer is Professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey. He is Director of the Question Bank (a WWW resource based at Surrey) in the ESRC Centre for Applied Social Surveys (CASS), a collaboration between the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), the University of Southampton and the University of Surrey. He is also a Director of the departments Institute of Social Research, and an Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.

First published 2011

by Routledge

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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by

Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2011 Piet Strydom

Typeset in Baskerville by Prepress Projects Ltd, Perth, UK

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJI Digital, Padstow, Cornwall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Strydom, Piet

Contemporary critical theory and methodology / by Piet Strydom.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Critical theory. 2. Critical theoryMethodology. I. Title.

HM480.S77 2011

301.01dc22

2010035713

ISBN: 978-0-415-54827-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-87556-8 (ebk)

I dedicate this book in gratitude to

Frederik van Zyl Slabbert (19402010),

who first introduced me to the philosophy of social science,

and to

Karl-Otto Apel,

who shaped my understanding of the field like no other

The central argument advanced in this book owes its inspiration to a remark of Karl-Otto Apel to the effect that the young Marx understood knowledge in terms of a process of mediation which approached the medium quo or sign-mediated theory of knowledge developed in fine detail by his younger contemporary, the founder of pragmatism, Charles S. Peirce. The inspirational meaning of this remark was progressively brought home to me by a series of debates of the past three decades or so. The urgency of exploring it is signalled by the fact that these debates in some way all grapple with the current problem situation that arose in the wake of the late twentieth-century return of historicism: how to resolve the relation between transcendental foundationalism and hermeneutic circularism. The first debate concerns the revitalization of left-Hegelianism, which both Marx and Peirce represent, and the recovery of its concept of immanent transcendence; the second is what has become known as the renaissance of pragmatism; and the third is the debate about social criticism and critique. I should mention also my interest in the cognitive revolution and its implications for the social sciences, Critical Theory in particular, which allowed me to appreciate a certain connection among these three debates. The concept of immanent transcendence, Peirces emphasis on the clarifying and unifying function of general concepts, and the possibility of critique all turn on the most basic cognitive phenomenon: that something belonging to the world is nevertheless able to distinguish itself from the world and to develop a perspective on and relation to the world.