CHAPTER ONE PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS: A GENERAL DISCUSSION The terms 'analysis' and 'analyse' are used in all sorts of ways in ordinary discourse and in ...

This article provides a critical exposition of the epistemological underpinnings of a recent redevelopment of Grounded Theory methodology, ‘Constructivist’ GT. Although proffered as freed from the ‘objectivist’ tenets of the original version, critical examination exposes the essentialism threaded through its integral analytic practices. Movement towards a position critical of an external referent, discernible within Wittgenstein’s later works, is the apparent target of Constructivist GT. However, despite its championing of indeterminate, multiple meanings, the notion of correspondence to the world, discernible within (...) the Tractatus, persists. In order for Constructivist GT to achieve coherence, Socio-Linguistic Realism is suggested here as a stance which would help sharpen its distinction from the atomism of the original version of GT. However, in order for such repositioning to extend to all its analytic practices, particularly coding, further development would be required so that it can accommodate the notion of context bound meanings and language use. As it stands, its fuzzy epistemological position translates into rather ambiguous analytic coding practices. Further, an ill-defined conception of linguistic meanings and the intermittent positing of referents external to the social contexts researched does little to foster a secure methodological position with a clarified notion of grounding. (shrink)

This article criticizes Bourdieu's and Giddens's overintellectualizing accounts of human activity on the basis of Wittgenstein's insights into practical under standing. Part 1 describes these two theorists' conceptions of a homology between the organization of practices (spatial-temporal manifolds of action) and the governance of individual actions. Part 2 draws on Wittgenstein's discussions of linguistic definition and following a rule to criticize these conceptions for ascribing content to the practical understanding they claim governs action. Part 3 then suggests an alternative, Wittgensteinian (...) account of the homology between practices and actions that avoids this pitfall. (shrink)