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This study develops a genetic phenomenological sociology of space from the phenomenology and phenomenological sociology of space. Based on relational ontology, it argues that social space is a social relationship in genesis. An Apple walk-in store and an Apple online store are examples to illustrate the essence of social space. Any Apple store as a social space represents a set of social relations. The genetic phenomenological sociology of space in both store types includes two parts: first, the social ontology of space, that is, 'being-in-the-Apple-store' or 'being-in-the-Apple-online-store'; and second, the social epistemology of space, that is, the act of 'encountering' in either store. Examining the existence of space ontologically and the mode of existence epistemologically clarifies that the actual 'meaning' of social space, an Apple store or an Apple online store in this study, emerges through the act of encountering. Three characteristics of encountering are placelessness, 'de-distancing,' and mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a comparative analysis between hermeneutics and ethnomethodology of science. A careful examination of the approaches suggested by the two programs not only demonstrates that a non-essentialist inquiry of scientific practices is possible, it also reveals how the significant methodological differences between these (post-phenomenological) programs inform divergent pictures of science's practical rationality. The role these programs play in the debates on science's cognitive autonomy is illuminated by spelling out the idea of the internal criticism of scientific research they advance. In contrast to the external criticism of social epistemologists, the internal one does not aim at a deconstruction of science's cognitive autonomy. Its task is to promote the epistemic emancipation of scientific communities by stressing the reflexive dimension of scientific research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses social practices of the wording of the world. As social theorists committed to postmodernism have recently again reminded that it is people in general who engage in wording the world by their practices of naming, interrogating, and interpreting. Admittedly, this admission is not sudden or new; within sociology and the social sciences generally there is a long and rich tradition celebrating this practice, including the sociology of knowledge, the social construction of reality, symbolic interactionism, and the study of propaganda and public opinion. What has recently changed with respect to the wording of the world is the prioritizing of situated knowledge over abstract knowledge such as philosophies of history and the entrusting of legitimation and validity to the actual participants, the subjects, and the researchers. As Hillary Clinton expressed this in a television interview recently, "Knowledge from a distance is not knowledge of experience!" Because of these epistemological changes, postmodern feminism encourages dialogical interviewing strategies in ethnographic and other qualitative research.

The article presents information about surrendering and catching in poetry and sociology. The author's first important encounter with sociology was a selection of Georg Simmel's work, translated with a long introduction by Kurt H. Wolff. "O Loma!," is Wolff s most personal book. Loma is a community in New Mexico which Wolff studied and thought about, on and off, for some fifty years. His publications that have appeared over the decades in American and European journals include the book "Surrender and Catch: Experience and inquiry today." The phrase "surrender-and-catch" is a Wolff encapsulation by which he has become known. Wolff's work however is not as such religious it is epistemological. It is a contribution to the sociology of knowledge, yet reflexively, and the difficulty for any sociologist taking on such a commitment over some years is how to remain a sociologist. Wolff believes that traditional sociology lost its human face; was too systematic and extravagantly tied to criteria of objectivity. To "surrender" in this context is to give one's whole rather than just professional self, but in the service of a particular cognitive calling.

The article discusses the series of reflections "Against Epistemology: A Metacritique," written by Theodore W. Adorno, in which he employs sociologist E. Husserl's work as a model in his anticipation of the movement announcing the end of epistemology. Adorno is correct in pointing to the paradoxical character of Husserl's conception of philosophy. The reification of logic and philosophy takes place because it is an abstraction from the very facticity whose essential structures it is meant to clarify and thereby effectively separates the content of science from its essential structures. Moreover, Adorno has, as a result of his reflections, raised a serious question, about the doctrine of essences. According to the author, the givenness and acceptance of the world as social and thus shareable does not make the world public and meaningful because one believes or accepts it as so, rather the belief and acceptance of the "We" allows one to find the world already meaningful and social.

Concept and theory formation in the social sciences are restricted by the pre-established first order constructs of everyday thought. This article supports the view that sociologist Alfred Schutz's methodological position is compatible with conventional sociology and that the more radical of his followers have not read him correctly. Whereas Schutz all his life worked on a philosophical foundation of the social sciences, especially sociology F. Kaufmann's interest covered a larger ground of epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy, logic and mathematics, law. The propositions of the social sciences can be verified empirically, but to this end one must use the phenomenological concept of experience, in which neither physical nor social objects are given in perception immediately. Whereas Schutz and Kaufmann disagree on the scope of methodology they seem to agree on methodological rules in a narrower sense. Though such agreement⁄disagreement is logically correct, it offers no solution to the pressing requirement for an integrated philosophy⁄methodology of phenomenological sociology.

The article focuses on critical theory that tries to show that conventional social theory presupposes distinct moral and consequently epistemological disadvantages for the human species. Critical theory launches its critique against other social theories from their "agnostics potential" image of man. They do not assume that human activity can be characterized as either the subject or object of history. Instead, their emphasis is on the "force field" between the subject and object. Man is characterized, in particular, as "potentiality." Critical theory makes an anthropocentric claim that "the potential of man" is the measure by which all else should be evaluated. The contemporary state of social theory abounds with competing "theories," "paradigms," and "schools of thought." Each "theory" rejects its rivals for what it failed to do, cannot in principle accomplish, the inadequate formulation of some problem and for its ideological pretensions. As such, there are no agreed upon standards from which to evaluate rival claims in the discipline. It is often stated that a major criterion for evaluating theories is their comparative or illuminating power.

The basic question to which a philosophy of sociology must respond is that of the possibility of knowledge about society. Raising the question of the possibility of knowledge about society presupposes a description of what society is, not merely in the sense of defining it as an object for inquiry which is differentiated from the objects of other sciences, but in determining whether or not it even is a phenomenon that can be studied adequately from the standpoint of natural science. Implied in the determination of the structure of social phenomena is a position about the way in which society appears, is disclosed, or can be known, and the limits and characteristics of any knowledge that might result from it. Insofar as sociology comprises a body of systematic knowledge, it is constituted by principles that demarcate its limits from other kinds of thought and provide it with integrity. Any conception of sociology contains, then, either implicitly or explicitly, an epistemology. The possible epistemologies that might ground sociology involve positions with regard to the relations between knowledge about society and other types of knowledge, such as knowledge of being (ontology), reality (metaphysics), and good and evil (ethics).

The aim of this article is to draw attention to phenomenology as a permanent revolution in thinking and to place the notion of linguisticality at the center of the conduct of political inquiry and attempts to apply the philosophical insights of hermeneutical phenomenology to the conduct of political inquiry. It also focuses on the discussion on Hans-Georg Gadamer's book on hermeneutical phenomenology "Truth and Method" and its relevance to the conduct of political inquiry. His hermeneutical view, for that matter, the phenomenological approach in general, that the question of "truth" precedes that of "method" has a far-reaching consequence on the conduct of social and political inquiry. A clarification of what it is to be human in its multiple dimensions must precede the question of epistemology or methodology in the human sciences. In its "ontological turn," Gadamer's hermeneutical phenomenology is foremost a radical challenge to scientism that prevailing epistemological paradigm in the human sciences, which claims that the science of nature is the model for the science of man and all reality which is not accessible to this model is meaningless or irrelevant.