McCartney, Paul Bernard (1979) Foundations of ethnomethodology : aspects of the problem of meaning in the social sciences. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

In this thesis I have set out to perform two interlocking, although separable,
tasks. The first is to provide some insight into the philosophical and theoretical
roots of ethnomethodology by investigating the work of Garfinkel and others who
have in some way assimilated, borrowed from, or been influenced by his work, in
a context provided by a discussion of the work of Husserl and Schutz on the one
hand and that of Wittgenstein on the other. I will show the ways in which Schutz
has adapted Husserlian phenomenological insights to further his own fundamentally
sociological ends and how Garfinkel, borrowing only selectively from Schutz and
allowing many other influences to play upon his work (here Kaufman, Parsons and
Gurwitsch are important sources of ideas), transforms ideas generated in the
phenomenological tradition to an extent which suggests that his writings should be
seen in a context set by Wittgenstein's writings (in terms particularly of
notions such as 'form of life' and trulel in a sense of those terms which will
become apparent), rather than encumbering it with too uuch phenomenological baggage
I will move on from there to investigate the writings of other ethnomethodologists,
showing how some - for example Cicourel - remain more firmly within the
phenomenological tradition, whilst others have taken various of Garfinkel's
ideas (although few have taken them whole and undiluted) and investigated, in their
various ways, their implications for the study of -social order and society. In
the process of this arm of the discussion I will point out some of the weaknesses
and strengths of various ethnomethodological positions, suggesting in conclusion
that there is important work being done and waiting to be done in the areas
currently being investigated.
The second task of the thesis is less historically oriented. Here the focus
will be upon theoretical issues surrounding the problem of social order and the
problem of meaning, problems which will be seen to be interrelated. The chief
concern here will be to show the ways in which Wittgenstein and Garfinkel
struggle to present and make coherent a sense of 'meaning' which is fundamentally
different from that which is espoused by phenomenologists like Schutz and by many
other contemporary sociologists, and how this difference rests side by side, in
Garfinkel's work, with a radically different approach to the problem of social
order from that which characterises the work of Parsons and others. The thrust
of this difference lies in an attempt to reconceptualise 'meaning' in a way that
does not posit as fundamental the distinction between 'subjectivity' on the one
hand and an 'objective' world on the other, but which instead, by emphasising the
omniprevalence of 'language games' and the 'indexicality' of expressions, focuses
attention on some notion of 'form of life' or of the 'formal structures of
practical actions'. The effect of this shift of emphasis, I will suggest, is that
'meaning' becomes transformed from seeming to be a 'thing' of some kind contained
within a 'structure' of meanings to become instead an 'embedded' phenomenon, bound
up with what we do in the social world, where the things we do generate and exhibit
those orderly features which make meaning possible.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Ethnomethodology, Garfinkel, Harold -- Criticism and intepretation, Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951 -- Criticism and intepretation, Meaning (Philosophy)
Official Date:	September 1979
Dates:	Date Event September 1979 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Heritage, John
Extent:	v, 432 leaves
Language:	eng

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