Date: 	Mon, 25 May 1998 14:06:32 -0400
From: Ken <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: Method and Theory


On Sun, 24 May 1998 12:25:24 -0400  McPherson S wrote:

>  Most of what you say makes  sense, except it is so 
abstract.  If we put a subject in there - or an  *object* of 
research, then it makes more sense.

I had originally wrote the post with the study of religion in 
mind but I didn't see much harm in abstracting things further 
from that....

> I think that what yousay makes sense, until the very end, 
when you sum  up, saying, Theory is the rationale and method 
is the reasoning.

This kind of bothered me to and it said some of what I wanted 
to say but not everything...  I just recently ran past this 
passage from Richard Beardsworth's book Derrida and the 
Political:

"A thinker with a method has already decided how to proceed, 
is unable unable to give him or herself up to the matter of 
thought in hand, is a functionary of the criteria which structure 
his or her conceptual gestures..." (4)

I completely agree with this.  Any thoughts?

>  Perhaps  because my research is about people, and the 
method of data collection is  the interview, it seems there is a 
lot left out of your argument.  I'm  sure your analysis would 
apply to some kinds of research, but not to  mine.

Could you be a little more specific?  How do you seen the 
relationship between method and theory... how does the 
involvement of people (instead of data?) change things...  
Following someone like Adorno - I've come to the conclusion 
that objects should be treated *like* subjects... so the 
difference wouldn't actually be all that great... a sensitivity to 
particularity is needed for looking at both subjects and objects 
(when you get down to it, following Marx, human beings are 
objects as well as subjects because they exist objectively).

ken