> > Isn't the exemption of the self of the sociologist himself/herself
> > from the application of social theory also a part of the professional
> > assumptions of sociologists? "Everyone else is socialized (probably
> > in a pathological fashion), but I'm not -- I'm a free-thinking
> > individual," "I know what I'm talking about, but everyone else is in
> > ideology," or so the professional narrative goes. Postmodern
> > consciousness of one's own so-called "complicity" in "discourse"
> > doesn't improve upon the old professional assumption of "being
> > outside the picture" either.
>************
>
>No. Even a non-sociologist dolt like me knows that they're onto reflexivity in
>studying themselves in the process of studying social processes. How do
>you know
>it doesn't improve "the picture"? What's your solution to the
>subject/conject/object triad? What are your criteria for "measuring"
>improvement?
>
>
> > On the question of the paradox of ideology, I recommend that you take
> > a look at Justin Schwartz, "The Paradox of Ideology," _Canadian
> > Journal of Philosophy_ 23.4 (December 1993), pp. 543-574.
> >
> > Marx talked about middle class, but I doubt he ever mentioned
> > "upper-middle class." :-)
> >
> > Yoshie
>********
marx wrote about the same issue in, for ex (among others), his studies of the french revolution. i posted on this three years ago, and repeatedly, since, whenever you and carrol climbed on the high horse about the use of the phrase "middle class".
futhermore, self relfexivity and the paradox of ideology in sociology has long been a topic of discussion, lengthy articles and, indeed, treatises, way before 1993 sweetheart. this is why we have subdicipline called "the sociology of knowledge", the "sociology of the professions" and the "sociology of sociology". goodgrief, how obtuse and closed minded can you possibly be? the problem reflexivity and the paradox of ideology is a founding premise of many of the major works since sociology recognized this paradox early on and, indeed, it's major schools are attempts to answer the question. try a century before justin's article for some of the first addresses, 'k? finally, i guess i was a little behind justin, but i wrote an aritlce on postermodernism in sociology, just a taste, since i don't want to put out too much. would ruin friday night!:
The ability of a mirror to reflect is conditioned by its opacity. It is a pane of glass, like a window; but, unlike a window, it is not transparent nor even translucent. Opacity requires the impenetrability of light. In an early essay, Jean-Paul Sartre criticized the Cartesian tradition of reflexivity in terms of opacity. For Sartre, the transcendental ego to which the dualism of reflexivity gives rise has no reason for being. Such an ego would "be a sort of center of opacity.... This superfluous 'I' would be a hindrance...would tear consciousness from itself; it would slide into every consciousness like an opaque blade. Sartre, at least in his early work, rejected the opacity of the transcendental ego. However, Sartre's heirs -- contemporary French theorists associated with poststructuralism and postmodernism -- have enthusiastically embraced the fundamental opacity of, not only the self, but all projects which aim toward a reflective consciousness or knowledge of the social or society. Such projects, postmodernists complain, subscribe to an essentialist ontology and a foundationalist epistemology. They presuppose the possibility of locating a self-identical, irreducible reality as the object of inquiry and that social reality can and should be known objectively.
Essentialism and foundationalism ultimately underwrite claims for the autonomy of sociology and the possibility of a neutral sociological language which directly corresponds to its referent -- society/the social. Sociology's claim to a superior epistemic status resides in the assertion that the sociological project is product of modern, industrial capitalist society and yet it is, nonetheless, fully capable of providing a scientific, objective theory of the whole of society. <...>
finally, check out the subdiscipline: "sociology of sociology" and the work of karl mannheim, among others.
>With the study of societies and classes, the final word/theory is there is no
>final word/theory.
>
>Ian