Cultures of Inquiry: From Epistemology to Discourse in Sociohistorical Research

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Jun 28, 1999 - History - 316 pages
Cultures of Inquiry provides a unique overview of research methodologies in social science, historical and cultural studies. John R. Hall describes eight interconnected methodologies that transcend present-day disciplinary and interdisciplinary boundaries. In this way, he is able to move beyond the objectivism/relativism debate in the philosophy and sociology of knowledge by showing how alternative research practices are formed. As a book that connects concrete methodological issues of research to contemporary philosophical and postmodern debates about knowledge, Cultures of Inquiry has no equal.
 

Contents

the Third Path
6
Value discourse and the object of inquiry
33
How values consolidate projects of explanation
63
Narrative cultures and inquiry
72
The explanatory and interpretive potential
98
The conceptual possibilities of social theoretical
104
accounts
137
The core of explanation and interpretation as formative
150
an introductory schema
169
Generalizing practices of inquiry
180
Particularizing practices of inquiry
204
The prospects for inquiry
229
Notes
262
Bibliography
285
Index
308

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