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215-540: Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences , that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns that underlie all the things that humans do , think , perceive , and feel . Alternatively, as summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn , structuralism is: "The belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute

430-409: A realist perspective considering the observed phenomena as an external and independent reality is often associated with an emphasis on empirical data collection and a more distanced and objective attitude. Idealists , on the other hand, hold that external reality is not fully independent of the mind and tend, therefore, to include more subjective tendencies in the research process as well. For

645-458: A research question , which determines what kind of information one intends to acquire. Some theorists prefer an even wider understanding of methodology that involves not just the description, comparison, and evaluation of methods but includes additionally more general philosophical issues. One reason for this wider approach is that discussions of when to use which method often take various background assumptions for granted, for example, concerning

860-520: A transcendental subject ." Anthropologist Adam Kuper (1973) argued that: 'Structuralism' came to have something of the momentum of a millennial movement and some of its adherents felt that they formed a secret society of the seeing in a world of the blind. Conversion was not just a matter of accepting a new paradigm. It was, almost, a question of salvation. Philip Noel Pettit (1975) called for an abandoning of "the positivist dream which Lévi-Strauss dreamed for semiology ," arguing that semiology

1075-458: A , so he can situate himself in the place of Other, and not the other". Dylan Evans explains that: For Lacan "the Other must first of all be considered a locus in which speech is constituted," so that the other as another subject is secondary to the other as symbolic order. We can speak of the other as a subject in a secondary sense only when a subject occupies this position and thereby embodies

1290-645: A base for weekend retreats for work, leisure—including extravagant social occasions—and for the accommodation of his vast library. His art collection included Courbet 's L'Origine du monde , which he had concealed in his study by a removable wooden screen on which an abstract representation of the Courbet by the artist André Masson was portrayed. In 1951, Lacan started to hold a private weekly seminar in Paris in which he inaugurated what he described as "a return to Freud," whose doctrines were to be re-articulated through

1505-412: A biologist inserting viral DNA into a bacterium is engaged in a form of experimentation. Pure observation, on the other hand, involves studying independent entities in a passive manner. This is the case, for example, when astronomers observe the orbits of astronomical objects far away. Observation played the main role in ancient science . The scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th century affected

1720-432: A coherent perspective by examining and reevaluating all the relevant beliefs and intuitions. Pragmatists focus on the practical consequences of philosophical theories to assess whether they are true or false. Experimental philosophy is a recently developed approach that uses the methodology of social psychology and the cognitive sciences for gathering empirical evidence and justifying philosophical claims. In

1935-405: A complex body of rules and postulates guiding research or as the analysis of such rules and procedures. As a body of rules and postulates, a methodology defines the subject of analysis as well as the conceptual tools used by the analysis and the limits of the analysis. Research projects are usually governed by a structured procedure known as the research process. The goal of this process is given by

2150-425: A comprehensive philosophical system based on them. Phenomenology gives particular importance to how things appear to be. It consists in suspending one's judgments about whether these things actually exist in the external world. This technique is known as epoché and can be used to study appearances independent of assumptions about their causes. The method of conceptual analysis came to particular prominence with

2365-402: A continuum and not as a dichotomy. A lot of qualitative research is concerned with some form of human experience or behavior , in which case it tends to focus on a few individuals and their in-depth understanding of the meaning of the studied phenomena. Examples of the qualitative method are a market researcher conducting a focus group in order to learn how people react to a new product or

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2580-642: A different path, but by 1924 his parents had moved to Boulogne and he was living in rooms in Montmartre . During the early 1920s, Lacan actively engaged with the Parisian literary and artistic avant-garde . Having met James Joyce , he was present at the Parisian bookshop where the first readings of passages from Ulysses in French and English took place, shortly before it was published in 1922. He also had meetings with Charles Maurras , whom he admired as

2795-509: A five-week study trip, where he met the British analysts Ernest Jones , Wilfred Bion and John Rickman. Bion's analytic work with groups influenced Lacan, contributing to his own subsequent emphasis on study groups as a structure within which to advance theoretical work in psychoanalysis. He published a report of his visit as 'La Psychiatrique anglaise et la guerre' ( Evolution psychiatrique 1, 1947, pp.  293–318). In 1949, Lacan presented

3010-439: A fixed set of questions given to each individual. They contrast with unstructured interviews , which are closer to a free-flow conversation and require more improvisation on the side of the interviewer for finding interesting and relevant questions. Semi-structured interviews constitute a middle ground: they include both predetermined questions and questions not planned in advance. Structured interviews make it easier to compare

3225-597: A fundamental structural basis for human culture. The Biogenetic Structuralism group for instance argued that some kind of structural foundation for culture must exist because all humans inherit the same system of brain structures. They proposed a kind of neuroanthropology which would lay the foundations for a more complete scientific account of cultural similarity and variation by requiring an integration of cultural anthropology and neuroscience —a program that theorists such as Victor Turner also embraced. In literary theory , structuralist criticism relates literary texts to

3440-403: A good methodology helps researchers arrive at reliable theories in an efficient way. The choice of method often matters since the same factual material can lead to different conclusions depending on one's method. Interest in methodology has risen in the 20th century due to the increased importance of interdisciplinary work and the obstacles hindering efficient cooperation. The term "methodology"

3655-417: A key-point for the explanation of the genesis of fetishism ". Nevertheless, "Lacan systematically questioned those psychoanalytic developments from the 1930s to the 1970s, which were increasingly and almost exclusively focused on the child's early relations with the mother... the pre-Oedipal or Kleinian mother"; and Lacan's rereading of Freud—"characteristically, Lacan insists that his return to Freud supplies

3870-404: A larger structure, which may be a particular genre , a range of intertextual connections, a model of a universal narrative structure , or a system of recurrent patterns or motifs. The field of structuralist semiotics argues that there must be a structure in every text, which explains why it is easier for experienced readers than for non-experienced readers to interpret a text. Everything that

4085-436: A limited and subordinate utility but becomes a diversion or even counterproductive by hindering practice when given too much emphasis. Another line of criticism concerns more the general and abstract nature of methodology. It states that the discussion of methods is only useful in concrete and particular cases but not concerning abstract guidelines governing many or all cases. Some anti-methodologists reject methodology based on

4300-491: A literary stylist, and he occasionally attended meetings of Action Française (of which Maurras was a leading ideologue), of which he would later be highly critical. In 1920, after being rejected for military service on the grounds that he was too thin, Lacan entered medical school. Between 1927 and 1931, after completing his studies at the faculty of medicine of the University of Paris , he specialised in psychiatry under

4515-404: A medical researcher performing an unstructured in-depth interview with a participant from a new experimental therapy to assess its potential benefits and drawbacks. It is also used to improve quantitative research, such as informing data collection materials and questionnaire design. Qualitative research is frequently employed in fields where the pre-existing knowledge is inadequate. This way, it

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4730-535: A minute. Freud very clearly opposes the unconscious (which he says is constituted by thing-presentations and nothing else) to the pre-conscious. What is related to language can only belong to the pre-conscious". Freud certainly contrasted "the presentation of the word and the presentation of the thing ... the unconscious presentation is the presentation of the thing alone" in his metapsychology. Dylan Evans, however, in his Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, "... takes issue with those who, like André Green, question

4945-404: A negative form based on falsification. In this regard, positive instances do not confirm a hypothesis but negative instances disconfirm it. Positive indications that the hypothesis is true are only given indirectly if many attempts to find counterexamples have failed. A cornerstone of this approach is the null hypothesis , which assumes that there is no connection (see causality ) between whatever

5160-731: A new paper on the mirror stage , 'The Mirror-Stage, as Formative of the I, as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience', to the sixteenth IPA congress in Zurich. The same year he set out in the Doctrine de la Commission de l'Enseignement, produced for the Training Commission of the SPP, the protocols for the training of candidates. With the purchase in 1951 of a country mansion at Guitrancourt , Lacan established

5375-474: A new wave of predominantly French intellectuals/philosophers such as historian Michel Foucault , Jacques Derrida , Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser , and literary critic Roland Barthes . Though elements of their work necessarily relate to structuralism and are informed by it, these theorists eventually came to be referred to as post-structuralists . Many proponents of structuralism, such as Lacan , continue to influence continental philosophy and many of

5590-455: A paradigm change that gave a much more central role to experimentation in the scientific methodology. This is sometimes expressed by stating that modern science actively "puts questions to nature". While the distinction is usually clear in the paradigmatic cases, there are also many intermediate cases where it is not obvious whether they should be characterized as observation or as experimentation. A central discussion in this field concerns

5805-484: A particular case. According to Aleksandr Georgievich Spirkin, "[a] methodology is a system of principles and general ways of organising and structuring theoretical and practical activity, and also the theory of this system". Helen Kara defines methodology as "a contextual framework for research, a coherent and logical scheme based on views, beliefs, and values, that guides the choices researchers make". Ginny E. Garcia and Dudley L. Poston understand methodology either as

6020-418: A reading of Saussure 's linguistics and Levi-Strauss 's structuralist anthropology. Becoming public in 1953, Lacan's 27-year-long seminar was highly influential in Parisian cultural life, as well as in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. In January 1953 Lacan was elected president of the SPP. When, at a meeting the following June, a formal motion was passed against him criticising his abandonment of

6235-502: A research project. In this sense, methodologies include various theoretical commitments about the intended outcomes of the investigation. The term "methodology" is sometimes used as a synonym for the term "method". A method is a way of reaching some predefined goal. It is a planned and structured procedure for solving a theoretical or practical problem . In this regard, methods stand in contrast to free and unstructured approaches to problem-solving. For example, descriptive statistics

6450-609: A research question and helps the researchers decide what methods to use in the process. For example, methodology should assist the researcher in deciding why one method of sampling is preferable to another in a particular case or which form of data analysis is likely to bring the best results. Methodology achieves this by explaining, evaluating and justifying methods. Just as there are different methods, there are also different methodologies. Different methodologies provide different approaches to how methods are evaluated and explained and may thus make different suggestions on what method to use in

6665-491: A sequence of repeatable instructions. The goal of following the steps of a method is to bring about the result promised by it. In the context of inquiry, methods may be defined as systems of rules and procedures to discover regularities of nature , society , and thought . In this sense, methodology can refer to procedures used to arrive at new knowledge or to techniques of verifying and falsifying pre-existing knowledge claims. This encompasses various issues pertaining both to

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6880-572: A series of contrasts. Thus, in English, the sounds /p/ and /b/ represent distinct phonemes because there are cases ( minimal pairs ) where the contrast between the two is the only difference between two distinct words (e.g. 'pat' and 'bat'). Analyzing sounds in terms of contrastive features also opens up comparative scope—for instance, it makes clear the difficulty Japanese speakers have differentiating /r/ and /l/ in English and other languages

7095-461: A shared goal through the lens of social solidarity when he observed "Mexicanos" and "Anglo-Americans" come together on the same football team to defeat the school's rivals. However, he also continually applies a marxist lens and states that he," wanted to wow peers with a new cultural marxist theory of schooling." Some anthropological theorists, however, while finding considerable fault with Lévi-Strauss's version of structuralism, did not turn away from

7310-555: A sharp line between the actions of some of his followers and his own style of "revolt." In 1969, Lacan moved his public seminars to the Faculté de Droit (Panthéon) , where he continued to deliver his expositions of analytic theory and practice until the dissolution of his school in 1980. Throughout the final decade of his life, Lacan continued his widely followed seminars. During this period, he developed his concepts of masculine and feminine jouissance and placed an increased emphasis on

7525-486: A single researcher or a single discipline but are in need of collaborative efforts from many fields. Such interdisciplinary undertakings profit a lot from methodological advances, both concerning the ability to understand the methods of the respective fields and in relation to developing more homogeneous methods equally used by all of them. Most criticism of methodology is directed at one specific form or understanding of it. In such cases, one particular methodological theory

7740-445: A structural point of view and demonstrated how apparently different social organizations were different permutations of a few basic kinship structures. In the late 1958, he published Structural Anthropology , a collection of essays outlining his program for structuralism. Blending Freud and Saussure, French (post)structuralist Jacques Lacan applied structuralism to psychoanalysis . Similarly, Jean Piaget applied structuralism to

7955-425: A structuralist reading focuses on multiple texts, there must be some way in which those texts unify themselves into a coherent system. The versatility of structuralism is such that a literary critic could make the same claim about a story of two friendly families ("Boy's Family + Girl's Family") that arrange a marriage between their children despite the fact that the children hate each other ("Boy - Girl") and then

8170-494: A structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure." The structuralist mode of reasoning has since been applied in a range of fields, including anthropology , sociology , psychology , literary criticism , economics , and architecture . Along with Claude Lévi-Strauss , the most prominent thinkers associated with structuralism include linguist Roman Jakobson and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan . The term structuralism

8385-455: A subsequent two-volume edition in 1969. By the 1960s, Lacan was associated, at least in the public mind, with the far left in France. In May 1968, Lacan voiced his sympathy for the student protests and as a corollary his followers set up a Department of Psychology at the University of Vincennes (Paris VIII) . However, Lacan's unequivocal comments in 1971 on revolutionary ideals in politics draw

8600-638: A system of relations. His linguistic approach was also a refutation of evolutionary linguistics . Structuralism in Europe developed in the early 20th century, mainly in France and the Russian Empire , in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague , Moscow , and Copenhagen schools of linguistics. As an intellectual movement, structuralism became the heir to existentialism . After World War II, an array of scholars in

8815-663: A time, he served as Picasso's personal therapist. He attended the mouvement Psyché that Maryse Choisy founded and published in the Surrealist journal Minotaure . "[Lacan's] interest in surrealism predated his interest in psychoanalysis," former Lacanian analyst and biographer Dylan Evans explains, speculating that "perhaps Lacan never really abandoned his early surrealist sympathies, its neo-Romantic view of madness as 'convulsive beauty', its celebration of irrationality." Translator and historian David Macey writes that "the importance of surrealism can hardly be over-stated... to

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9030-523: A time, until the solution to the initial problem is found. An important advantage of the synthetic method is its clear and short logical exposition. One disadvantage is that it is usually not obvious in the beginning that the steps taken lead to the intended conclusion. This may then come as a surprise to the reader since it is not explained how the mathematician knew in the beginning which steps to take. The analytic method often reflects better how mathematicians actually make their discoveries. For this reason, it

9245-428: A twofold value. In the first place, it has historical value as it marks a decisive turning-point in the mental development of the child. In the second place, it typifies an essential libidinal relationship with the body-image". As this concept developed further, the stress fell less on its historical value and more on its structural value. In his fourth seminar, "La relation d'objet," Lacan states that "the mirror stage

9460-422: A useful means of understanding gender biases and imposed roles, while others, most notably Luce Irigaray , accuse Lacan of maintaining the sexist tradition in psychoanalysis. For Irigaray, the phallus does not define a single axis of gender by its presence or absence; instead, gender has two positive poles. Like Irigaray, French philosopher Jacques Derrida , in criticizing Lacan's concept of castration, discusses

9675-447: A very similar method: it approaches philosophical questions by looking at how the corresponding terms are used in ordinary language . Many methods in philosophy rely on some form of intuition . They are used, for example, to evaluate thought experiments , which involve imagining situations to assess their possible consequences in order to confirm or refute philosophical theories. The method of reflective equilibrium tries to form

9890-488: A way of mastering it. On the theoretical side, this concerns ways of forming true beliefs and solving problems. On the practical side, this concerns skills of influencing nature and dealing with each other. These different methods are usually passed down from one generation to the next. Spirkin holds that the interest in methodology on a more abstract level arose in attempts to formalize these techniques to improve them as well as to make it easier to use them and pass them on. In

10105-415: Is a class of linguistic units ( lexemes , morphemes , or even constructions ) that are possible in a certain position in a given syntagm , or linguistic environment (such as a given sentence). The different functional role of each of these members of the paradigm is called 'value' ( French : valeur ). In France, Antoine Meillet and Émile Benveniste continued Saussure's project, and members of

10320-435: Is a method of data analysis , radiocarbon dating is a method of determining the age of organic objects, sautéing is a method of cooking, and project-based learning is an educational method. The term "technique" is often used as a synonym both in the academic and the everyday discourse. Methods usually involve a clearly defined series of decisions and actions to be used under certain circumstances, usually expressable as

10535-426: Is also indebted to the anthropological study of myths. Some critics have also tried to apply the theory to individual works, but the effort to find unique structures in individual literary works runs counter to the structuralist program and has an affinity with New Criticism . Yifu Lin criticizes early structural economic systems and theories, discussing the failures of it. He writes: "The structuralism believes that

10750-533: Is ambiguous, referring to different schools of thought in different contexts. As such, the movement in humanities and social sciences called structuralism relates to sociology . Emile Durkheim based his sociological concept on 'structure' and 'function', and from his work emerged the sociological approach of structural functionalism . Apart from Durkheim's use of the term structure , the semiological concept of Ferdinand de Saussure became fundamental for structuralism. Saussure conceived language and society as

10965-501: Is an inborn natural tendency in children to develop in a certain way. For them, pedagogy is about how to help this process happen by ensuring that the required external conditions are set up. Herbartianism identifies five essential components of teaching: preparation, presentation, association, generalization, and application. They correspond to different phases of the educational process: getting ready for it, showing new ideas, bringing these ideas in relation to known ideas, understanding

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11180-429: Is associated with a variety of meanings. In its most common usage, it refers either to a method, to the field of inquiry studying methods, or to philosophical discussions of background assumptions involved in these processes. Some researchers distinguish methods from methodologies by holding that methods are modes of data collection while methodologies are more general research strategies that determine how to conduct

11395-647: Is because these sounds are not contrastive in Japanese. Phonology would become the paradigmatic basis for structuralism in a number of different fields. Based on the Prague school concept, André Martinet in France, J. R. Firth in the UK and Louis Hjelmslev in Denmark developed their own versions of structural and functional linguistics. According to structural theory in anthropology and social anthropology , meaning

11610-405: Is being observed. It is up to the researcher to do all they can to disprove their own hypothesis through relevant methods or techniques, documented in a clear and replicable process. If they fail to do so, it can be concluded that the null hypothesis is false, which provides support for their own hypothesis about the relation between the observed phenomena. Significantly more methodological variety

11825-418: Is called "proceduralism". According to it, the goal of methodology is to boil down the research process to a simple set of rules or a recipe that automatically leads to good research if followed precisely. However, it has been argued that, while this ideal may be acceptable for some forms of quantitative research, it fails for qualitative research. One argument for this position is based on the claim that research

12040-403: Is central to both approaches how the group of individuals used for the data collection is selected. This process is known as sampling . It involves the selection of a subset of individuals or phenomena to be measured. Important in this regard is that the selected samples are representative of the whole population, i.e. that no significant biases were involved when choosing. If this is not the case,

12255-540: Is closely associated with the natural sciences . It is based on precise numerical measurements, which are then used to arrive at exact general laws. This precision is also reflected in the goal of making predictions that can later be verified by other researchers. Examples of quantitative research include physicists at the Large Hadron Collider measuring the mass of newly created particles and positive psychologists conducting an online survey to determine

12470-667: Is distinct both from the organizations of reality and those of ideas, or the imagination—the "third order." In Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, for example, the structural order of " the Symbolic " is distinguished both from " the Real " and " the Imaginary ;" similarly, in Althusser's Marxist theory, the structural order of the capitalist mode of production is distinct both from the actual, real agents involved in its relations and from

12685-433: Is expressed. Literary structuralism often follows the lead of Vladimir Propp , Algirdas Julien Greimas , and Claude Lévi-Strauss in seeking out basic deep elements in stories, myths , and more recently, anecdotes, which are combined in various ways to produce the many versions of the ur-story or ur-myth. There is considerable similarity between structural literary theory and Northrop Frye 's archetypal criticism , which

12900-416: Is far from a mere phenomenon which occurs in the development of the child. It illustrates the conflictual nature of the dual relationship. " The mirror stage describes the formation of the ego via the process of objectification, the ego being the result of a conflict between one's perceived visual appearance and one's emotional experience. This identification is what Lacan called "alienation". At six months,

13115-413: Is found in the social sciences , where both quantitative and qualitative approaches are used. They employ various forms of data collection, such as surveys , interviews, focus groups, and the nominal group technique. Surveys belong to quantitative research and usually involve some form of questionnaire given to a large group of individuals. It is paramount that the questions are easily understandable by

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13330-432: Is important so that other researchers are able to repeat the experiments to confirm or disconfirm the initial study. For this reason, various factors and variables of the situation often have to be controlled to avoid distorting influences and to ensure that subsequent measurements by other researchers yield the same results. The scientific method is a quantitative approach that aims at obtaining numerical data. This data

13545-634: Is initially a blank slate . Learning is a form of developing the mind by helping it establish the right associations. Behaviorism is a more externally oriented learning theory. It identifies learning with classical conditioning , in which the learner's behavior is shaped by presenting them with a stimulus with the goal of evoking and solidifying the desired response pattern to this stimulus . Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan ( UK : / l æ ˈ k ɒ̃ / , US : / l ə ˈ k ɑː n / lə- KAHN ; French: [ʒak maʁi emil lakɑ̃] ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981)

13760-412: Is no one single scientific method. In this regard, the expression "scientific method" refers not to one specific procedure but to different general or abstract methodological aspects characteristic of all the aforementioned fields. Important features are that the problem is formulated in a clear manner and that the evidence presented for or against a theory is public, reliable, and replicable. The last point

13975-436: Is not a technique but a craft that cannot be achieved by blindly following a method. In this regard, research depends on forms of creativity and improvisation to amount to good science. Other types include inductive, deductive, and transcendental methods. Inductive methods are common in the empirical sciences and proceed through inductive reasoning from many particular observations to arrive at general conclusions, often in

14190-578: Is not just a waste of time but actually has negative side effects. Such an argument may be defended by analogy to other skills that work best when the agent focuses only on employing them. In this regard, reflection may interfere with the process and lead to avoidable mistakes. According to an example by Gilbert Ryle , "[w]e run, as a rule, worse, not better, if we think a lot about our feet". A less severe version of this criticism does not reject methodology per se but denies its importance and rejects an intense focus on it. In this regard, methodology has still

14405-609: Is not to be placed among the natural sciences . Cornelius Castoriadis (1975) criticized structuralism as failing to explain symbolic mediation in the social world; he viewed structuralism as a variation on the " logicist " theme, arguing that, contrary to what structuralists advocate, language—and symbolic systems in general—cannot be reduced to logical organizations on the basis of the binary logic of oppositions . Critical theorist Jürgen Habermas (1985) accused structuralists like Foucault of being positivists ; Foucault, while not an ordinary positivist per se, paradoxically uses

14620-509: Is often argued that the paradigm of the natural sciences is a one-sided development of reason , which is not equally well suited to all areas of inquiry. The divide between quantitative and qualitative methods in the social sciences is one consequence of this criticism. Which method is more appropriate often depends on the goal of the research. For example, quantitative methods usually excel for evaluating preconceived hypotheses that can be clearly formulated and measured. Qualitative methods, on

14835-407: Is often broken down into several steps. In a typical case, the procedure starts with regular observation and the collection of information. These findings then lead the scientist to formulate a hypothesis describing and explaining the observed phenomena. The next step consists in conducting an experiment designed for this specific hypothesis. The actual results of the experiment are then compared to

15050-441: Is often described using mathematical formulas. The goal is usually to arrive at some universal generalizations that apply not just to the artificial situation of the experiment but to the world at large. Some data can only be acquired using advanced measurement instruments. In cases where the data is very complex, it is often necessary to employ sophisticated statistical techniques to draw conclusions from it. The scientific method

15265-427: Is often seen as the better method for teaching mathematics. It starts with the intended conclusion and tries to find another formula from which it can be deduced. It then goes on to apply the same process to this new formula until it has traced back all the way to already proven theorems. The difference between the two methods concerns primarily how mathematicians think and present their proofs . The two are equivalent in

15480-402: Is possible to get a first impression of the field and potential theories, thus paving the way for investigating the issue in further studies. Quantitative methods dominate in the natural sciences but both methodologies are used in the social sciences. Some social scientists focus mostly on one method while others try to investigate the same phenomenon using a variety of different methods. It

15695-557: Is possible to question the insufficiencies of science and philosophy. Starting in 1962, a complex negotiation took place to determine the status of the SFP within the IPA. Lacan's practice (with its controversial indeterminate-length sessions) and his critical stance towards psychoanalytic orthodoxy led, in August 1963, to the IPA setting the condition that registration of the SFP was dependent upon

15910-410: Is produced and reproduced within a culture through various practices, phenomena, and activities that serve as systems of signification. A structuralist approach may study activities as diverse as food-preparation and serving rituals, religious rites, games, literary and non-literary texts, and other forms of entertainment to discover the deep structures by which meaning is produced and reproduced within

16125-445: Is rejected but not methodology at large when understood as a field of research comprising many different theories. In this regard, many objections to methodology focus on the quantitative approach, specifically when it is treated as the only viable approach. Nonetheless, there are also more fundamental criticisms of methodology in general. They are often based on the idea that there is little value to abstract discussions of methods and

16340-415: Is rejected by interpretivists . Max Weber , for example, argues that the method of the natural sciences is inadequate for the social sciences. Instead, more importance is placed on meaning and how people create and maintain their social worlds. The critical methodology in social science is associated with Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud . It is based on the assumption that many of the phenomena studied using

16555-480: Is similar but the interaction between the participants is more structured. The goal is to determine how much agreement there is among the experts on the different issues. The initial responses are often given in written form by each participant without a prior conversation between them. In this manner, group effects potentially influencing the expressed opinions are minimized. In later steps, the different responses and comments may be discussed and compared to each other by

16770-430: Is termed a "procedure". A similar but less complex characterization is sometimes found in the field of language teaching , where the teaching process may be described through a three-level conceptualization based on "approach", "method", and "technique". One question concerning the definition of methodology is whether it should be understood as a descriptive or a normative discipline. The key difference in this regard

16985-405: Is that "[m]ethodology is too important to be left to methodologists". Alan Bryman has rejected this negative outlook on methodology. He holds that Becker's criticism can be avoided by understanding methodology as an inclusive inquiry into all kinds of methods and not as a mere doctrine for converting non-believers to one's preferred method. Part of the importance of methodology is reflected in

17200-626: Is that the different paradigms are incommensurable . This means that there is no overarching framework to assess the conflicting theoretical and methodological assumptions. This critique puts into question various presumptions of the quantitative approach associated with scientific progress based on the steady accumulation of data. Other discussions of abstract theoretical issues in the philosophy of science are also sometimes included. This can involve questions like how and whether scientific research differs from fictional writing as well as whether research studies objective facts rather than constructing

17415-480: Is the most general term. It can be defined as "a way or direction used to address a problem based on a set of assumptions". An example is the difference between hierarchical approaches, which consider one task at a time in a hierarchical manner, and concurrent approaches, which consider them all simultaneously. Methodologies are a little more specific. They are general strategies needed to realize an approach and may be understood as guidelines for how to make choices. Often

17630-414: Is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bringing about a certain goal, like acquiring knowledge or verifying knowledge claims. This normally involves various steps, like choosing a sample , collecting data from this sample, and interpreting

17845-406: Is then argued that the observed phenomena can only exist if their conditions of possibility are fulfilled. This way, the researcher may draw general psychological or metaphysical conclusions based on the claim that the phenomenon would not be observable otherwise. It has been argued that a proper understanding of methodology is important for various issues in the field of research. They include both

18060-401: Is to what extent they can be applied to other fields, like the social sciences and history . The success of the natural sciences was often seen as an indication of the superiority of the quantitative methodology and used as an argument to apply this approach to other fields as well. However, this outlook has been put into question in the more recent methodological discourse. In this regard, it

18275-425: Is usually difficult to use these insights to discern more general patterns true for a wider public. One advantage of focus groups is that they can help the researcher identify a wide range of distinct perspectives on the issue in a short time. The group interaction may also help clarify and expand interesting contributions. One disadvantage is due to the moderator's personality and group effects , which may influence

18490-622: Is whether methodology just provides a value-neutral description of methods or what scientists actually do. Many methodologists practice their craft in a normative sense, meaning that they express clear opinions about the advantages and disadvantages of different methods. In this regard, methodology is not just about what researchers actually do but about what they ought to do or how to perform good research. Theorists often distinguish various general types or approaches to methodology. The most influential classification contrasts quantitative and qualitative methodology . Quantitative research

18705-487: Is written seems to be governed by rules, or "grammar of literature", that one learns in educational institutions and that are to be unmasked. A potential problem for a structuralist interpretation is that it can be highly reductive; as scholar Catherine Belsey puts it: "the structuralist danger of collapsing all difference." An example of such a reading might be if a student concludes the authors of West Side Story did not write anything "really" new, because their work has

18920-606: The Revue française de psychanalyse  [ fr ] . In Autumn 1932, Lacan began his training analysis with Rudolph Loewenstein , which was to last until 1938. In 1934 Lacan became a candidate member of the Société psychanalytique de Paris (SPP). He began his private psychoanalytic practice in 1936 whilst still seeing patients at the Sainte-Anne Hospital, and the same year presented his first analytic report at

19135-568: The International Psychoanalytic Association . In consequence, Lacan went on to establish new psychoanalytic institutions to promote and develop his work, which he declared to be a "return to Freud", in opposition to prevalent trends in psychology and institutional psychoanalysis collusive of adaptation to social norms. Lacan was born in Paris , the eldest of Émilie and Alfred Lacan's three children. His father

19350-463: The Prague school of linguistics such as Roman Jakobson and Nikolai Trubetzkoy conducted influential research. The clearest and most important example of Prague school structuralism lies in phonemics . Rather than simply compiling a list of which sounds occur in a language, the Prague school examined how they were related. They determined that the inventory of sounds in a language could be analysed as

19565-421: The ability of people to act . As the political turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s (particularly the student uprisings of May 1968 ) began affecting academia, issues of power and political struggle moved to the center of public attention. In the 1980s, deconstruction —and its emphasis on the fundamental ambiguity of language rather than its logical structure—became popular. By the end of the century, structuralism

19780-407: The humanities borrowed Saussure's concepts for use in their respective fields. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was arguably the first such scholar, sparking a widespread interest in structuralism. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, existentialism , such as that propounded by Jean-Paul Sartre , was the dominant European intellectual movement . Structuralism rose to prominence in France in

19995-505: The ideological forms in which those relations are understood. Although French theorist Louis Althusser is often associated with structural social analysis , which helped give rise to " structural Marxism ," such association was contested by Althusser himself in the Italian foreword to the second edition of Reading Capital . In this foreword Althusser states the following: Despite the precautions we took to distinguish ourselves from

20210-419: The quantitative approach , philosophical debates in methodology include the distinction between the inductive and the hypothetico-deductive interpretation of the scientific method. For qualitative research , many basic assumptions are tied to philosophical positions such as hermeneutics , pragmatism , Marxism , critical theory , and postmodernism . According to Kuhn, an important factor in such debates

20425-429: The skills , knowledge, and practical guidance needed to conduct scientific research in an efficient manner. It acts as a guideline for various decisions researchers need to take in the scientific process. Methodology can be understood as the middle ground between concrete particular methods and the abstract and general issues discussed by the philosophy of science . In this regard, methodology comes after formulating

20640-479: The École Freudienne de Paris (EFP), taking "many representatives of the third generation with him: among them were Maud and Octave Mannoni , Serge Leclaire ... and Jean Clavreul". With the support of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Louis Althusser , Lacan was appointed lecturer at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He started with a seminar on The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis in January 1964 in

20855-410: The 'structuralist' ideology…, despite the decisive intervention of categories foreign to 'structuralism'…, the terminology we employed was too close in many respects to the 'structuralist' terminology not to give rise to an ambiguity. With a very few exceptions…our interpretation of Marx has generally been recognized and judged, in homage to the current fashion, as 'structuralist'.… We believe that despite

21070-503: The Caracas Encounter was to be Lacan's final public address. His last texts from the spring of 1981 are brief institutional documents pertaining to the newly formed Freudian Field Institute. Lacan died on 9 September 1981. Lacan's "return to Freud " emphasizes a renewed attention to the original texts of Freud, and included a radical critique of ego psychology , whereas "Lacan's quarrel with Object Relations psychoanalysis"

21285-723: The Congress of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) in Marienbad on the " Mirror Phase ". The congress chairman, Ernest Jones , terminated the lecture before its conclusion, since he was unwilling to extend Lacan's stated presentation time. Insulted, Lacan left the congress to witness the Berlin Olympic Games . No copy of the original lecture remains, Lacan having decided not to hand in his text for publication in

21500-517: The Dussane room at the École Normale Supérieure . Lacan began to set forth his own approach to psychoanalysis to an audience of colleagues that had joined him from the SFP. His lectures also attracted many of the École Normale's students. He divided the École Freudienne de Paris into three sections: the section of pure psychoanalysis (training and elaboration of the theory, where members who have been analyzed but have not become analysts can participate);

21715-480: The Personality" ("De la Psychose paranoïaque dans ses rapports avec la personnalité"). Its publication had little immediate impact on French psychoanalysis but it did meet with acclaim amongst Lacan's circle of surrealist writers and artists. In their only recorded instance of direct communication, Lacan sent a copy of his thesis to Sigmund Freud who acknowledged its receipt with a postcard. Lacan's thesis

21930-474: The Real , Lacan argues that in the sexual plane the Imaginary appears as sexual display and courtship love. Insofar as identification with the analyst is the objective of analysis, Lacan accused major psychoanalytic schools of reducing the practice of psychoanalysis to the Imaginary order. Instead, Lacan proposes the use of the symbolic to dislodge the disabling fixations of the Imaginary—the analyst transforms

22145-437: The Sainte-Anne Hospital, he held his Seminars and presented case histories of patients. During this period he wrote the texts that are found in the collection Écrits , which was first published in 1966. In his seventh seminar "The Ethics of Psychoanalysis" (1959–60), which according to Lewis A. Kirshner "arguably represents the most far-reaching attempt to derive a comprehensive ethical position from psychoanalysis," Lacan defined

22360-506: The United States, authors such as Marshall Sahlins and James Boon built on structuralism to provide their own analysis of human society. Structural anthropology fell out of favour in the early 1980s for a number of reasons. D'Andrade suggests that this was because it made unverifiable assumptions about the universal structures of the human mind. Authors such as Eric Wolf argued that political economy and colonialism should be at

22575-560: The United States. He gave lectures in 1975 at Yale , Columbia and MIT . Lacan's failing health made it difficult for him to meet the demands of the year-long Seminars he had been delivering since the fifties, but his teaching continued into the first year of the eighties. After dissolving his School, the EFP, in January 1980, Lacan travelled to Caracas to found the Freudian Field Institute on 12 July. The Overture to

22790-442: The advent of analytic philosophy . It studies concepts by breaking them down into their most fundamental constituents to clarify their meaning. Common sense philosophy uses common and widely accepted beliefs as a philosophical tool. They are used to draw interesting conclusions. This is often employed in a negative sense to discredit radical philosophical positions that go against common sense . Ordinary language philosophy has

23005-423: The baby still lacks physical co-ordination. The child is able to recognize itself in a mirror prior to the attainment of control over their bodily movements. The child sees its image as a whole and the synthesis of this image produces a sense of contrast with the lack of co-ordination of the body, which is perceived as a fragmented body. The child experiences this contrast initially as a rivalry with its image, because

23220-415: The child compares its own precarious sense of mastery with the omnipotence of the mother, a depressive reaction may accompany the jubilation. Lacan calls the specular image "orthopaedic," since it leads the child to anticipate the overcoming of its "real specific prematurity of birth." The vision of the body as integrated and contained, in opposition to the child's actual experience of motor incapacity and

23435-467: The children commit suicide to escape the arranged marriage; the justification is that the second story's structure is an 'inversion' of the first story's structure: the relationship between the values of love and the two pairs of parties involved have been reversed. Structuralist literary criticism argues that the "literary banter of a text" can lie only in new structure, rather than in the specifics of character development and voice in which that structure

23650-475: The choice of methodology may have a severe impact on a research project. The reason is that very different and sometimes even opposite conclusions may follow from the same factual material based on the chosen methodology. Aleksandr Georgievich Spirkin argues that methodology, when understood in a wide sense, is of great importance since the world presents us with innumerable entities and relations between them. Methods are needed to simplify this complexity and find

23865-722: The claim that researchers need freedom to do their work effectively. But this freedom may be constrained and stifled by "inflexible and inappropriate guidelines". For example, according to Kerry Chamberlain , a good interpretation needs creativity to be provocative and insightful, which is prohibited by a strictly codified approach. Chamberlain uses the neologism "methodolatry" to refer to this alleged overemphasis on methodology. Similar arguments are given in Paul Feyerabend 's book " Against Method ". However, these criticisms of methodology in general are not always accepted. Many methodologists defend their craft by pointing out how

24080-421: The collection of data and their analysis. Concerning the collection, it involves the problem of sampling and of how to go about the data collection itself, like surveys, interviews, or observation. There are also numerous methods of how the collected data can be analyzed using statistics or other ways of interpreting it to extract interesting conclusions. However, many theorists emphasize the differences between

24295-490: The concept of " the Real " as a point of impossible contradiction in the " symbolic order ". Lacan continued to draw widely on various disciplines, working closely on classical Chinese literature with François Cheng and on the life and work of James Joyce with Jacques Aubert. The growing success of the Écrits , which was translated (in abridged form) into German and English, led to invitations to lecture in Italy, Japan and

24510-404: The concept of the orders over decades, resulting in inconsistencies in his writings. He eventually added a fourth component, the sinthome. The Imaginary is the field of images and imagination. The main illusions of this order are synthesis, autonomy, duality, and resemblance. Lacan thought that the relationship created within the mirror stage between the ego and the reflected image means that

24725-473: The conference proceedings. Lacan's attendance at Kojève 's lectures on Hegel , given between 1933 and 1939, and which focused on the Phenomenology and the master-slave dialectic in particular, was formative for his subsequent work, initially in his formulation of his theory of the mirror phase, for which he was also indebted to the experimental work on child development of Henri Wallon . It

24940-408: The context of regular schools . But in its widest sense, it encompasses all forms of education, both inside and outside schools. In this wide sense, pedagogy is concerned with "any conscious activity by one person designed to enhance learning in another". The teaching happening this way is a process taking place between two parties: teachers and learners. Pedagogy investigates how the teacher can help

25155-469: The correlation between income and self-assessed well-being . Qualitative research is characterized in various ways in the academic literature but there are very few precise definitions of the term. It is often used in contrast to quantitative research for forms of study that do not quantify their subject matter numerically. However, the distinction between these two types is not always obvious and various theorists have argued that it should be understood as

25370-411: The culture. For example, Lévi-Strauss analysed in the 1950s cultural phenomena including mythology, kinship (the alliance theory and the incest taboo ), and food preparation. In addition to these studies, he produced more linguistically-focused writings in which he applied Saussure's distinction between langue and parole in his search for the fundamental structures of the human mind, arguing that

25585-447: The data at hand. It tries to summarize the most salient features and present them in insightful ways. This can happen, for example, by visualizing its distribution or by calculating indices such as the mean or the standard deviation . Inferential statistics, on the other hand, uses this data based on a sample to draw inferences about the population at large. That can take the form of making generalizations and predictions or by assessing

25800-500: The data collected does not reflect what the population as a whole is like. This affects generalizations and predictions drawn from the biased data. The number of individuals selected is called the sample size . For qualitative research, the sample size is usually rather small, while quantitative research tends to focus on big groups and collecting a lot of data. After the collection, the data needs to be analyzed and interpreted to arrive at interesting conclusions that pertain directly to

26015-460: The data is misinterpreted to defend conclusions that are not directly supported by the measurements themselves. In recent decades, many researchers in the social sciences have started combining both methodologies. This is known as mixed-methods research . A central motivation for this is that the two approaches can complement each other in various ways: some issues are ignored or too difficult to study with one methodology and are better approached with

26230-486: The data. The study of methods concerns a detailed description and analysis of these processes. It includes evaluative aspects by comparing different methods. This way, it is assessed what advantages and disadvantages they have and for what research goals they may be used. These descriptions and evaluations depend on philosophical background assumptions. Examples are how to conceptualize the studied phenomena and what constitutes evidence for or against them. When understood in

26445-751: The direction of Henri Claude at the Sainte-Anne Hospital , the major psychiatric hospital serving central Paris, at the Infirmary for the Insane of the Police Prefecture under Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault and also at the Hospital Henri-Rousselle. Lacan was involved with the Parisian surrealist movement of the 1930s, associating with André Breton , Georges Bataille , Salvador Dalí , and Pablo Picasso . For

26660-529: The discovery of new methods, like methodological skepticism and the phenomenological method , has had important impacts on the philosophical discourse. A great variety of methods has been employed throughout the history of philosophy. Methodological skepticism gives special importance to the role of systematic doubt. This way, philosophers try to discover absolutely certain first principles that are indubitable. The geometric method starts from such first principles and employs deductive reasoning to construct

26875-417: The distinction between the inductive and the hypothetico-deductive methodology . The core disagreement between these two approaches concerns their understanding of the confirmation of scientific theories. The inductive approach holds that a theory is confirmed or supported by all its positive instances, i.e. by all the observations that exemplify it. For example, the observations of many white swans confirm

27090-426: The efficiency and reliability of research can be improved through a proper understanding of methodology. A criticism of more specific forms of methodology is found in the works of the sociologist Howard S. Becker . He is quite critical of methodologists based on the claim that they usually act as advocates of one particular method usually associated with quantitative research. An often-cited quotation in this regard

27305-400: The ego and the Imaginary order itself are places of radical alienation: "alienation is constitutive of the Imaginary order". This relationship is also narcissistic . In The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis , Lacan argues that the Symbolic order structures the visual field of the Imaginary, which means that it involves a linguistic dimension. If the signifier is the foundation of

27520-463: The elements of language relate to each other in the present, synchronically rather than diachronically . Saussure argued that linguistic signs were composed of two parts: This differed from previous approaches that focused on the relationship between words and the things in the world that they designate. Although not fully developed by Saussure, other key notions in structural linguistics can be found in structural "idealism." A structural idealism

27735-409: The ethical foundations of psychoanalysis and presented his "ethics for our time"—one that would, in the words of Freud, prove to be equal to the tragedy of modern man and to the "discontent of civilization." At the roots of the ethics is desire: the only promise of analysis is austere, it is the entrance-into-the-I (in French a play on words between l'entrée en je and l'entrée en jeu ). "I must come to

27950-558: The exchange of women between groups—as opposed to the ' descent'-based theory described by Edward Evans-Pritchard and Meyer Fortes . While replacing Mauss at his Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes chair, the writings of Lévi-Strauss became widely popular in the 1960s and 1970s and gave rise to the term "structuralism" itself. In Britain, authors such as Rodney Needham and Edmund Leach were highly influenced by structuralism. Authors such as Maurice Godelier and Emmanuel Terray combined Marxism with structural anthropology in France. In

28165-454: The expected results based on one's hypothesis. The findings may then be interpreted and published, either as a confirmation or disconfirmation of the initial hypothesis. Two central aspects of the scientific method are observation and experimentation . This distinction is based on the idea that experimentation involves some form of manipulation or intervention. This way, the studied phenomena are actively created or shaped. For example,

28380-452: The failure to develop advanced capital-intensive industries spontaneously in a developing country is due to market failures caused by various structural rigidities..." "According to neoliberalism, the main reason for the failure of developing countries to catch up with developed countries was too much state intervention in the market, causing misallocation of resources, rent seeking and so forth." Rather these failures are more so centered around

28595-509: The field of mathematics , various methods can be distinguished, such as synthetic, analytic, deductive, inductive, and heuristic methods. For example, the difference between synthetic and analytic methods is that the former start from the known and proceed to the unknown while the latter seek to find a path from the unknown to the known. Geometry textbooks often proceed using the synthetic method. They start by listing known definitions and axioms and proceed by taking inferential steps , one at

28810-439: The field of research, for example, the goal of this process is to find reliable means to acquire knowledge in contrast to mere opinions acquired by unreliable means. In this regard, "methodology is a way of obtaining and building up ... knowledge". Various theorists have observed that the interest in methodology has risen significantly in the 20th century. This increased interest is reflected not just in academic publications on

29025-639: The first of their three children, a daughter named Caroline. A son, Thibaut, was born in August 1939 and a daughter, Sybille, in November 1940. The SPP was disbanded due to Nazi Germany's occupation of France in 1940. Lacan was called up for military service which he undertook in periods of duty at the Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris, whilst at the same time continuing his private psychoanalytic practice. In 1942 he moved into apartments at 5 rue de Lille, which he would occupy until his death. During

29240-555: The forefront of anthropology. More generally, criticisms of structuralism by Pierre Bourdieu led to a concern with how cultural and social structures were changed by human agency and practice, a trend which Sherry Ortner has referred to as ' practice theory '. One example is Douglas E. Foley's Learning Capitalist Culture (2010), in which he applied a mixture of structural and Marxist theories to his ethnographic fieldwork among high school students in Texas. Foley analyzed how they reach

29455-468: The form of universal laws. Deductive methods, also referred to as axiomatic methods, are often found in formal sciences , such as geometry . They start from a set of self-evident axioms or first principles and use deduction to infer interesting conclusions from these axioms. Transcendental methods are common in Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. They start with certain particular observations. It

29670-408: The function of the 'I' as revealed in psychoanalytic experience." By the early 1950s, he came to regard the mirror stage as more than a moment in the life of the infant; instead, it formed part of the permanent structure of subjectivity. In the "imaginary order", the subject's own image permanently catches and captivates the subject. Lacan explains that "the mirror stage is a phenomenon to which I assign

29885-417: The fundamental assumptions of some of structuralism's post-structuralist critics are a continuation of structuralist thinking. Russian functional linguist Roman Jakobson was a pivotal figure in the adaptation of structural analysis to disciplines beyond linguistics, including philosophy, anthropology, and literary theory. Jakobson was a decisive influence on anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss , by whose work

30100-402: The general principle behind their instances, and putting what one has learned into practice. Learning theories focus primarily on how learning takes place and formulate the proper methods of teaching based on these insights. One of them is apperception or association theory , which understands the mind primarily in terms of associations between ideas and experiences. On this view, the mind

30315-436: The goal and nature of research. These assumptions can at times play an important role concerning which method to choose and how to follow it. For example, Thomas Kuhn argues in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that sciences operate within a framework or a paradigm that determines which questions are asked and what counts as good science. This concerns philosophical disagreements both about how to conceptualize

30530-411: The group as a whole. Most of these forms of data collection involve some type of observation . Observation can take place either in a natural setting, i.e. the field , or in a controlled setting such as a laboratory. Controlled settings carry with them the risk of distorting the results due to their artificiality. Their advantage lies in precisely controlling the relevant factors, which can help make

30745-415: The images into words. "The use of the Symbolic", he argued, "is the only way for the analytic process to cross the plane of identification." In his Seminar IV, "La relation d'objet", Lacan argues that the concepts of "Law" and "Structure" are unthinkable without language—thus the Symbolic is a linguistic dimension. This order is not equivalent to language, however, since language involves the Imaginary and

30960-421: The interactions and responses of the participants. The interview often starts by asking the participants about their opinions on the topic under investigation, which may, in turn, lead to a free exchange in which the group members express and discuss their personal views. An important advantage of focus groups is that they can provide insight into how ideas and understanding operate in a cultural context. However, it

31175-465: The learner undergo experiences that promote their understanding of the subject matter in question. Various influential pedagogical theories have been proposed. Mental-discipline theories were already common in ancient Greek and state that the main goal of teaching is to train intellectual capacities. They are usually based on a certain ideal of the capacities, attitudes, and values possessed by educated people. According to naturalistic theories, there

31390-505: The linguistic aspect of the unconscious, emphasizing Lacan's distinction between das Ding and die Sache in Freud's account of thing-presentation". Green's criticism of Lacan also included accusations of intellectual dishonesty, he said, "[He] cheated everybody... the return to Freud was an excuse, it just meant going to Lacan." Lacan's first official contribution to psychoanalysis was the mirror stage , which he described as "formative of

31605-504: The meaning of the studied phenomena and less at universal and predictive laws. Common methods found in the social sciences are surveys , interviews , focus groups , and the nominal group technique . They differ from each other concerning their sample size, the types of questions asked, and the general setting. In recent decades, many social scientists have started using mixed-methods research , which combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Many discussions in methodology concern

31820-424: The methods instead of researching them. This ambiguous attitude towards methodology is sometimes even exemplified in the same person. Max Weber , for example, criticized the focus on methodology during his time while making significant contributions to it himself. Spirkin believes that one important reason for this development is that contemporary society faces many global problems. These problems cannot be solved by

32035-467: The natural sciences do. Positivists agree with this characterization, in contrast to interpretive and critical perspectives on the social sciences. According to William Neumann, positivism can be defined as "an organized method for combining deductive logic with precise empirical observations of individual behavior in order to discover and confirm a set of probabilistic causal laws that can be used to predict general patterns of human activity". This view

32250-450: The natural sciences is called the scientific method . It includes steps like observation and the formulation of a hypothesis . Further steps are to test the hypothesis using an experiment, to compare the measurements to the expected results, and to publish the findings. Qualitative research is more characteristic of the social sciences and gives less prominence to exact numerical measurements. It aims more at an in-depth understanding of

32465-517: The number of fields to which it is relevant. They include the natural sciences and the social sciences as well as philosophy and mathematics. The dominant methodology in the natural sciences (like astronomy , biology , chemistry , geoscience , and physics ) is called the scientific method . Its main cognitive aim is usually seen as the creation of knowledge , but various closely related aims have also been proposed, like understanding, explanation, or predictive success. Strictly speaking, there

32680-450: The observations more reliable and repeatable. Non-participatory observation involves a distanced or external approach. In this case, the researcher focuses on describing and recording the observed phenomena without causing or changing them, in contrast to participatory observation . An important methodological debate in the field of social sciences concerns the question of whether they deal with hard, objective, and value-neutral facts, as

32895-529: The only valid model" —formed a basic conceptual starting-point in that oppositional strategy. Lacan thought that Freud's ideas of "slips of the tongue", jokes, and the interpretation of dreams all emphasized the agency of language in subjects' own constitution of themselves. In " The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud ," he proposes that "the psychoanalytic experience discovers in

33110-402: The opinions stated by the participants. When applied to cross-cultural settings, cultural and linguistic adaptations and group composition considerations are important to encourage greater participation in the group discussion. The nominal group technique is similar to focus groups with a few important differences. The group often consists of experts in the field in question. The group size

33325-586: The other approaches are mere distortions or surface illusions. It seeks to uncover deeper structures of the material world hidden behind these distortions. This approach is often guided by the goal of helping people effect social changes and improvements. Philosophical methodology is the metaphilosophical field of inquiry studying the methods used in philosophy . These methods structure how philosophers conduct their research, acquire knowledge, and select between competing theories. It concerns both descriptive issues of what methods have been used by philosophers in

33540-421: The other for another subject. In arguing that speech originates in neither the ego nor in the subject but rather in the other, Lacan stresses that speech and language are beyond the subject's conscious control. They come from another place, outside of consciousness—"the unconscious is the discourse of the Other". When conceiving the other as a place, Lacan refers to Freud's concept of psychical locality, in which

33755-425: The other hand, are based on a variety of studies and try to arrive at more general principles applying to different fields. They may also give particular prominence to the analysis of the language of science and the formal structure of scientific explanation. A closely related classification distinguishes between philosophical, general scientific, and special scientific methods. One type of methodological outlook

33970-444: The other hand, can be used to study complex individual issues, often with the goal of formulating new hypotheses. This is especially relevant when the existing knowledge of the subject is inadequate. Important advantages of quantitative methods include precision and reliability. However, they have often difficulties in studying very complex phenomena that are commonly of interest to the social sciences. Additional problems can arise when

34185-453: The other. In other cases, both approaches are applied to the same issue to produce more comprehensive and well-rounded results. Qualitative and quantitative research are often associated with different research paradigms and background assumptions. Qualitative researchers often use an interpretive or critical approach while quantitative researchers tend to prefer a positivistic approach. Important disagreements between these approaches concern

34400-631: The other. This means that there is always a signifier missing from the trove of signifiers constituted by the other. Lacan illustrates this incomplete other graphically by striking a bar through the symbol A ; hence another name for the castrated, incomplete other is the "barred other". Feminist thinkers have both utilised and criticised Lacan's concepts of castration and the phallus . Feminists such as Avital Ronell , Jane Gallop , and Elizabeth Grosz , have interpreted Lacan's work as opening up new possibilities for feminist theory. Some feminists have argued that Lacan's phallocentric analysis provides

34615-419: The participants since the answers might not have much value otherwise. Surveys normally restrict themselves to closed questions in order to avoid various problems that come with the interpretation of answers to open questions . They contrast in this regard to interviews, which put more emphasis on the individual participant and often involve open questions. Structured interviews are planned in advance and have

34830-569: The past and normative issues of which methods should be used. Many philosophers emphasize that these methods differ significantly from the methods found in the natural sciences in that they usually do not rely on experimental data obtained through measuring equipment . Which method one follows can have wide implications for how philosophical theories are constructed, what theses are defended, and what arguments are cited in favor or against. In this regard, many philosophical disagreements have their source in methodological disagreements. Historically,

35045-485: The phallus in a chiasmus with the hymen, as both one and other. Lacan considered psychic functions to occur within a universal matrix. The Real, Imaginary and Symbolic are properties of this matrix, which make up part of every psychic function. This is not analogous to Freud's concept of id, ego and superego since in Freud's model certain functions take place within components of the psyche while Lacan thought that all three orders were part of every function. Lacan refined

35260-413: The phenomena in a new light. In this regard, a methodology is similar to a paradigm. A similar view is defended by Spirkin, who holds that a central aspect of every methodology is the world view that comes with it. The discussion of background assumptions can include metaphysical and ontological issues in cases where they have important implications for the proper research methodology. For example,

35475-535: The phenomena it claims to study. In the latter sense, some methodologists have even claimed that the goal of science is less to represent a pre-existing reality and more to bring about some kind of social change in favor of repressed groups in society. Viknesh Andiappan and Yoke Kin Wan use the field of process systems engineering to distinguish the term "methodology" from the closely related terms "approach", "method", "procedure", and "technique". On their view, "approach"

35690-399: The phenomena studied, what constitutes evidence for and against them, and what the general goal of researching them is. So in this wider sense, methodology overlaps with philosophy by making these assumptions explicit and presenting arguments for and against them. According to C. S. Herrman, a good methodology clarifies the structure of the data to be analyzed and helps the researchers see

35905-413: The place where the id was," where the analysand discovers, in its absolute nakedness, the truth of his desire. The end of psychoanalysis entails "the purification of desire." He defended three assertions: that psychoanalysis must have a scientific status; that Freudian ideas have radically changed the concepts of subject, of knowledge, and of desire; and that the analytic field is the only place from which it

36120-523: The practice of psychoanalysis itself. Lacan took up and discussed the whole range of Freudian concepts, emphasizing the philosophical dimension of Freud's thought and applying concepts derived from structuralism in linguistics and anthropology to its development in his own work, which he would further augment by employing formulae from predicate logic and topology . Taking this new direction, and introducing controversial innovations in clinical practice, led to expulsion for Lacan and his followers from

36335-424: The probability of a concrete hypothesis. Pedagogy can be defined as the study or science of teaching methods . In this regard, it is the methodology of education : it investigates the methods and practices that can be applied to fulfill the aims of education . These aims include the transmission of knowledge as well as fostering skills and character traits . Its main focus is on teaching methods in

36550-432: The problem of conducting efficient and reliable research as well as being able to validate knowledge claims by others. Method is often seen as one of the main factors of scientific progress . This is especially true for the natural sciences where the developments of experimental methods in the 16th and 17th century are often seen as the driving force behind the success and prominence of the natural sciences. In some cases,

36765-430: The purposes of data collection. Some researcher employ the go-along method by conducting interviews while they and the participants navigate through and engage with their environment. Focus groups are a qualitative research method often used in market research . They constitute a form of group interview involving a small number of demographically similar people. Researchers can use this method to collect data based on

36980-452: The question of whether the quantitative approach is superior, especially whether it is adequate when applied to the social domain. A few theorists reject methodology as a discipline in general. For example, some argue that it is useless since methods should be used rather than studied. Others hold that it is harmful because it restricts the freedom and creativity of researchers. Methodologists often respond to these objections by claiming that

37195-485: The reasons cited for and against them. In this regard, it may be argued that what matters is the correct employment of methods and not their meticulous study. Sigmund Freud , for example, compared methodologists to "people who clean their glasses so thoroughly that they never have time to look through them". According to C. Wright Mills , the practice of methodology often degenerates into a "fetishism of method and technique". Some even hold that methodological reflection

37410-418: The removal of Lacan from the list of SFP analysts. With the SFP's decision to honour this request in November 1963, Lacan had effectively been stripped of the right to conduct training analyses and thus was constrained to form his own institution in order to accommodate the many candidates who desired to continue their analyses with him. This he did, on 21 June 1964, in the "Founding Act" of what became known as

37625-443: The research question. This way, the wealth of information obtained is summarized and thus made more accessible to others. Especially in the case of quantitative research, this often involves the application of some form of statistics to make sense of the numerous individual measurements. Many discussions in the history of methodology center around the quantitative methods used by the natural sciences. A central question in this regard

37840-455: The responses of the different participants and to draw general conclusions. However, they also limit what may be discovered and thus constrain the investigation in many ways. Depending on the type and depth of the interview, this method belongs either to quantitative or to qualitative research. The terms research conversation and muddy interview have been used to describe interviews conducted in informal settings which may not occur purely for

38055-481: The role of objectivity and hard empirical data as well as the research goal of predictive success rather than in-depth understanding or social change. Various other classifications have been proposed. One distinguishes between substantive and formal methodologies. Substantive methodologies tend to focus on one specific area of inquiry. The findings are initially restricted to this specific field but may be transferrable to other areas of inquiry. Formal methodologies, on

38270-452: The same structure as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet . In both texts a girl and a boy fall in love (a "formula" with a symbolic operator between them would be "Boy + Girl") despite the fact that they belong to two groups that hate each other ("Boy's Group - Girl's Group" or "Opposing forces") and conflict is resolved by their deaths. Structuralist readings focus on how the structures of the single text resolve inherent narrative tensions. If

38485-513: The section for applied psychoanalysis (therapeutic and clinical, physicians who either have not started or have not yet completed analysis are welcome); and the section for taking inventory of the Freudian field (concerning the critique of psychoanalytic literature and the analysis of the theoretical relations with related or affiliated sciences). In 1967 he invented the procedure of the Pass , which

38700-423: The seminar of Alexandre Kojève ) theorizes alterity in a manner more closely resembling Hegel's philosophy. Lacan often used an algebraic symbology for his concepts: the big other ( l'Autre ) is designated A , and the little other ( l'autre ) is designated a . He asserts that an awareness of this distinction is fundamental to analytic practice: "the analyst must be imbued with the difference between A and

38915-420: The sense of his or her body as fragmented, induces a movement from "insufficiency to anticipation." In other words, the mirror image initiates and then aids, like a crutch, the process of the formation of an integrated sense of self. In the mirror stage a "misunderstanding" ( méconnaissance ) constitutes the ego—the "me" ( moi ) becomes alienated from itself through the introduction of an imaginary dimension to

39130-584: The sense that the same proof may be presented either way. Statistics investigates the analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data . It plays a central role in many forms of quantitative research that have to deal with the data of many observations and measurements. In such cases, data analysis is used to cleanse , transform , and model the data to arrive at practically useful conclusions. There are numerous methods of data analysis. They are usually divided into descriptive statistics and inferential statistics . Descriptive statistics restricts itself to

39345-461: The so-called "Gang of Four" of structuralism is considered to be Lévi-Strauss , Lacan , Barthes , and Michel Foucault . The origins of structuralism are connected with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure on linguistics along with the linguistics of the Prague and Moscow schools. In brief, Saussure's structural linguistics propounded three related concepts. Structuralism rejected the concept of human freedom and choice, focusing instead on

39560-782: The standard analytic training session for the variable-length session , he immediately resigned his presidency. He and a number of colleagues then resigned from the SPP to form the Société Française de Psychanalyse (SFP). One consequence of this was to eventually deprive the new group of membership of the International Psychoanalytical Association . Encouraged by the reception of "the return to Freud" and of his report "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis," Lacan began to re-read Freud's works in relation to contemporary philosophy , linguistics, ethnology , biology , and topology . From 1953 to 1964 at

39775-447: The structures that form the "deep grammar" of society originate in the mind and operate in people unconsciously. Lévi-Strauss took inspiration from mathematics . Another concept used in structural anthropology came from the Prague school of linguistics , where Roman Jakobson and others analysed sounds based on the presence or absence of certain features (e.g., voiceless vs. voiced). Lévi-Strauss included this in his conceptualization of

39990-409: The study of psychology , though in a different way. Piaget, who would better define himself as constructivist , considered structuralism as "a method and not a doctrine," because, for him, "there exists no structure without a construction, abstract or genetic." Proponents of structuralism argue that a specific domain of culture may be understood by means of a structure that is modelled on language and

40205-424: The subject but also in the institutionalized establishment of training programs focusing specifically on methodology. This phenomenon can be interpreted in different ways. Some see it as a positive indication of the topic's theoretical and practical importance. Others interpret this interest in methodology as an excessive preoccupation that draws time and energy away from doing research on concrete subjects by applying

40420-459: The subject. The mirror stage also has a significant symbolic dimension, due to the presence of the figure of the adult who carries the infant. Having jubilantly assumed the image as their own, the child turns their head towards this adult, who represents the big other , as if to call on the adult to ratify this image. While Freud uses the term "other", referring to der Andere (the other person) and das Andere (otherness), Lacan (influenced by

40635-416: The superstructure consists of hard infrastructure and institutions. This results in an explanation of how the base impacts the superstructure which then determines transaction costs . Structuralism is less popular today than other approaches, such as post-structuralism and deconstruction . Structuralism has often been criticized for being ahistorical and for favouring deterministic structural forces over

40850-402: The symbolic, the signified and signification are part of the Imaginary order. Language has symbolic and Imaginary connotations—in its Imaginary aspect, language is the "wall of language" that inverts and distorts the discourse of the Other. The Imaginary, however, is rooted in the subject's relationship with his or her own body (the image of the body). In Fetishism: the Symbolic, the Imaginary and

41065-560: The term structuralism first appeared in reference to social sciences . Lévi-Strauss' work in turn gave rise to the structuralist movement in France , also called French structuralism, influencing the thinking of other writers, most of whom disavowed themselves as being a part of this movement. This included such writers as Louis Althusser and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan , as well as the structural Marxism of Nicos Poulantzas . Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida focused on how structuralism could be applied to literature . Accordingly,

41280-410: The term "framework" is used as a synonym. A method is a still more specific way of practically implementing the approach. Methodologies provide the guidelines that help researchers decide which method to follow. The method itself may be understood as a sequence of techniques. A technique is a step taken that can be observed and measured. Each technique has some immediate result. The whole sequence of steps

41495-545: The terminological ambiguity, the profound tendency of our texts was not attached to the 'structuralist' ideology. In a later development, feminist theorist Alison Assiter enumerated four ideas common to the various forms of structuralism: In Ferdinand de Saussure 's Course in General Linguistics , the analysis focuses not on the use of language ( parole , 'speech'), but rather on the underlying system of language ( langue ). This approach examines how

41710-677: The terms "method" and "methodology". In this regard, methodology may be defined as "the study or description of methods" or as "the analysis of the principles of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline". This study or analysis involves uncovering assumptions and practices associated with the different methods and a detailed description of research designs and hypothesis testing . It also includes evaluative aspects: forms of data collection, measurement strategies, and ways to analyze data are compared and their advantages and disadvantages relative to different research goals and situations are assessed. In this regard, methodology provides

41925-467: The threat of deportation for Sylvia, who was Jewish, since this required her to live in the unoccupied territories. Lacan intervened personally with the authorities to obtain papers detailing her family origins, which he destroyed. In 1941 they had a child, Judith . She kept the name Bataille because Lacan wished to delay the announcement of his divorce until after the war. After the war, the SPP recommenced their meetings. In 1945 Lacan visited England for

42140-449: The tools of science to criticize science, according to Habermas. (See Performative contradiction and Foucault–Habermas debate .) Sociologist Anthony Giddens (1993) is another notable critic; while Giddens draws on a range of structuralist themes in his theorizing, he dismisses the structuralist view that the reproduction of social systems is merely "a mechanical outcome." Methodology In its most common sense, methodology

42355-426: The unconscious and language are structured, not that they share a single structure; and that the structure of language is such that the subject cannot necessarily be equated with the speaker. This results in the self being denied any point of reference to which to be "restored" following trauma or a crisis of identity. André Green objected that "when you read Freud, it is obvious that this proposition doesn't work for

42570-399: The unconscious is described as "the other scene". "It is the mother who first occupies the position of the big Other for the child", Dylan Evans explains, "it is she who receives the child's primitive cries and retroactively sanctions them as a particular message". The castration complex is formed when the child discovers that this other is not complete because there is a " lack (manque) " in

42785-443: The unconscious the whole structure of language". The unconscious is not a primitive or archetypal part of the mind separate from the conscious, linguistic ego, he explained, but rather a formation as complex and structurally sophisticated as consciousness itself. Lacan is associated with the idea that "the unconscious is structured like a language", but the first time this sentence occurs in his work, he clarifies that he means that both

43000-411: The universal hypothesis that "all swans are white". The hypothetico-deductive approach, on the other hand, focuses not on positive instances but on deductive consequences of the theory. This way, the researcher uses deduction before conducting an experiment to infer what observations they expect. These expectations are then compared to the observations they actually make. This approach often takes

43215-404: The universal structures of the mind, which he held to operate based on pairs of binary oppositions such as hot-cold, male-female, culture-nature, cooked-raw, or marriageable vs. tabooed women. A third influence came from Marcel Mauss (1872–1950), who had written on gift-exchange systems. Based on Mauss, for instance, Lévi-Strauss argued an alliance theory —that kinship systems are based on

43430-558: The unlikelihood of such quick development of these advanced industries within developing countries. New structural economics is an economic development strategy developed by World Bank Chief Economist Justin Yifu Lin . The strategy combines ideas from both neoclassical economics and structural economics. NSE studies two parts: the base and the superstructure . A base is a combination of forces and relations of production, consisting of, but not limited to, industry and technology, while

43645-403: The wake of existentialism, particularly in the 1960s. The initial popularity of structuralism in France led to its spread across the globe. By the early 1960s, structuralism as a movement was coming into its own and some believed that it offered a single unified approach to human life that would embrace all disciplines. By the late 1960s, many of structuralism's basic tenets came under attack from

43860-401: The war he did not publish any work, turning instead to a study of Chinese for which he obtained a degree from the École spéciale des langues orientales . In a relationship they formed before the war, Sylvia Bataille (née Maklès), the estranged wife of his friend Georges Bataille , became Lacan's mistress and, in 1953, his second wife. During the war their relationship was complicated by

44075-655: The way that human experience and behaviour is determined by various structures. The most important initial work on this score was Lévi-Strauss's 1949 volume The Elementary Structures of Kinship . Lévi-Strauss had known Roman Jakobson during their time together at the New School in New York during WWII and was influenced by both Jakobson's structuralism, as well as the American anthropological tradition. In Elementary Structures , he examined kinship systems from

44290-428: The wholeness of the image threatens the child with fragmentation—thus the mirror stage gives rise to an aggressive tension between the subject and the image. To resolve this aggressive tension, the child identifies with the image: this primary identification with the counterpart forms the ego. Lacan understood this moment of identification as a moment of jubilation, since it leads to an imaginary sense of mastery; yet when

44505-413: The widest sense, methodology also includes the discussion of these more abstract issues. Methodologies are traditionally divided into quantitative and qualitative research . Quantitative research is the main methodology of the natural sciences . It uses precise numerical measurements . Its goal is usually to find universal laws used to make predictions about future events. The dominant methodology in

44720-561: The young Lacan... [who] also shared the surrealists' taste for scandal and provocation, and viewed provocation as an important element in psycho-analysis itself". In 1931, after a second year at the Sainte-Anne Hospital, Lacan was awarded his Diplôme de médecin légiste (a medical examiner 's qualification) and became a licensed forensic psychiatrist . The following year he was awarded his Diplôme d'État de docteur en médecine  [ fr ] (roughly equivalent to an M.D. degree) for his thesis "On Paranoiac Psychosis in its Relations to

44935-588: Was Wallon who commissioned from Lacan the last major text of his pre-war period, a contribution to the 1938 Encyclopédie française entitled "La Famille" (reprinted in 1984 as "Les Complexes familiaux dans la formation de l'individu", Paris: Navarin). 1938 was also the year of Lacan's accession to full membership ( membre titulaire ) of the SPP, notwithstanding considerable opposition from many of its senior members who were unimpressed by his recasting of Freudian theory in philosophical terms. Lacan married Marie-Louise Blondin in January 1934 and in January 1937 they had

45150-521: Was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist . Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud ", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris, from 1953 to 1981, and published papers that were later collected in the book Écrits . Transcriptions of his seminars, given between 1954 and 1976, were also published. His work made a significant impact on continental philosophy and cultural theory in areas such as post-structuralism , critical theory , feminist theory and film theory , as well as on

45365-516: Was a more muted affair. Here he attempted "to restore to the notion of the Object Relation... the capital of experience that legitimately belongs to it", building upon what he termed "the hesitant, but controlled work of Melanie Klein ... Through her we know the function of the imaginary primordial enclosure formed by the imago of the mother's body", as well as upon "the notion of the transitional object , introduced by D. W. Winnicott ...

45580-516: Was a successful soap and oils salesman. His mother was ardently Catholic – his younger brother entered a monastery in 1929. Lacan attended the Collège Stanislas between 1907 and 1918. An interest in philosophy led him to a preoccupation with the work of Spinoza , one outcome of which was his abandonment of religious faith for atheism . There were tensions in the family around this issue, and he regretted not persuading his brother to take

45795-453: Was added to the statutes after being voted in by the members of the EFP the following year. 1966 saw the publication of Lacan's collected writings, the Écrits , compiled with an index of concepts by Jacques-Alain Miller. Printed by the prestigious publishing house Éditions du Seuil , the Écrits did much to establish Lacan's reputation to a wider public. The success of the publication led to

46010-729: Was based on observations of several patients with a primary focus on one female patient whom he called Aimée . Its exhaustive reconstruction of her family history and social relations, on which he based his analysis of her paranoid state of mind, demonstrated his dissatisfaction with traditional psychiatry and the growing influence of Freud on his ideas. Also in 1932, Lacan published a translation of Freud's 1922 text " Über einige neurotische Mechanismen bei Eifersucht, Paranoia und Homosexualität " ("Some Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and Homosexuality") as " De quelques mécanismes névrotiques dans la jalousie, la paranoïa et l'homosexualité " in

46225-462: Was seen as a historically important school of thought , but the movements that it spawned, rather than structuralism itself, commanded attention. Several social theorists and academics have strongly criticized structuralism or even dismissed it. French hermeneutic philosopher Paul Ricœur (1969) criticized Lévi-Strauss for overstepping the limits of validity of the structuralist approach, ending up in what Ricœur described as "a Kantianism without

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