The Reading of Theoretical Texts
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loginThe problem that I will deal with in this book is one that for a long time hasbeen neglected in the social sciences. Although neglected, it belongs to a problemarea that concerns almost every social scientist’s everyday activity—that of theunderstanding of the texts he or she reads. In much social scientific practice, itis accepted that all observation is theory-laden. However, when social scientists confronttheir texts, it seems as if this observation or insight is forgotten or ignored. It isas if texts, in contradistinction to objects of knowledge ‘out there’, are thoughtto be given in a way that make the theory-ladenness of observation superfluous—as if, that is, the text as text belonged to a ‘theory-free’ realm that invalidates theclaim that what we see we see through the spectacles that are our theories. Thismakes the presence of differences of interpretation of these texts a somewhatmysterious phenomenon, largely assigned to the reader’s private motives or lackof knowledge.
