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The methodological position adopted within this thesis rejects the epistemological duality which at one extreme (anti-naturalism) would see the natural and social sciences as radically different types of enquiry, whilst at the other extreme (‘physicalism’) it would see the natural sciences as providing the social sciences with the conceptual framework for explaining social behaviour; reducing the human sciences to physics alone. Interpretation is seen not only asinescapable in any social or ‘scientific’ enquiry but also as perfectly compatible with the position of naturalism that there must be a methodological unity (which does not imply the hegemony of physics) of all the sciences in the formulation and evaluation of any theoretical proposition. For example, in the process of attempting to make sense of the words uttered by individuals, an acknowledgement that language and thought are inseparable means attributing beliefs and rationality to that individual. Therefore, the process of giving the correct sense to a sentence used by that individual must be an interpretative process. Interpretation thus represents a crucial dimension in the scientific explanation of human behaviour, given that any description of social practices makes “ irreducible reference to human beliefs and intention”(Callinicos: 1985:102-5).

However, the question then arises: can a process of interpretation take such intentional activity at face value ? Do the things that informants tell us about their social experiences constitute knowledge of the social processes at work? In other words, are discourses fallible ? Certainly, we can only ever know the world in terms of those

discourses that are available (science, for example), but that does not make the world a product of those discourses. So the power of discourses to create effects by influencing action must be seen as limited, if it is admitted that those discourses may be fallible. Critical realism, for example, places great emphasis on the potential for falsification, reflecting the distinction that it draws between what is termed the ‘intransitive’ (an independently existing reality, i.e. the idea that the world exists largely independently of social actors’ understanding and ideas about it) and the ‘transitive’ (reducing the question of ‘what is’ to ‘what is known’) dimensions of science. Thus for critical realists there can never be any complacent assumptions that thought must in some way mirror the world as it is, and this is demonstrated every time our expectations are confounded in some way (Sayer:2000a). Clearly, there are inherent difficulties submitting the practical understanding of subjects to theoretical reconstruction. Writers as disparate as Winch and Bourdieu would see theoretical objectification as being antinomic to the practical logic or sense of subjects, since it short-circuits the process of analysis. However, this position (which is also present in social constructionism of both the weak and strong varieties) could be said to confuse or ignore the intransitive and transitive dimensions of science (Engholm:2000:18). The critical realist Tony Lawson has asserted that, “ social objects exist intransitively at the time any social scientific analysis is initiated, whatever the eventual effect upon them induced by such an enquirÿ' (1997:200). This position applies just as much in cases where the object of enquiry is discursive as it does for the examination of economic structures.

Developing this issue of the inherent fallibility of discourse and the consequences for interpretative analysis, because thinking and understanding are always mediated through a pre-existent conceptual system (seen here as an ideological framework), it becomes difficult for us to conceive of the world in ways that diverge from these structures. Nevertheless, unexpected situations inevitably arise precisely because the world is not dependent upon our thinking about it. These situations or events may contradict our existing conceptual systems, yet they are registered within and through them. This can produce mistaken or false conceptualisations of phenomena (Sayer:2001:969). For practical analytical purposes, this means acknowledging that a hermeneutic understanding of individual discourse will inadvertently, but necessarily reproduce the hegemonic or dominant ideas existing within socially stratified

societies. As Mouzelis has pointed out, "... actors, because o f their very unequal access to the economic, political and cultural means o f production, contribute ju st as unequally to the construction o f social reality” (1995:16). Therefore, it is not sufficient to simply acknowledge that the accounts of social agents can be mistaken; an interpretative analysis must also seek to delineate the social processes which produce this fallibility. To recognise that discrepancies exist between people’s perceptions of their world and of its underlying structural mechanisms is to acknowledge the ontological position of realism that appearance and essence are not identical. Hence, the process of interpretation of human actions and ideas must recognise that

“ A ctors’ accounts are both corrigible and limited by the existence o f unacknowledged conditions, unintended consequences, tacit skills and unconscious motivations; but in opposition to the positivist view, actors’ accounts form the indispensable starting point o f social enquiry”

(Bhaskar: 1998 :xvi).

Thus, the interpretation of actors’ understandings should constitute not the end point of analysis but rather the ‘indispensable starting point’ of an interpretative realist analysis, which through the process of identifying contradictions and fallibilities is able to postulate the operation of deeper social structures. This is what Margaret Archer is referring to when she argues that; '\..w e do not uncover real social structures by interviewing people in depth about them ” (1998:199).