Critical theory
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(ISF) at the University of Frankfurt in the late 1920s; consequently, most
commentators argue that the critical theory position was developed by members of the
Frankfurt School. Nevertheless, when we examine the works of members of the Frankfurt
School, none claimed to have formulated a unified approach to social investigation and
criticism.
Critical theory stems from a critique of German social thought and philosophy, particularly the
ideas Karl Marx (1818–1883), Max Weber (1864–1920), Theodor Adorno (1903–1969), Erich
Fromm (1900–1980), Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) and Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979). Marxism
is a type of critical theory because it critiques capitalism and illustrates problems with existing
institutions, as is the Weberian theory of rationalisation and the limiting effect on the human
spirit; indeed through such a critical theory perspective the ideas of Marx and Weber may be
combined. In general, Adorno, Fromm, Horkheimer and Marcuse argued that modern society
involved totalitarian regimes that negated individual liberty. In early work this was seen as the
outcome of Marxist understandings of capitalist modes of production, whereas later thinking
stressed technology and instrumental reason (these ideas and thinkers are dealt with in more
detail below). Instrumental reason argues that rationality may only be concerned with choosing
effective means for attaining arbitrary ends. Indeed, in contradiction with Weber’s objective
causality the Frankfurt School was based on neo-Marxist dialectical reasoning and subjective
tendencies. There existed two generations related to the Frankfurt School: the first included
Adorno, Horkheimer, Fromm and Marcuse and the second a number of thinkers of whom
Jurgen Habermas was the most distinguished. The main tenet of critical theory involved a
necessary re-interpretation of modernist positions in the aftermath of the First World War
(1914–1918) and the depression, unemployment and hyperinflation that followed during the
1920s and 1930s. It was recognised that capitalism was changing, consequently Ardorno,
Fromm, Horkheimer and Marcuse assessed and analysed changes in power and domination
that was related to this.
When the National Socialists took power, the main players from the Frankfurt School left
Germany for the USA and took up residence on the West coast. These critical theorists were
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shocked by the positivistic nature of research in the USA and how this form of inquiry was taken
for granted in the social sciences. Indeed, critical theory was viewed as a means of temporarily
freeing researchers from the bonds of positivism in particular and post-enlightenment thought
in general. Following the Kantian tradition Fromm considered that even though:
Enlightenment taught man that he could trust his own reason as a guide to
establishing valid ethical norms and that he could rely on himself. The growing doubt
of human autonomy and reason created a state of moral confusion where man is left
without the guidance of either revelation or reason. (Fromm, 1997: 3)
Enlightenment had removed both spiritual and rational guidance and rendered nature an
objective entity external to human existence. ‘Men pay for the increase of their power with
alienation from that which they exercise their power’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1997: 9).
Within the critical theory approach there emerged the ‘discourse of possibility’, which was
intrinsically linked with the dialectical transformations within the social sciences and the broader
social changes these could bring about. In contrast to Enlightenment, thinkers such as Hegel
and Marx and their dialectical immutable laws of spirit, history and the idea that (at least to a
certain extent) human beings determined their own destinies and existence gave an impetus to
social research. Indeed, critical theory was perceived as a generalised perspective where
through education different strands of the tradition or schools of thought provided values,
understanding and knowledge that engendered empowered critical beings who questioned the
status quo. The main idea for critical theory was the formulation of social theory based on
philosophical positions and empirical studies. Horkheimer (1972) considered that research
programmes should absolve the opposition between the individual and social structures and
the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity should be embraced.
What Is Critical Theory?
So what exactly is critical theory? In general, one may argue that critical theory is ‘characterised
by an interpretive approach combined with a pronounced interest in critically disputing actual
social realities … The aim … is to serve the emancipatory project, but without making critical
interpretations from rigid frames of reference’ (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2008 144).
Unfortunately, for a number of reasons this is a difficult question to answer. As one would
imagine because of its very nature there is much room for disagreement about what critical
theory entails and a definitive perspective negate the very premise of critical theory. In such a
way a number of different critical theories exist that renders it a continually evolving dialectical
set of ideas. However, certain similarities between the strands of critical theory exist in terms of
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criticism of occidental complacency and that ruling elites and ideologies should be challenged
as well as greater equality and liberty sought. Furthermore, most critical theorists consider that
individual assumptions are influenced by social and historical forces and that historical realism
provides a unifying ontological position.
Given these similarities it becomes possible to synthesise points of agreement and determine
the basis for a paradigm of inquiry with a specific ontology, epistemology and appropriate
methodological approaches. Such a synthesis exposes positions of power between institutions,
groups and individuals as well as the role of agency in social affairs. In addition, this synthesis
identifies the rules regulations and norms that prevent people from taking control of their own
lives; the means by which they are eliminated from decision making and consequently
controlled. Through making clear the relationships between power and control, agency may be
extended and humanity emancipated. Of course, individuals are never completely free from the
social and historical structures that they both construct and from which they emanate. Through
shaping consciousness, power dominates human beings in social settings. Individual critical
theorists disagree but one may argue, that power constitutes the foundation of social existence
in that it constructs social and economic relations; that is, power is the basis of all political,
social and organisational relationships.
Initial perspectives of critical theory espoused by Horkheimer considered that the paradigm of
inquiry was about connecting critical theory with everyday life in the interest of abolishing social
injustice. One of the main concerns for critical theory, as Adorno and Horkheimer argued was
investigating the ultimate source or foundation of social domination, For Adorno and
Horkheimer (1997) state intervention in the economy abolished the capitalist tension between
the ‘relations of production’ and ‘material productive forces of society’, which according to
traditional critical theory, constituted the primary contradiction within capitalism. The market (as
an unconscious mechanism for the distribution of goods) and private property had been
replaced by centralised planning and socialised ownership of the means of production.
However, contrary to Marx’s prediction, this did not lead to revolution but fascism and
totalitarianism. As such, critical theory was bankrupt and left without anything to which it might
appeal when the forces of production synthesise with the relations of production. For Adorno
and Horkheimer, this posed the problem of how to account for the apparent persistence of
domination in the absence of the contradiction that, according to traditional critical theory, was
the very source of domination. Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and Fromm rejected positivism
and attempted to build ‘social theories that were philosophically informed and (involved)
practical political significance’ (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2008: 145).
The idea of the objective observer was challenged and ‘specific methodological rules for
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acquiring knowledge’ disputed (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2008: 145). Knowledge recognises
the opaqueness of common sense perceptions because as with the platonic cave what we see
does not correspond with reality. Most individuals are ‘half awake or dreaming’; to know means
to ‘penetrate through the surface in order to arrive at the roots, and … knowing means to see
reality in its nakedness … to penetrate the surface and to strive critically and actively in order to
approach truth ever more closely’ (Fromm, 1997: 33).
In the 1960s, Habermas raised the epistemological discussion to a new level when he identified
critical knowledge as based on principles that differentiated it either from the natural sciences
or the humanities through orientations toward self-reflection and emancipation. Adorno and
Horkeimer considered that the modern era illustrated a shift from the liberation of
Enlightenment toward enslavement. Indeed the Enlightenment equates with positivism,
because for ‘the Enlightenment that which does not reduce to numbers, and ultimately to the
one, becomes illusion; modern positivism rights it off as literature’ (1997: 7). ‘Under the leveling
domination of abstraction (which makes everything in nature repeatable) and of industry (for
which abstraction ordains repetition) the free themselves finally came to form that “herd,” which
Hegel has declared to be the result of Enlightenment’ (Adorno and Horkeimer, 1997: 13).
Hegemony and Ideology
Hegemony (see Definition Box) is an important factor for critical theorists and exists when power
is exercised through consent rather than force. People consent to their own domination through
accepting notions propagated by cultural institutions, for example, the media, family, school
and so forth. Even those researchers that comprehend hegemony are affected by it; this is
because understandings of the world and knowledge fields are structured by different and
competing definitions of society. Certain social relations are legitimised and considered the
natural order of things; we give our hegemonic consent. However, this is never total because
different groups in society have different perspectives and compete for hegemony. Critical
theorists note these distinctions and utilise them in their research programmes. This given, it is
difficult to divorce the idea of hegemony from that of ideology. Hegemony indicates the means
by which powerful institutions formulate subordinate acceptance of domination through
ideology. Ideology incorporates the meanings, norms, values and rituals that facilitate the
acceptance of the social situations and the place of the individual within this. Hegemonic
ideology allows critical theorists to understand the complex nature of domination and move
beyond the idea that power is simply about coercion. Individuals are manipulated through
media, education and politics to accept oppression as normal and the only situation that could
exist; change is unthinkable and utopian.
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Critical theorists comprehend hegemonic ideology as a means by which ideology and discourse
construct our ontological positions or notion of reality. Consequently, different ideological
positions exist at different points in time and provide the basis for a historical reality and that
this reality changes through dialectical transformation. Indeed, the epistemological position
places the researcher in the world that is constructed through people manipulated by power.
Such identifies on-going struggles between and among individuals, groups and classes within
society. Through their understanding of hegemonic ideology critical theorists investigate the
relationships between classes and groups and the different values, agendas and visions they
portray and adhere too. Furthermore, discourse is seen as historical and not a clear reflection
of society but an unstable practice with meanings that shift in relation to the context within
which it is used. Discourse does not provide a neutral objective description of an external world
but incorporates the very building blocks we use to construct it.
The concentration on hegemonic ideology has implications for economic determinism and
Enlightenment thinking some commentators consider was displayed by Karl Marx and Freidrich
Engels in the Communist Manifesto (1849). Certain thinkers interpreted Marx and Engels as
concentrating solely on the economic base rather than the social and political dynamisms of
dialectical change. For Marx, economic base determined superstructure or economic factors
determine all other elements of social life. Following the death of Marx, Engels did deny this
but in works such as the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, this does seem to be the case.
Engels stated that historical materialism involved the production and reproduction of reality and
that neither, he nor Marx had ever inferred more than this. Indeed Engels indicated that
economic determinism was senseless and that numerous variables relating to superstructure
(ideology, politics, culture) were also part of the dialectical process. Neo-Marxists, such as
Antonio Gramsci, accepted this position and further argued that through hegemony and
ideology there existed interaction between base (economics) and superstructure. Indeed,
based on neo-Marxist thought, the Frankfurt School accepted that many forms of power
existed, for example, racial, gender, class.
Definition Box: Hegemony
This involves the means by which ruling elites obtain consent to dominate subordinates
within their dominion. The worldviews of the rulers is diffused throughout society so as
these become common sense; to question such norms appears to be nonsensical. The
exercise of hegemonic subordination involves a combination of ‘force and consent which
balance each other reciprocally without force predominating excessively over consent’
(Gramsci, 2005: 80). Attempts are made to ensure that force is supported or consented
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by the majority and this is expressed through the ‘so-called organs of public opinion –
newspapers and association – which therefore in certain situations are artificially
multiplied’ (Gramsci, 2005: 80). Hegemony illustrates how ruling elites perpetuate their
rule and domination through consent rather than coercion. Contending groups in any
society must aim to control ideas in civil society; ‘a social group must, already exercise
leadership before winning governmental power’ (Gramsci, 2005: 57). Leadership is a
precondition of winning power and the consequent exercise of power; domination can
only be legitimised and continued through hegemonic consent.
Critical Theory as a Critique of Instrumental Rationality and Positivism
As noted above, critical theorists also question the idea of instrumental rationality that is closely
linked with Enlightenment thought. Such an understanding of rationality concentrates on a
positivistic methodology and simplification. Research is limited to questions regarding ‘how’ or
‘how to’ rather than ‘why’ or ‘why should’. Critical theorists argue that such a positivistic
approach directs the researcher toward procedure and method rather than the more humanistic
elements of the research process. Instrumental rationality is mainly concerned with objectivity
and separates values and facts, which loses the interactive and iterative nature between values
and facts in interpretation and understanding.
Critical theory accepts certain assumptions, these include:
social and historical constituted power relations affect and mediate all ideas and thinking;
values and facts can never be separated;
facts always contain an ideological dimension;
ideas and objects are mediated through social relations;
relationships between signifier and signified are continually in flux;
relations of capitalist production and consumption affect relationships between individuals
and society;
subjectivity is determined by discourse;
privilege and oppression characterises social relations;
oppression is more endemic when subordinates accept the hegemonic inevitability of their
position in society;
oppression is multi-faceted;
positivistic research is elitist and unwittingly reproduces existing social power relations.
Critical theory involves ideas relating to empowerment of the people; it should challenge
injustice in social relations and social existence. Whereas, for more traditional research
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approaches the objectives involve attempts at description, understanding and explanation, for
critical theory transformational conscious emancipation is central and involves initial moves
toward political activity. Research is not about the accumulation of knowledge but political
activity and social transformation.
Reflexivity is a central mechanism for critical theory; or self conscious criticism. Underlying
ideological perspectives are made explicit in relation to self-conscious subjectivity, intersubjectivity,
normative morality and epistemological precepts. Subjective pre-conceptions in
terms of epistemological and political positions are incorporated with the research process.
These are reflected upon and analysed in relation to the research and may change as this
process progresses (for further on reflexivity see Chapter 13).
Reflection Box: Reconnecting Meaning
Bullying in the workplace may not be interpreted as isolated action pursued by socially
pathological individuals but narratives of transgression and resistance identified by
unconscious political perspectives underlying everyday interactions and related to power
relations in terms of race, class and gender oppression.
Consider how bullying may be identified as a social phenomenon and assess its
relationship with power.
Change in assumptions may emanate from a realisation of emancipator actions, which are
revealed through interaction between the researcher and researched and the realisation that
the dominant culture is not a natural state of affairs. This involves understanding both ‘self’ and
society or ‘other’ in greater detail so inequality, exploitation and injustice are rendered explicit.
Critical theory requires reconstruction of worldviews in ways that challenge and undermine
what appears normal or natural. Research needs re-location toward transformative practice that
pursues the alleviation of oppression and autocracy (see Reflection Box above). Questions
regarding how things have become are paramount and link closely with the phenomenological
position. Critical theorists challenge positivistic positions and traditions and questions whose
interests are served by institutional arrangements. Correspondence theory is challenged and it
is argued that facts are constructed in relation to values and meaning. Engagement in critical
research involves formulating a critical world in relation to a faint idealised world conditioned by
equality, liberty and justice; critical theory is about hope in a cynical world.
Critical theory involved a critique of the dominant position of positivism. Positivism had provided
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the basis for scientific study and knowledge accumulation during the rise of capitalism but by
the 20th century incorporated endorsement of the status quo. In his essay ‘Traditional and
critical theory’ Horkheimer asks ‘what is theory?’ He considered that for most individual
researchers ‘theory … is the sum total of propositions about a subject, the propositions being
so linked with each other that a few are basis and the rest derive from these’ (1972: 188). In
social research, basis propositions can be arrived at either inductively or deductively, then the
researcher attempts a ‘laborious ascent from the description of social phenomena to detailed
comparisons and only then to the formation of general concepts’ (Horkheimer, 1972: 192). How
the primary principles were arrived at is secondary as the important element is that division
exists between conceptual knowledge and the facts from which this was derived; or those facts
to be subsumed under this framework. Indeed for traditional theory the ‘genesis of particular
objective facts, the practical application of the conceptual systems by which it grasps the facts
and the role of such systems in action, are all taken to be external to the theoretical thinking
itself’ (Horkheimer, 1972: 208). Conversely, critical theory argued that such were false
separations or alienation and the researcher was always part of the object under study so that
object and subject were inextricably linked. The researcher is neither embedded in society nor
abstraction from it; values, action, knowledge and theory generation were inseparable. Critical
theory pursued change and liberation whereas traditional theory thought the ‘individual as a
rule must simply accept the basic conditions his existence as given and strive to fulfil them’
(Horkheimer, 1972: 207).
Adorno and Horkheimer (1997) considered this issue further and examined two types of reason:
pursuit of liberation from external constraints and compulsion;
instrumental reason and technical control.
The former was linked to critical theory and the latter related to Enlightenment thought and
during the early 20th century became the basis of totalitarianism, fascism and National
Socialism. Positivism equated with Enlightenment as for each ‘whatever does not conform to
the rule of computation and utility is suspect’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1997: 6). Indeed, like
Aldous Huxley in his novel Brave New World, they argue that the culmination of Enlightenment
involves non-thinking pleasure and limited analytic capability. ‘Pleasure always means not to
think about anything, to forget suffering even when it is shown. It is flight: not as is asserted
flight from wretched reality, but the last remaining thought of resistance. The liberation that
amusement promises is freedom from thought and negation’ (Ardono and Horkheimer, 1997:
144). ‘The power to respond to reason and truth exists in all of us.’ However so too does the
‘tendency to … unreason and falsehood – particularly … where the falsehood evokes some
enjoyable emotion (and) primitive sub human depths of our being’ (Huxley, 1994: 47). Critical
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theory perspectives accept our ability to reason and truth challenges negation and promotes
resistance. Furthermore, Marcuse (2004) identifies how marketing and mass media achieves
control and standardisation of expectations and needs. Marketing and mass media enables
social control and develops individuals into malleable and predictable people who without
critical analysis accept social situations and consumerism. He argued that in contemporary
society under the rule of repression freedom and liberation could be used as a ‘powerful
instrument of domination’ (2004: 9). The choices available do not determine the ‘degree of
human freedom, but what can be chosen and what is chosen by the individual. Free elections
of masters does not abolish masters or slaves’ (Marcuse, 2004: 9–10). Overall, critical theory
challenged acceptance and wished to develop individual antipathy.
Critical Theory and Habermas
Habermas argued that control and understanding should be subordinate to emancipation and
liberation. That social science should initially comprehend the ‘ideologically distorted subjective
situation of some individual or group … explore the forces that have caused that situation and
… show that these forces can be overcome through awareness of them on the part of the
oppressed individual or group in question’ (Dryzeck, 1995: 99). The shift is one that challenges
post-positivism through an interpretive, phenomenological approach to social science.
Verification, in this context, is not achieved through experimentation but the action of those
involved in the research process, who on reflection decide on a perspective based on their
suffering and means of relief. In this way, post-positivism itself could be seen as a dominant
form of reasoning which distorted reality in relation to liberal ideals and progress. Critical theory
should initially ‘understand the ideologically distorted subjective situation of some individual or
group, second … explore the forces that have caused that situation and third to show that the
forces that have caused this situation can be overcome’ through making these forces clear to
those groups or individuals that exist within these situations (Dryzeck, 1995: 99). Consequently,
critical theory involves reflective action, specifically the reflective action of those individuals and
groups involved in the research programme.
Critical theory illuminated the very basis and ‘truth content’ of liberal ideals such as freedom
truth and justice and used them in its pursuit of an improved existence for humanity. In
introducing his critical theory, Habermas (2004) identified the need for a fundamental paradigm
shift. Understandings of theory needed to be moved from intellectual situations in which the
ends justify the means or instrumentalism to one where communicative rationality took centre
stage. Post-positivist pursuits of objectivity that ignored the worldviews, values and norms
through which the world is structured failed to fully comprehend social phenomenon.
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‘Habermas was able to draw on developments in the phenomenological, ethnomethodological
and linguistic traditions and thus … anticipate the decline of positivism and rise of
interpretivism’ (McCarthy, 1999: 400). However, he argued that it would not be helpful to reduce
social research to the interpretation of meaning because such meaning may conceal or distort
as well as reveal and express human conditions. Habermas attempted to identify the main
difficulties with positivism through a historical analysis of its early proponents and its links with
Enlightenment.
In place of controlled observation … there arises participatory relation of the
understanding subject to the subject confronting him. The paradigm is no longer the
observation but the dialogue-thus, a communication in which the understanding
subject must invest part of his subjectivity. (Habermas, 2004: 10–11)
Based on Pierce’s reflections on natural science, Dilthy’s historical and cultural inquiry and
Freud’s self-reflection, Habermas uncovered different types of knowledge and argued for an
‘internal connection between structures of knowledge and anthropologically deep-seated
human interests’ (McCarthy, 1999: 401). He distinguished between technical interest in terms of
positivistic prediction, control and objectified processes and the practical interest of mutual
understanding and emancipatory interest of free flow undistorted communication between
individual subjects (McCarthy, 1999: 401). Habermas attempted to ‘reconstruct the formative
process of the human species phenomenological self reflection was meant to expand the
practical self understanding of social groups. Critical of ideology, it analysed the development
of the forms of the manifestation of consciousness in relation to constellations of power and
from the standpoint of an ideal social arrangement based on undistorted public communication’
(McCarthy, 1999: 401). Critical theory ‘resorts to interpretation based on hermeneutic
disciplines, that is, we employ hermeneutics instead of a measurement procedure, which
hermeneutics is not’ (Habermas, 2004: 11).
‘Critical of ideology (critical research) asks what lies behind the consensus, presented as a fact,
and does so with a view to the relations surreptitiously incorporated in the symbolic structures
of the systems of speech and action’ (Habermas, 2004: 11–12, author’s brackets). This may be
achieved through communicative competence, which by uttering sentences, draws together
subjectivity and objectivity through placing ‘sentences in relation to the “external world” of
objects and events, the “internal world” of a speaker’s own experience, and a “social world” of
shared normative expectation (McCarthy, 1999: 401–2). This recognises the existence of many
truths and claims to truth regarding the external world and actions in relation to ‘the shared
social world’ (McCarthy, 1999: 402). Social systems are different from machines or systems and
reflect learning and subjective tendencies ‘and are organised within the framework of …
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communication’ (Habermas, 2004: 12). Consequently, a systems theory for the social sciences
‘must be developed in relation to a theory of ordinary language communication which also
takes into consideration the relationship of intersubjectivity and the relation between ego and
group identity’ (Habermas, 2004: 13).
Conclusion
A general perspective of critical theory ontology involves an understanding that reality is
shaped through social and historical processes and may be defined as ‘historical realism’. The
epistemological aspect of the critical theory paradigm considers that findings and theoretical
perspectives are discovered because the investigator and investigated are intrinsically linked
through historical values, which must influence the inquiry. This leads toward a specific
methodology, which identifies a dialogic and dialectical approach. Dialogue is needed between
the researcher and the researched and between past and present. In this methodology
structures are changeable and actions affect change. In this context, theory is changeable in
relation to historical circumstance. Theory is developed by human beings in historical and
cultural circumstances as the interaction between researcher and researched and historical
values influence the analysis.
Definition Box: Historical Realism
An example of this would be the nation-state in terms of its changing role within
international relations and the issues this raised for ideas such as sovereignty and
democratic accountability. As the role of the nation-state changes, so does our
understanding of it, which has implications for our interpretation of reality in terms of the
role of the state, the nation and sovereignty. Indeed, the EU and international institutions
have implications for changes regarding these issues and provide the impetus for
theoretical change as well as empirical outcomes (Howell, 2004).
Definition Box: Theory
Theory is not defined from a positivist perspective where immutable laws predict either
forever or until they are displaced, but developed in a historical context: theory is
developed by subjective humans in a historical context.
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Aspects of the critical theory paradigm are based on phenomenology and include theoretical
perspectives that challenged the status quo, for example, neo-Marxism, feminism, determinism
and so forth, and provided a specific understanding of reality in that it is shaped by ‘social,
political, cultural, economic and gender values crystalised over time’ (Guba and Lincoln, 1994:
105). Indeed, in his search for the essence of truth Heidegger begins with the question of what
is truth which leads to historical reflection and that the pursuit of truth is to understand it in a
historical context and as a reflection of the past. Humanity
alone can be historical i.e., can stand and does stand in that open region of goals,
standards, drives, and powers by withstanding this region and existing in the mode of
forming, directing, acting carrying out, and tolerating. Only man is historical – as that
being which, exposed to all beings as a whole, and in commerce with these beings,
sets himself free in the midst of necessity. (Heidegger, 1994: 34)
This incorporates historical ontology, a process of temporality and being in the world. An
example of this would be the nation-state in terms of its changing role within international
relations and the issues this raised for ideas such as sovereignty and democratic accountability.
As the role of the nation-state changes, so does our understanding of it, which has implications
for our interpretation of reality in terms of the role of the state, the nation and sovereignty
(Howell, 2004). Indeed, these changes having implications for Being and interpretations of the
world in relation to Being which provide the impetus for theoretical change as well as empirical
outcomes.
Phenomenology is also displayed in the epistemological aspect of the critical theory paradigm,
which considered that findings and theoretical perspectives are discovered because the
investigator and investigated are intrinsically linked through historical values, which must
influence the inquiry. However, in this context the distinction between ontology and
epistemology begins to break down. For example, ‘Heidegger breaks with Husserl and
Cartesian tradition by substituting for epistemological questions … ontological questions’
(Dreyfus, 1991: 3). Substituting questions relating to the relationship between the investigator
and the researched, for questions regarding what can be known and how humanity is bound
with the intelligibility of the world (Dreyfus, 1991). The means by which we can know the world
was re-assessed and ‘by attending to the enigmatic of the everyday – exposing the unnoticed
metaphysical presuppositions by means of which we understand the everyday and behind
which the everyday is concealed’ a clearer understanding and explanation of being and the
world may be realised (Faulconer, 2000: 3).
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