The Meaning of Double Hermeneutic Explained

Definition: the double hermeneutic  (or Double Hermeneutics) is a concept in social sciences, introduced by Anthony Giddens, that refers to the two-way interpretative relationship between researchers and the subjects of their study. It describes how researchers interpret the actions and beliefs of people who are themselves interpreting their own world and experiences.

Explanation: In social sciences, unlike natural sciences, the subjects of study are conscious beings who actively interpret their own reality. When researchers study these subjects, they're not just observing passive phenomena but engaging with active interpreters of their own world. This creates a double layer of interpretation:

1. The subjects interpret their own actions and experiences.

2. The researchers interpret the subjects' interpretations.

This dual process of interpretation can lead to complex interactions between the researcher's understanding and the subjects' self-understanding, potentially influencing both parties.

Examples of the Double Hermeneutic

1. Sociological Study on Workplace Culture

A sociologist studying workplace culture interprets the behaviors and interactions of employees. However, the employees are also constantly interpreting their own actions and those of their colleagues. The sociologist's presence and questions may even cause the employees to reflect on and potentially modify their behavior, creating a feedback loop of interpretation.

2. Anthropological Research on Indigenous Rituals

An anthropologist observing and documenting indigenous rituals must interpret the meanings and significance of these practices. However, the indigenous people themselves have their own interpretations of their rituals. The anthropologist's questions and observations might lead the participants to articulate or even reconsider aspects of their practices that they previously took for granted.

3. Psychological Research on Depression

A psychologist studying depression interprets the experiences and behaviors of individuals with depression. These individuals, in turn, are constantly interpreting their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. The process of participating in the study and answering questions about their experiences might influence how the subjects perceive and understand their own condition.

4. Educational Research on Teaching Methods

A researcher studying the effectiveness of different teaching methods must interpret the actions and responses of both teachers and students. However, teachers are constantly interpreting and adjusting their methods based on student reactions, while students interpret and respond to the teachers' approaches. The presence of the researcher and the nature of their questions might cause both teachers and students to reflect more deeply on the teaching and learning process.

The double hermeneutic highlights the complexity of social science research and the need for researchers to be aware of their own influence on the subjects they study. It emphasizes the importance of reflexivity in research, where researchers must constantly examine how their own interpretations and presence might be shaping the very phenomena they're trying to understand.

Understanding the double hermeneutic can lead to more nuanced and self-aware research practices in social sciences, acknowledging the active role that both researchers and subjects play in the creation of knowledge.

Structuration Theory (Giddens) defined and explained

Structuration Theory by Anthony Giddens is a social theory on the creation and reproduction of social systems, which is based on analysis of both the structure and the agents involved, without giving priority to any of them.

Giddens in his Structuration Theory shows the duality of structures, explains that the structure enables from resources and limits from rules. In addition, it says that social practices are a condition and result of the social structure, because the actors do not generate their practices, but rather continually recreate them, and the social structure is maintained thanks to the social practices that the actors perform within it . He also used concepts such as reflexivity, what had to do with which actors are aware of their actions and those of others in a given context.

The structuring cycle 

The acting agent 

What Giddens calls the acting self-being stratification model is an interpretation of the human agent that focuses on three processes (1) reflective record of action, 2) rationalization, and 3) motivation of action) and on three layers of consciousness. discursive, 2) practical awareness and 3) unconscious motives / cognition.

Reflective recording of action is a process that 1) archives activities and creates expectations that others will do the same, and 2) records social and physical aspects of the settings in which interactions occur.

The rationalization of action is a process by which agents routinely and almost effortlessly have a 'theoretical understanding' of the foundations of their activities.

The motivation of the action is not directly linked to the continuity of an action like the other two constituent elements. It denotes more an action potential based on general plans or programs (projects in Schutz terms) within which a spectrum of behavior is staged.

Work 

According to a very generalized view of structuration theory, human action is defined only by reference to its intentions. This means that action can only be considered if there is an intention to do so, since otherwise it would be a mere reactive response. However, most of the acts do not have this characteristic. Many philosophers and sociologists have endeavored to understand the naturalization of intentional activity. For the theory of structuring the interest is not in the intention of the action, but in the unintended consequences of the action.

Giddens considers that a more precise definition of acting is one that does not highlight intentions but rather their ability to do things (which implies power ). Acting is defined as the events of which an individual is the author and which would not have taken place if the agent had not intervened. There is also the case of 'doing something without intention', which is pursuing a specific goal and making other things happen along the way regardless of whether the initial goal has been met. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between what the agent 'does' and what is 'sought'.

Unintentional doings can be conceptually distinguished from unintended consequences of doing. Seemingly trivial acts can trigger events far removed from him in time and space. The further in time and space the consequences of an act are from the original context of the act, the less likely it is that those consequences have been intentional and this is seen both by the scope of knowing that the actors possess and by the power they are capable of. mobilize.

In this way, acting (situated in time and space) has unintended consequences of action that can be systematically fed back to become inadvertent conditions of action . The classic analysis of the unintended consequences of action is carried out by Merton in the subchapter “latent and manifest functions” of his book social theory and structure. But Merton then associates the unintended consequences of action with functional analysis, a step that Giddens rejects.

According to Giddens, there are three major research contexts - distinguishable only analytically - they derive from the connection between the unintended consequences of action and institutionalized practices (social systems).

1) The interest in accumulating events derived from an initiating circumstance without such accumulation not having occurred. It attends to a chain or sequence of events, reconstructed and analyzed in a counterfactual way.

2) Interest in multiple individual activities that are interwoven to result in a pattern of consequences. At this point there is a "composition effect" as a result of the summation of acts, each of which is carried out intentionally but the final result was not sought or desired by anyone.

3) Interest in the mechanisms of reproduction of institutionalized practices. In this case, the unintended consequences of the action offer the inadvertent conditions of a later action within a non-reflective feedback loop (causal ties).

How does it happen that cycles of unintended consequences feed back to promote social reproduction for long periods of time? In general, the way in which the unintended consequences of the action are connected with institutionalized practices that promote social reproduction for long periods of time is through repetitive activities, located in a context of time and space that consequently regularize those activities. for a distant space-time. Then, what happens in this second part of contexts influences -directly or indirectly- on the subsequent conditions of an action in the original context.

see also: Double Hermeneutics

Double Hermeneutics defined and explained

The term double hermeneutics is used in the epistemology and methodology of the social sciences to identify a particular problem in the social sciences : both the formation of theories and the collection of data are hermeneutic .

The term was coined by the British sociologist Anthony Giddens , who initially recalled the fact - also not unknown before him - that social phenomena are already meaningfully constituted even before they are professionally analyzed by social scientists. For him, this means that the condition for the social scientist who has acquired social phenomena to "enter" the field of sociological research is to acquire what actors already know and need to know in order to be able to `` find their way '' in the daily activities of social life . 

The prerequisite for the hermeneutic duplication and its first step is first of all the acquisition of everyday social knowledge. This knowledge then experiences its technical transformation in the sociological research process. This transformation process is also expressed in the form of a special style of thinking with its special technical language.

In Giddens' structuration theory , methodological reference is made to the irreversible duplication of the "frames of meaning" of both forms of knowledge, since the mutual penetration of two frames of meaning is a logically necessary element of the social sciences, the meaningful social world as it is seen by acting laypeople and by the Social scientists introduced metalanguages ​​is constituted; In the practice of the social sciences there is a constant 'exchange' between the two frames of meaning. Despite all mutual feedback processes and mutual penetration of lay everyday and professional scientific knowledge, both forms of knowledge could never be become identical to each other.

Anthony Giddens - short summary of ideas

Anthony Giddens is a very committed sociologist: he wants to change the world. He developed a new formal theory: structuration theory. A social theory that bridges the difference between macro and micro sociologists. Central focus is the idea of agency.

Nation-states take on a new role in modernity, but they are still a crucial power container. Giddens says that the classics (Durkheim, Marx, Weber) were looking at the first shift to modernity. He found out that it is different because of changes in four institutions: Capitalism, Industrialism, Surveillance (the state), Military (the state). Market and politics have become separated, The state surveys, and this is backed up by their monopoly of violence (the military, in the end). All clusters are relevant at the same time, the classics looked at only one cluster. Reflexive modernity leads to time-space distantiation: social relations are stretched. People are also disembedded: no longer naturally connected to society. Globalisation brings some disruptions, but is not overall bad. Trust changes, and politics become life politics. Trust takes a different form: symbols (eco-labels) but also faceless commitments. It has to do with 1. Past performance. 2. Technology used. 3. People involved. Thus, active trust management is needed: at access-points their doubts are reassured (see Goffman). He has also done work on life politics: how should we live, but also connecting the personal and the planetary.
Giddens Distinguishes between emancipatory politics and life politics. The former is about overcoming tradition, and breaking illegitimate domination: you look at other people. It can take three forms: Exploitation, Inequalities and Oppression, though there is a lot of overlap. The answers are more clear: Justice, Equality and Participation are necessary. Emancipatory politics is about moving away from something, but it doesn’t state where you’re going. Life politics  is a politics of the self. It is about the choices you have after being emancipated. These individual choices affect politics: if all women work society can change. It is related to four themes. 1. Self-identity. Your identity involves actions, and to assert your identity you need to work on your body (e.g. to be healthy you have to eat healthy). 2. Reproduction. Because of new techniques, the definition of life is challenged. Biological reproduction is now completely social. And sexuality is no longer related to reproduction. 3. Globalisation. Choices of individual humans can have a large effect on the planet’s ecology. These new global problems require a global coordination, but this is hard as these global problems seem far removed from individuals. 4. Existence. Ehh? Individuals should be aware of the questions these themes raise, and they should try to answer them. 

see: Double Hermeneutics