L’asocialité des sciences sociales expertes

• Main Author: Christophe Adam
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: ENS Éditions 2009-11-01
• Series: Tracés
• Subjects: clinical; expertise; neutrality; objectivity; positivism
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/traces/4389

This paper offers a critical reflection on the distant, expert position taken on by social scientists influenced by positivism. On behalf of neutrality and objectivity, a dichotomy is constructed between the scientist and its object. This dichotomy is questioned and contrasted with the principles of clinical research, where the knowing subject and the object of knowledge interfere. Using a paradigmatic work in the field of sociology of prisons as a testimony to the disintegration of this dichotomy, we bring to light the fact that the social scientist withdraws subjectively from the social relationship under study, while asserting that his subjectivity must be taken into account in order to grasp the construction of the object. This “absence” is contrasted with one of the rare works from the clinical tradition to have completed the project of subjective involvement of the knowing subject, making subjectivity a constant presence in the relationship under study.