The critical stance within sociological practice : some introductory questions

Defending a critical position in sociology depends simultaneously on a triple choice by the researcher in the fields of ontology, epistemology and ethics. From an ontological point of view, the social may be defined as primarily holistic, atomistic, or as being the result of mutual structuration by the parts and the whole. Espitemologically, the position of the researcher may be more realist (social phenomena do exist independantly from our point of view about them) or more constructivist (social phenomena are essentially what people or researchers think they are). considering ethics, the social researcher may act rather as an expert (leaving to the funder of the research the question of the relevance of the object to be investigated) or rather as an intellectual (that chooses himself what is worth investigating or not). The relation between sociology and critics depends crucially on what position the researcher takes within this tri-dimensional frame