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Vindication of the Human and Social Science of Kurt H. Wolff

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Abstract

The purpose of this article is to vindicate the viability of Kurt H. Wolff's methodology of surrender-and-catch for the human and social sciences. The article is divided into three sections. The first section explicates the fundamental significance of surrender-and-catch and Wolff's motivation for advocating its practice. The second section compares surrender-and-catch with phenomenological methodology as well as objective science and the province of the everyday. The third section illustrates surrender-and-catch through my own practice. In this section I contextualize surrender-and-catch in a triangulated design, which exhibits its flexibility and compatibility for use in conjunction with other forms of research.

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Backhaus, G. Vindication of the Human and Social Science of Kurt H. Wolff. Human Studies 26, 309–335 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025702527816

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