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Pierre Bourdieu et Jean-Claude Passeron. Vigilance épistémologique et pratique sociologique [1966] — Transcript

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0:34We therefore assert that sociology is a
0:36science like any other, and that it
0:38faces particular difficulties because
0:40there is a tendency to deny its right
0:43to be a science like the others. And
0:46this is true, fundamentally, at the
0:48three levels where scientific practice
0:50operates—that is, as Bachelard told
0:53us, at the level where the scientific
0:55fact must be conquered, at the level
0:57where it must be constructed. And at
1:00the level where it must be tested, put
1:01to the test of the facts. We have, uh,
1:05asserted against the illusion of
1:07transparency that sociology must be an
1:10experimental science at the level of
1:13the construction of the fact. I must
1:16now assert against the positivist
1:19illusion that one simply needs to
1:21observe facts—that is, that facts are
1:24given data. We must now assert that
1:27sociology is, or perhaps should be, a
1:30theoretical science. Yes, there are
1:34indeed a whole host of reasons that
1:37converge to incite the sociologist
1:39toward the illusion of observation,
1:41that is, the illusion that their object
1:44is given to them, all ready-made,
1:47prepared in reality itself. Before
1:52examining these various incitements, or
1:55the illusion of observation, we should
1:58perhaps try to define what the notion
2:01of construction means in the specific
2:05case of sociology. And for that, I
2:09believe a single example would suffice.
2:13Uh, the daily experience of the social
2:15gives us, in a scattered order,
2:18phenomena such as listening to the
2:20radio, watching television, attending a
2:23concert, visiting a museum,
2:25understanding someone else's language,
2:27or understanding the civilization of
2:30another society or individuals
2:32belonging to another cultural tradition
2:35. Uh, and so many other phenomena:
2:38cultural borrowing, the fact for
2:39instance that one civilization borrows
2:41a way of life or a tool from another,
2:43and so on. All these phenomena, deeply
2:47separated at the phenomenal level—
2:49that is, at the level of common
2:52perception of the social—seem to me
2:54to constitute one single constructed
2:57object. Well, this constructed object
3:00could, for example, be called "culture,
3:03" meaning that in every case, whether
3:05it involves understanding a work of art
3:07or understanding an individual from a
3:10foreign civilization, it is a matter of
3:12engaging a mediation, of engaging a
3:14code, for example, to use a simple term
3:17, which is what allows for the
3:18deciphering of that work. Well, we see
3:22here an example of the construction of
3:25objects that links sociology to the
3:27constructions of objects carried out in
3:30physical science. And to a certain
3:34extent, in the same way—and I do mean
3:36to a certain extent, and all other
3:38things being equal—in the same way
3:40that Newton brought together phenomena
3:42that were phenomenally separate, namely
3:45the falling of bodies, the movement of
3:47planets, and the motion of a projectile
3:49. Likewise, the sociologist ceases to
3:53be the object, or rather, to be
3:55manipulated in a way by their object.
3:59They cease to let their object be
4:01imposed upon them by objective reality
4:03when they substitute a theory, let's
4:05say, of communication for the pure and
4:07simple description of phenomena as
4:09disparate as those I have listed. Yes,
4:13always with this difference: that it is
4:16infinitely more difficult to perceive
4:18and, above all, to implement the
4:20distinction between the real object,
4:22the object that presents itself to
4:24perception, and the object constructed
4:26through theoretical work, for example
4:28in sociology, than in other sciences.
4:32In other words, it would hardly be
4:34worth the trouble, if we were talking
4:36about the natural sciences, to show
4:37that the physicist does not work on
4:39objects of perception and that they
4:41construct them in a break from objects
4:43of perception. This has been done since
4:46the 16th century, for example, in the
4:47history of physical science. But the
4:49problem that concerns us is precisely
4:51that in sociology, everyone is
4:53convinced that these are easily
4:55recognizable objects. People take
4:57vacations, there are young people, and
4:58that causes problems because the young
5:00people are delinquents. In any case,
5:01there are young delinquents. These
5:04objects that present themselves
5:05directly, and above all that present
5:07themselves with all the weight of these
5:10phenomena appearing as social problems,
5:12urgent social problems to be solved,
5:14mean that since they are social
5:16problems, public demand tends basically
5:18to pass them to the sociologist as a
5:20sociological object. It is the
5:22confusion between social problems and
5:24objects of sociological study. We must
5:26state quite strongly that social
5:27problems are not, as such, the
5:29constructed objects of sociological
5:31work and explanation. Yes. So, it is an
5:34entire set of preconstructed objects
5:36that have received a social definition,
5:38and which sociology can, moreover,
5:40account for, that social reality
5:42proposes to the sociologist. That is to
5:46say, social reality advances toward the
5:49sociologist with, in a sense, the
5:52pretension of holding its own theory.
5:56That is why the break, uh, with this
5:58theory, uh, which is in a way inherent
6:00to social reality, requires a
6:02theoretical show of force, well, much
6:04more, uh, difficult, it seems to us, in
6:06the context of sociology, which is
6:08difficult in the sense that it, uh, it
6:11perhaps does not require, well, that
6:13heroism which is the break with
6:15Euclidean geometry in non-Euclidean
6:17geometries. Not as striking a break
6:18from a theoretical point of view, but
6:20it is a break that is always being
6:21restarted. And I believe that here, we
6:23should talk about language because if
6:25the break with spontaneous sociology,
6:27the effort to construct properly
6:28sociological problems, we are never
6:30done with it once and for all. That is
6:32to say that in all work, at all moments
6:34of a research project, one must
6:36constantly call into question the ideas
6:38on which one thinks, the words one uses
6:41to think, and so on. Uh, it is because
6:43the task of breaking and constructing,
6:45uh, is a task that in sociology, uh,
6:47must always be restarted against the
6:49infiltrations of spontaneous sociology
6:51which happen through language. Language
6:53being here the instrument of this
6:54infiltration of spontaneous sociology
6:56into scholarly discourse.
6:57Yes. So, and scholarly discourse takes
6:59on a certain number of categories for
7:01dividing up reality. For example, uh,
7:04there exists a division of sociological
7:07labor, uh, according to the categories
7:09of sociology of work, sociology of
7:12leisure, sociology of modern means of
7:14communication, and so on. So many
7:17objects that are common to common sense
7:18and to science, which should be in a
7:20break with common sense. It is a bit as
7:23if one were to claim, in the physical
7:25sciences, that the true classification
7:27of the physical sciences is made
7:29between selenography, oceanography,
7:30geography, through to earth sciences,
7:32for example, that is to say according
7:34to real objects which, as such, would
7:36belong properly to a discipline and
7:37would define it. That's it. And then,
7:41more profoundly, it is the entire set
7:43of thought schemes used by common sense
7:48and social experiences that the
7:50sociologist always risks letting into
7:52their science. And for example, uh, the
7:55, uh, vocabulary, well, carries, uh, a
7:59whole set of, uh, sociological
8:01presuppositions. The sociologist must
8:05therefore show particular vigilance, uh
8:08, against all infiltrations, uh, of
8:11common discourse and of the common
8:14experience of the social. Indeed,
8:18common discourse imposes itself with a
8:21quite particular force insofar as the
8:24preconstructed objects it proposes have
8:27for them all the force given to them by
8:30the society that conveys them. Uh, when
8:34the sociologist takes up the concept of
8:36leisure, uh, it is an entire social
8:39order, in short, that lies behind this
8:41concept and proposes it to him. And on
8:44the other hand, uh, the most elementary
8:47notions, in short, of sociology, uh,
8:50are always charged with a philosophy,
8:53uh, of the social, which is that of
8:56common sense. There is perhaps even an
9:01intrinsic reason for this power of
9:04spontaneous sociology in sociology: the
9:07objects the sociologist works on are,
9:09after all, people, and, uh, they
9:12therefore have this peculiarity that
9:14they speak, and that they speak a lot.
9:18And since the sociologist's facts are
9:20objects that speak, the temptation is
9:22obviously very great to listen to them
9:24speak, that is to say, to take them
9:26literally. Yes, I think one should not
9:28hesitate to say that it is perhaps the
9:30curse of sociology to have to deal with
9:32objects that speak. Indeed, uh, it is
9:35the very illusion of observation that
9:38is embodied in the primary experience
9:40of the experimental situation as it
9:43presents itself to the sociologist. The
9:46sociologist is someone who observes,
9:48the sociologist is someone who
9:50questions, and someone who records.
9:52Well, all these, uh, all these
9:55fundamental acts, in short, of, uh,
9:57scientific observation in sociology, uh
10:00, seem to carry, in short, with them a
10:03certain spontaneous epistemology which
10:06is positivism. And I think it would not
10:10be forced to say, in short, that given
10:13the particular relationship that
10:15sociology maintains with the common
10:18form, in short, of sociology, that is
10:20to say, with spontaneous sociology, it
10:23is in a way condemned to oscillate
10:25perpetually between two fundamental
10:28epistemological obstacles and between
10:31two forms of epistemological error. On
10:34the one hand, intuitionism, which is an
10:36extension of the illusion of
10:38transparency and the illusion of
10:40immediacy; and on the other hand,
10:42positivism, which is an extension of
10:44the illusion of observation, of the
10:47illusion that social facts are data
10:49that one can that one can avoid
10:52constructing. Yes. And here, the
10:54instruments, in short, the professional
10:56instruments of the sociologist, uh, are
10:58also on the one hand inevitable, but on
11:00the other hand dangerous insofar as
11:02they are misused, that is to say, used
11:04without epistemological vigilance, they
11:06tend to reinforce this second illusion.
11:09That is to say, if we think about what
11:11a questionnaire is, what interviews are
11:13, directed interviews or non-directed
11:15interviews, that is to say, a situation
11:17where the sociologist tells people to
11:19speak and then he listens to them, he
11:21records. If we consider these
11:25observation-gathering instruments,
11:28which represent a significant part of
11:31sociological work, we see that without
11:34questioning what these instruments do
11:37to the object—given the theory of the
11:41object or the instrument—the
11:43sociologist is professionally prone,
11:46unless they control their practice
11:49through epistemological questioning, to
11:54the constant risk of believing that
11:57simply asking people what they are
11:59doing, why they act, or why they do one
12:02thing rather than another is enough to
12:05construct a science of these behaviors.
12:09Yes. And to show how difficult it is to
12:13find antidotes to this sort of
12:15infantile disease inherent in
12:17sociological practice. I would like to
12:21take an example. Well, consider a
12:23perfectly natural question. Regarding a
12:27study on work. It was a study during
12:31which we asked a a sample of
12:36individuals taken from different
12:38regions of Algeria. Did you work today?
12:43Upon analysis, we observed that between
12:46individuals living in the Kabylie
12:49region and those in southern Algeria—
12:52that is, the pre-Saharan regions—
12:55there were huge differences in the rate
12:58of people who answered yes or no to the
13:02question, even though, objectively, the
13:06economic situation in both regions was
13:09roughly equivalent. Faced with such a
13:14contradiction between objective reality
13:17and the subjects 'answers, the
13:20sociologist could have naively
13:23concluded that his question was absurd
13:26or that the respondents were acting in
13:29bad faith. Whereas in reality, it was
13:33not a matter of questioning the answers
13:35, but of questioning the question
13:36itself. And this is the very precise
13:40illustration of what we have throughout
13:41called epistemological vigilance. And
13:45in this particular case, it was a
13:46matter of seeing very precisely that
13:48the differences were explained, roughly
13:51speaking, by the fact that the
13:52individuals who answered "yes" or "no"
13:54to this question were implicitly
13:56referring to philosophies of work and
13:58non-work that were more or less distant
14:00from the philosophy of work and
14:02non-work that the sociologist had
14:04embedded in their question. That is to
14:08say, in the Kabylie region, where
14:10contact with industrial civilization is
14:12more intense, individuals said "I did
14:14not work" when they had not worked for
14:16a cash income. That is, when they had
14:19not worked in the sense that we
14:20understand it. Well, and in that, their
14:22philosophy of work more or less
14:23coincided with that of the sociologist.
14:26While in the South, individuals could
14:28say they had worked, even those who
14:30hadn't worked in the sense we
14:31understand it, those who were content
14:33to fulfill their duties as men, and for
14:34an old man, for example, to attend
14:36village talks—essentially what is
14:37part of the function of being a man,
14:39and which, in that sense, constitutes
14:41work. Well, we see how the reflexive
14:45return, so to speak, on the
14:47significance of the instruments and on
14:49the specific effectiveness of the
14:51instruments is the condition for the
14:53actual construction of the object.
14:56Failing that, the object is constructed
14:58without us knowing it; that is to say,
15:00the pre-constructed object imposes
15:02itself, or it is constructed according
15:04to presuppositions. Moreover, the same
15:07thing should be said for all
15:09sociological work operations, meaning
15:10not only the act of asking a question
15:12in a questionnaire, but also those acts
15:14generally presented as subordinate and
15:16thus often left, in the organization of
15:18research, to personnel...
15:21themselves subordinate.
15:22Themselves subordinate, namely coding
15:24—that is to say, that act so simple
15:26which consists, in order for the
15:27information collected to be susceptible
15:29to statistical processing for instance,
15:31of transposing it into another language
15:33which is the one, for example, that
15:34allows for building tables or for
15:36machines to process this material. So,
15:38coding, and even the act that would
15:40seem to best illustrate the positivist
15:42image of recording, the act of
15:44conducting a non-directive interview,
15:46that is to say, going to someone's home
15:49and listening to them speak,
15:50encouraging them to speak without even
15:53giving a guiding theme to the
15:54conversation. If the non-directive
15:57interview enjoys such favor, it is
15:58perhaps because it prototypically
16:00embodies the positivist image of
16:01recording without presuppositions.
16:03Whereas, in the same way, it would be
16:06easy to show what it means, from a
16:08sociological point of view, to simply
16:10speak without direction, depending on
16:12the social group of the subject being
16:14addressed, and depending on the social
16:16image they form of the researcher,
16:19because they immediately place them as
16:21belonging to their own social group or
16:23not. In other words, it is regarding
16:26all operations of sociological work
16:28that epistemological vigilance—in
16:30order for the sociologist to truly know
16:32what they are doing—must engage in
16:35this theoretical questioning about what
16:37instruments are, and about the way in
16:39which one must construct problems based
16:41on what is being asked. Exactly. Yes.
16:43That is to say, the sociologist must
16:46engage in the slightest of their
16:48technical acts—designing a
16:49questionnaire, coding, analyzing a
16:51statistical table, and so on. Well, a
16:55theory of knowledge of the object, a
16:57theory of the object, and a theory of
17:00what it means to know the object
17:02experimentally. Well, and for example,
17:06uh, it is obvious that if, uh,
17:08sociologists, uh, confer upon what are
17:10called indirect questions—that is to
17:13say, questions that seem to be about A
17:15when they are actually about B, uh, and
17:17which, and which end up in a way
17:19deceiving the respondent—well, if the
17:22sociologist gives these questions a
17:24privilege, it is fundamentally because
17:26they have...they embody in the primacy
17:32conferred upon these questions, uh,
17:35obedience to the principle of
17:37non-consciousness.
17:40We must come to say positively what it
17:43concretely means to actualize the
17:45principles of a theory of social
17:48knowledge in the acts of the profession
17:51. Uh, to take precisely the most
17:54rudimentary act, the one that consists
17:56—because it can rarely be avoided at
17:57the verification stage—of making a
17:59questionnaire and administering a
18:01questionnaire. This means very specific
18:04things. For example, there are
18:06questionnaire questions that are better
18:08than others. So, factual questions are
18:11better than opinion questions. That
18:13goes without saying. Uh, but perhaps
18:16more subtly, one could assert that
18:18indirect questions are always better
18:21than direct questions.
18:24And by direct questions, we must
18:25understand questions that consist of
18:27finally asking the subject to be their
18:29own sociologist. That is to say, if I
18:32am wondering what religious experience
18:35is for a given individual, I will ask
18:37them, "Sir, what is your religious
18:40experience?" Is it mystical? Or
18:43rationalist, and so on.
18:45Yes, we could say that the naive
18:47approach would be to believe that one
18:49can ask the subject the questions we
18:51ask ourselves about them.
18:53That's it. And by contrast...And by
18:56contrast, the indirect question would
18:59consist of asking either to observe
19:01behaviors, or to capture very indirect
19:04indicators. For example, the fact of "
19:08Do you go to mass carrying a...or do
19:11you light candles to the Madonna," well
19:14, and so on.
19:16It means we must avoid two things:
19:18asking the subject the questions they
19:20consciously ask themselves. Yes. Uh,
19:23because that would consist of believing
19:26that they can have subjective access,
19:28uh, to the truth of their behavior, and
19:31also avoiding asking them the questions
19:33that we ask ourselves about them. In
19:36other words, you have to ask him the
19:38questions that objectively face him
19:40without him asking them himself.
19:41without him asking them consciously. So
19:44, that is why, obviously, it is, uh, uh
19:46, it is, well, it is...I was going to
19:48say, it is quite an honor, that's
19:49probably wrong, but, anyway, uh, it is
19:51only by reference, uh, to the choice of
19:53research, uh, to knowledge, well, to
19:55the degree to which one has succeeded
19:56in breaking with preconceptions about
19:58the subject one intends to treat, uh,
20:00that the right indirect questions can
20:02begin to be triggered. To say it's all
20:05art, it's, it's talking, well, about
20:07sociology like experts talk about art.
20:09And actually, I think one should say,
20:12uh, that, uh, adequate practice, well,
20:14is a practice in which the sociologist,
20:16uh, puts into action the fundamental
20:19principles of the theory of social
20:21knowledge, uh, often without even
20:23having to ask themselves what they are
20:25doing, because they have so deeply
20:27internalized these principles that they
20:29have become, in a way, their habit,
20:32well, their way of being. That's it.
20:34Meaning, one could say that, uh, there
20:37are so many errors that one can commit
20:39that one must still avoid a certain
20:41number of them through, uh, a system of
20:43internalized mental habits; because if
20:45you had to, uh, uh, to avoid an error,
20:48uh, every time, uh, theorize about it,
20:50it would not be possible. Consequently,
20:52what we have called the theory of
20:55social knowledge only begins to become
20:57effective and active insofar as it is
20:59internalized as a posture.
21:02So, I I believe that to make one feel,
21:04well, what this practice of a
21:06sociologist really is, there is no
21:08better way than to recount, of course
21:10in a very artificial and quick way, and
21:12in the form of a fast-forward film.
21:15well, uh, the different steps of a
21:16research project. Right, so wanting to
21:18do that, I think we can, uh,
21:20immediately isolate a certain number of
21:23operations. Well, the sociologist asks
21:25themselves, what am I going to study?
21:27Uh, I am interested, uh, in the
21:29perception that people have of works of
21:31art and I wonder about the reasons they
21:33have for visiting museums or not
21:35visiting them. Right, uh, having said
21:37that, they create a questionnaire. In
21:40this questionnaire, they inject a
21:42certain number of hypotheses. For
21:44example, they presuppose, well, that
21:46there is a relationship between the act
21:49of visiting the museum and the level of
21:51education, that is to say the culture
21:54specifically received by, well, the
21:56subject in question. Which means that
21:58from this point on, uh, we don't forget
22:00to include in the questionnaire the
22:02question regarding, uh, the membership,
22:04well, the social membership or social
22:05origin because if we didn't have this
22:07theoretical hypothesis in mind, the
22:09theoretical hypothesis of a
22:10Yes. We might forget to mention the
22:13level of education.
22:14It is very common that in this type of
22:15survey, we forget it precisely. For
22:17example, we could cite a considerable
22:18number of surveys on students in which
22:20they were not asked what their parents'
22:22profession was, which appears to us as
22:24already an ideological choice. So,
22:27therefore, he builds a questionnaire,
22:29this questionnaire, he administers it
22:31to individuals. uh, he records and
22:36finally, he analyzes the responses.
22:38Well, so this description, I mean, I
22:41made it intentionally positivist.
22:43Anyway, and we would find in many
22:44textbooks, well, of sociological
22:46practices, uh, descriptions quite
22:48analogous to those I made. So we can
22:50obviously have fun retranslating it
22:51into an epistemological language. That
22:55is to say, for example, there, in what
22:57was essentially presented in the form
22:59called naive, therefore the first
23:01moment, uh, namely we measure what
23:03people do, uh, it happens that what was
23:06measured, uh, is, uh, museum attendance
23:08. People frequent it or do not frequent
23:11it, whereas we could have measured, but
23:13measured many other things. For example
23:15, by asking questions like, does art
23:17have great importance in your life? Is
23:19it for you the currency of the absolute
23:20? Why not? By asking questions like
23:23that, we would have also measured
23:24because people would have answered yes
23:26or no. There would therefore have been
23:27a yes response rate, a no response rate
23:29. Consequently, we see there an act of
23:32how theoretical hypotheses and finally,
23:34therefore, the objectives of the
23:36research and the concepts that arrange
23:39a possible relationship between
23:41education and cultivated behavior, etc.
23:43, are entirely present each time in the
23:45technical choices that make us measure
23:48one thing rather than another. And so,
23:50we could then show how, to continue,
23:52well, the description of the series of
23:54operations, well, the questionnaires
23:56come back, they are accumulated in a
23:57laboratory where they are subjected to
23:59an analysis. Well, that is to say that
24:01we substitute for answers that are
24:03either very closed of the type "I have
24:06a high school diploma," or for very
24:08open answers of the type "the last time
24:10, the first time I entered a museum, I
24:12was 12 years old, I was with my parents
24:14, etc." to answers, therefore, very
24:16often circumstantial, very
24:18circumstantial, uh, we substitute
24:20numbers. Well, this then allows for
24:22statistical data processing, and the
24:25computer returns tables of numbers to
24:27the sociologists—that is to say, on
24:30one side we see professions, the
24:32different types of professions, and
24:34corresponding to each profession, such
24:37and such an opinion. Well, so we
24:40conclude, for example, that the higher
24:42one rises in the social hierarchy, the
24:44more one believes that one can access
24:46art without preparation, which is a
24:48fact actually confirmed in the survey.
24:52Also, since we are at the coding stage,
24:54we could see that it is possible to
24:56code quite different things. That is,
24:59let's think about the most positivist
25:01coding, which takes people's opinions
25:03literally. One could simply code the
25:06content of the opinions as favorable or
25:08unfavorable, at that level of
25:09generality and abstraction. That's one
25:12way to code. We could also code, since
25:15we are thinking about the influence of
25:17social background, the type of grammar
25:19or vocabulary used if it concerns
25:21open-ended questions where people have
25:24written sentences. The type of grammar
25:27used to speak about artistic experience
25:29. And as numerous studies have already
25:32shown, even in an extreme case, one can
25:34even code the act of not responding.
25:38Yes, which is also relevant to the
25:40variables; that can be entirely
25:41relevant.
25:43So it is at the coding level, for
25:48example, that we would see, as it is
25:50generally considered the most minor act
25:52, the presence of the theory. Yes. So
25:58we would see it throughout; that is, if
26:00we then move on to the analysis of the
26:02tables, searching for relationships, it
26:04is obvious that a table does not speak
26:06—thank God, it does not speak for
26:08itself. The subjects already speak
26:10enough and propose enough hypotheses.
26:12Tables say nothing, and they only
26:14answer if one asks them questions. That
26:17is to say, one must have a hypothesis
26:20in mind regarding what a certain
26:23statistical distribution might mean in
26:26order for that distribution to speak.
26:30Yes. So, generally, if we fast-forward,
26:34I think we can clearly see that, to a
26:37certain extent, one can say a complete
26:40sociological approach goes from a
26:43provisional theory to a confirmed or
26:46corrected theory. And I believe that is
26:50a definition that any specialist in the
26:53natural sciences would easily accept.
26:58Well, for example, in the case of
27:00museum attendance, we have managed, for
27:04instance, to build a mathematical model
27:07of museum attendance that accounts for
27:10the objective relationships established
27:14between education level and the
27:16intensity of attendance. Well, this
27:20mathematical model allows us to predict
27:22, for example, what the museum-going
27:24public will be like in twenty years '
27:26time. Well, and more broadly, this
27:29model, partly by virtue of mathematics,
27:33generalizes quite easily to other
27:35fields.
27:37Perhaps we should slow down for a
27:39moment, especially if we are talking
27:42about a predictive model, because the
27:44explanation we have reached here is not
27:47at all complete yet. That is to say, we
27:51have established, through measurement,
27:53that there is a statistical
27:55relationship between, on one hand, the
27:57subjects' education level and, on the
27:59other, their relationship to the museum
28:02—that is, their rate of museum
28:04attendance or, more simply, that people
28:06go to the museum more often and, for
28:08example, spend more time looking at a
28:11painting during their visit, the higher
28:14they belong in the hierarchy of
28:16educational attainment. But this
28:19statistical relationship, only a
28:21positivist could say that it explains
28:23the phenomenon we have analyzed simply
28:26because it allows us to predict it.
28:28That's right. As it stands, it remains
28:30a pure fact that still needs to be
28:32accounted for. It is a fact devoid of
28:34meaning.
28:35And in this sense, we see that we can
28:38give the word "understanding" a meaning
28:42quite different from the one it has in
28:45the traditional opposition. between
28:49understanding and explanation,
28:51understanding this relationship
28:55and which is not at all different from
28:56the sense the word has in the natural
28:58sciences.
28:58Yes. It is to make intelligible, and
29:01one could say to a certain extent that
29:03sociology understands the movement of
29:06the planets and, what's more, the false
29:09understanding that these planets—
29:11which are the social individuals—
29:14believe they have of their own movement
29:16.

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