Vindication of the human and social science of Kurt H. wolff

Gary Backhaus

pp. 309-335

in: Human Studies 26 (3), 2003.

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.

Cited authors

Wolff Kurt