2 key dimensions of ontological framework

2 key dimensions which centre on the notion of subjectivity

hermeneutic-structural: highlights the presumptive centrality of the self-interpretations of subjects in social science explanations.  But it is also important to recognize in this regard that discursive practices exhibit varying degrees of sedimentation, ranging from regimes and institutions to social habits.  While the social logics structuring them are literally buoyed up by subjects — they do not exist except through the activity of subjects— they are not necessarily cognitively accessible to subjects, at least not immediately and without some form of intervention.  This means that logics can have significant explanatory and critical leverage independently of the consciously held self-interpretations of agents.  Certainly, social logics are products of past understanding, interpretations and decisions, but they tend to secure a degree of autonomy and not insignificant force when sedimented into practices and regimes.  This is one reason why the assent of agents is not conclusive or exhaustive of an explanation’s validity.  (162)

poststructural dimension: highlights the way in which social structures are never complete in themselves by foregrounding the dislocatory nature of the symbolic order (the ‘real’ in Lacanian terms) and thus the possible emergence of political subjectivity as such.  This means that the hermeneutical-structural dimension fails to exhaust our particular ontological framework.  It is at this point that political and fantasmatic logics come into play, thus enabling us to generate critical accounts of the constitution and dissolution of social structures themselves.  This is because they assist in the process of revealing and explaining the non-necessary character of social logics and the practices they sustain and animate.  This enables us to generate critical explanations that are both sensitive to context and explicit about their ontological, ethical, normative, and sociological presuppositions. (162)

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