Interpreting Life Sociologically. The Cases of Merton and Bourdieu

Reading one’s own biography on the basis of the same criteria used to analyse other subjects can offer a unique evidence of sociological inquiry. Influential demonstrations of this have been provided by Pierre Bourdieu and Robert K. Merton: in order to develop a sociological self-analysis of their own life-paths, they reflexively employed all the results and methodologies of their own previous research, giving rise to a peculiar personal exercise in the sociology of scientific knowledge. In this sense, the aim of the paper is to point out how this kind of “constructive” reflexivity, and the resulting self-objectivation, can constitute an opportunity to (a) submit the criteria used for personal interpretation to a further test, exempt from any ad-hocness, reinvesting the scientific knowledge previously developed, thus demonstrating its significance even more; (b) show a certain degree of coherence, not presenting life as a paradoxical denial of epistemological or methodological proposals; (c) bring to light the “unthought of”, therefore providing the potential for controlling it.