Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

SAGETRACK

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Qualitative Health Research
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Miller, S. I.
Right arrow Articles by Fredericks, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Miller, S. I.
Right arrow Articles by Fredericks, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

The Family Resemblance Metaphor: Some Unfinished Business of Interpretive Inquiry

Steven I. Miller

School of Education, Department of Philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago

Marcel Fredericks

Office of Medical Sociology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Loyola University, Chicago

The rapidly expanding discipline of interpretive inquiry, especially in its narrative analysis form, has not been fully cognizant of certain crucial epistemological and methodological assumptions that form the ultimate basis of its purpose. Even after abandoning traditional positivist views, the related disciplines within the human sciences that are engaged in interpretive inquiry have still not discovered the core implicit assumptions that militate against a full acceptance of this form of inquiry. This article outlines the locus of these implicit assumptions and then argues that the legitimacy of these enterprises must be grounded in a well-known but heretofore undiscovered perspective, namely, Wittgenstein’s notion of a family resemblance. It is argued that this metaphoric phrase is the key to unlocking the real and unique nature of narrative analysis.

Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 10, No. 4, 440-451 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/104973200129118561
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Qual Health ResHome page
M. Rafferty, E. Jenkins, and S. Parke
Developing a Provisional Standard for Clinical Supervision in Nursing and Health Visiting: The Methodological Trail
Qual Health Res, December 1, 2003; 13(10): 1432 - 1452.
[Abstract] [PDF]