Talk:Harold Garfinkel

Phenomenology

Comment: this entry [HG] is badly mangled and confused. It needs to be deleted, or completely redone.

HG was a student of Gurwitsch and Schutz in the sense that he read their writings, and may have talked with them at one time, but he was not a student in the sense that he studied with them and/or received a degree under their supervison. As such, this description is misleading.

There is confusion between the concepts of indexicality and reflexivity. [added by 68.198.221.218 on 2008-09-23] --ozean (talk) 07:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Ethnomethodology is not a form of phenomenology. Ethnomethodologists routinely sift through phenomenological texts and "recover" concepts [for better or worse], and then recontext these concepts into mundane topics in the study of social order. This does not make you a phenomenologist, or ethnomethodology a form of phenomenology. Read Studies in Ethnomethodology and try to find any reference to: a subject (other than experimental), consciousness, intentionality, or the phenomenological theory of perception, etc. There aren't any.

Regarding the thing with being a student of them – I took this from the source that I gave, which seemed trustworthy. However, I changed the wording to be more neutral, since I cannot verify if what Liberman writes is accurate and/or how far he actually implies that he was a personal student of them or not. (It would be great though, if you, anonymous IP, could give us some more info about why you think he was not a student of them.)

I must say that I did not really look at the content of this article very accurately and I think I agree with the critique that ethnomethodology is not a form of phenomenology. But, I think you can as well cast phenomenology as a certain perspective at phenomena, at a certain degree of attention to details, experiences, sequences, whatever, as they present themselves. In how far phenomenology as such necessarily involves “a subject”, “consciousness”, or “a phenomenological theory of perception” (whatever that would be for phenomenology as a whole) is a matter of discussion (though I intentionally exclude intentionality from this list). As, for example, Maynard and Clayman (1991 in ASR) argue, there is a lot of phenomenology in EM. But I agree, EM is something different, not “a form” or a subclass or something of phenomenology. In addition, one might also consider in how far this article should focus on EM in general (and thus repeat much of the content of the full article on EM) or, instead, focus on Garfinkel’s own/personal contribution or role in EM/sociology/the social sciences or even his injection of a phenomenological perspective into the US social sciences which might have been dominated by other methodological and/or theoretical paradigms at that time.

Perhaps you can write up a suggestion of how to better introduce this article that we could discuss and take a look at? I do not really want to start writing stuff in the English wikipedia, there is already enough to do in the German version – and judging from your claims it seems that you could make a great contribution… --ozean (talk) 23:15, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Greetings! "There is a lot of phenomenology in EM". This is 100% correct to the point of being ironic, and even tragic - it is also typically vague. Go to the "Ethnomethodology" entry on the American/English wiki page and have a look. Note all of the phenomenological references. Does your reading of EM have any objections to anything appearing here? Yet EM is not phenomenology and is not a phenomenological discipline - this based on the premise that in order to be a phenomenological discipline it would have to make use of phenomenological methods [intentional analysis]. Let me know, and we can begin. ````

Whew, whops, and whazzat? An introduction to Husserlian phenomenology in an article on EM? Now I see where your remark about tragic ironies comes from. EM is neither about Husserl nor about Heidegger (in my not overly humble reading at least). The gap in methodology is vast, and the objects that are studied are also different – even though the ‘perspective’ taken in some of EMs basic assumption, and the attention to detail are similar. But the things ethnomethodologists do are definitely not the same things that phenomenologists usually do (even though I have recently been asked why on a conference of Germany’s phenomonological association they need a sociologist to show them how to actually do phenomenology in practice – so maybe it is the other way round and we should start editing the phenomenology article, since it is just a subdiscipline of sociology with an EM-twist ;) )
So, Garfinkel is not correctly classified as being “one of the key developers of the phenomenological tradition in American sociology”, even though his work certainly is indebted to phenomenology… Now I am waiting for a nice new suggestion for the first paragraph of this article – or, even better, for more than just the first paragraph. --ozean (talk) 15:21, 1 July

2008 (UTC)

I'm working on links to DAB pages, where should Phenomenological link to? Is there is an article on phenomenology as it relates to sociology? leaving as is for now...Kent Witham (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Carlos Castaneda

Harold Garfinkel was one of the UCLA anthropologists, who thought Carlos Castanedas flights of fantasies were field-work.--Radh (talk) 12:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Garfinkel is a UCLA sociologist. There is no evidence for the claim made here offered as proof of this assertion. The link does not mention Garfinkel. WTF! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.185.151.92 (talk) 21:05, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Castenada cited Garfinkel as his PhD committee chair in the first Don Juan book. 98.117.43.151 (talk) 02:27, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Bruno Latour

Inserting Latour's name in the list of those influenced by Garfinkel's work must have been a prank. In his review of Lynch's Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science, Latour refers to ethnomethodologists as "a subset of Los Angles heretics." The list of those influenced by Garfinkel's work should be limited to those who actually took up ethnomethodologically-informed studies, not those who were just provoked in some way by the program.

    that was early Latour, but ANT is very much influenced by Garfinkel, as is apparent in Latour's hail of praises for his work in 2005's "Reassembling the Social"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.138.62.71 (talk) 18:36, 31 January 2017 (UTC) 

Death??

does anyone have any legitimate sources on this? i cannot find any legitimate news source, only blogs & this entry - thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.62.206.229 (talk) 23:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

A link to the NYTimes obituary has been added to the 'External Links' section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pracktiker (talk • contribs) 15:24, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

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References

Reference #59: The reference to Garfinkel Studies in ethnomethodology reads "First published by Prentice-Hall in 1967 and later reissued in an expanded edition by Paradigm Publishers (Boulder, CO, forthcoming)."

A google search reveals: "Paradigm Publishers, known for its thought-provoking, topical books is now part of Routledge, an imprint of Taylor and Francis. With more than 700 titles in its catalogue, Paradigm adds a wealth of course books in Sociology, Politics, Education, Gender Studies, History, Media & Communication, and more."

So can the person who wrote the entry please update it

I agree a revised edition or one with a scholarly introduction would be handy

Education

I do not know if this is possible but making the Education section in the infobox visible so that readers can refer to that. Nnunez26 (talk) 03:08, 5 October 2023 (UTC)