ABSTRACT
This chapter devises a theory/method nexus that not only facilitates engagement with these frames, but also enables a degree of analysis. It exploits the rich vein of social thought that has been mined and developed in both Europe and the US over the last century or so. The chapter constructs a critical ontology by drawing on a number of interrelated principles in order to weave together a theoretical framework that can not only account, but can compensate for, the weakness of the liberal approach. It draws upon is that, not only is human agency constrained by structural limitations as highlighted above, agency is also to a very significant extent embodied and therefore unconscious. The chapter seeks to overcome the limits of subjectivism and objectivism, social phenomenology and social physics, in order to account for the epistemic virtues of each while at the same time skirting the vices of both Bourdieu and Wacquant.
