ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the work of J. Glynos and D. Howarth on Logics of Critical Explanation in the Social Sciences, in which the authors investigate the epistemological consequences of deploying discourse theory (DT) and Lacanian theory to examine questions of social and political importance. By rearticulating an object of study using the conceptual architecture of DT, we are at the same time providing an account of its emergence and maintenance as a meaningful social object. Glynos and Howarth develop the idea of logics of critical explanation, which they argue enable the discourse theorist to describe, explain and critique the emergence, maintenance and dissolution of structures of meaning, rules and practices in the social world. For Glynos and Howarth, mapping the rules of formation of a hegemonic discursive formation and explaining its emergence, maintenance and/or dissolution in terms of the logics of equivalence and difference does not fully exhaust the process of critical explanation in which discourse theorists are engaged.
