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.