WOKÓŁ METODY DOKUMENTÓW BIOGRAFICZNYCH
ABOUT THE BIOGRAPHICAL METHOD

Summary/Abstract: The biographical method is one of the most characteristic methodological perspectives in the research of culture in Polish anthropology and sociology. According to this, human conduct is to be studied and understood from the perspective of the person involved, which is included in Florian Znaniecki’s theory. Criticizing naturalism, he did not object natural science immobilizing its objects of research for its own purpose, and treating them as things. Biographical method exposes autonomy, self-determination and individual world view. Human experiences are not mental conditions, but objects and arrangement of objects. Human activities are not psychological processes, but functions of subjective origins and objective importance. Life history can be: complete, topical and edited. Due to its diachronic character, the biographical analysis of personal documents must generalize from the study of single cases. Cultural reality cannot be described so much in terms of casualty as in terms of the so-called long duration.

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