摘要：This ar ticle is the first in a series of three installments representing a doctoral project carried out at the University of the Free State in South Afr ica. The aim of this article is to e stablish an apodictic ontic and e pistemic foundation for the constr uction of an integral framework for sociological practice. To this end, manifest reality is meditated upon in a realist phenomenological manner, thus y ielding an etiological framework aimed at reflecting reality in itself, and not as the object of a specific scientific paradigm. Situated against the backdrop of the ontolog ical tur n in the social sciences, the arg ument is developed that contemporar y science represents an ill-founded attempt at empirically describing a reality that is fundamentally trans-empirical. It is posited that any scientific enterprise which is founded exclusively on an empirical analysis of "objective" reality can ultimately yield only par tial truths. To remedy this situation, the role of intersubjective ly constr ucted meaning-frameworks and subjectively constituted qualia of manifestation during the generation of reality are acknowledged, facilitating an account there of that enlivens the positivistic "world-as-described" by integrating it with the hermeneutically navigable "world-as-ag reed-upon" and the individually encountered/em- bodied "world-as-witnessed." The resulting etiological framework facilitates a grasp of the hig her order unity of these "worlds" by facilitating the emergence of an aperspectival mode of being that transcends the empirico-perspectival mental consciousness structure character istic of modern and postmoder n epistemologies. In so doing, a universally valid layer of knowledge is laid bare which can serve as a conte xt ualizing point of reference for the cont inued perspectival exploration of part ic- ular conditioned aspects of reality.
