The Bio‐Medical Model and Ageing: Towards an Anti‐Reductionist Model?

Anti‐reductionist social theory is a relatively ‘new’ but methodically eclectic body of theory which analyses the complexity of the tripartite theory, policy and practice. The work of Roger Sibeon (1996, 1999 and 2004) has contributed to a sensitising frame work in regard to a sociology of knowledge: generating epistemic narratives for theoretical construction and re‐construction, contrasting to a substantive sociology for knowledge based upon methodological generalisations for empirical or practical use: although the of/for distinction is not inflexible as there are circumstances when they form a process of what Powell and Longino (2001) call ‘articulation’: a united or connected analysis of/for theorising and practice.