Overview

What is social science? Does social scientific knowledge differ from other kinds ofknowledge, such as the natural sciences and commonsense? What is the relation between method and knowledge? This concise and accessible book provides a critical discussionand comprehensive overview of the major philosophical debateson the methodological foundations of the social sciences. Fromits origins in the sixteenth century, when a new system ofknowledge was created around the idea of modernity, theauthor shows how the philosophy of social science developed asa reflection on some of the central questions in modernity.From the positivist dispute on explanation versus.understanding, to controversies about standpoint through todebates about constructivism and realism, Delanty outlines themajor shifts in the philosophy of social science. He argues thatsocial science is an intellectual framework for thetransformation of the social world.This new edition is updated and expanded throughout with thelatest developments in the field, including a new chapter onfeminist standpoint epistemology, and additional material onneo-positivism, pragmatism, and reflexivity.This is one of the most ambitious and wide-ranging texts inrecent years on debates on method and the contemporarysituation of social science. It is of interest to undergraduatestudents and postgraduates as well as to professionalresearchers with an interest in the philosophy of the socialsciences and social theory.

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Gerard Delanty is Professor of Sociology, University of Liverpool and author of various books including Philosophies of Social Science: The Classic and Contemporary Readings (edited with Piet Strydom) (2003) and Community (2003).

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