Are the Social Sciences in principle a different and more dubious undertaking than the Natural Sciences? This book is an introduction to the major problems of the philosophy of social science. It covers most of the important, and sometimes controversial, topics in the present debate but demands no previous knowledge of philosophy or the social sciences. A model of explanation is developed from current philosophical analysis of the natural sciences that can with care be made applicable to the work of the social scientist.

The book begins by explaining the point of asking specifically...