'We should welcome the book for its author, subject, and style. He maps what is wrong and what is strong in energetic, opinionated prose. I can't wait to teach from the published version, not to mention embellish my own methodological essays with bright quotations from it.' -- Charles Tilly, Columbia University 'The main merit of this work is a wide range of relevant material, reliably and intelligently assembled, clearly presented. No one can read this volume without learning a great deal, and it could be used as a backbone of a teaching course, or an intelligent person could use it in an initiation to each of the fields. Clarity, erudition and range are the merits.' -- The late Ernest A. Gellner, Central European University 'The book is scholarly yet lively; comprehensive yet unified around a few central powerful ideas; profound yet entertaining reading with one bon mot after another; unorthodox yet constructive; a sort of vademecum for the bewitched but critical rover through the manifold of contemporary social studies.' -- Joseph Agassi, Tel Aviv and York Universities 'This book covers a vast domain with a firm grasp of the big issues. Its great advantage lies in treating all this material from a unified perspective.' -- Nicholas Rescher, Pittsburgh University

Mario Bunge, author of the monumental Treatise on Basic Philosophy, is widely renowned as a philosopher of science. In this new and ambitious work he shifts his attention to the social sciences and the social technologies. He considers a number of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, law, history, and management science.

Bunge contends that social science research has fallen prey to a postmodern fascination with irrationalism and relativism. He urges social scientists to re-examine the philosophy and the methodology at the base of their discipline. Bunge calls for objective and relevant fact-finding, rigorous theorizing, and empirical testing, as well as morally sensitive and socially responsible policy design.