How Does Social Science Work?: Reflections on Practice

Diesing, Paul

ISBN 10: 0822954753 / ISBN 13: 9780822954750

Published by University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1992

About this Item

Covers have some edge wear and rubbing with a couple light stains on the back cover. Top of spine has a 1/2 inch tear. First page is embossed with previous owner's seal. Page edges are lightly soiled, otherwise pages are clean.

Seller Inventory # 9950615

Bibliographic Details

• Title: How Does Social Science Work?: Reflections on Practice
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822954753
• ISBN 13: 9780822954750
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Philosophy/Psychology

About this title

Synopsis

The culmination of a lifetime spent in a variety of fields - sociology, anthropology, economics, psychology, and philosophy of science - -How Does Social Science Work? takes an innovative, sometimes iconoclastic look at social scientists at work in many disciplines. It describes how they investigate and the kinds of truth they produce, illuminating the weaknesses and dangers inherent in their research.
At once an analysis, a critique, and a synthesis, this major study begins by surveying philosophical approaches to hermeneutics, to examine the question of how social science ought to work. It illustrates many of its arguments with untraditional examples, such as the reception of the work of the political biographer Robert Caro to show the hermeneutical problems of ethnographers. The major part of the book surveys sociological, political, and psychological studies of social science to get a rounded picture of how social science works,
Paul Diesling warns that \u201csocial science exists between two opposite kinds of degeneration, a value-free professionalism that lives only for publications that show off the latest techniques, and a deep social concern that uses science for propaganda.\u201d He argues for greater self-awareness and humility among social scientists, although he notes that \u201csome social scientists . . . will angrily reject the thought that their personality affects their research in any way.\u201d
This profound and sometimes witty book will appeal to students and practitioners in the social sciences who are ready to take a fresh look at their field. An extensive bibliography provides a wealth of references across an array of social science disciplines.

About the Author

Paul Diesing is Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Buffalo.