Keith Topper is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Political Science at Northwestern University.

This thoughtful and well-informed book casts a great deal of light on the ‘social science wars’: an often fierce struggle over methods and techniques which also reflects profound differences in philosophy among social scientists. Topper shows how close argument and imaginative sympathy can carry the debate forward. This is a lucid and engaging book, full of important insights about the ways in which we try to study society.

• Acknowledgments Introduction: The Social Science Wars Social Science Wars I Social Science Wars II Debating the Foundations of Political Science Sciences of Uncertainty I: Science Turned Upside Down Philosophy, Foundationalism, and Linguistic Pragmatism Rorty's View of Natural Science Conclusion II: In Defense of Disunity Pragmatic Naturalism and the Social Sciences Hermeneutics Revisited Conclusion III: The Politics of Redescription Redescription Applied Contingency, Self-Creation, and Change Redescription and Politics Conclusion IV: Reclaiming the Language of Emancipation Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism Critical Realism as a Philosophy for the Sciences Critical Naturalism, and the Stakes of Social Inquiry Ontology, Causation, and Social Criticism, and Social Criticism Conclusion V: Sciences that Disturb Pierre Bourdieu's 'Fieldwork in Philosophy' From the Practice of Theory to the Theory of Practice Ordinary Violences Conclusion Conclusion: Pluralism, Power, Perestroika, and Political Inquiry Perestroika and Methodological Pluralism Hegemonic Political Science and Methodological Monism The Contest of Methodological Disunity Revitalizing Political Inquiry Notes Index