The History and Philosophy of Social Science

By Scott Gordon

A landmark in its field, this book attains the most exacting scholarly standards whilst making the history of the social sciences enjoyable to read. Scott Gordon provides a magisterial review of the historical development of the social sciences. He examines the problems which confronted the great thinkers in their attempts to construct systematic theories of social phenomena. At the same time, he presents an authoritative survey of the major writers in the fields of economics, sociology and political science. Separate chapters are devoted to particular topics of special significance such as the nature of sociality, the idea of harmonious order, the conflict between progress and perfection, the methodology of history and the relation between biology and the social sciences. In the concluding chapter, the author examines the main lines of thought that have developed in the philosophy of science since the breakdown of logical empiricism, and he shows how the scientific investigation of social phenomena differs from the methodologies of the physical and biological sciences. This bold new synthesis of the different traditions in the social sciences is at once a major contribution and a superb overview.

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