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"This volume is a one-of-a-kind contribution to applied social science and the product of a long collaboration between an established, interdisciplinary sociologist and a successful banking executive. Together, Neil Smelser and John Reed use a straightforward approach to presenting substantive social science knowledge and indicate its relevance and applicability to decision-making, problem-solving and policy-making. Among the areas presented are space-and-time coordinates of social life; cognition and bias; group and network effects; the role of sanctions; organizational dynamics; and macro-changes associated with economic development. Finally, the authors look at the big picture of why society at large demands and needs social-science knowledge, and how the academy actually supplies relevant knowledge."--

Preliminary Material -- THE OBJECT AND METHOD OF SOCIAL SCIENCE -- THE OBJECTIVE ELEMENTS OF PROGRESS -- THE PROBLEM OF CONDUCT -- EVOLUTION IN PROGRESS -- SOCIAL SPACE -- SOCIAL FABRICS -- POLITICAL UNITY -- CONCLUSION -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS -- COUNTEREVOLUTION -- A FRAGMENT ON EVOLUTION AND COUNTEREVOLUTION IN THEIR THEOLOGICAL SENSE -- ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR -- INDEX -- VIBS.

The debate on the scientific status of the Social Sciences and their bid to achieve objectivity in their inquiries is an unending debate within and outside the Social Science family. The positivists are of the opinion that objectivity in Social Science is achievable and that scientific methods can be used in Social Science inquiry, just the same or similar way(s) the natural scientists do their scientific endeavor. To the positivists 'value-free Social Science' is possible. This position is however criticized even within the Social Sciences, let alone in the scientific world. All these debates centered on whether or not the Social Scientists are truly scientific in their quest for knowledge. No matter the outcome of the debate what is obvious is that there is a philosophical problem with scientific objectivity in general. Based on a historical review of the development of certain scientific theories, in his book, 'the Structure of scientific revolutions', a scientist and a historian Thomas Kuhn raised some philosophical objections to claims of the possibility of scientific understanding being truly objective. Against this backdrop, the paper seeks to unravel the varied theoretical debates on the subject.

The development of new approaches in recent times has brought about major changes in the study of social & political life. They reject almost everything that has been traditionally accepted, for which they have been severely criticized. But focusing on academic issues alone won't help much. We can understand the new approaches, their concerns, their rejection of science as model, their disdain for objectivity, universality, truth, relevance & so on, more adequately by relating them to the social conditions that obtain in the West. There are, however, major differences between these conditions & those that obtain in countries like India. & the kind of problems facing these countries can be addressed meaningfully by the more traditional approach than by the approaches developed recently. This is why, while it does not seem to have much future in the West, where it originated & continued for long, it may survive, even flourish, in countries like India. References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2006.]