“Don’t Mention the Idea of a Social Science”: The Legacy of an Idea

Abstract

This essay focuses on the predominantly negative receptions of Peter Winch’s The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy in the philosophy of social science, argues how these involve a general misreading of the book and concludes with how the book can continue to be relevant for contemporary philosophy of social science and critical social inquiry. Resisting the canonical reception in the philosophy of social science, it follows the strands in the book that emphasize the inseparability of good social inquiry from philosophy as sharing in a specific type of ethical orientation. After a brief summarizing commentary of the book, the essay characterizes the various negative appropriations of ISS as either epistemological or ontological readings that read it as offering a general foundation of social inquiry that implies a general cultural relativism and conservatism about social change. The essay argues against these readings by following the strands in the book that focus on the irreducibly ethical character of philosophical and social inquiry, further supported by external sources. The essay then concludes with opening the work up to current debates in the philosophy of social science and critical social theory, thus arguing for the book’s continued relevance.