MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER

 

Dear colleagues,

With this note I would like to let you know that my new book MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER: WHY SOCIAL INQUIRY FAILS AND HOW IT CAN SUCCEED AGAIN has just been published by Cambridge University Press.

The book demonstrates that our understanding of how humans learn is fundamental to how we can and should conceive of the social, human, and behavioral sciences as science. Methodology, theory, and philosophy of science all come after, and require, a philosophy of learning and education. MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER is published as a CUP textbook.

I include the following for your information:

- The Table of Contents
- The book's back cover text.

I hope this is useful. Please feel free to forward this message to any relevant person or listserv.

If this mail is of no interest to you, I am sorry and apologize for the inconvenience. Also apologies for any cross posting.

Best wishes,

Bent Flyvbjerg, Professor
Aalborg University, Dept. of Development and Planning
9220 Aalborg, Denmark
email: flyvbjerg@i4.auc.dk
 

CONTENTS: MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER
Acknowledgments
1.     The Science Wars: A Way Out
PART ONE: WHY SOCIAL SCIENCE HAS FAILED AS SCIENCE
2.     Rationality, Body, and Intuition in Human Learning
3.     Is Theory Possible in Social Science?
4.     Context Counts
PART TWO: HOW SOCIAL SCIENCE CAN MATTER AGAIN
5.     Values in Social and Political Inquiry
6.     The Power of Example
7.     The Significance of Conflict and Power to Social Science
8.     Empowering Aristotle
9.     Methodological Guidelines for a Reformed Social Science
10.    Examples and Illustrations: Narratives of Value and Power
11.    Social Science That Matters
Notes
Index
 

FROM THE BACK COVER OF MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER
MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER presents an exciting new approach to the social and behavioral sciences. Instead of trying to emulate the natural sciences and create a kind of general theory, Bent Flyvbjerg argues that the strength of the social sciences lies in their rich, reflexive analysis of values and power--so essential to the social and economic development of society. Moving beyond the purely analytic or technical, Flyvbjerg compares the theoretical study of human activity with real-world situations and demonstrates how the social sciences can become relevant again in the modern world. Powerfully argued, with clear methodological guidelines and practical examples, MAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE MATTER opens up a new future for the social sciences, freed from an inappropriate and misleading comparison with the natural sciences. Its empowering message will make it required reading for students and academics across the social and behavioral sciences.

PIERRE BOURDIEU, COLLEGE DE FRANCE: "This is social science that matters."

ROBERT N. BELLAH, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY: "This is a book I have been waiting for for a long time.  It opens up entirely new perspectives for social science by showing us that abandoning the aspiration to be like natural science is the beginning of wisdom about what we can and ought to be doing instead. It is a landmark book that deserves the widest possible reading and discussion."

ED SOJA, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH, UCLA: "This brilliant contextualization of social inquiry, hinging on both Aristotle and Foucault, gives new meaning to the concept of praxis. It will be of interest to everyone concerned with making democracy work."

STEVEN LUKES, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: "Flyvbjerg, author of RATIONALITY AND POWER: DEMOCRACY IN PRACTICE, an innovative, fine-grained and civically-engaged study of local power in Denmark, here reflects, in accessible and pleasurable prose, on large, challenging questions: What, fundamentally, makes social science different from natural science? Why is it relatively so poor in producing cumulative and predictive theories? What kinds of knowledge should it seek and with what methods? His answers, drawing on Nietzsche, Foucault, Bourdieu and others, are worth the close attention of those predisposed to reject them out of hand."

There's more information about the book at www.us.cambridge.org and www.uk.cambridge.org.