The Expanded Social Scientist's Bestiary

Reviews / Votes

How refreshing it is to see concepts such as truth, values, and objectivity discussed intelligently within the context of social science. Phillips unravels the complexities of constructivism, hermeneutics, naturalism, narrative research, and positivism with his insightful analysis and lucid writing. This is a must read for all of us who are students of the social sciences; students in the sense that we are as concerned about the questions we ask and the ways in which we go about answering them as we are in the answers we ultimately find. -- Lorin W. Anderson, Carolina Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of South Carolina Should be required reading for all Ph.D. candidates in social science. It is a mind clearing analysis of the highest order, prophylactic and curative of the numerous methodological and substantive ills that afflict us. It is especially needed today when the 'positivist-bashers' are using the Vienna Circle's mistakes and Kuhn's exaggerations for obscurantist purposes. -- Paul E. Meehl, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science This is vintage D. C. Phillips. A spirited, wide-ranging, postpositivist apologia for a naturalistic interpretation of the social sciences. This expanded new edition examines the 'habits' of two new fashionable beasts known as narrative research and social constructionism and offers a neo-Popperian account of falsificationism. In substance and style, The Bestiary displays Phillips' unswerving commitment to reasoned argument, empirical grounding, and the regulative ideals of truth and objectivity asthe foundations for sound social science. This book is a must-read for any scholar seeking to come to terms with a contemporary account of naturalism in the social sciences... -- Thomas A. Schwandt, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign This is vintage D. C. Phillips. A spirited, wide-ranging, postpositivist apologia for a naturalistic interpretation of the social sciences. This expanded new edition examines the 'habits' of two new fashionable beasts known as narrative research and social constructionism and offers a neo-Popperian account of falsificationism. In substance and style, The Bestiary displays Phillips' unswerving commitment to reasoned argument, empirical grounding, and the regulative ideals of truth and objectivity as the foundations for sound social science. This book is a must-read for any scholar seeking to come to terms with a contemporary account of naturalism in the social sciences. -- Thomas A. Schwandt, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign