In this wide-ranging work, now available in paperback, Habermaspresents his views on the nature of the social sciences and theirdistinctive methodology and concerns. He examines, among otherthings, the traditional division between the natural sciences andthe social sciences; the characteristics of social action and theimplications of theories of language for social enquiry; and thenature, tasks and limitations of hermeneutics. Habermas' analysisof these and other themes is, as always, rigorous, perceptive andconstructive.This brilliant study succeeds in highlighting the distinctivecharacteristics of the social sciences and in outlining the natureof, and prospects for, critical theory today.

J&uumlrgen Habermas is the author of numerous booksincluding The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (Polity1988) and The Theory of Communicative Action (Polity, 1988).

Introduction.Translator's Note. Preface.Part I. The Dualism of the Natural and CulturalSciences:.1. A Historical Reconstruction.2. Sociology and History: The Contemporary Discussion.Part II. On the Methodology of General Theories of SocialAction:.3. Normative-Analytic and Empirical-Analytic Approaches toSocial Science.4. Intentional Action and Stimulus-Response Behaviour.5. Three Forms of Functionalism.Part III. On the Problem of Understanding Meaning in theEmpirical-Analytic Sciences of Action:.6. The Phenomenological Approach.7. The Linguistic Approach.8. The Hermeneutic Approach.Part IV. Sociology as Theory of the Present:.9. The Limits of Linguistically Oriented InterpretiveSociology.10. Open Questions.Notes.Index.