There is No Such Thing as a Social Science: In Defence of Peter Winch (Directions in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis) [Hardcover]

'There is No Such Thing as a Social Science is far more than an interpretation and appraisal of Peter Winch's Idea of a Social Science, fifty years after its initial publication. Hutchinson, Read and Sharrock offer a bold and a forceful reminder that the implications of Winch's arguments are no less devastating for social and cultural theory today than they were for deterministic and ethnocentric social science a half-century ago.'

'The authors perform the invaluable service of reminding us of the continuing relevance of Peter Winch's groundbreaking book The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. Correcting many of the persistent misunderstandings of Winch's work, they make a powerful case for the claim that there is as much need for its lessons today as there was when it was first published 50 years ago.'

Since Peter Winch's death in 1997 there has been a revival of interest in his work. However, this book contends that Winch has been misrepresented in both the recent literature and in contemporary critiques of his writing. Debates in philosophy and sociology about foundational questions of social ontology and methodology often claim to have adequately incorporated and moved beyond Winch's concerns. Reestablishing a Winchian voice, the authors argue that such contentions involve a failure to understand central themes in Winch's writings and that the issues which occupied him in his "Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy" and in his later papers remain central to social studies.A careful reading of crucial parts of the text is offered in alliance with Wittgensteinian insights, alongside a focus on the key question of the nature and results of social thought and inquiry. Drawing parallels with other movements in the social studies, notably Ethnomethodology, "There is No Such Thing as a Social Science" contends that social studies as a discipline has yet to rise to the challenges posed by Winch, demonstrating that Winch's central claim is both more significant and more difficult to transcend than sociologists and philosophers have hitherto imagined.

Phil Hutchinson, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Rupert Read is a Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, UK. Wes Sharrock is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK.

PREFACE:
It is now 50 years since the publication of Peter Winch's The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (ISS). Fifty years on, Winch's book is no less controversial, no less relevant and no less read. Students in philosophy, anthropology, economics, politics, psychology and sociology, have and will continue to find Winch's arguments of central relevance to their own concerns.

The landscape of the social studies can appear to have changed somewhat over the past 50 years. Where Positivism was once dominant students are now confronted with what can appear like a marketplace of methodologies and theories. In many ways, and contrary to the orthodox understanding of Winch, this makes ISS even more relevant now than when it appeared in 1958. For this marketplace of methodologies and theories can obscure from view the common assumptions underpinning all of those approaches, assumptions that Winch's writings expose as seriously flawed.
Winch's arguments have been widely misunderstood. In this book we seek to offer both a corrective to some of the most widespread and pervasive of those misunderstandings and issue a call to genuine dialogue to those who still find themselves in disagreement with Winch's central concerns, as expressed in ISS (and a number of subsequent articles).