Interpretation and Social Knowledge – On the Use of Theory in the Human Sciences

Over the years anxiety over the problem of naturalism has driven debates in social theory. Analyzing the work of writers such as Theda Skocpol, Clifford Geertz, Leela Gandhi, Roy Bhaskar, Foucault, and Habermas, the author delineates three epistemic modes of social research: realism, normativism, and interpretivism.