Tension points in real social science: A response

Abstract

Reply by the current authors to the comments made by John Gunnell (see record [rid]2013-43499-015[/rid]) on the original book Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis edited by Bent Flyvbjerg, Todd Landman and Sanford Schram (2012). John Gunnell’s thoughtful essay questioning authors understanding of the relationship of theory to practice. Gunnell shares with us a concern about reification, or how much of social science modeling ends up studying reified models of its subject matter without giving due appreciation that these are at best heuristic devices and not the thing in itself. Gunnell’s mention in this regard of Max Weber’s concerns about Economics as a discipline is entirely consistent with our understanding of how social science is best when it puts reified models aside and situates its investigations in specific contexts as experienced by the people being studied. Part of our reasoning is that the subject matter of the social sciences is how people on the ground are experiencing social relations, and this is not reducible to abstract, universal causal models. Gunnell’s complaint with the version of what he calls this 'interpretive' approach is that it draws on an outdated and repudiated model that distinguishes the natural sciences from the social sciences. For Gunnell, both the natural sciences and the social sciences are interpretive in that they provide interpretations of the subject matter being studied. The difference for Gunnell is that while the natural sciences 'present' an interpretation of their subject matter, the social sciences 'represent' interpretations of the interpretations the people being studied. Authors agree on this distinction between the natural and social sciences and also agree that social science needs to be sensitive to the problems of reification. If they take this tension point seriously, it can move phronetic social science forward by making the clash of interpretations a key focus for getting at what impedes action to address a problem. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)