The Nature of Social Science

George C. Homans addresses a number of controversial ideas to his colleagues in the social sciences as he sets about to ask how scientific these sciences are and to discuss their problems. He believes, in fact, that they form a single science, sharing the same subject matter and employing the same body of general explanatory principles. And contrary to the opinion of most scholars, he argues that they do not differ radically from the physical and biological sciences and should become even more like them -- particularly in their "explanations, " or theories. For although the findings of the social sciences are frequently exciting, the work of organizing these findings remains largely undone.
This urbane, clear-eyed book is a challenge to accepted views of social science and a rallying call to its various branches for greater intellectual unity.