ABSTRACT
It is a testament, perhaps, to the force of postmodern ideas in the West that the very idea of a science of society should require defending. In fact, it is hard not to agree with two recent commentators that postmodernism’s critique of science as a ‘grand narrative’, as a particularly overweaning instance of the ambitions of reason, has led to a ‘loss of faith in the capacity of our schemes of thought, especially science, to represent the truth about reality’ (Hughes and Sharrock 1997: 184-5).
