ABSTRACT
In social science as in natural science there is no shortage of people who make fundamental
assumptions about what human beings are ‘really’ like. This in itself is not a problem so long
as the assumptions are falsifiable and not beyond the influence of all possible arguments. The
real mistake is to elevate what should be only working hypotheses into exclusive claims about
the essential nature of humanity; that is, claims to some kind of unique and ultimate truth
about the human condition. This book argues that what we can know is basically the ‘text’ and
‘context’ of humanity and the interaction between them; that is, the autobiographical narra-
tives of individual human beings communicated through third parties, the social relations in
which they are embedded, and the observable dynamical processes in which these individuals
act upon and are acted upon by specific contexts.
