ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book describes major obstacles to obtain predictive power for social scientists. Compound ambition, to know correctly and to do good with that knowledge, moves rationalists to illegitimately translate information as knowledge, and knowledge as know-how. Through the long exercise, the book shows that such twinned aspiration largely fails both objectives. The failure starts with feeble conceptualizing. In turn, porous concepts generate fickle classification, unreliable observation, and inaccurate measurement. These foibles are exacerbated by the meliorist impulse that selects causes for their ethico-political congeniality rather than their efficacy. In addition, such selectivity ignores those major motors of action: The passions. It is prone to rationalize emotions and intellectualize pleasures. The book then explains a few suggested routes to a planned, better world.
