ABSTRACT
Like the humanities, the social sciences study the human rather than the nonhuman aspects of the world; more specifically, they study human beings in their social contexts. They are distinguished from the humanities not so much by the objects of their study as by their practitioners’ efforts to study these objects in a way that is “scientific.” Scholars in the social science disciplines wish their work to attain the privileged epistemic status of science, which is often regarded as the most dependable kind of knowledge. In pursuit of this status, they have often sought to study humans in society with methods similar to those credited with enabling the spectacular successes of the physical sciences.
