ABSTRACT
The inclusive and continuing function of social inquiry is to assist the community to resolve an unending series of problems with which it is confronted. Capitalism, Marxian socialism and communism, and fascism are ism-ideologies in this sense. Social inquiry is significant because it is addressed directly or indirectly to the resolution of social problems, the appearance of which initiated the doubts about current conditions and practices. In a related sense, the outcome of inquiry is an explanation which exhibits over time its continuing capacity to explain and predict in causal terms. In the process of combining conceptual tools, of generating new hypotheses based on existing knowledge, the adequacy of individual components of that fund is checked anew and, if necessary, revised or recast. The knowledge continuum grows at a seemingly exponential rate.
