ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a doctrine of the unity of method; that is to say, the view that all theoretical or generalizing sciences make use of the same method, whether they are natural sciences or social sciences and suggests that deductive methods are widely used and important - more so than C. W. Mill, for example, ever thought. The unity of the methods of the natural and social sciences may be illustrated and defended by an analysis of two passages from Professor F. A. von Hayek's Scientism and the Study of Society. Difference between the natural and the social sciences - perhaps the most important difference in their methods, since the other important differences, that is, specific difficulties in conducting experiments and in applying quantitative methods, are differences of degree rather than of kind. The chapter explains the possibility of adopting, in the social sciences, what may be called the method of logical or rational construction, or perhaps the 'zero method'.
