In Part 11 critically assess the existing state of the literature encompassing various aspects of social policy analysis and political theory/philosophy. This assessment will form the basis for identifying how a bridge might be securely built between social policy analysis and political philosophy. In Chapter 1 I outline some of the controversy surrounding the definition of political philosophy, as well as highlighting the complexities involved in defining what is meant by social policy and its analysis. I then classify, under two broad headings (the descriptive and the theoretical), various types of literature and material relating to social policy analysis. Although I am not suggesting that all the material falls neatly into either of these two categories, or that there are good methodological reasons for making this distinction, historically the literature tends toward the descriptive or the theoretical (with an undue emphasis on the former). Consequently, serious misconceptions about the role and validity of normative debate within social policy analysis have arisen - misconceptions which are largely a result of naive positivist and utilitarian type arguments.