The discussions included in this book are divided into four thematic sections:

Social sciences between knowledge and ideologies: need for philosophy.- Part I. Social and cognitive roots for reflexivity upon the research process.- Social sciences, what for? On the manifold directions of social research.- Vitenskapsteori-- - what, how and why?.- Culture or Biology? If this sounds interesting, you might be confused.- Conditional Objectivism: A Strategy for Connecting the Social Sciences and Practical Decision-Making.- Towards Reflexivity in Science: Anthropological Reflections on Science and Society.- Part II. Philosophies of explanation in the social sciences.- Explanation: guidance for social scientists.- From causality to catalysis in the social sciences.- How to identify and how to conduct research that is informative and reproducible.- Explaining social phenomena: Emergence and Levels of Explanation.- Part III. Social normativity in social sciences.- Normativity in psychology and the social sciences: Questions of universality.- The crisis in psychological science, and the need for a person-oriented approach.- Open access, a remedy to the crisis in scientific inquiry?.- Part IV. Social processes in particular sciences: challenges to interdisciplinarity.- Fragmented and Critical? Some challenges for a social organization of Norwegian sociology, and implications for innovation.- How do economists think?.- Part V.General Conclusion.- What can social science practitioners learn from philosophies of science?.- Index.