List of Diagrams



List of Tables



Abbreviations and Symbols



Author’s Acknowledgements



Editor’s Preface



Editor’s Acknowledgements

Introduction



1. On the Conditions of Empirical Description

1.1 Speech acts



1.2 Meaning



1.3 Propositions and directives



1.4 Propositions and statements



1.5 The context of utterance



1.6 The establishment of a common context of utterance



1.7 Further remarks on the identity of an assertion



1.8 Reflexive and non-reflexive uses of ‘true’



1.9 The notion of analyticity



1.10 The conditions of empirical description



1.11 Conclusion: themes



2. Empiricist theories of the production of knowledge



2.1 Introduction



2.2 The reification of facts and the autonomisation of experience



2.3 Theories of the explanation and justification of ideas



2.4 The theory of incorrigibility



2.5 The method and consequences of phenomenalism



2.6 Theories of the production of knowledge



2.7 The problem of scepticism



2.8 The problem of argument and the metatheory of science



2.9 Meaning and scientific change



2.10 The theory of falsifiability



2.11 The grounds for an asymmetry and the implications of relativism



2.12 The concept of a fact

3. Explanation in open systems

3.1 Introduction



3.2 Determinisms



3.3 The concept of a closure



3.4 Two types of autonomy in open systems



3.5 Positivism and the idea of a closure



3.6 Introductory remarks on explanation in the social sciences



3.7 The inadequacies of reductionism



3.8 On the absence of an experimental object of inquiry



3.9 On the theoretical objects of social sciences



3.10 Some properties of social systems and of