(keegant)

Opponents of a "scientific" approach to the social sciences claim that much of the apparent sterility and lack of progress in these disciplines is the result of slavish attempts to force folk psychology into the mold of a scientific theory of the causes and effects of action. The social scientists and philosophers who oppose the scientific approach and those who support it agree that in certain areas the social sciences have not progressed. But the diagnosis of the former does not blame the lack of progress on the complexity of social life, the inability to undertake experiments, or the failure to find the appropriate "natural kinds."