Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-259) and index.

Preface to the third edition -- 1. What is the philosophy of social science? -- Philosophical problems of social science -- Progress and prediction -- A brief history of the philosophy of science -- Lawlessness in social science -- Rejecting prediction for intelligibility -- Taking sides in the philosophy of social science -- Naturalism versus interpretation -- Introduction to the literature -- 2. The explanation of human action -- Making folk psychology explicit -- Reasons and causes -- The holism of the mental -- The logical connection argument -- Intentionality -- Intensionality and extensionality -- Introduction to the literature -- 3. From behaviorism to rational choice, and back -- Causation and purpose -- The experimental analysis of behavior -- The ghost in behaviorism's machine -- Folk psychology formalized: the theory of rational choice -- The economist as behaviorist -- Instrumentalism in economics -- The eclipse of behaviorism in psychology and economics -- Introduction to the literature -- 4. Interpretation -- The hermeneutics of human action -- Can we reconcile rules and causes? -- The social construction of society -- The philosophy of history -- Freud and the analysis of deep meanings -- Marxism and meaning -- Critical theory -- Epistemological impasse? -- Introduction to the literature -- 5. Functionalism and macrosocial science -- Holism and human action -- The autonomy of sociology -- Holism and reductionism in psychology and sociology -- Functional analysis and functional explanation -- The trouble with functionalism -- Introduction to the literature -- 6. Biology, human behavior, and social science -- The prisoner's dilemma to the rescue? -- Farewell to the standard social science model? -- Blunting the threat of genetic determinism -- Natural selection and mother-nurture? -- Causation, statistics, laws and the relevance of biology -- Introduction to the literature -- 7. Shall we commit a social science? -- Moral problems of controlled research -- Naturalism and utilitarianism -- Kant: interpretation and deontology -- Facts and values -- Feminist philosophy of (social) science -- Dangerous questions, moral obligations, and predictive knowledge -- Introduction to the literature -- 8. Social science and the enduring questions of philosophy -- The unavoidability of epistemology -- Science and metaphysics -- Reductionism and instrumentalism -- Philosophy and the moral sciences -- Conclusion.