Download or read book Social Science as Civic Discourse written by Richard Harvey Brown and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1989-11-16 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Harvey Brown's pioneering explorations in the philosophy of social science and the theory of rhetoric reach a culmination in Social Science as Civic Discourse. In his earlier works, he argued for a logic of discovery and explanation in social science by showing that science and art both depend on metaphoric thinking, and he has applied that logic to society as a narrative text in which significant action by moral agents is possible. This new work is at once a philosophical critique of social theory and a social-theoretical critique of politics. Brown proposes to redirect the language and the mission of the social sciences toward a new discourse for a humane civic practice.