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It takes exception to the claim that since his political theory addresses legislators and statesmen rather than citizens or subjects, Aristotle is therefore not concerned about the interests of citizens and subjects and is thus unimpressed by the issue of political obligation. This chapter argues that once due consideration is given to Aristotle’s adoption of a practical viewpoint in his study of social reality, it is reasonable to conclude that the interests of citizens or free subjects are indeed a concern of his. It also explains that Aristotle’s political theory is not merely descriptive and/or explanatory but also basically normative. Special emphasis is given to the normative subtext of many of his descriptive and explanatory statements.

This chapter introduces the general methodological challenges that confront extrapolation in the biological and social sciences, and sketches the outlines of the mechanisms approach to those challenges that is developed in the rest of the book.

Readers are introduced to the major philosophical paradigms shaping social science research today, including hermeneutics and naturalism. The pervasive influence of naturalism on social scientific research is explained and the interpretive alternative is sketched. As part of this, readers are offered an account of the philosophical origins of today’s social science disciplines with a special focus on the case of political science. At the beginning of the twentieth century a modern, ahistorical, and formal paradigm for the study of politics was formed as scholars increasingly rejected the developmental historical narratives and Hegelianism of the nineteenth century. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the argument of the book.

The aim of this paper is to redefine the role of media in contemporary society, in the light of the theories of new realism and documentality. The chapter starts by refuting the view that everything is socially constructed and that the media actually produce reality (postmodernism). It argues that, instead, both media and social reality emerge from a solid ground of reality that is independent of thought (new realism). The chapter also claims that (contrary to Searle’s view) the fundamental rule of social reality is that of documentality: that is to say, documents produce social reality as a whole, including media. Finally, it posits that human thought (and, therefore, social reality, which is one of its sophisticated products) ultimately does not only depend on being, but also emerges out of it.

This chapter has two roles: (a) to introduce some of the key themes and questions in the volume, and (b) to indicate where several of the essays stand on these questions. One of the main questions asked is whether understanding human actions differs in important ways from understanding events in the natural world, and a contrast is drawn between how the “humanistic tradition” answers this question, as opposed to the “naturalistic tradition.” A further central question is why we desire firsthand understanding in areas such as philosophy, morality, and aesthetics, and whether this firsthand understanding is compatible with deferring to the testimony of others on these matters.