After Method: Mess in Social Science Research

Translated from English by S. Gavrilenko, A. Pisarev and P. Khanova. Scientific editor of the translation by S. Gavrilenko. – M.: Gaidar Institute Press, 2015. – 352 p.

ISBN 978-5-93255-406-7 

John Law's critical target is the methods of the social sciences, oriented toward achieving clarity and precision. In their claim, they rely on the metaphysics that has become commonplace, which imposes unambiguity and certainty on reality. Law criticizes this attitude, showing that fluidity, multiplicity, heterogeneity and uncertainty are not the result of epistemic error, but a quality of reality itself. 

The peculiarity of his criticism is that it is based not so much on conceptual as on empirical arguments. He is interested in research situations in which traditional assumptions fail and criticism is carried out by the things themselves: atherosclerosis, a water pump, a health care system, crashing trains, a scientific laboratory, a Quaker prayer meeting... 

In order to stop imposing our own rules on the world and finally listen to it, it is necessary to reinvent the methods and policies of the social sciences, taking into account that they not only allow us to describe social reality, but also participate in its creation.