Making social science matter: why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again by

the natural and physical sciences and the social sciences. Taking as his starting point the `Science Wars ' sparked by the publication of Sokal's hoax article in Social Text, Flyvbjerg argues that social science should not seek legitimacy through natural science models, but should pursue what Aristotle called phronesisöpractical wisdom applied to political situations. This is a different order of knowledge from scientific understanding (episteme) or the production of things (techne) and requires practitioners to exercise intuitive understanding going beyond rule-following appli-cation of principles and means ^ ends rationality. In order for social scientists to attain phronetic wisdom in their work of providing relevant knowledge for society, they need to acquire `expert' or `virtuoso ' levels of analytical skills and intuitive nous through the conduct of case studies. Carrying out detailed case research involves mental and bodily experience of everyday politics and requires attention to the affects of the researcher's involvement. Flyvbjerg stresses that both the classical conception of phronesis, and phenomenological methods of research, need to take power into account and attend to the possibility that phronetic political knowledge will not always result in `the good'. The book ends with examples of committed phronetic research drawn from the author's own experiences