Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte - Volume 117, Issue 4, 2025

The truth belongs to all of us

Ever since their inception, the social sciences have struggled with their methods and explanatory models. For what are the building blocks of social reality and in what sense is this reality a social one? And how are observations of and descriptive statements about this social reality possible? Here, the so-called ‘dramaturgical model of human behaviour’ makes visible the normativity of social reality, and also the inability of the social sciences to deal with the everyday presence of second and first persons in social reality. Thus, the role available to social scientists in social reality turns out to be problematic. If we move beyond the knowledge society, we will have ways to come to terms with truth claims; but it remains to be seen whether there will then still be a role for the social sciences as an institution.