Raisonner en sciences humaines

How is knowledge generated in the human sciences? What are the particularities of research in the humanities? What does it mean to reason in the human sciences? Through samples drawn from the distinctive perspectives of literature, philosophy, history, sociology, political sciences and economics, this book highlights the fertile tensions generated by the problematic status of the human sciences in their relationship to the natural sciences, to their objects and methods, and to their intra- and interdisciplinary practices.

How to articulate the particular case and explanatory structures? The specificity of the interests involved in human activities (of which the natural sciences are an integral part) explains why the human sciences are resisting the growing temptation to standardize research practices.

To be a researcher is to be prepared to be surprised, even to abandon one's initial theoretical hypotheses. Scientific research should therefore aim for an ideal of reflexivity and confrontation of ideas, rather than an ideal of universality.