Pretty interesting outline of the deficiencies of modern social science and some suggestions for remedies. Strangely, the book starts off with a long-winded account of human learning which seems to be off the topic and isn't of much use in the latter parts of the book. So it's not a well-structured argument, but nevertheless worth reading.

The author argues that social science (as far as our current understanding goes) is conceptually different than the natural sciences. The social sciences are more idiographic (subjective/intersubjective and case-based) and the natural sciences are more nomothetic (objective and theoretical). Flyvbjerg also accepts Aristotles's three kinds of knowledge discussed in Nicomachean Ethics: episteme, techne, and phronesis, or scientific knowledge, technological or artistic knowledge, and prudent, practical or ethical knowledge. Flyvbjerg argues that the humanities and social sciences are more properly based on technical and phronetic knowledge, both pragmatic, variable and context-dependent, rather than episteme, which is universal, invariable, and context-independent. ( )