In this chapter, I situate the account of science that underpins my position in relation to a number of competing perspectives on science and social science. The obvious way to do so would be to describe my position in terms of one of the dominant epistemological ‘self-images’ of the discipline. Given my scepticism towards these ‘self-images’, however, such an approach is not possible. An alternative might be to situate my perspective in terms of persons rather than paradigms. In part, this is inevitable given the strictures of scholarly practice, although this also has its problems. Importantly, when I ground my position in persons it is only in terms of those specific arguments with which I am concerned. A reference to a given figure should not be taken to imply complete agreement with everything they say.

In the contemporary social theoretic imbroglio, it is difficult not to situate one's position in relation to positivism. Positivism constitutes, not only the standard around which the mainstream is said to converge, and the focal point around which non-mainstream approaches situate their criticisms, but also, perhaps, the definition of science itself. This is a serious error, and the aim in this chapter is to take issue with any attempt to treat positivism and science as co-extensive terms and to sketch the outlines of a non-positivist theory of science and, mutatis mutandis, a social science not constructed on positivist foundations.