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Obviously, if the writer of something you are reading is confused about his use of a key term, you, as reader, must be so, too.

Let us try to make this point clear by drawing a distinction 302 HOW TO READ A BOOK

between the social sciences, on the one hand, and the so-called hard sciences-physics, chemistry, and the like-on the other hand. We have observed that the author of a scientific book (taking "scientific" in the latter sense ) makes clear what he assumes and what he desires to prove, and also makes sure that his terms and propositions are easy to spot. Since coming to terms and finding the propositions is a main part of reading any expository work, this means that much of the work is done for you in the case of such books. You may still have difficulty with the mathematical form of presentation; and if you do not have a firm grasp of the arguments and of the experimental or observational basis of the conclusions, you will find it hard to criticize the book-that is, to answer the questions, Is it true?

and What of it? Nevertheless, there is an important sense in which the reading of this kind of scientific books is easier than the reading of most other kinds of expository works.

Another way to say what it is that the hard scientist does is to say that he "stipulates his usage"-that is, he informs you what terms are essential to his argument and how he is going to use them. Such stipulations usually occur at the beginning of the book, in the form of definitions, postulates, axioms, and so forth. Since stipulation of usage is characteristic of these fields, it has been said that they are like games or have a

"game structure." Stipulation of usage is like establishing the rules of a game. If you want to play poker, you do not dispute the rule that three of a kind is a better hand than two pairs; if you want to play bridge, you do not argue with the convention that a quet:n takes a jack ( in the same suit ), or that the highest trump takes any other card ( in a suit contract ). Similarly, you do not dispute a hard scientist's stipulations in reading his book. You accept them, and go on from there.

Until quite recently, at least, stipulation of usage was not as common in the social sciences as it is in the hard sciences.

One reason for this is that the social sciences were typically not mathematicized. Another is that stipulation of usage in the social or behavioral sciences is harder to do. It is one thing to How to Read Social Science 303

define a circle or an isosceles triangle; it is quite another to define an economic depression or mental health. Even if a social scientist attempts to define such terms, his readers are inclined to question his usage. As a result, the social scientist must continue to struggle with his own terms throughout his work-and his struggle creates problems for his reader.

The most important source of difficulty in reading social science derives from the fact that this field of literature is a mixed, rather than a pure, kind of expository writing. We have seen how history is a mixture of fiction and science, and how we must read it with that in mind. We are familiar with this kind of mixture; we have had a great deal of experience with it. The situation in social science is quite different. Much social science is a mixture of science, philosophy, and history, often with some fiction thrown in for good measure.

If social science were always the same kind of mixture, we could become familiar with it as we have with history. But this is far from the case. The mixture itself shifts from book to book, and the reader is confronted with the task of identifying the various strands that go to make up what he is reading.

These strands may change in the course of a single book as well as in different books. It is no easy job to separate them out.

You will recall that the first step the analytical reader has to take is to answer the question, What kind of book is this? In the case of fiction, that question is relatively easy to answer. In the case