Social science and the quest for a just society

Behind the current passionate debates about structure versus agency lies the ancient debate of determinism versus free will. The article reviews the debate and its dilemmas in theology, philosophy, revolutionary theorizing, and social science. The epistemological issues have been reopened and redefined by complexity studies in the natural sciences and cultural studies in the humanities, both of which involve a turn toward some central premises of social science. It is argued that social science will be epistemologically central to all knowledge and that utopistics will be a central responsibility of social scientists. It is also argued that science is at its very beginnings, and that the future will be built on going beyond the antinomy determinism/free will.