Social Metasciences

The systematic study of the social sciences themselves—a second-order discipline that takes sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, and related fields as its objects of inquiry. Social metasciences ask meta-level questions about social scientific knowledge: How do social scientists know what they claim to know? What methods do different social science disciplines use? How does social scientific knowledge change over time? How do social, cultural, and institutional contexts shape social science? What are the limits of social scientific understanding? Social metasciences are the social sciences reflecting on themselves—the attempt to understand what social science is, what it can achieve, and how it relates to other forms of knowledge. They're essential for social science to be self-aware rather than merely empirical, for social scientists to understand their own practices rather than just practicing them.

Example: "His social metasciences research examined how the replication crisis has transformed psychology—not just by correcting specific findings, but by forcing the discipline to reflect on its own methods, assumptions, and institutions. Crisis becomes self-understanding."

by Abzugal March 16, 2026