The text is a competently executed exploration of the issues raised by Peter Winch in his classic text regarding the possibility of scientific sociology: a sociology based on a natural science model. There isn't.
My only caveats are: [1] it should be noted that Winch's argument holds independently of the ethnomethodological dimensions injected into his text by the authors, and, [2] this text appears to be yet another example of ethnomethodologists attempting to seize the high ground in debates regarding the philosophy of social science / sociological theory by annexing key philosophical figures into their orbit [ex. Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Wittgenstein, etc.] - especially dead ones robbed of their capacity for protest. As long as the reader can keep these competing strains of argument separate, s/he will find the text both enlightening and provocative.
A more parsimonious, and complementary, statement of the issues regarding the "scientific character" of sociology is to be found in Georg Iggers: "The German Conception of History", with its discussions of the 19th century philosophical debates regarding historicism. Modern sociology was born out of the crisis of German historical studies; a spectre that haunts the discipline, and academic life generally. As such, it carries the baggage of these historical debates [Weber especially]. These issues receive their clearest [English] exposition in Igger's text, and, as such, should be mandatory reading for all sociologists regardless of persuasion.
