The controversies over the thesis of the unity of the natural and social sciences and its kin, social scientific naturalism, which are conventionally but misleadingly dated as having begun with A. Comte,' are still very much with us. And for good reason. Throughout the history of these controversies many important issues about the social sciences were raised, some of which are still unsettled and which deserve review. I propose to consider some of them and to criticise some assumptions which were supported both by social scientific naturalists and their opponents (whom we may label anti­social scientific naturalists) about and in the course of the controversies.