The paper tries to inquire comprehensively and concisely into the philosophical nature of social science in a comparative way with the philosophy of natural science. Social science is examined with “ontology-epistemology-methodology” as a frame of reference. It shows that the philosophical nature of social science, in all its dimensions of ontology, epistemology and methodology, can be characterized as a pattern, and they are respectively “substance of liberty-social phenomenon in connection with value”, “practical reason-understanding” and “conception-transcendent deduction”. And their counterparts in natural science are respectively “substance of causality-natural phenomenon”, “theoretical reason-transcendental synthesis” and “conception-empirical deduction.”
当代知识论（contemporary theory of knowledge）作为哲学运动，是两股支流的汇合：一是它作为关于“知识是信念”的理论，乃孕育于作为方法论的分析哲学；二是它作为关于主体之经验直观能力的理论，乃是对从笛卡尔到康德的传统认识论的延伸。这决定了它包括两个部分，分别作为方法论和认识论。
