This chapter explores the relation between phronesis in doing social science and what I will call everyday phronesis. A core topic of social scientific study is the dependence of human action on phronesis, understood as people's practical wisdom in dealing with both routine decisions and unexpected contingencies. This practical wisdom seems to have three aspects: it is content, a quality of persons, and a form of action. As content, phronesis is a resource – a stock of experiential knowledge. As a quality of persons, it is what enables acquisition and appropriate use of that knowledge – a capacity. And as action, phronesis necessarily involves doing something – a practice in which experiential knowledge is both used and gained. Having phronesis is iteratively dependent on practising phronesis.

For social science phronesis has to be more than a topic; it is what social scientific study requires from researchers (Flyvbjerg 2001), and what social science seeks to enhance in those whom I will call readers. Real social science is when studying the world has the effect of changing it. This chapter discusses social theories in which the study of everyday practical wisdom works to enhance their readers’ capacity for phronesis.