The eight reflections in Part II deal with the knowledge or epistemic context as well as the methods available and applicable to Public Administration. It is conventional wisdom to accept that all knowledge is situated or even made possible by means of some framework of understanding. These epistemic contexts are often called approaches or paradigms. The concept paradigm was popularised by the historian of science Thomas Kuhn, who later became very well known as a philosopher of science. His book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, first published in 1962, showed how scientific knowledge, even in the most difficult of sciences, is influenced by things that we would not classify as scientific at all. Kuhn showed that scientists are very involved in a personal way in producing knowledge, that they work within socio-epistemic conventions, or paradigms, and act in ways that can be compared to the activities of religious sects. Blind belief and conversions are a part of science, although perhaps on a lesser scale than in politics and religion. The influence of Kuhn's book was remarkable. Kuhn caught a wave at the turning of the intellectual tide in the twentieth century. It was as if the intellectual community was waiting for this book to be published. With the influence of Kuhn, the next decades in mainstream meta-theory were dominated by the belief that knowledge cannot really be rational and science cannot really be objective. This is, of course, what the followers of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have argued all along. Marxism's view is that bourgeois knowledge and science are determined by the interests of their class.

Mouton is very well acquainted with these traditions and has published extensively as a philosopher of science. Against this background, Reflection 6 on the nature of social science forms an important correction to the relativist position in epistemology and the philosophy of science. Mouton maintains that truth should be an issue in science, that there are constraints on this pursuit, but that there remains a necessity for rational or objective scientific enquiry.

In Reflection 7, Schwella contextualises the approaches to Public Administration within the South African situation as he revisits the continued paradigmatic debate. He shows that there are fewer issues in respect of reductionism and reification, but that there are still serious issues in respect of relevance.