It is a background assumption of much of social science - here called modernist social science - that, in principle, there are neither questions that it cannot decline nor answers that cannot be found. Modernist social science does not accept the issues of inescapability and of attainability; they are names for adversaries that need to be fought against. In contrast to modernism in social theory, this article argues that social theory not only cannot succeed in suppressing the questions of the (...) inescapable and the attainable but indeed needs to be reconceptualized such that an understanding of inescapability and attainability becomes one of its organizing elements. The argument is developed by discussing three central problematics of social theory - the continuity of self, the certainty of knowledge and the viability of the polity - and by showing that an irreducible pluralism of modes of social theorizing exists which includes positions that emphasize the questions of inescapability and attainability. The various perspectives on self, knowledge and polity can be related to each other by reasonings that link a philosophy of the social sciences to a historical sociology of modernity. (shrink)