The article titled "On reflexive and critical character of the contemporary social science" outlines the main arguments which are recently able to preserve the institutional autonomy and legitimacy of social sciences. Following the Weberian tradition of sociology this text delineates those ideas, beliefs and values which possibly will make institutional practices meaningful for their participants. The first part deals with the idea of discourse based on rational argumentation. It is argued that the constitutive belief in the possibility of rational consensus can be justified only in common with the idea of the cultivation of individual subjects as it was articulated historically by the Enlightenment. Nevertheless, this idea of cultivation raises several issues implicating questions of power and authority, like the establishment of distinction between those who are able cultivate others and those who have to be cultivated. These difficulties generated by the Enlightenment s ideals lead to the second part of the text which deals with a problem of differentiation between facts and values which is regarded to be highly problematic but at the same time inevitable in relation to the constitution of reflexive and critical social sciences. Accordingly, the legitimacy and institutional autonomy of contemporary social science faces two basic challenges: It has to deal with the relativist challenge of movements claiming that every community or subculture has to have its own science as well as with the mythological logic of political discourse incorporating social science into its own efforts of securing legitimacy.