Explanation and Understanding of Human Behavior

Abstract

In his interesting work Explanation and Understanding G. H. von Wright discusses the old, but recently much debated, controversy between the Aristotelian and the Galilean paradigms for research in the social sciences. The Aristotelian tradition emphasizes the purposive aspects and purposive explanation of human behavior while Galilean science looks for causal covering-law explanation of behavior.1 Explanation of action by citing its reasons is often understood to represent the Aristotelian mode of explanation. Among the recent advocates of teleological explanation especially the Neowittgensteinians (e.g., Anscombe, Melden) have to be mentioned. The views of von Wright also belong to this group. He claims that teleological explanations conforming to the pattern of (Aristotelian) practical syllogism are central to the social sciences : “It is a tenet of the present work that the practical syllogism provides the sciences of man with something long missing from their methodology: an explanation model in its own right which is a definite alternative to the subsumption-theoretic covering-law model. Broadly speaking, what the subsumption-theoretic model is to causal explanation and explanation in the natural sciences, the practical syllogism is to teleological explanation and explanation in history and the social sciences” (von Wright, 1971, p. 27).