The Issue of Causal Explanation and Meaning Understanding of Social Action

This text deals with epistemological clash between positivistic and intentionalistic programs in the social sciences. The main question, raised here, is whether a social action can be comprehended in both causal and motivational terms, which is stressed to be necessary condition for the consistency of the social sciences. It enables imputing the deed to a concrete actor. The first part of the text deals with historical reconstruction of epistemological dualism between Kulturwissenschaften and Naturwissenschaften. Then the model of singular causality is critically examined. The concluding part suggests the decision of the problem basing on Wittgensteinian metaphor of changing the aspect.