Scientific progress has many facets and can be conceptualized in different ways, for example in terms of problem-solving, of truthlikeness or of growth of knowledge. The main claim of the paper is that the most important prerequisite of scientific progress is the institutionalization of...

This paper articulates and defends three interconnected claims: first, that the debate on the role of values for science misses a crucial dimension, the institutional one; second, that institutions occupy the intermediate level between scientific activities and values and that they are to be...

A philosophical theory of explanation should provide solutions to a series of problems, both descriptive and normative. The aim of this essay is to establish the claim that this can be best done if one theorizes in terms of explanatory games rather than focusing on the explication of the concept...

This overview paper introduces some basic concepts of New Institutional Economics like the conceptualization of institutions as the rules of the game and then focuses on the two basic mechanisms of emergence and evolution of social institutions, i.e. as a product of collective action or as a...

The distinction between methodological individualism and rational choice theory is elaborated and a simple point is argued, that seems to be systematically neglected: methodological individualism is a postulate which is part of the metalanguage about social scientific theories, whereas rational...

There is hardly a conference on institutional analysis during which, at a certain point, a heated discussion will not start about the proper definition of the word "institution". This happens because most participants tend to think that every scientific discussion of institutions should have one...

There are three main approaches to scientific explanation in the philosophical literature. The unification approach claims that science explains by fitting the particular facts and events within a general theoretical framework. The mechanistic approach claims that science explains by identifying...

This comment on the legitimacy of intervention has two interrelated parts. The first part is of a general nature and concerns the problem of the justification of legitimate intervention. The second part will address the problem of intervention under conditions of epistemic and normative...

One way to show that text interpretation can be treated as a scientific problem is to show that the standards that are currently used in the natural sciences when dealing with problems not involving meaningful material can also be successfully employed in the case of text interpretation. These...

After providing a brief overview of the economic theory of judicial decisions this paper presents an argument for why not only the economic theory of judicial decisions, but also the rational choice approach in general, most often fails in explaining decision-making. Work done within the...