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 standards involve intersubjective intelligibility, testability with the use of evidence, rational argumentation, and making methodological decisions aiming at the attainment of truth, accuracy, simplicity and other epistemic values. In the case of text (...) interpretation—despite the fact that we deal with meaningful material—hypotheses can be formulated, consequences can be drawn by deduction, and these can be tested against empirical data. This claim is substantiated by the provision of an example of a scientific text. (shrink)

This essay will defend a causal conception of action explanations in terms of an agent’s reasons by delineating a metaphysical and epistemic framework that allows us to view folk psychology as providing us with causal and autonomous explanatory strategies of accounting for individual agency. At the same time, I will calm philosophical concerns about the issue of causal deviance that have been at the center of the recent debates between causalist and noncausalist interpretations of action explanations. For that purpose, it (...) is important to realize that the domain of folk-psychological action explanation is also the domain of skillful and goal-directed bodily movements, a domain to which we have independent epistemic access. (shrink)

The aim of the present article is twofold. Firstly, it aims to study the problems arising from the notion of rule proposed by Peter Winch in The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy to account for all meaningful behavior. On the one hand, it will analyze the problems in the argument posed by Winch in order to state that all meaningful behavior is governed by rules. On the other hand, it will focus on the problems concerning (...) his conception of rules and rule-following, with specific emphasis on pointing out the issues that arise from the criterion posed by Winch in order to determine when a rule is being followed. Secondly, it aims to reassess Winch’s proposal and reformulate, accommodate and define his notion of rule in an intentional account of meaningful behavior, thus solving the problems presented. In addition, it will provide a criterion that allows to determine when a rule is being followed. (shrink)

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 mechanisms. According to the manipulationist approach an explanation ought to be such that it can be used to answer a “what-if-things-had-been-different question.” The article examines whether these three approaches are compatible or not in the case of the social sciences, and (...) it concludes by defending explanatory pluralism. (shrink)