The author attempts to demonstrate that there is a valuable complementarity between three epistemological perspectives which have often been considered incompatible: methodological individualism (MI), the theory of scientific explanation based on the Popper-Hempel model and the theory of the “hermeneutic circle” of Gadamer. The MI can represent a logic of explanation that guarantees the scientificity of social explanations only by using: a) the deductive-nomological model to explain the causes and consequences (intentional and unintentional), especially at the macro level, of the actions and b) the Gadamerian hermeneutics to reconstruct the subjective cognitive and decision-making strategies. In particular, we will insist on demonstrating that Gadamer’s “hermeneutic circle” describes a cognitive process that proceeds by conjecture and refutation and that it is fundamental to scientifically explain the actor’s interpretation of the problematic context in which he finds himself and therefore to reconstruct the “good reasons” that lead him to identify a given action as a hypothesis for a solution in response to the situation of uncertainty he deals with.
Keywords
- Individualism
- Action
- Praxeology
- Rationality
- Explanation
- Causality
- Hermeneutics