Where Explanation Ends Understanding as the Place the Spade在解释结束理解的地方.pptVIP

The only thing that would make them explanatory would be for them to function as theories, that is, for them to be claimed to be true. But economics, on this account, into the category of irrefutable and thus empirically irrelevant. Deducing results from “postulates” which represent ideal forms of behavior precludes a “theoretical basis for an appraisal of the idealization involved”. But he thinks that economic theory can be saved if economic theory could be deduced as a special case from a more general theory of social action, of the kind which, he optimistically notes, were being proposed at the time (by Parsons!). The theoretical systems are then understood in accordance with the standard conception of empirical theory, and are thus testable on the basis of predictions about observable phenomena, because, as special cases, their ‘area of application’ is defined. Open ceteris paribus clauses mean that any predictive failure can be claimed to be the result of “external” conditions. This is an answer to the completion question: completion occurs when there is a valid empirical theory. A More Basic Distinction The type is an idealized example of an intelligible action– a narrative. These examples of intelligible actions are already described in a way that they are “explained.” They don’t need to be backed by anything else. The problem is whether the idealizations apply to anything. Theories, in contrast, need to meet at least three standards: to be intuitively intelligible, to be in a form that is explanatory, and to be true. Intentions If we grant this– that individual intentional explanations are complete and intelligible without reference to general laws– just by filling a narrative form, we get back to an earlier answer. But this answer has its own troubles: are narratives merely interpretations, of which there may be many consistent with the facts? Hermeneutic Circles One answer is yes: that they are never complete– that attributions of intentions a