Interpretation, Explanation, and Prediction

Justin, quelle est la diffrence entre l'interprtation, l'explication et la prdiction?

-Professeur Hlne Landemore
The Social Sciences are a child of the Enlightenments project for a rational
understanding of the world. From the 1795 essay of Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical
Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit, we can see that natural sciences and social
sciences moral sciences were equated. The success of the natural sciences had led
Condorcet and the rest of the Western world to believe that the same methodology could
simply be adopted for the study of Man and morality. With the expansion of our
capacities for reason, we would one day use the social sciences to discover the best
society to live in and the best life to lead. But, first recognized by Dilthey, and then by
Weber, there is a crucial difference between the natural sciences and social sciences that
will always keep them very separate. This difference is that social sciences require
interpretation. Interpretation is reaching understanding of the meanings and significances
held by another person. This is captured by the German word verhesten, used by Weber,
which means the sense or meaning of something.
For the natural sciences, an explanation is an understanding of causal laws, that
when given certain initial conditions will predict the outcome. So, explanation and
prediction are very close for natural sciences. But, for social sciences, the goal of
explanation is instead the interpretation of meanings. While we might independently
strive for prediction as well in the social sciences, prediction is often contradictory to
explanation and interpretation. The necessity of interpretation also makes prediction
much more difficult in the social sciences. This essay will explicate the meaning of and
relations between interpretation, explanation, and prediction in the social sciences to
discern how to do social sciences.
If we take the Kuhnian perspective on natural science, we can only understand the
world through the concepts we use. There is no real world that we can come to see and
speak about objectively it is instead relative to the concepts we use. So, natural science
constructs concepts to talk about the world. Outsiders of the community of scientists will
not understand these concepts and so will not be able to see the world as scientists do.
They must interpret these concepts come to understand their meanings in order to see
the scientists world. This is one level of the problem of interpretation verhesten.
In social sciences, there is another level of interpretation - the object of study
itself has its own concepts and meanings that must be interpreted. For natural sciences,
from the anti-realism of Kuhn, the particles and stars do not have their own intrinsic
meaning or concepts we instead create concepts to talk about them. But, people the
object of study for social sciences already have their own concepts that they use to
understand the world. So, to treat humans as fellow humans, social scientists must first
come to understand the meanings of their subjects, and only then can they create concepts
to talk about these subjects. From the outside of a social science community, as Charles
Taylor points out, there is double interpretation interpretation of the peoples concepts
and then interpretation of the social scientists concepts about their subjects.
With the first level of interpretation understanding peoples own meanings and
concepts we have given a specific goal to the social sciences different from the natural
sciences. But, why is this level of interpretation necessary for social sciences? Why

must we understand peoples own meanings? This is because of the specific type of
knowledge we seek to get out of our social science investigations, as Weber points out.
We seek knowledge of social reality, which is the collection of meanings held by
individuals. So, to understand anything about this reality, we must first understand the
concepts and meanings that make it up the first level of interpretation. As Weber
further points out, this requires understanding the relations between meanings, which he
calls the constellation of meanings. To understand the meaning of money, we might
have to understand the relations between peoples perception of money, how it is
exchanged, and how the government uses it to regulate inflation. The total collection of
meanings in a society is called culture.
Out of all the possible meanings to investigate, we must be more specific about
what an explanation is in social sciences. As with natural sciences, an explanation of an
event is a description of its cause and context. In natural sciences, we give a law that
traces how event A caused event B. More than just a historical recount, these laws in
natural science can actually predict outcomes as well because they are universally true.
Such predictive laws are called covering laws by Hempel. Given an event A the initial
conditions and the covering law, we can always predict accurately event B the
outcome. In fact, every time the initial conditions occur, we know that the predicted
outcome will occur as well.
But, for social sciences we have not been able to find any universally true and
predictive laws, and never will. So, as Jon Elster advocates, we should abandon this
attempt to find such covering law equivalents for the social sciences. We should instead
find general patterns that can be used to trace historical developments from specific
meanings and events the causes to their effects. To explain the evolution of the
division in labor as Durkheim does, we should give a full description of the labor
institution, how it was not specialized at some historical point, and how the common
consciousness was disintegrating. This last description is the specific cause within the
historical context. Then we must give a general pattern, such as 'as consciousness
disintegrates, specialization arises,' and a description of labor specialization now. These
general patterns suggesting causal relations are called mechanisms by Jon Elster.
As Elster advocates, any sort of intuitive causal relation can be used as a
mechanism, even if it isn't always true or the only cause. Causal relations from
storytelling are a fine example. To explain if a child growing up with alcoholic parents
will become an alcoholic, there are two common, but opposing, stories. Sometimes
'children mimic parents,' and other times, 'children purposely oppose parents' behaviors.'
When the child is still growing, we will not be able to predict the outcome reliably,
although we may have probabilistic estimates. Either story may be operating. But, after
the child grows up, we will recognize the operating mechanism immediately and can
explain the behavior it caused. This is a common feature of mechanisms and is an
acceptable explanation.
Clearly, neither the division of labor explanation, nor the alcoholism explanation
are detailed enough. For the division of labor explanation, even if we describe in detail
the historical and the current constellation of meanings, our mechanism connecting them
is vague. We might want more evidence to show that in more instances this general
pattern holds up. Or, we might want more explanation of the processes taking place that
eventually lead to specialization from a disintegration of common consciousness many,

more micro mechanisms. Every mechanism is a 'black box,' as Elster says; it can always
be filled in with more mechanisms underlying it. As part of the scientific endeavor, we
should always seek explanations of more and more detail, expanding the number of links
in the causal chains. But, where does this ever more detailed explanation tend towards?
Is there a most basic level of causal mechanism? For this, we must refer back to the
discussion on interpretation.
The cause and effect connected by a mechanism are meanings embedded in social
reality. But, these meanings don't exist and cause each other on their own. From an
ontological perspective of social reality, there are only individuals and the meanings they
understand. So, these meanings must be mediated by individuals when they cause one
another. The causal mechanisms we have been discussing operate temporally, so
meanings cannot cause other meanings through their conceptual relations, but instead
only through the temporal actions of individuals. There is no 'common consciousness' or
a 'division of labor' that exists on its own. These only refer to attitudes held by
individuals. So, unlike Durkheim, it doesn't make sense to say that one of these cultural
forces caused another, except through the mediating actions of individuals over time.
Similarly, unlike the belief of economics, money doesn't exist on its own, but only as a
varying concept held by individuals. So, money doesn't cause anything, only individuals
acting with the concept of money. This leads us to accept individual actions as the basis
of social science explanations a doctrine known as methodological individualism.
Group concepts such as social institutions or those about the organization of society,
called societal facts by Mandelbaum i.e. banks or the government can only be used in
social science explanations as concepts understood by individuals. As actors or causes,
these larger concepts must be reduced to the individual actors that compose them.
In social science explanations, as shown above, a description of the meaning of an
action is necessary for an understanding of it. If we don't describe the proper meaning of
the action as understood by the actors themselves, then we are not gaining knowledge of
social reality, and so not doing social science. Without this necessary first level of
interpretation, we would be describing behaviors, not actions, since actions are
interpretive. If we describe a man insulting another man by the movement of their
mouths and the sounds said, we are stripping the action of its meaning and so instead
describing a behavior. To understand an insult as an action, we must describe how the
actors understand the meanings of what is said. So, it is actually the meaning of
individuals actions that is the basis of social science explanations. Essential to
understanding this meaning of an action is its context. To understand someone at a bank
sliding a green piece of paper to someone on the other side of a counter, you must
understand the meaning of money, the meaning of the banking institution, and the
meaning of a withdrawal. Otherwise, you might conclude that one man was stealing
from another.
We now see that a proper social science explanation must be made of mechanisms
linking meaningful individual actions to other meaningful actions. To give alcoholism
explanation in terms of individual actions, we would say that the person drinks alcohol
now because he copied his parents drinking alcohol as a child. But, this doesn't give the
proper interpretation of his drinking alcohol now. It doesn't allow us to understand his
meaning of drinking alcohol, and instead describes it as a behavior. Besides causally
connecting actions by mechanisms, we can add more links to the causal chain between

actions. This involves explaining the cause of an action in terms of its meaning. As
Donald Davidson shows, the immediate cause of an action is its reason for being
performed, as understood by the actor himself. In the most general sense, a primary
reason consists of a proattitude i.e. to want or desire of the agent towards an action of
a type and the belief that the action performed is of that type (Davidson). To say that
someone wants or desires something is basically the same as saying someone has a
proattitude or tendency towards it. Action is intentional, so a desire to accomplish an end
causes us to perform the action we believe will bring about that end. The causal relation
between the reason and the action is the most basic mechanism, to which all explanations
should strive. But, besides just adding more causal links in our explanation, explaining
an action by its reason is also necessary to understand the meaning of the action. Context
is not enough, although it will often give a clue to the reason. An action cannot be
understood as intentional without understanding its intent, which is given by the reason.
The reason is also the justification for performing that particular action as oppose to
another, giving understanding of its context.
To expand on the explanation of withdrawing money at a bank, we can't
understand the transaction without understanding that the reason it was performed was to
have more cash available to use. This desire for more usable cash is the immediate cause
of the withdrawing transaction. Having more usable cash is also the intent of
withdrawing money and the justification for traveling all the way to bank. We might
further show that his boss firing him caused him to believe he is low on cash, causing his
desire to have more available cash, which then caused him to go to the bank. But, his
boss firing him didn't immediately cause him to withdraw money. The reasons are
necessary for a proper explanation. Of course, explanations of macro phenomenon need
not reduce down to the individual reasons for each action of each person. They can
instead abstract a reason across many individuals and actions.
The interpretation of the reason for an action and its context is the most basic
mechanism of a social science explanation. This intersection of interpretation and
explanation finally delineates the object of interpretation, to discern and understand the
reason an individual has for performing an action and the meaning of its context. So,
interpretation is necessary for explanation. And, when interpretation is specific enough
finding reasons for action it is simultaneous with an explanation. But, this process of
coming to understand meaning is difficult and often fails. The study of it is called
Hermeneutics. To every situation, we bring a preunderstanding of that situation and the
world, from which all of our interpretations arise. This total preunderstanding we have
gained through our life experiences is called, by Habermas, our Lifeworld. When we try
to immediately interpret an action or situation of an individual with a different
preunderstanding, we will end up with different interpretations. This is because we have
divergent lifeworlds. But through communicating with the people of study and
discovering where your interpretations differ, it is possible for a social scientist to reach
understanding with them and thus to interpret an action and situation as they do. To
interpret an actor's reasons for an action, we can ask the actor for his reason. Or, we can
present him with a reason and see if he agrees with it. We can even go to his community
and see how they interpret his reason for acting. So, while interpretation is the first step
before explanation, its difficulties can be overcome to allow for complete explanations.

Now that explanation and interpretation in the social sciences have been properly
explicated, we can look at the possibilities for prediction. When looking historically at a
specific action, we can usually explain it with a specific reason as a mechanism. But, this
specific reason is not always, or even often, true for the situation or action. There may be
many possible reasons for an action and many different desires that arise from any
situation. So, given a situation and competing desires proattitudes it is very difficult
to predict which desire will end up causing an action, and what action will result given a
desire. With the specific demands of interpretive explanation in social science, prediction
is very difficult, and impossible without abstraction. It is possible of course to give
statistical estimates of the probability of an abstracted action occurring given an
abstracted situation, but this is not an explanation of anything. We gain no understanding
of social reality.
To attempt prediction while retaining explanation, we instead abstract the
mechanism of the reasons for action. Let us analyze Elster's example of an opera where
the people who paid less money hated it, while the people who paid more said it was a
good opera. When pushed to it, the high payers might admit that the reason they said
they enjoyed it was 'to convince themselves it was a good opera and not feel the guilt of
wasting money.' But, we can abstract from this specific reason to a more generalized
mechanism, the 'resolving of cognitive dissonance,' without losing much explanatory
detail. When presented with this new abstracted reason, people would still probably
agree to it as a reason for their action. This mechanisms of cognitive dissonance can
predict a specific action between a few alternatives given a situation, while still
explaining it. But, if there are several actions that 'resolve cognitive dissonance' it can't
explain how the actor chooses between them or predict how the actor will chose. Also,
given a situation, we cannot know if the individual will have the proattitude towards
cognitive dissonance, or its opposite as with the alcoholism example. Although,
because it is abstracted, we can at least give probabilistic estimates of when cognitive
dissonance will be used in different situations and so which actions might be performed.
This allows us to give possible detailed explanations as predictions.
The only way in social sciences to give definite predictions and explanations is by
assuming a rational actor. This is Rational Choice Theory. In this, we assume an
abstracted form of peoples' preferences for certain ends and beliefs about the world, as
well as that people will totally maximize those ends. Then, given a specific situation and
peoples' abstracted preferences and beliefs, they will chose to perform the action that
maximizes their preferences. Their reason for the action is thus to maximize their desired
general end to do what is rational. The more specific and detailed their preferences and
beliefs, the better the prediction and explanation, but the less usable it is across many
individuals and situations. The more abstracted the preferences and beliefs i.e.
Economic's 'maximizing money' preference and perfect information the more generally
usable the prediction is for more situations, but the less chance that it will actually
explain an action give an acceptable reason. Getting the best prediction often requires
ad hoc changing of preferences and desires so that predicted actions are most accurate.
Clearly, doing so takes away any of its ability to explain action.
Rational Choice Theory can give a determined action of an individual, given a
situation, without taking away the action's intentionality still explaining it. Underlying
the idea of a reason causing an action is that the actor chooses his action. He can give a

reason why he chose that specific action over any other. A reason for an action used in a
historical explanation need not be able to chose between any alternative action, only a
few, because it doesn't claim to be the only cause of the action. But, a prediction must
give all the causes that lead to its prediction. So, if a single reason predicts a single
action over any other, the reason must be the only cause, and so must be able to chose
between any alternative action.
For the cognitive mechanism of 'cognitive dissonance,' if we found that in specific
situations, people always perform the action that resolves cognitive dissonance, we still
wouldn't be able to predict which action an actor would chose if multiple actions resolved
cognitive dissonance. One way to determine the chosen action would be if there was a
single action always chosen, even if multiple actions resolved cognitive dissonance. But
then cognitive dissonance wouldn't be the reason used to choose between actions, so we
wouldn't be explaining the action. The reason of cognitive dissonance wouldn't
singularly cause that definite action. The other alternative to determining a specific
action would be to change the reason from 'resolve cognitive dissonance' to 'resolve the
most cognitive dissonance.' This mechanism outlines a rule the actor uses to chose
between any alternative action. It can predict a definite action and give the reason. But,
this mechanism is also a rational choice mechanism. It assumes that the actor is capable
of and will rationally chose the action that minimizes cognitive dissonance.
For a mechanism as the reason for taking an action to predict a definite action
and explain it, the mechanism must allow for a space of choice, from which the actor can
use the reason to chose between any alternative actions. To do so, the mechanism must
assume the actor can and will follow a rule that determines a best action. This rule is a
standard of evaluation that can rank any action and have no indifference in the top choice.
Given an end, the ability to construct such a standard and rank choices is the definition of
being rational, as in welfare economics. Performing an action because it maximizes a
standard is the same as choosing the most rational action given an end. Thus, any
mechanism that predicts a single action and explains it must assume a rational actor and
must explain by the reason of rational choice given an end and a situation. This is
Rational Choice Theory.
We have shown that Rational Choice Theory is the only way of predicting a
definite action and explaining it properly in the social sciences. But, besides a
mechanism's ability to predict an action, there is also the accuracy of the prediction to
consider. This is where rational choice theory begins to fail. Its predictions are not that
accurate because we are not perfectly rational. And, when we loosen up rationality,
allowing for emotions and heuristics, to increase the accuracy, we take away its ability to
give a definite prediction. There is also the problem that the reason we perform an action
is often not because it is most rational maximizes a preference. Unlike the natural
sciences, the ability of social sciences to predict definite outcomes, accurately predict,
and explain is rare.
Abandoning the natural science project of giving definite predictions, the goal of
the social sciences is to find mechanisms that explain, but are as universal as possible so
that they are most predictive. As shown above, the way to accomplish this is by having
abstracted mechanisms as reasons. If the reasons are too abstract, they will cease to
explain action, and if they are too detailed and concrete, they will not be universal
enough to predict anything. So, we should should not get swallowed into the detail of

anthropology or look up to the ideality of economics. Instead, social sciences should

proceed by searching for these middle ground mechanisms. Many of the social science
disciplines can be integrated to accomplish this. Cognitive science can used to find
cognitive mechanisms, such as resolving cognitive dissonance, that are used in all
cultures and a wide range of situations, and are easily acceptable as reasons for action.
When we have found many of these cognitive mechanisms, probability estimates can be
determined to predict which ones are likely to be used in different situations. Behavioral
economics can be used to improve rational choice theory and economic mechanisms to
increase accuracy and ability to explain. Culturally intuitive mechanisms, as Elster
advocates, can also be used for most intuitive explanations with some predictive value.
Unlike the beliefs of Peter Winch and postmodernism, all of these mechanisms
are cross-cultural or can be made cross-cultural through interpretation. They are not just
culturally local meanings, although postmodernism is right to point out they are not
universal. Rorty is also not right in believing at any causal relation or description is an
acceptable social science explanation, as this essay has shown. These middle ground
mechanisms of reasons for action can be used as the most basic explanatory units in more
macro mechanisms for all social sciences. In The Power of the Past, Rydren uses such
cognitive mechanisms to build macro explanations of nationalism from the media
portrayals of ethnic fear. The macro phenomenon of commemoration, when a whole
nation shares common memories and knowledge, can be explained by common
mechanisms we all undergo in our individual daily lives. Such mechanisms are cognitive
closure, availability heuristic, narrativization, and social reality-testing. They are from
cognitive science, behavioral economics, and anthropology. Specifically, social realitytesting is when we update our beliefs by checking them with others around us. On the
macro scale, this produces social homogeneity in beliefs and even ethnic isolation. This
allows us to explain large-scale group behavior from communities to states in the
international realm through individual actions and mechanisms. While the macro
mechanisms we can build up from middle ground micro mechanisms will not be the laws
of natural science, they will be able to explain and probabilistically predict large societal
processes reoccurring over cultures and throughout history. But, we must remember that
an explanation of social reality only comes from the specifics, the concrete meanings.
The farther away we go, the less we understand of what we actually want to.

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