On The Relationship Between Understanding And Explaination In The Methodology Of The Humanities And The Social Sciences

The relationship between understanding and explantion has been the central topic of the methodology of the social sciences since 19th century. The enormous literature on this subject can be mainly divided into two traditions, namely, the positivist and the humanist tradition. The adherents of positivism are in pursuit of "the unity of science" on the basis of natural science's methodology. However, the methodology of natural science has its limitation. The adherents in the humanist tradition see it clearly and take their own stand uncompromisingly. From their point of view, their mission is undermine the dominance of naturalism and positivism in this field. They emphasize the importance of understanding and argue for the autonomy and independence of human science. At the same time, under some circumstances, their overemphasis on understanding paralysizes the legitimacy of explanation in social science.There are two approaches in the humanist tradition the Continental tradition and Anglo-American tradition. As the leading scholar of the Continental tradition, Max Weber integrated understanding and explanation, and made tremendous contribution to the methodology of social science. On the contrary, Winch introduced a brand-new way of thinking into social research, and argued that explanation is inappropriate for human and social science.This article attempts to explore the role played by understanding and explanation in social science. The author believes that Weber's integration of the two methods is more reasonable than Winch. Actually, without explanation, the understandidng of social phenomena cannot be scientific at all.