Rationality and Interpretation: Parliamentary Elections in Early Stuart England
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Description
It is sometimes thought that rational choice and interpretive explanations of social phenomena are intrinsically opposed to each other in the sense that if one is successful in accounting for something, the other must be either wrong or superfluous. In this essay I try to show why this view is not only incorrect but is also profoundly unproductive in helping us to a richer understanding of social life. I shall argue that rational accounts and interpretive accounts are or can be complementary in an important sense. Both interpretive and rational explanations are inherently incomplete as accounts of action. At best either type of explanation can eliminate certain patterns of action as inconsistent, but they cannot fully account for social action. Fortunately, the incompleteness of each kind of explanation can be (partly) overcome by appeal to the other.
Source Publication
The Economic Approach to Politics: A Critical Reassessment of the Theory of Rational Action
Source Editors/Authors
Kristen Renwick Monroe
Publication Date
1991
Recommended Citation
Ferejohn, John A., "Rationality and Interpretation: Parliamentary Elections in Early Stuart England" (1991). Faculty Chapters. 517.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/517
