Introduction
One issue separating those who see social study as a branch of science and those who see it as a distinctive study of meaningful behaviour is thus what counts as an explanation in the human sphere. A second, perhaps obviously enough, is how to go about establishing such explanation as it is appropriate to seek. In so far as science seeks to establish general laws, it might seem that the most straightforward way for it to proceed would be to make a great number of observations and see what general laws those particular observations added up to. Schematically, if we represent the various facts that have been established as a, b, c, d, etc. and if we write ‘T’ for the theory that is supposed to come from them, we may express the alleged relationship between the facts and the theory like this:
a is fact b is a fact
c is a fact d is a
fact
therefore, T is a valid theory.
The theory is supposed to follow from the facts by a rigorous process of argument.
