Understanding in the Social Sciences

Scientific understanding has been a hot topic for the past two decades. It has been argued that understanding plays a vital role in scientific practice. It has also been argued that an understanding-based approach sheds new light on many central debates in the philosophy of science (e.g. explanation, modelling, and scientific progress). That said, most of the discussion on scientific understanding is limited in the context of the natural sciences. It is somehow surprising that the notion and role of understanding in the social sciences is not much discussed. Understanding is one of the most important concepts in the social sciences. Interpretivism, one of the most influential accounts of the nature of social science, maintains that understanding is the aim of the social sciences. This paper examines the notion of understanding in the social sciences. Firstly, I begin with a brief review of the historical development of the philosophical discussion on understanding. Secondly, I examine the applicability of the main accounts of natural-scientific understanding in the context of the social sciences. Contra Khalifa (2019), I argue that none of these accounts well captures the notion of understanding required by social scientists, especially interpretivists. Thirdly, I identify a few key features of understanding in the social sciences. I argue that those accounts of natural-scientific understanding are misleading and develop a new approach to scientific understanding which may account for understanding across the social sciences.