Towards the explanatory power of the interpretativism in social sciences

The paper draws on Sperber's thesis, according to which the social and hist orical sciences are a free alliance of various research programs with vario us objectives. One of the most expanded of these programs is interpretativi sm. Although the author acknowledges various interpretative approaches (the contextual interpretation and its thick and thin holistic versions, compar ative-rational interpretation), she focuses solely on the contextual interp retation. She defines it in the light of the difference between the thick a nd thin descriptions (G. Ryle), analyzes the conditions and the characteris tics of the interpretation (its circularity, indeterminacy, incompleteness and partiality). The attention is paid also to the consequences of Davidson 's radical interpretation for the interpretativism as well as to his concep tion, according to which reasons are not only causes, but also explanatory of what people do. Although the author sees the interpretation as an effect ive method in social and historical knowledge, its validity, its evidence a nd its intersubjective objectivity still remain open to questioning.