ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Nagel's criticism of the claim made by M. Weber and his school that the social sciences seek to 'understand' social phenomena in terms of 'meaningful' categories of human experience and that, therefore, the 'causal-functional' approach of the natural sciences is not applicable in social inquiry. The concept of human action in terms of common-sense thinking and of the social sciences includes what may be called 'negative actions', that is, intentional refraining from acting, which, of course, escapes sensory observation. The chapter explains the theory formation of all social sciences. The scientific constructs formed on the second level, in accordance with the procedural rules valid for all empirical sciences, are objective ideal typical constructs and, as such, of a different kind from those developed on the first level of common-sense thinking which they have to supersede. Forms of naturalism and logical empiricism simply take for granted social reality, which is the proper object of the social sciences.
