ABSTRACT
Hermeneutic considerations have evidenced meaning as the central category in the study of social phenomena. In relation to it, sociological approaches could be differentiated according to whether, and how, they recognized the operation of the double hermeneutic that arises from it. Scientistic sociology reduces meaningful social action to stimulated behaviour. The hermeneutic paradigm stresses the commonality of understanding and hereby points to the grounding of acts of understanding in a shared 'tradition' which mediates different language-game. The interpretation of meaningful action therefore follows the hermeneutical circle in its reference to the matrix of traditioned meaning which itself informs the motives of individual social actors. The category of meaning central to a hermeneutic sociology should therefore be seen as processual and relational. The Logic of Science conceives of 'data' as possible instances of general laws and as subsumable under a classificatory scheme.
