ABSTRACT
Pareto’s theory of action contains some aspects that make it seem still relevant today. For example, he made central contributions to the marginalist revolution, which on the one hand makes him appear sociologically as a father of theories of rational choice. In addition to this sociological side of his theory of rationality, however, a deeper analysis also shows that in his work we find the principle of “reasons as causes”, which is much discussed in philosophy and can be understood as a general basic principle of rational actions. This principle is also found in another classic of sociology, his contemporary Max Weber. At the same time, Pareto formulated a theory of unconscious causation of action with his theory of residues and derivatives, which contains a conception of irrationality as we find it today in Donald Davidson. Based on this, it turns out that Pareto is thus also a classic of the theory of social practices.
