ABSTRACT
In the language of common sense the word 'because' (that is, by-cause) usually precedes an answer to a Why-question and serves as a signal for the beginning of a story about a particular cause or set of causes. A happening is felt to be explained when its causes are understood, that is, when some reasonable tale about what made it happen has been produced. In terms of the perspective offered by the paradigm being displayed here then, the attribution of causes to happenings turns out - in the last analysis - to be much more of a metatheoretical business than a logical one. For sociological paradigms are in many ways 'roomier' than psychological ones. After all, inspiration for the weaving of fairy tales often seems to come from below as well as from above. However, at times of paradigm crisis and paradigm change in sociology, questions of being arise in urgent forms and sociologists are not afraid to suggest answers.
