ABSTRACT
The controversy between naturalists and anti-naturalists about the nature of explanation in social sciences has been discussed in the previous chapters. In this chapter, a thorough critical assessment of the concerned views has been made to come to a viably reasonable conclusion. It seems that the views expressed by both naturalists and anti-naturalists regarding the nature of explanation in social sciences are on the extreme side, so I have attempted to reconcile the notion of interpretive understanding or rational explanation with that of causal explanation. Interpretative understanding must be supplemented by causal explanation, but it does not mean that the former constitutes justifying principles while the latter constitutes the explanatory principle. It is only for the explanation of some actions that the latter is necessary, in case of most of the actions, they are only desirable but not necessary.
