Understanding Human Action

Is human behavior determined in accordance with causal laws available to scientists? Is science capable of making sense of human actions and social life? This book is a penetrating inquiry into the question of what social science is all about. In it, Michael A. Simon challenges the prevailing view with his thesis that the social sciences are sciences in name only, and are based upon the freedom and uniqueness of the human subjects of scientific explanation.

Combining sound scholarship with clear, readable prose, Simon explains why freedom must be a primitive conception and indicates the conditions for human uniqueness. He offers a proposal for what the social sciences might become if researchers recognize that they are not scientists in the ordinary sense of the word.