ON INTERPRETATION AND SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

The paper aims to systemize the operations involved in the interpretation of the research results and scientific explanation. It draws attention to the complex issues of the scientific laws, deals with the relation between an action and its cause, emphasizes the difference between knowledge and cognition, and considers the conditions of a good argumentation and the impossibility to separate the interpretation from the explorative analysis. It also draws attention to a 'sociological turn' in the philosophy of science. It reviews several types of the explanations including hypothetical, genetic and teleological. Article concludes by highlighting the so-called tacit knowledge, which can not be formulated explicitly and in some cases it can not be even explained. Author regards this as a source of inspiration for the social sciences, which produce new knowledge under the conscious recognition of inherent limits of their own reality perceptions.