ARISTOTLE'S 'PHRONESIS' AND SOCIAL INQUIRY

The first part of the article consists in analysis of the meaning of Aristotelian concept of practical knowledge (phrónesis). The analysis takes into account the interpretations of 'phrónesis' by Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Thus interpreted 'phrónesis' serves as a model of understanding of the objects of the social sciences. The specific application of the model is explicated on the example of the meaning of the religious act. The second part concerns the thesis of radical incomprehensibility of the Holocaust and the role which conditions addressed by the concept of 'facticity' might play in answering the question about the sense of such a phenomenon like the Holocaust in XX century. It is claimed that philosophical reflection is not something external to social inquiry but concerns the conditions which play decisive role in constitution of the object of the social sciences. The final part reflects on the logical nature of the relation between 'the human' and 'the social'.