Woodcutters and Witchcraft

Mark W. Risjord is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Emory University.

"Mark Risjord's book is an important and original contribution to the philosophy of the social sciences. With his criterion of explanatory coherence, his constructive use of the erotetic or 'why' question approach to explanation, and his wide-ranging solution to the problem of apparent irrationality, Risjord challenges the assumptions about explanation and understanding shared by both sides of previous, seemingly intractable debates. This book should help reorient the field to the important problems of the social sciences in our era of explanatory pluralism." — James Bohman, author of New Philosophy of Social Science: Problems of Indeterminacy"The book provides a sustained development for an important—and, I think, in many ways correct—position on the relation between interpretation and explanation. The connections between them are well represented when Risjord puts the earlier discussions to work outlining ways in which meaning (and related matters) can feature in explanation (both as explanans and as explanatia). This topic is of great significance to the philosophy of the human sciences." — David Henderson, author of Interpretation and Explanation in the Human Sciences"The book provides a sustained development for an important—and, I think, in many ways correct—position on the relation between interpretation and explanation. The connections between them are well represented when Risjord puts the earlier discussions to work outlining ways in which meaning (and related matters) can feature in explanation (both as explanans and as explanatia). This topic is of great significance to the philosophy of the human sciences." — David Henderson, author of Interpretation and Explanation in the Human Sciences

• Acknowledgments 1Introduction 1.1 Breakdown and Reconstruction1.2 Synopsis 2Apparent Irrationality 2.1 Bloodsucking Witchcraft2.2 Sati2.3 Azande Witchcraft: Three Interpretations2.4 The Purrinton Murders2.5 Parameters of the Problem 3Interpretive Change 3.1 Charity3.2 Humanity3.3 Explanatory Coherence 4Explanation 4.1 Criteria of Adequacy4.2 The Erotetic Model of Explanation4.3 Presuppositions4.4 Interests and Laissez-Faire Contextualism4.5 Explanation and Coherence Revisited 5Intentional Action and Social Explanation 5.1 Explanatory Pluralism5.2 Intentional Action Explanations5.3 Social Explanations5.4 The Compatibility of Functional and Reason-Giving Explanations 6Meaning 6.1 The Problem of Meaning6.2 The Explanatory Value of Meaning6.3 Defusing the Double Hermeneutic 7Normativity 7.1 Norms, Action, and Explanation7.2 Norms, Rules, and Mistakes7.3 Contested Norms and the Community of Agents 8Conclusion 8.1 Interpretive Dynamics 1758.2 On the Relationship between the Social and Natural Sciences References Index