Para ler Jon Elster: limites e possibilidades da explicação por mecanismos nas ciências sociais

• Main Authors: Ratton Júnior José Luiz de Amorim, Morais Jorge Ventura de
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro 2003-01-01
• Series: Dados: Revista de Ciências Sociais
• Subjects: Jon Elster; explanation; mechanisms
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0011-52582003000200007

The article aims to investigate and discuss not only the innovations but also the limitations, tensions, and gaps in Jon Elster's methodological concepts, characterized by a type of intentional-causal explanation whose premise is methodological individualism and which chooses the search for explanatory mechanisms as the fundamental analytical strategy. The Norwegian author's theoretical trajectory is reconstructed and articulated with his ''methodology of explanation''. Next, this ''methodology of explanation'' is submitted to analysis by raising and discussing some objections to this approach, as well as answers to such questions that can be found in Elster's work.