Karl Popper and the Social Sciences

SUMMARY

of Tocqueville, Paul Veyne, Alexander Zinoviev, Karl Marx, and many others (see Elster 1993, 1985). SUMMARY In this final chapter I have shown that Popper’s situational analysis can benefit greatly by incorporating psychology, and in particular psychological mechanisms , into its explanatory models. While Popper called for the expulsion of psychology from situational analysis, I have argued that the incorporation of psychology into situational models does not violate the central aim of the approach—to generate middle-range models of social phenomena that rely on individuals acting in structured situations.The use of psychology in situational models need not insulate them from objective criticism, nor do psychological explanations of human behavior need to replace explanations animated by the rationality principle. Psychological mechanisms may, rather, supplement explanations grounded in rational action, as in Elster’s explanation of political revolutions . I would like to think that Popper would have approved of Elster’s approach to explanation. Indeed, as we saw in Popper’s account of Marx’s prediction of communist revolution, Popper himself invoked the psychological mechanism of wishful thinking to account for certain aspects of Marx’s theory. Perhaps pointing out to Popper his use of psychology in his own methodological practices would have been sufficient to convince him of the value of psychology for situational analysis. THE SHORTCOMINGS OF SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS 119 ...