Situational logic

For situational analysis in strategic management, see Situation analysis.

Situational logic (also situational analysis)[1] is a concept advanced by Karl Popper in his The Poverty of Historicism.[2] Situational logic is a process by which a social scientist tries to reconstruct the problem situation confronting an agent in order to understand that agent's choice.

Noretta Koertge (1975) provides a helpful clarificatory summary.[note 1]

First provide a description of the situation:
''Agent A was in a situation of type C''.
This situation is then analysed
''In a situation of type C, the appropriate thing to do is X.''
The rationality principle may then be called upon:
''agents always act appropriately to their situation''
Finally we have the explanadum:
''(therefore) A did X.''[3]
  1. ^ Boumans, M. and Davis, John B. (2015), Economic Methodology: Understanding Economics as a Science, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 92.
  2. ^ Popper, Karl (2013), The Poverty of Historicism, Routledge, p. 141.
  3. ^ Koertge, N. (1975), "Popper's Metaphysical Research Program for the Human Sciences", Inquiry, 18 (1975), 437–62.


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