Rationalité, relativisme, évolution sociale: une analyse critique du modèle cognitiviste de Boudon-Weber

This essay mainly concerns the foundation of a method of inquiry appropriate to the study of social reality. It starts from a criticism of Boudon-Weber's cognitivist method, the lacks of which seem particularly qualified for underlining the methodologic difficulties afflicting social thought. These lacks helps us to point out the reason and potentialities of our proposal on method that may be denominated 'social objectivism'. This proposal suggests additional objections both to Weber's cultural relativism and Boudon's anti-relativism, as well as to the notion of rationality and the theory of social evolution developed by those authors. A different notion of rationality is proposed and an alternative explanation of social process, referable both to the evolution and organization of human societies, is sketched out that may also be extended to the interpretation of historical processes.