Max Weber (1968) tried to formulate rules for the cooperation between the
two antagonistic traditions. He argued that an understanding of human
behaviour based on interpretation presents at first a certain qualitative selfevidence.
That an interpretation shows this self-evidence to a high degree
does not provide proof of its empirical validity, because processes of
behaviour showing the same development and results can occur under
highly differing constellations of motives. What seems the most evident
motive is not always the motive that really guides the behaviour. For this
reason, the ‘understanding’ of relationships has to be checked with customary
methods of causal analysis before any seemingly self-evident ‘understanding’
becomes an intellectual explanation.