The Internal Normativity of Social Sciences

The present chapter aims to establish an ideal model of internal or epistemic normativity for social sciences. Following the legacy of Wolfgang Spohn (2011), the text studies internal normativity, or epistemic normativity, as a central criterion of demarcation of social sciences. The internal normativity that subjects use to understand social phenomena is the core of this scientific knowledge and goes beyond the account of empirical methodologies that appeal to an external normativity that is not exclusively used to address objects and problems relative to social sciences. Through an exhaustive analysis of Wolfgang Spohn’s ranking theory (2012), the work defines the epistemic foundations of such internal normativity as the background to the ulterior construction of a new ideal model and a toolbox of applications, given the internal or epistemic normativity proposed herein, to the realm of social sciences. Thus, this is an indispensable task in studying social practices from a scientific perspective.