This meta-theoretical article approaches a range of problems concerning to what we do when explaining actions. Explanation is presented in a pragmatic framework: explaining is a theoretical communicative practice. The goal is to analyze how social actors go on when they explain and to elucidate what kind of activity is to explain other people's actions. To identify and to describe actions is part of a broader activity of ascribing motives and intentions, activity that aims to assure action intelligibility. This perspective implies to shift the explanation problem from the epistemological level to the sociological level, tied to contexts and circumstances where explanation is a resource to act and interact.
Philosophy of social sciences; Action; Explanation