Situational logic (also situational analysis)Boumans, M. and Davis, John B. (2015), Economic Methodology: Understanding Economics as a Science, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 92. is a concept advanced by Karl Popper in his The Poverty of Historicism.Popper, Karl (2013), The Poverty of Historicism, Routledge, p. 141. 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.This use of this summary is from Boumans and Davis (2010).
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.''Koertge, N. (1975), "Popper's Metaphysical Research Program for the Human Sciences", Inquiry, 18 (1975), 437–62.
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