Abstract
Recently various attempts of explaining institutions or social order are commonplace among scholars in the side of rational choice theory. Yet, it is not clear what those attempts actually accomplished.
First, the basic structure of explanation in rational choice theory has to be clarified. Among four types of concepts of “rationality”. i. e. rationality of preference, strong rationality, weak rationality, and creative rationality, only weak rationality can serve as the theoretically meaningful concept in rational choice theory. Rational choice theory explains individual's action by logically deriving it from his subjective preference and subjective knowledge, which may be called “primary theory”, about the situation which surrounds him. These preference and knowledge have to be inferred by theorists.
Secondly, institutions and social order are conceptually distinguished from mere aggregates of actions. They are rather rooted in primary theories of actors. Knowledges are inept to be rationally explained.
Hence, to the extent that institusions and social order are founded on the knowledges which are not rationally founded, rational choice theory fails to explain them.
