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The paper studies a pattern of thought, sometimes called "the practical syllogism". The first premise of this pattern is a statement about an agent's intention to achieve a certain result. The second premise is a statement about what he considers necessary for him to do in order to achieve this aim. The conclusion is a statement to the effect, roughly speaking, that the agent proceeds to do the necessary things. What is the logical status of this type of argument or inference? The paper purports to show that the argument, when it is logically conclusive, is a schema of understanding behaviour in the light of assumed intentions and cognitive attitudes of an agent The argument also has uses for explanatory and predictive purposes. The author contends that, as a schema of explanation, the practical inference pattern holds a position in the human and social sciences similar to that of the deductive-nomological inference pattern ("the covering law model") in the natural sciences. Since the patterns are of different logical type, there is thus also a difference in kind between explanation in the natural sciences and in the sciences of man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]