Max Weber I: Method of Social Science

1. Max Weber I: Method of Social Science I have the answers! February 15, 2012 Instructor: Sarah Whetstone Hey, how should we study social life?

2. Introduction to Weber (1864-1920) • Born in Berlin in a middle class lifestyle • Worked as a lawyer, historian, and professor of economics and political science • Suffered from major depression early in his studies • Like Marx, drawn to practical political action – helped to found the German Democratic Party • Like Durkheim, worked to make sociology a serious science • Broad theoretical interests– politics, organizations, economy, law, religion • Most famous works: Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Economy & Society

3. Key Concepts“Objectivity” and “Basic Sociological Terms” • Objectivity in sociology – Is it possible? How? • Ideal Types • Verstehen • Emphasis on humanaction and meaning in social change • Rationality and “rational action” (vs “irrational” action) • Four types of social action • Value-rational (meaningful) • Goal-rational (instrumental) • Affectual (emotional) • Traditional (habitual)

4. Methods Debate: Is the social world like the natural world– can we observe it according to systematic “laws?” Of course! With empirical data and social facts, we can be just like any science! No way! What about subjective interpretation, meaning, and context?

5. How should we study society? “Pure science” or interpretation? Science = generalization through “laws” of cause-effect. But given variability of ideas and values, can we generalize about people & society? Do they follow definite “laws” like physical objects? Interpretation = focus on subjective motivation and historical context

6. The Problem of Objectivity in Social Research “The historian, as soon as he attempts to go beyond the bare establishment of concrete relationships and to determine the cultural significance of even the simplest individual event in order to ‘characterize’ it, must use concepts…” (213). What is Weber trying to say here about “objectivity?” “Objective” research is not possible, because we “comprehend reality only through a chain of intellectual modifications” (213). Each individual’s access to reality is ultimately subjective, because they interpret their world through particular frameworks and using particular concepts to understand it.

7. THE IDEAL TYPE, definitions (pg. 211) • Marx: materialism, Durkheim: social realism… • Weber: Ideal type - analytical construct that serves as a measuring rod to ascertain the similarities as well as deviations in concrete cases, and ultimately to generalize and attribute causality. • Ideal types make “characteristic features” of social processes or relationship “clear and understandable” (211). Example of confusion over meaning of “capitalist culture” (212). • Neither “description” nor “hypothesis (211) • Ideal types are “utopias”– “mental constructs… that cannot be found anywhere in reality” (211).

8. The Ideal Type: How do we use it in research? • “Research faces the task of determining in each individual case the extent to which this ideal construct approximates to or diverges from reality...” (212). Ideal types are “conceptual instruments for comparison with and measurement of reality” (215). • We use ideal types to study the “cultural significance” of social action. • Examples of ideal types? • From Weber: imperialism, individualism, feudalism • Capitalism, democracy, nuclear family – Concepts, not historical realities

9. In your groups, discuss themajor differences between Durkheim’s social fact and Weber’s ideal type. • Page 15: What is Weber’s “warning” about forming sociological concepts? Do you think Durkheim’s sociology avoids this? • Which do you think is a better model for doing sociology? Why?

10. Verstehen-the meaning, or motive, underlying social action- • Weber argues for an interpretive understanding of subjective motivations– the method of “verstehen.” • Because the meaning of an action is located in the head of the actor, we must know both the actor’s motivation and the context in which the action occurs to understand it. • Object of sociological study should be the actions and motivations of individuals.

11. Weber’s Sociology Sociology = “a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences” (218). Verstehen – understanding the actor’s own motive – or rationale– for doing what they do. Action is social when we act based on our knowledge of the past, present, or future actions of others. A theory of how social action came into being and what its effects are.

12. POP QUIZ: Weber v Marx Weber departs from Marx in his view on history because he thought: • ideas can take on a force of their own and shape material conditions • private property is the most important aspect of modernity • material conditions give rise to dominant ideas • class struggle drives social change

13. Values and Ideas  Behavior, Action, Social Change

14. Types of Social Action • TRADITIONAL - Action guided by customary habits of thought, by reliance on the "eternal yesterday." • AFFECTIVE - Action that is anchored in the emotional state of the actor rather than in the rational weighing of means and ends. •  VALUE-RATIONAL - Value-oriented rationality is action based on values and morals. Goals are determined ultimately by your values, rather than a rational calculation, but you may follow them through rational means. • INSTRUMENTALLY RATIONAL - Action in which both the goal and the means are rationally chosen. Here you choose the most easily achieved means towards a logically-chosen end – which is assumed to be the improvement of your own individual situation (more money, more power over others). Max Weber conceived of sociology as a comprehensive science of social action – which he separated into 4 ideal types:

15. Types of Social Actionplaying a game… • Playing to win • Playing to let someone else win • Playing “for fun” • Playing with a specific set of past rules or traditions

16. Social action is transforming in modern life… RATIONALIZATION • Rationalization: main social trend in last few hundred years. • Tighter rules and controls. • People have less & less freedom to express their own personal values and meanings, as our behavior is increasingly instrumentally rational in a rationalized world. • Goal-rationality “disenchants” the world and social life: Strips away its value & meaning.