Chapter 5: Max Weber (1864-1920)
Spring 2021

Weber’s Approach
Work had both historical and sociological components

Task of sociologists was to develop concepts that would be useful for studying the real world

The task of historians was to use the concepts developed by sociologists to examine the causal analyses of specific historical phenomena

*as applied to social life, Weber was interested in combining these generalist and specific approaches of sociologists and historians

Methodology
1) Verstehen
German word that means “understanding”

Involves engaging in systematic and rigorous research on social life

Weber used verstehen in his approach to macro-level analyses

Methodology, cont.
2) Causality
The probability that an event will be followed or accompanied by another event

Multi-causal approach

Because study social phenomena, causality is studied in probabilistic terms (rather than determinate)

Ideal Types
“a concept constructed by a social scientist, on the basis of his or her interests and theoretical orientation, to capture the essential features of some social phenomenon” (p.225)

A heuristic device (can think of it as a yardstick or measuring rod)

Researchers rely on ideal types for comparison of real world happenings; look for divergences between the ideal case and the real case and then try to identify and understand the reasons/causes for the discrepancy

Ideal types should not be too general or too specific; ideal types can be positive or negative, right or wrong; ideal types will necessarily change over time with a changing social world

The role of Values in
Weber argued for a value-free approach, but this means something more complicated than simply setting values aside in one’s profession

Values and Teaching
No room for values in the lecture hall
Academics should be teaching the facts, not their personal values

Values and Research
Values serve as the driving force for selecting what it is the researcher is interested in studying (do research on topics that we are passionate about)
No room for values at the point of data collection, observation, and analyses

according to Weber
Defines sociology as “a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences” (in the assigned chapter)
Whereby, social action involved the inclusion of thought processes

*the task of the sociologist is to interpret action in terms of its subjective meaning

4 Kinds of Social Action
1. Instrumental Action
Weigh both means and ends; rational action

2. Value-Rational Action
Only weight means; the value gives us a goal, and the goal becomes a value within itself

3. Affectual Action
Take this action because of your emotional state (Weber did not really deal with this much)

4. Traditional Action
Take this action because that’s the way you have always done it (Weber had strong interest in this one)

Stratification according to Weber
Multidimensional view

3 components:
1) class – exists as tied to economic order; your salary and goods

2) status – exists as tied to social order; your prestige or honor

3) party – exists as tied to political order; your political clout

*these 3 can go hand in hand, but do not do so necessarily

What acts as social control in a society?
At this point, Weber had to ask, what keeps the potential conflict in society from erupting and boiling over? Why is it that one man obeys another?

The answer: Legitimacy of authority
3 types of authority (see next slide)

Weber’s 3 Types of Authority
1. Legal Authority

Rational, legal system

Hold this type of authority as long as you maintain the position

Basically, bureaucratic system
Refer to text for important list of characteristics

Weber felt that bureaucracy constrains creativity
Idea of The Iron Cage – people get trapped in these positons, lose ability to think beyond these rules

3 Types of Authority, cont.
2. Traditional Authority

Based on sanctity of age-old rules and powers

Do things the way we do because that is how they have always been done

Authority established by claim of the leader and belief of the followers

Relations of staff to leader are based on personal loyalty; can be very arbitrary – no rules, no written documents, no clear cut hierarchy, no contract, etc.

3 Types of Authority, cont.
3. Charismatic Authority

Person-centered authority; intensely personal quality

Leader is defined as such by the followers, regardless of whether he/she is actually out of the ordinary

No rules, no tradition

Authority exists only as long as leader wants it to (no salary, no contract, etc)

Problems of succession – who follows is up in the air, so a very unstable system

*Note: Weber saw these as Ideal Types and argued that in actuality many leaders possess some combination of all three.

The Protestant Ethic
Coming next week – Reading Chapter 2 from The Protestant Ethic

What Weber’s work on The Protestant Ethic does is shows us how a major change in one sphere of life – religion – creates new cultural schema, or rules for behavior, in the religious sphere and then these have the unintended consequences of producing major innovation and change in another sphere of life – the economy.