Max Weber, Verstehen

Max Weber, Verstehen, and the Understanding of Social Change

Max Weber stands beside Durkheim and Marx as a founding father of sociology. He grew up with a classical education in law and history. As he started his career as a scholar his main focus was law and economics. This all changed after a mental break down and severe depression half way through his life. His focus shifted to that of sociology and human agency. His interest in history had a heavy influence on his work in sociology and set him apart from other thinkers of the time. Weber’s thoughts differ from both Marx and Durkheim. His approach to society was much more individualistic. Durkheim looked at society to explain phenomenon, and how everything had a function and institutions worked together and influenced society. Weber took the approach that individual human social interactions were the real cause of society. He did not ignore the collective mind, quite the contrary; he focused on how people’s actions were shaped by society. He was interested in how the forces of society change social interactions between the individuals. Weber distinguished himself from Marx because he didn’t abide by the same principles of materialism that Marx did. Marx believed that the material world shapes the way we think as humans. Weber takes an approach that believes in materialism but also incorporates some elements of idealism. He believed that although the material world can influence ideas, the reverse is also true. This lack of conformity to a strict set of rules runs through many of Weber’s views. This merging of principles is apparent in Weber’s ideal types. Like Marx, Weber held an interest at looking at history to help to understand the future, however; the approach he took was different that Marx’s dialectic. Weber used the ideal type to get an objective study of past phenomenon with a subjective approach. Weber, like many of the enlightenment thinkers, wanted a way to scientifically study society. He wanted to be able to look back at historical facts and draw objective conclusions. That being said, he realized that to really understand what was going on at the time it was necessary to look with empathy and subjectivity. It is impossible to comment on cultural significance without invoking a sense of feeling. Weber’s task was to study the subjective institutions and societies of the past objectively. The key to this was the ideal type. Weber created a tool that does not exist in reality but as a utopian form of an institution. It is a depiction of an institution with all the elements in their pure form. Although an ideal type is a perfect model it is not to be confused with a perfect thing. There can be ideal types of anything from brothels to religion, and there can be more than one ideal type for each institution. Each of these ideal types may not be able to depict what is actually in reality, and that is the point. The use for the ideal types is to show how irrational decisions by human agents has shaped the reality of the institution in comparison to the ideal type. For example there is an ideal type of how the institution of the church should be set up. This is a straight path were all the elements of the church logically follow one another to create the pure model. Weber would compare this rational model to that of the church in reality to see where irrational actions have swayed the church from the rational path. The important part to keep in mind is it is not a judgment. It is not a way to say how things should be compared to how they are. It is just a way to look at the subjective aspects of the world in a constant objective viewpoint. Weber was able to contribute to sociology by blurring some of the lines between objective and subjective research. With his use of ideal types he was able to show how to study a subjective subject objectivity. His new methods and individualistic approach to studying society set him apart from other thinkers of his time and left a mark on sociology today.