Running Head: MAX WEBER INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY

What is Max Weber's interpretive sociology? In what context do we apply it as a sociologist.

Arianna Sungoh

Paper code: SOC C 101

Paper- Sociological Theories-I

Roll Number: 19MASOC06

North Eastern Hills University

Date: 31/10/2019
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Introduction

Interpretive sociology focuses on the meaningful understanding of human behavior

which has interrelation, and regularities which also deals with the meaning people associate

to the social world, and sees the reality as being constructed by the people (Max Weber,

1964).

This essay will discuss what is interpretive sociology, the relation of interpretive

sociology with the social action of an individual and how it deals with the meaning of the

action constructed by the people, the notion of ideal type in understanding or to interpret

social phenomena, and how a sociologist can apply interpretive sociology in order to study

the social action of a social phenomena. Interpretive sociology is concerned with how people

go about defining and making sense of their situations others and themselves.
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What is Max Weber's interpretive sociology?

The term ‘interpretive’ in the discussion of sociological methods is the most common

translation of the German word ‘Verstehen’, which means ‘understanding’ in English or

translated as ‘understanding’ (Mathew David, p xxiv).

Interpretive sociology has its origin in the neo-Kantian reaction to positivism in the

social sciences. The development of an interpretive or verstehen approach to understanding

social life draws itself in distinction from approaches that seek a value-free causal

explanation in terms of variables external to the belief of the social actors (ibid, p XXV).

Interpretive sociology considers individual and his action as the basic unit, as its

atom, if the disputable comparison for once may be permitted. In this approach, the

individual is also the upper limit and the sole carrier of meaningful conduct. In general, for

sociology such concept as a state association, and the designated categories of human

interaction, hence, it is the task of sociology to reduce these concepts to ‘understandable’

action, without exception, to the actions of participating individual men.

According to Weber, differences between natural and sciences are due to intentions,

interests, and aims of the investigator are not due to the subject matter of human action.

Weber stated that Sociology is a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding

of Social Action, though his ideas were crystallized from 1911 onwards, he had begun taking

a position in the interpretive theory of social actions, where he felt that the Social Science

were different from the Natural Science in a way which they study human Social Action in

Society and not objects and events in the outer world. There is no inherent selection, as each

realm has vast facts such that no total explanation is possible (Coser, 1996, p 219).

Weber defines Sociology as that science which at an interpretive understanding of

social behavior in order to gain an explanation of its causes, its course and its effects (Weber,

1964, p 29).
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For Weber, an interpretive understanding was a preliminary step in the establishment

of a casual relationship, because of any interpretive explanation if it reaches the dignity of a

scientific proposition (Coser, 1996, Pp 220-221).

Weber felt that Natural Science failed to treat the problem of human inner

understanding. He said that Social Science is different because they try to understand that

human beings have an inner state of mind, where they are meaningfully understanding and

ability to interpret the actions of others and decide how to act.

Basically, it means that the outward social action of individuals must be interpreted,

in terms of their internal or subjective state.

An understanding of human behavior achieved through interpretation contains in

varying degrees, above all, a specific qualitative self-evidence. That an interpretation

possesses this self-evidence in an especially high measure still proves nothing in itself about

its empirical validity. For behavior that is identical in its external course and result can be

based on the most varied constellations of motives, and the most plausible motive may not be

the one that really came into play. Rather, the understanding “Verstehen” of the context must

always be verified, as far as possible, with the usual method of causal attribution before any

interpretation, however plausible, becomes a valid intelligible explanation.

The specific self-evident nature of instrumentally rational behavior does not, of

course, entail viewing interpretation in rational terms as the special goal of sociological

explanation. One could as well claim the opposite, given the role that “irrational” emotions

and “feelings” play in the actions of men.

Though, in the sociological analysis of understandable relationships, rationally

interpretable behavior very often constitutes the most appropriate “ideal type;” sociology

begins, as does history, by interpreting “pragmatically,” that is, on the basis of rationally

understandable contexts of action. Action including intentional omission is always intelligible

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behavior towards objects, behavior whose actual or intended subjective meaning may be

more or less clear to the actor, whether consciously noted or not. For example, Buddhist

contemplation and Christian asceticism are, for the actors, subjectively related to inner

objects; the rational economic transaction of a person with material goods is related to outer

objects.

Interpretive sociology, however, is concerned neither with physiological phenomena

which used to be called “psychophysical”. For example, the combinations of feelings of

tension, pleasure, and aversion. Rather, interpretive sociology makes distinctions in terms of

typical meaningful relationships of action; for that reason, as we shall see, instrumentally

rational action serves an ideal type, enabling us to assess the significance of the irrational

action.

Identical relationships of meaning are not linked to identical operative psychic

constellations, although it is certain that differences in one can be influenced by differences

in others. For example, however, a category like the profit motive does not belong in any

psychology. For the same striving for profit in the same business enterprise on the part of two

successive proprietors not only may go hand in hand with very different character traits but

maybe directly conditioned, in their entirely identical courses and final results, by completely

opposite psychic constellations and character traits; also the ultimate psychological goals

need have no relationship to one another. Processes whose meaning is not subjectively related

to the behavior of others are not for that reason sociologically irrelevant.

Max Weber argued that human actions are not merely action but in their interpretive

understanding of others' action people attach values to their understanding and to their own

actions. All this is possible by applying rationality.

If we were to interpret human action by using the methods of the objective sciences

we would be able to find a causal connection between what caused the action and the
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resolution from it but we would fail to understand the context into which that human action

fits or what has determine that action.

Weber said, “Our understanding of human conduct is complete when we have

knowledge of the nexus into which understandable human actions fits, a nexus which is

conceived as a determinant of the conduct in question”.

For Weber then the nexus is made up of individual interpretation and understanding

and these are the necessary conditions of human conduct.

To illustrate the relationship between human conduct and subjective understanding

Weber introduced four concepts. These are; concepts of human understanding (Verstehen),

concepts of interpretive understanding, concepts of subjective meaning, and concepts of

social action.

In clarifying the concepts of social action, Max Weber when on to formulate a theory

which was based on the central theme that Social Action takes place only when the acting

individual attaches a subjective meaning to the act and when the actor takes the amount of the

behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its courses. His theory may be defined as one by

which he made valid judgements about the inner Subjective States of individual actors in

Social Actions.

To explain the concept of Verstehen Weber said that human Actors possess an

understanding of their environment and there must be methods to understand and study

human Social Action. For this the method of natural science was inadequate. In fact, Weber

asserts that SocialActs were identified by their dependence on Verstehen (human

understanding).

Max Weber’s concept of social understanding is an attempt to unearth and find out the

underlying meaning or intention of social events or actions. So, in order to comprehend

interpretive understanding, Weber distinguished between two kinds of understanding one is

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direct understanding which Weber defines as comprehension of social action and the other is

explanatory understanding which involves understanding the meaning of the act by placing

the action in context or complex of meaning and by attaching a motive to the act based on the

situation in which it occurs (Giddens, 1971).

According to Weber understanding of the motive differs by virtue of the fact that the

action is able to place the act within a context of motivation and to assign a meaning to it on

the basis of interpretation.

In interpretive sociology, the action is important rather than inner state or external

behavior, that in terms of subjectively intended meaning is related to the behavior of others, it

is co-determined in its course through interrelatedness.

Social action is not only a kind of action significant for Sociological causal

explanation, but it is the primary object of interpretive sociology. However, emotional actions

like dignity, pride, jealousy, etc are indirectly relevant for the course of action especially, to

the action of others.

Weber has enumerated that social action are of four categories the tradition which are

those actions that are; Firstly, Traditional are those actions that are performed under the

compulsion of force or customs and traditions are put under this category. All those actions

that were performed by forefathers and are being performed even today are placed under this

category. Secondly, Emotional or Effective Actions are such actions grow as a result of our

responsibility to the behavior of others in terms of love, envy, hatred, anger, etc such actions

are performed under the influence of strong impulse or emotion. It is not necessary that these

actions shall be rational. Thirdly, Evaluative Actions are performed under the influence of

aesthetic, religious or ethical values. These actions also do not develop in the rational ground.

It acts in a particular manner because others accept the use to act according to those norms.

These norms or values are taken for granted and we do not exactly know whether we shall
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gain anything out of them or not. Fourthly, Rational or Rationalistic performance of Actions

is performed after conscientiously weighing both means and ends. Once the benefits and the

losses have been weighed, we performed these actions. In doing these actions, we are guided

by the gain of material as well as of other types and we also avoided losses.

In fact, Weber’s sociology is a sociology of social action and is based on his concept

of social actions (Max Weber, 1964).

Social action shall be called association action when and in so far as it is oriented in

meaning towards expectations that are held on the basis of rules, formulation of these rules

has resulted purely rationally in view of the expected action of these associated, and the

meaning orientation is subjectively rational.

An action is a subjectively oriented in meaning to an established order can thereby

initially mean that the actual action of the associates objectively corresponds to the action

they had subjectively intended.

When Weber combined his notion of ‘understanding’ with his modified Platonism

called ideal types, sociology took a giant step forward in both scientific sophistication and

socio-political utility whereas social realities under Weber’s analysis must be understood by

imagining oneself into the experience of men and women as they act out on their own worlds

(Abraham and Morgan, 1989, p 173).

Ideal types mean by which to categorize, interpret, and predict social actions. Behind

economics, law, religion, Weber sought to analyze the interconnection of all social behaviors

so that no rational human was left out (Abraham and Morgan, 1989). Thus, Protestonism, in

its ideal-typical expression, has the characteristic that is different from Buddhism or Islam

and each has different social origins and different consequences for everyday social action.
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Where in a way ideal type help to develop skills in imputation in research where it is

not a hypothesis but offers guidance to construction of hypothesis, it is not a description of

reality but it aims to give unambiguous.

Therefore, the ideal type was thus Weber’s way of connecting large scale institutions

and ideas to the social action of the individual, where an ideal type is formed by one-sided

accentuation of one or more points of view (Raymond, 1996).

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In what context do we apply it as a sociologist.

Weber felt that sociologists had an advantage over natural scientists. That advantage

resided in the sociologist’s ability to understand social phenomena, whereas the natural

scientist could not gain a similar understanding of the behavior of an atom or a chemical

compound. The German word for understanding is Verstehen. Weber’s special use of the

term verstehen in his historical research is one of his best-known, and most controversial,

contributions to the methodology of contemporary sociology. As we clarify what Weber

meant by verstehen, we will also underscore some of the problems involved in his

conceptualization of it. The controversy surrounding the concept of verstehen.

Weber’s thoughts on verstehen were relatively common among German historians of

his days and were derived from a field known as hermeneutics (Martin, 2000; Pressler and

Dasilva, 1996). Hermeneutics was a special approach to the understanding and interpretation

of the published writings. Its goal was to understand the thinking of the author as well as the

basic structure of the text.

The key question in interpreting Weber’s concept of verstehen is whether he thought

that it was most appropriately applied to the subjective states of individual actors or to the

subjective aspects of large-scale units of analysis, for example, culture. A number of people

have interpreted verstehen, as well as Weber’s statement about it, as a technique aimed at

understanding culture. For example, Susan Hekman sees this as the newer interpretation of

what Weber meant by focusing on such cultural elements as intersubjective meanings or

socially constituted rules which define the meaning of action within a given society (1983:

46).

Interpretive approaches to sociology studies focus on the meanings which shape

actions and institutions, and the ways in which they do so. A way in which sociologist can

apply the interpretive perspective of the study is to achieve an emotional empathic or rational
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logical understanding of motivation, by placing the observed act in an intelligible and more

inclusive context of meaning. Thus, in order to shared assumptions that we cannot understand

human affairs properly well, we grasp the relevant meanings.

A sociologist can use interpretive sociology as an approach to understand or to study

the importance of meaning and action when studying social trends and problems, by

recognizing that the subjective experiences, beliefs, and behavior of people are important to

study as are observable, or objective facts.

In order to practice interpretive sociology, one has to attempt in understanding the

social phenomena from the standpoint of those who are involved in it, like it so that a

sociologist has to walk in someone’s else shoes to see the world as they see the other see it,

thus, focused on understanding the meaning that that studied give to their beliefs, values,

actions, behavior, and social relationships with the people and institutions (Doyle and Paul,

1986).

Interpretive sociology is an approach produces theory and research which encourages

sociologist to view those studied as thinking and feeling subjects as opposed to subjects of

scientific research.

Further, the sociologist interpretive approach work to understand how the groups they

study construct meaning and reality through attempts to emphasize with them, as much as

possible, to understand their experiences and action from their own perspectives, this

basically means that a sociologist can apply or use interpretive sociology as an approach to

work to collect qualitative data rather than quantitative data because taking this approach

means that the researcher approaches the subject matter with a different kind of hypothesis,

aked different kinds of questions and usually requires different kinds of data and methods for

responding to those questions. Sociologist uses methods of interpretive such as in-depth

interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic observation.

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Hence as a sociologist, one can study social phenomena by applying interpretive

sociology as an approach in order to understand the social nature, observable physical

complainee to extra rules of the inner interpretive activity of the actors.

The notion of ideal types which are Weber put it as the function is the comparison

with the empirical reality in order to establish its divergences or similarities to describe them

with the most unnamed ambiguously intelligible concepts, and to understand and explain

them causally (Max Weber,1903-1917/ 1949: 43).

For example, on how a social scientist would construct an ideal-typical bureaucracy

on the basis of their immersion in historical data, this ideal type can be compared to the actual

bureaucracies, the researcher looks for the divergences in the rear case, next, he must look for

the causes of deviations (Goodman and Ritzer, 2003, p 116).

Interpretive sociology or methodology was not only influenced by theory and

methodology but was informed by direct experiences of ethnographic fields, where a

sociologist can apply or employ methods such as ethnography, participant observation,

interviewing and using of quantitative calculation and accounting procedures that go along an

action. For example, studies of children in Britain from a range of different religious and

cultural settings were used as a basis of methodological reflection and as a source of material

for curriculum development. Thus, the earliest material s produce using this approach

presented the ways of life of children and young people, observed and interviewed in the

context of their families and communities (Jackson, 1997, Pp 95-120).

To conclude, one can say that interpretive sociology is a perspective or an approach in

which a sociologist can use in order to study social phenomena. For example, race, religion

by using it various methods such as ethnography, participant observation, and interviewing in

order to empirically situate analyses with the lived experiences of social actions in their social

world.
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Interpretive sociology focuses on the principle that social life is subjective and those

who systematically study social life, can attend to how people make sense and interpret their

social world, actions, and identities. Rather than establishing a specific correlation between

operationalized variables and causation, analytical attention is given to the processual nature

of human life experiences as it relates to people’s everyday life. Data is collected and

analyzed through various forms of participant observation, interviewing and historical

documents.
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Reference

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Harmondsworth: Penguin.

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