Weber: Social Action and Its Types

In one line

Weber held that sociology must explain what people do by understanding what they meant by it, and he classified all conduct into four types according to what makes it meaningful to the actor.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: Max Weber, 1864 to 1920, defined sociology as the science which seeks the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects. Action is human conduct to which the actor attaches a subjective meaning; it is social action where the meaning takes account of the behaviour of others and is thereby oriented in its course. He distinguished four types of social action: instrumentally rational (zweckrational), value rational (wertrational), affectual and traditional.

The method: verstehen and the ideal type

Verstehen

The claim. Human conduct differs from natural events in one respect that changes the method required: people attach meaning to what they do. A falling stone does not mean anything by falling; a person raising their hand means something, and what they mean determines what the act is. The same physical movement may be a greeting, a bid at an auction, a vote or a signal, and no amount of observation of the movement identifies which.

What follows. Sociology must understand the meaning as well as observe the behaviour, and Weber's word for that understanding is verstehen.

Its two kinds. Direct observational understanding, in which the meaning is apparent from the act itself, as when one sees that a person is chopping wood. Explanatory or motivational understanding, in which the act is placed in a context of motive, as when one understands that they are chopping wood for a wage, or for exercise, or because a ritual requires it.

Weber's guard against subjectivism, which is what distinguishes his position from mere empathy. An interpretation must be adequate at the level of meaning, that is, it must make the conduct intelligible; and it must also be causally adequate, that is, supported by evidence that acts of that kind are in fact followed by outcomes of that kind. Both are required, and a plausible story that no evidence supports is not an explanation.

Its contrast with Durkheim. Durkheim's rule is to treat social facts as things and to explain a social fact by another social fact, without reference to what individuals mean, which is [Durkheim: The Theory of Suicide]. Weber holds that meaning is the essential datum and cannot be left out. The two positions define the methodological division of the discipline, and an answer that sets them against each other is answering well.