7. Max Weber

Question 0

The foundation stone of Weber’s sociology is the concept of ____ ____.

Answer 0

social action

Question 1

Max Weber was born in the town of Erfurt in Thuringia on April 21, ____.

Answer 1

1864

Question 2

____ ____, according to Weber, exists insofar as the acting individual confers a subjective meaning on their behaviour.

Answer 2

Human Action

Question 3

The key feature of human action is that it is ____, intentional and subjectively meaningful conduct. It involves understanding the meanings which the individual’s actions have for them.

Answer 3

voluntary

Question 4

____ ____ is a special case of human action. Social action like all specifically meaningful human action involves the acting individual attaching subjective meaning to their behaviour.

Answer 4

Social action

Question 5

What renders human action social is the ‘____ to ____’, for Weber human action can only be deemed ‘social’ when it takes others into account.

Answer 5

orientation to others

Question 6

Of particular importance also is Weber’s argument that action in the sense of subjectively understandable behaviour exists only as the behaviour of one or more individual human beings. Weber is of the view that the primary agent of action is always the ____.

Answer 6

individual

Question 7

Social action always takes place against the backdrop of already well-established social arrangements that we may refer to as ____ or ____.

Answer 7

organisations or structures

Question 8

For Weber, sociology is an ____ science of social action.

Answer 8

empirical

Question 9

The concept of ____ or interpretative understanding is at the core of Weber’s sociology of action. For Weber, sociology is a science concentrating on the interpretative understanding of social action.

Answer 9

Verstehen

Question 10

Sociology is concerned with gaining access to the ____ of actions for individuals.

Answer 10

meaning

Question 11

Social action is unintelligible unless we can apprehend its ____ meaning.

Answer 11

subjective

Question 12

The ____ ____ understanding of a given action means that it is immediately understandable.

Answer 12

direct observational

Question 13

Placing the immediate understood action into a motivational context provides an ____ for it.

Answer 13

explanation

Question 14

But he is also adamant that the teasing out of subjective meanings must be undertaken in _____ with the analysis of pre-established social relations and historical conditions that provide the context in which these meanings must be realised.

Answer 14

conjunction

Question 15

Weber’s sociology of action is concerned with apprehending both the subjective creation of meaning on the part of individuals and the all-embracing wider ____ of society.

Answer 15

structures

Question 16

It is important to bear in mind that ____ is a socio-historical process, whereas we are reflecting in an explicit way on the product of rationalisation when we use terms like rationality and rationalism.

Answer 16

rationalisation

Question 17

The rationalisation of modern society in the West can, according to Weber, be understood as the triumph of ____ rationality over ____ rationality.

Answer 17

instrumental, substantive

Question 18

_____ Rationality Matter-of-value, Incalculable, Unpredictable, Personal, Non-systematic, Concrete, Particular.

Answer 18

Substantive

Question 19

____ Rationality Matter-of-fact, calculable, Predictable, Impersonal, Systematic, Abstract, General.

Answer 19

Instrumental

Question 20

Substantive rationality is a matter of ____. It refers principally to the worth of ends or results from some evaluative standpoint, that is, from some belief (eg, a religious belief) or value-commitment. The individual’s conduct is guided by principles, beliefs, values, ideals.

Answer 20

value

Question 21

Instrumental rationality as a mode of thinking and a principle upon which society is organised, implies the dismissal of everything which is incalculable, unpredictable, arbitrary, personal and so on. It refers primarily to the ____ of means and procedures for the achievement of well-defined goals.

Answer 21

calculability

Question 22

Instrumental rationality is often described as formal, since calculation can be applied to all substantive ends. This form of rationality is matter of ____.

Answer 22

fact

Question 23

For Weber, the ____ of calculability is the driving force behind the rationalisation of modern, Western society.

Answer 23

maximisation

Question 24

Instrumental rationality ____ facilitates the conscious, calculated pursuit of any goal, whatever its significance, worth or value.

Answer 24

indiscriminately

Question 25

It is this ____ built into instrumental rationality that gives modern, Western society its distinctive character Instrumental rationality treats all substantive beliefs and values with olympian indifference.

Answer 25

value-neutrality

Question 26

It is Weber’s contention that instrumental rationality permeates all areas of ____ ____ in the modern West.

Answer 26

social life

Question 27

Modem industrial capitalism, the modern state, modem bureaucracy, modem science and so forth all represent component phenomena in the embracing process of the ____ of the West.

Answer 27

rationalisation

Question 28

The emergence of modern science, according to Weber, attests to the progressive ____ of life in modern society.

Answer 28

intellectualisation

Question 29

The view of the world as a causal mechanism that can be known by calculation is at the heart of _____ ____.

Answer 29

modern science

Question 30

The development of scientific calculation attests to the ____ control of the world for human purposes.

Answer 30

rational

Question 31

In this same connection Weber speaks of the disenchantment of the world, that is, the ____ of everything mythical, mysterious, magical, other-worldly, poetic.

Answer 31

suppression

Question 32

The modern, rational, scientific pattern of thinking leads increasingly to a view of the world as merely an artificial product created by humankind. The modern world is _____ just like a machine.

Answer 32

controlled