weber Flashcards
durkheim and nominalism
not a nominalist
- Interested in social facts
weber and nominalism
- What he will argue is that empirical data is not sociologically relevant, unless it can be related to the
meanings of the people it describes - Deals with meanings with individuals or groups
- Only cares about correlation if there is an explanation for it based on the meanings of the minds
based on the people it describes - AKA he wants to know what you are thinking as a participant in that correlation
- Uses the CULTURAL SCIENCES
Durkheim vs. weber conceptions of sociology
2 very different conceptions of what sociology is
- Weber will agree with Durkheim that correlation can be used within sociology
- Disagrees with Durkheim saying that we must use history with sociology
- And instead of studying social facts we have to study social action
Durkheim ignores people Weber respects people
webers definition of sociology
- As a science that attempts the interpretive understanding of social action, in order to derive a
causally adequate explanation for its course and its effects - Every word is EXTREMELY important
- Tension between science and interpretation scientists observe
weber’s social action
- Any action because of the subjective meaning attached to it, the actor takes into account the
behaviour of others when he or she acts - Weber says we are going to do a scientific investigation and figure out its effects
- Has to interpret the meanings of the actors in that bracket
he is a historical sociologist. The meanings he finds are
from dead people
what does weber want in his study of sical action
causal adequacy
what is causal adequacy
- Looking for causal adequacy
- Reasonable explanation and proof about something
- He would never say he has found THE proof or THE cause
- Durkheim says he has found a REASONABLE explanation
how is weber going to study social action
Verstehend, ideal type, history, and causal adequacy
explain verstehend
- In the act of interpreting he is trying to understand the meaning of the actors
- Know one defines interpreting… its reasoning and intelligence
- Trying to understand perspectives of others
- What he is assuming is that what people think has a great deal to do with what people do
(NOMINALISM) - Sometimes this hits a roadblock, because of bias and personality problems
- This method doesn’t actually work as well as it should
explain ideal type
- Weber insists of talking about meaning
- Not only because he wants to understand what is going on in the head
- He cannot let go of meaning (what people mean)
- And logically we can all have different meanings
- He must aggregate and assign meanings to a collective
- This is an issue because: wants to know the effect
- Create an exaggeration example of there meanings
- Not interested in taking an average sample of human beings
- Wants to paint a protestant picture of menaing
- Develop a stereotype of the protestant
- IDEAL TYPE = STEREOTYPE (without any negative or positive connotation)
explain history
history = meaning
- Most of the meanings that influence what we do, come from culture and historical tradition
- People do a lot of things because they think they have meanings – meanings transcend time
- Wants to be able to argue that certain historical events are important events
- objective posibility
what was webers methodology
- Objective possibility: Take any event in history and imagine that it happened in the opposite way. If,
on the basis of research, you can then demonstrate that the present would have been different, then
the actual event constitutes an adequate cause of the present - Accidental cause- not irrelevant but not an adequate cause
explain causal adequacy
- Weber’s substantive sociology
- Conception and perception of reality
- People have meaning and this influences what they do
- Must build an ideal type of social action (HIS FOCUS)
- Begin his studies with an ideal typology of social action
- Must think about the underlying patterns of social action in which they are based
what is the 4 types of social action
- zweckrational
- wertrational
- affectiolnal
- traditional
STRONG CLAIM – these 4 types of action or some combo of them explain the universe of all possibilities
that human beings can engage
- Nothing else you are capable of doing
-building blocks for all of his sociology
explain zweckrational action
We are in charge of what happens
- In our minds
explain wertrational
value oriented
explain affectional
emotional and motivated action
dominant reaction of people
explain traditional action
how you do things and what you do are fixed (i.e. military)pg. 54
what does weber say about social order and change
social change about 3 kinds of authority
- Must develop in ideal times
- And talks about these in a radical way
- HUMAN MEANINGS and WHAT PEOPLE DO
- His typology MUST be remembered
power = The ability to tell people to do things independent of their will
- Want to contrast this with something else AUTHORITY
- What is the difference between authority and power (must have legitimacy)
- Authority is legitimate power
what are the 3 types of authority
traditional, rational, charismatic
explain traditional authority
ideal type – respect for the eternal yesterday
- Respect you have for grandparents
- Monarchy
- Something that is almost sacred
- Surrounds us with aw and respect
- Monarchy is ASCRIBED
- You are born INTO it
- What do you have to have going on in the world if this is intact?
explain rational - legal
Contemporary
- Most complex concept
- This is ACHIEVED
- Not as closely tied to the person as traditional authority is
- Levine has rational legal authority as our professor
- Hard to celebrate authority from the role he plays
- He is here through merit
- Prescribed and persist when he drops dead
- Fixed and varied
- Exists to a large extent independently of him
explain charismatiic authority
- Something that differentiates weber from marx
- Resides inside the person
- What makes it so influential is that to have it you are recognized by having certain qualities that your
followers don’t understand it - You are mystical and convincing
- You are AW inspiring
- Have unique style
- Brilliance/wisdom
- Close to god
- Occupy the domain of the sacred
- Lasts the lifetime of the person
- If produces stability it is short lived
- What kind of action does it require to exist – AFFECTUAL
weber on ideas
ideas can cause ideas and ideas can influence reality
notion of multiple causes
- Cant talk about THE cause but reason of the CAUSE
- Brings in the possible autonomy
Weber on protestantism
- Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism
- Spirit of capitalism suggests that everything you do is in regards to a religious value
- Totally catholic Europe
explain predestination
the Calvinist believes that god has decided who has gone to heaven
and who hasn’t
- If god can change his mind you’ll never know
- YOU NEVER KNOW
- You have to work your ass off for god
- You never know if you are going to heaven
- You seek signs of your salvation
- That you are being increasingly successful in your calling
- Cant have a capitalist economy without being set for
- Asceticism – you don’t buy you
- Salvation wins (material success)
- Mobility
- Things happen to the spirituality of the ethic to make it less spiritually motivated
- Growth of western capitalism
- Ideas and ideas influencing reality
- Weber uses the method of objective possibility – a method for arguing whether an event in history is
important
- Provides sections of India and China – far more advanced than Europe
- Religious ideas could have an impact on economic reality
weber and class
defined in objectively economic terms and it can be defined as a plurality of persons sharing similar
life chances.
- No oppositional stuff
- Almost like the definition of class that Marx rejects
- Marx wouldn’t be too happy with his opposition of class
- Class in itself and for itself
- Weber is respecting the subjective points of view of people
- What kind of action is in the background to make sense
- The next dominate logic for him is STATUS
weber and status
a plurality of persons whose life fate is determined by the social estimation of honor (can acquire
status or be born into it) – Value rational or traditional
- Status and class are so highly correlated that they don’t need to be differentiated
- Why do they need to be differentiated?
- Status must be different than class
- Ex. Being Jewish has some sort of evaluation
weber and party
grouping of people to acquire political power – becomes authority
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Weber is saying that he cannot reduce stratification to economic factors
marx vs. weber
- Multi causality vs. Uni causality
- Stratification
- The role of the individual in history (Marx- negligible or Weber - charisma)
- Marx’s optimism about the future contracted with Webers pessimism about the future
Beuractization and Rationalization
durkheim vs. weber on ideal society
durkheim - organically stable world is what we have to achieve
weber - bureaucracy is what we need
weber bureaucracy
group organization - organized - efficient - calculation - description for Weber is it absolutely necessary WE NEED THIS
what is the iron cage of bureaucracy
The rational intent has become irrational
- Bureaucracy thrives with this
- The more efficiency you have the less sensitive you can be
- Weber was becoming very concerned about this
- Less enjoyable and less human
becoming robots
rationalization is not ritualism
weber and ritualism
- Get so used to doing what they are told that they take it for granted
- Singman Bauman – writes about the Holocaust – killing of the jews
- Got to have an industry with efficiency to kill that many people
- Got to calculate everything
- McDonaldization of Society
- Migram experiments
- We are far better masters of those techniques than the Nazis ever were
- Could happen anywhere in the industrialized world
what is habermas
the system of the life world
formal and substantive raitonality
the systems logic is colonizing the system of the life world
- Problems of the systems are filtering down
- Marriage is only reasoned by contracts
- The legitifcation / destruction of our ability to communicate
- When we undermine language we undermine the possibility of solidarity
- Become more rational about the world so we understand it better so it can inform system rationality
explain formal rationality
instrumental rationality
- through systems
explain substantive rationality
The life world works on the substantive rationality – rationality that is always oriented to a goal or a
specific value
- Substantive rationality in the context of the life world is to increasingly understand and use
communicative action to maintain social solidarity
- All of the bonds we talk about are communicated and associated with action
- Sincerity is a huge aspect in this theory – develops within own maturity
- To respect eachother you must see eachother in ways
- Built in reflexivity with system rationality
- These two systems and their rationalities are constantly being reflected on
