weber

Question 1

durkheim and nominalism

Answer 1

not a nominalist

- Interested in social facts

Question 2

weber and nominalism

Answer 2

• 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

Question 3

Durkheim vs. weber conceptions of sociology

Answer 3

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

Question 4

webers definition of sociology

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

weber’s social action

Answer 5

• 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

Question 6

what does weber want in his study of sical action

Answer 6

causal adequacy

Question 7

what is causal adequacy

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

how is weber going to study social action

Answer 8

Verstehend, ideal type, history, and causal adequacy

Question 9

explain verstehend

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

explain ideal type

Answer 10

• 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)

Question 11

explain history

Answer 11

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

Question 12

what was webers methodology

Answer 12

• 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

Question 13

explain causal adequacy

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

what is the 4 types of social action

Answer 14

1. zweckrational
2. wertrational
3. affectiolnal
4. 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

Question 15

explain zweckrational action

Answer 15

We are in charge of what happens

- In our minds

Question 16

explain wertrational

Answer 16

value oriented

Question 17

explain affectional

Answer 17

emotional and motivated action

dominant reaction of people

Question 18

explain traditional action

Answer 18

how you do things and what you do are fixed (i.e. military)pg. 54

Question 19

what does weber say about social order and change

Answer 19

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

Question 20

what are the 3 types of authority

Answer 20

traditional, rational, charismatic

Question 21

explain traditional authority

Answer 21

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?

Question 22

explain rational - legal

Answer 22

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

Question 23

explain charismatiic authority

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

weber on ideas

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Weber on protestantism

Answer 25

• 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

Question 26

explain predestination

Answer 26

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

Question 27

weber and class

Answer 27

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

Question 28

weber and status

Answer 28

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

Question 29

weber and party

Answer 29

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

Question 30

marx vs. weber

Answer 30

1. Multi causality vs. Uni causality
2. Stratification
3. The role of the individual in history (Marx- negligible or Weber - charisma)
4. Marx’s optimism about the future contracted with Webers pessimism about the future
   Beuractization and Rationalization

Question 31

durkheim vs. weber on ideal society

Answer 31

durkheim - organically stable world is what we have to achieve
weber - bureaucracy is what we need

Question 32

weber bureaucracy

Answer 32

group organization
- organized
- efficient
- calculation
- description
 for Weber is it absolutely necessary
WE NEED THIS

Question 33

what is the iron cage of bureaucracy

Answer 33

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

Question 34

weber and ritualism

Answer 34

• 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

Question 35

what is habermas

Answer 35

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

Question 36

explain formal rationality

Answer 36

instrumental rationality

- through systems

Question 37

explain substantive rationality

Answer 37

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