Weber

Question 1

Work breaks into:

Answer 1

1) Methodology
2) Empirical, historical studies
3) Studies of religion
4) Unfinished economy and society

Question 2

Historical School

Answer 2

• work of historians, economists and other social scientists

- involves the collection of facts pertinent to events in social life that emphasizes the unique nature of each event

Question 3

Historical Materialism

Answer 3

• dialectical laws of social life that explain and lead to a succession of modes of production
• nomothetic approach; means of or relating to the study or discovery of general scientific laws

Question 4

Social Action

Answer 4

specific categories of human action which throughout the course of the action took into account the behaviour of others and the meaning they and the initiator of the action attached to it

Question 5

Traditional Action

Answer 5

guided by the dictates of tradition

Question 6

value-rational action

Answer 6

guided by a particular value or belief

Question 7

goal-rational action

Answer 7

mentally calculated action aimed at achieving a particular goal

Question 8

affective action

Answer 8

guided by desires or emotions

Question 9

Ideal/Pure Types

Answer 9

generalisations that sociologists develop from observation; establish a general framework based on generalized concepts

Question 10

Economics v. Ideology

Answer 10

• aware of importance of economic relations

- emphasizes rather the significance of meaning and meaning construction in social life

Question 11

Ethical Compass

Answer 11

science cannot serve as an ethical compass for modern societies because of the value rational dimension of scholarly action

Question 12

Asceticism

Answer 12

mastering natural desires and leading righteous lives leads to heaven, highly disciplined, restrained, passionless life.

Question 13

Calling

Answer 13

Separating oneself from their natural condition, an individual receives from God a particular calling through which they can glorify the Lord

Question 14

Puritanism

Answer 14

Value system; believed in predestination; read holy scripture to see what God expected from humankind on earth.

Question 15

Methodological Pestilence

Answer 15

a plague of inward looking and self-referential essays that contributed little to the real advancement of sociological knowledge

Question 16

Objectives of Scholarship

Answer 16

-Develop the most widely applicable knowledge possible
-Natural sciences: universally applicable knowledge
Social sciences: achieve knowledge that one may generalize to specific locations, circumstances, and periods of time

Question 17

Iron Cage of Reason

Answer 17

Growing domination of goal-rational action in the modern world could have humanity trapped in an iron cage of reason

Question 18

Weber vs. Marx

Answer 18

• corrects orthodox readings of Marx, but not refuting Marxism
• says there are no universal direction, but trends do exist
• no overall “grand narrative”
• focus on social meaning (interpretation and frames of mind) rather than production

Question 19

Modernism

Answer 19

• subordinates history to novel

- a celebration of what is innovative and new

Question 20

Modernization

Answer 20

• replaces modernism as a more confident concept

- science prevails

Question 21

Post Modernism

Answer 21

• enlightenment began to seem problematic, rejecting mastery, freedom and progress because the world is continually in flux, never stable.
• post modernists believe there is no one meta narrative