WEBER SOC SCI

Question 1

How does Weber deployed his notion of a social scientist to cope with the essentially ‘infinite’ nature of historical data

Answer 1

finding a ‘middle way’ between scientific objectivity and ‘limitless relativism’

Question 2

what does his ‘middle way’ involve

Answer 2

the grouping of historical phenomena into ‘ideal types’
of both a ‘universal’ nature relating to the sociological aspect of his enquiry, and the uniquely schematic presentations of complex historical phenomena which dubs him the ‘scientist’

Question 3

he rejects the ??? nature of ‘traditional’ historical enquiry

Answer 3

irresoluble

of ‘value-judgements’ being discussed in ‘scientific terms’

Question 4

how does W reject the irresolvable nature of traditional enquiry

Answer 4

investigates the relations between values and presents the question to the ‘specialist’ to determine a more ultimate judgement

Question 5

what type of enquirer is W

Answer 5

interdisciplinary enquirer of ‘nomological knowledge’ through the lens of ‘ideal types’

Question 6

Weber understands that ‘empirical science cannot tell someone what he ought to do…

Answer 6

but only what he can do and - possibly - what he wants to do”, and this is translated into his central condition of corresponding to the ‘real situation’ at the present time

Question 7

Through social science he pursues historical events in an anti-determinist way absent from???

Answer 7

‘from a set of historical conditions’ and proceeds to investigate a ‘science of reality’ in a dialectic methodological approach…
IN HIS AXIOM OF SPECIALISATION DISCUSSED MOST PROM IN SCI {WISSENS} AS A VOCATION

Question 8

primary concern with?

Answer 8

present phenomena, which he explains through his understanding of modern Kultur – or the modern scheme of ‘plural’ values - described in The Protestant Ethic

Question 9

NOTION OF A SOC SCI ARGUMENT

Answer 9

uses the notion of a social scientist to strengthen his understanding of modern Kultur through the lens of ‘ideal types’ in a schematic break down of the past, which becomes his methodological solution to the problems of the ‘infinity’ of historical fact

Question 10

value scheme in G at time he writes

Answer 10

pluralised

National unity was not synonymous with unification of 1871

Question 11

W’s values reflect those of G body politic

Answer 11

both his ‘values’ as an individual reflected those of the German body politic – that of ‘insoluble value-plurality’

Question 12

what does W’s values mean for his academic/hist enquiry

Answer 12

might begin with value-commitment, but it cannot ‘end with it’, nor be judged definitely by it

Question 13

uses notion of a SS to pursues a T?

Answer 13

he uses his notion of a social scientist to pursue a truth which was ‘absolutely heterogenous’ with the generation of values which embraced a ‘plurality’

Question 14

Act of ‘psychological renunciation’?

Answer 14

Weber himself describes as an ‘elementary duty of academic self control’

Question 15

the relationship between a ‘value free’ Wissenschaft and ‘individual values’ was both

Answer 15

close and troubling

Question 16

‘anarchy of values’

Answer 16

Troeltsch

fundamental to Weber’s approach, yet it is one that is conditioned by a ‘duty of self control’

Question 17

W’s commitment to value freedom complied with what duty

Answer 17

duty to observe intellectual honesty and integrity’ (Rechtschaffenheit)

Question 18

in PE he denounces what?

Answer 18

methodically denounces ‘logical consequences’ from the evaluative position, and uses Wissenschaft not to ‘prescribe one’s values’ but to present relations between values to ‘tell them only how to think’

Question 19

NOT SECULAR?

Answer 19

that historical understanding can ‘only become comprehensible if we understand the connection of these dogmas with practical religious interests’

Question 20

BUT ‘religious interests’ have to be discovered in the ?

Answer 20

psychological drives [Antriebe] which led people to behave in a certain way’, thus free of definite ‘values’ which ‘superficial to the theological scholar’.

Question 21

‘ideal type’ reveal history in its most? form

Answer 21

PE - ‘most logically consistent form’

Question 22

WHY THE importance of presenting religious ideas as ‘ideal types’, which become his method? PE

Answer 22

‘for precisely because of the impossibility of drawing clear boundaries in historical reality, we can only hope to arrive at the specific effects of these ideas by examining their most consistent form’ PE

Question 23

importance of presenting religious ideas as ‘ideal types’ SCI AS VOC?

Answer 23

‘middle way’ between scientific objectivity and ‘limitless relativism’

Question 24

W on Wissenschaft?

Answer 24

Wissenschaft cannot dictate what one’s values should be, and the role of Wissenschaft must be to “enable the listener to discover the vantage point from which he can judge the matter in the light of his own ultimate ideals”… ONLY B ACHIEVED THRU IDEAL TYPES - discuss each christian sect

Question 25

imp of ideal types 4 relig/pol judgement

Answer 25

Part of presenting the ‘ideal type’ is to avoid promoting or denigrating the political – or here – religious ideas
SCIENTIFIC IMPARTIALITY

Question 26

ideal types for facts

Answer 26

use of ‘ideal types’ serves to ‘intellectually order facts’…
avoids the ‘harmful’ evaluative argumentation of conclusive ideals and judgement

Question 27

W conception of Wissenschaft is also sculpted by the notion of specialisation which he describes as essential to achieve

Answer 27

empirical nomological knowledge - crucial for validity?
‘a really definitive and valuable achievement is always the product of specialisation’. -he provides the material as interdisciplinary enquirer from universal historical database

Question 28

utilises specialisation as a social scientist to give awareness of

Answer 28

‘both sides of the equation’ as he pursues an interdisciplinary approach and this becomes his Beruf.

Question 29

SPEC 2 - SPEC FLAWS

Answer 29

both ‘essential and inadequate’

‘inexhaustible multiplicity that lies within any historical phenomenon’

Question 30

how combat spec flaws

Answer 30

Weber focuses on ‘social specialisation’ within The Protestant Ethic
involves discussing the ‘peculiar results’ that result from historical situation which must look at ethical principles, reflective of the transformed ethical standing of modernity experiencing ‘a loss of unitary perspective’

Question 31

In The Protestant Ethic he clarifies that the fundamental ethical prescription of the modern day is not that of, for instance, New Testament ethics such as ‘love thy neighbour’ BUT?!

Answer 31

loyalty to one’s profession

Question 32

secular ethic of modern values has disconnected from the bonds of religious doctrine, such as

Answer 32

Luther’s concept of the calling – yet he does not make a definite judgement and instead invites the judgements of specialists to make further judgement

Question 33

The Protestant Ethic becomes an intellectual response to (SPEC)

Answer 33

the faults of specialisation, exemplified in Science as a Vocation

Question 34

SCI AS VOC Q ABT SPECIALIST

Answer 34

‘the best we can hope for is to provide the expert with useful questions of the sort that he may not easily discover for himself from his own vantage point’

Question 35

To ‘let the facts speak for themselves’, he argues, is

Answer 35

‘dishonest’ – and he provides a middle-way between presenting the facts and providing the next stages to which a solely empirical approach cannot extend

Question 36

Weber’s approach suspends in a limbo between 1!

Answer 36

1!the demand of the teacher that he have the intellectual integrity to state facts, to determine logical relations or the internal cultural values’

Question 37

Weber’s approach suspends in a limbo between 2!

Answer 37

2!‘to answer questions on the value of culture and its individual contents’

Question 38

Weber conveys an empirical-grounded reality whilst

Answer 38

communicating between different Kultur maintaining ‘value freedom’ through bringing the historical ‘given reality’ into the entire sphere of empirical nomological knowledge

Question 39

Weber recognises that his work will ? as a historian of the ‘broad’ sense

Answer 39

“inevitably remain highly imperfect”

but scientific approach ensures … neither descriptive nor prescriptive

Question 40

duty as a non-specialist?

Answer 40

intellectually inform those with highly specialised knowledge to consider phenomena they might have otherwise overlooked by virtue of their ‘narrow’ approach… broader model of ‘ideal types’ allow him to do so

Question 41

notion as Social sci to combat (infi)

Answer 41

the problems of the infinity of facts and the perils of philosophies of history

Question 42

infi - he rejects

Answer 42

‘vulgar Marxism’ and the theorists of the ‘base’ and ‘ideological superstructure’, striking a middle way between such and the impenetrable ‘infinity of facts’

Question 43

vs the the philosophies of history and intellectual schemes which organise history

Answer 43

Weber creates a historiographic method which is ‘intelligent and intelligible’ GHOSH WHY SWREADMWTODAY?, as a historian in the ‘broad sense’ …
In this way he does not limit interpretations of history, which are characteristic of historical philosophies

Question 44

he investigates the past not for its own sake but

Answer 44

to seek lessons, particularly on values, for modern day – although he is no determinist

Question 45

seeking lessons on values = imp 4

Answer 45

his approach, as both he and his historical works are characterised by an increasing plurality of values in the place of a universal value scheme
motivated to explain the present, and explain ‘modern Kultur’ by understanding the past through a neutral lens that does not lean towards ‘narrow’ philosophies

Question 46

To ‘explain history properly’ he embraces …

Answer 46

an optimistic syncretism, a result from relativism of developmental history

Question 47

by avoiding philosophies / solely social/ emotional? approach 1

Answer 47

enables his reader to ignore theoretical implications and consequently eludes both the histories and subsequent interpretations from ‘dangerous’ value standards

Question 48

by avoiding philosophies / solely social/ emotional? approach 2

Answer 48

he promotes that ‘we ourselves must be able to create that meaning’, unlike the ‘fate of a cultural epoch that has been eaten from the tree of knowledge’ – for ‘we cannot read off the meaning of events in this world from the results’ OBJECTIVITY OF KNOWL IN SOC SCI

Question 49

Weber uses his notion as a social scientist to offer histories that work scientifically in the sense that they seek truth with

Answer 49

an intellectual ordering of empirical and not theoretical reality, which offers the means for an ultimate judgement to be made by others.

Question 50

APPROACH compatible with the present… understood as 1 of

Answer 50

‘individually constructed meaning, which must however function within an agreed social context’…
through an exploration of the past Weber promotes an understanding of the central characteristics of present phenomena which can be understood in terms of their previous history

Question 51

APPROACH compatible with the present… with focus primarily on the present and to decipher KULTUR
EXAMPLES

Answer 51

changes in behaviours and developments that have development from the past that are not ‘rational’ or of ‘industrial organisation’
‘separation of business from the household which completely dominated modern life’, and the growth of ‘commercialization… which is connected to it

Question 52

SOC SCI ON BEHAVIOURS … his ‘individually constructed meaning’

Answer 52

proposes in an anti-determinist way that such developments could be ‘identical with the restraint, or at least rational tempering of irrational impulse’

Question 53

how he is not conclusive

Answer 53

‘individually constructed meaning’ which ‘functions with an agreed social context’

Question 54

another e.g. of individually constructed meaning can = be accepted/disputed

Answer 54

his creation his term ‘ascetic Protestantism’, referring to the religious social context of the ‘deviated form of traditional sacramental religion’

Question 55

ascet prot involves

Answer 55

‘the highest form of moral obligation of the individual is to fulfil his duty in worldly affairs’

Question 56

In coining a term for this form of Protestant attitude and action (Social sci) and proposing its agency in the development of ‘the spirit of modern capitalism’

Answer 56

Weber is deploying a methodological device which offers an ‘individual’ meaning for historical development, specifically on the present

Question 57

+ves of he understands it could be “inevitably remain highly imperfect”

Answer 57

example of an applied ‘individual meaning’ which he encourages to his academic audience in order to extract historical meaning which possesses importance for the present, even if on an individual bases and backed by empirical investigation

Question 58

enquiry SUM

Answer 58

historical enquiry from universal, historical databases to which he and others can select material and ‘meaning’ in the form of ‘ideal types’ in order to explain the present day. This becomes his principal task - and product- as a social scientist

Question 59

Weber’s notion of a social scientist can be understood by his three main principles that fit into his Wissenschaft encouraging one

Answer 59

‘how to think’, deviating from prescriptive and descriptive historiographical approaches

Question 60

1st develop of WISSENSCH

Answer 60

anarchy of values’, in which he presents ‘ideal types’ that allows one to extract an individual meaning from empirical history, reflective of the increased plurality of German values

Question 61

2nd develop of WISSENSCH

Answer 61

specialisation, and how it should be used. For Weber, he provided the historical material through ‘ideal types’ to which the ‘specialist’ could utilise to think about history outside the ‘narrow sense’. He acknowledged the necessity of specialisation in the loss of a ‘unitary perspective’, yet it was his ‘duty’ to provide a ‘broad’ historical enquiry to aid others to reconsider how to avoid the limits of theoretical and philosophical ‘specialised’ histories

Question 62

3rd develop of WISSENSCH

Answer 62

use the notion of social science to explain present Kultur, and he becomes a presentist social scientist in this way - his intellectual response to modern value-plurality which explains using the past in an interdisciplinary approach, albeit ‘imperfect’ in nature and motive

Question 63

The Protestant Ethic thus becomes a prime example of his quest to understand modernity in an ‘individualised’/alternate/debatable yet entirely scientific and empirical way

Answer 63

both valid and imperfect, as he anticipates alternative vantage points

Question 64

ABOVE ALL

Answer 64

uses his notion of a social scientist to understand modern Kultur through ‘ideal types’ which are informed by his interdisciplinary historical enquiry – and this is his ‘moral’ Beruf