Max Weber's Concept Research Articles

LEVINE'S VISIONS OF THE GERMAN TRADITION IN THE LIGHT OF WEBER

This article illuminates Levine's analysis of the German tradition in his book Visions of the Sociological Tradition in the light of Max Weber's concept of verstehen. According to Levine, the understanding of subjective meaning is the most important theme of thinkers whose ideas resulted in the founding of sociology in Germany. Visions is more than a history of sociological theory, its broadest purpose being to stimulate a dialogue among competing “narratives” that will reduce the fragmentation in contemporary sociology and also address the moral dilemmas in contemporary society. This dialogical purpose provides a criterion for selecting ideas that best represent the various sociological traditions. Considering Weber in the context of Levine's book will not only clarify the German tradition but will also lead to both support and criticism of his dialogical thesis.

Levine's Visions of the German Tradition in the Light of Weber

This article illuminates Levine's analysis of the German tradition in his book Visions of the Sociological Tradition in the light of Max Weber's concept of verstehen. According to Levine, the understanding of subjective meaning is the most important theme of thinkers whose ideas resulted in the founding of sociology in Germany. Visions is more than a history of sociological theory, its broadest purpose being to stimulate a dialogue among competing “narratives” that will reduce the fragmentation in contemporary sociology and also address the moral dilemmas in contemporary society. This dialogical purpose provides a criterion for selecting ideas that best represent the various sociological traditions. Considering Weber in the context of Levine's book will not only clarify the German tradition but will also lead to both support and criticism of his dialogical thesis.

Max Weber's concept of feudalism and history of Lithuania

The article contains an attempt at classification of the theories of feudalism, an exposition of Max Weber's later theory of feudalism and a discussion of the question of its applicability to the history of Lithuania in the 13th-17th centuries. The theories of feudalism are classified as building a continuum including two poles: a mimetic one and a constructivist one. The first pole is approximated by the political and legal concepts of feudalism developed by the mainstream German historians in the 19th and 20th centuries (G. von Below, H. Mitteis, O. Brunner). The second pole is approximated by the Marxist socio-economic theories of feudalism. M. Weber's concept of feudalism is formulated in terms of political sociology and is localized in the middle of this continuum. The author suggests that the relations of political domination in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th-17th centuries can be accounted for by applying Weber's terms „fruendenfeudalismus," „ständische Herrschaft," and „Geschlechterstaat," but not the term „Lehnsfeudalismus."

Sage, Priest, Prophet: Religious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel (review)

Hebrew Studies 38 (1997) 100 Reviews The book is highly repetitious, which may be helpful to some readers but disturbing to others. There are very few misprints. Just to mention two of them: "Mein" (p. 63, n. 50) should be "Main," and "d'object" (p. 138, n. 96) should read "d'objet." landeWaard Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands SAGE, PRIEST, PROPHET: RELIGIOUS AND INTELLECTUAL LEADERSHIP IN ANCIENT ISRAEL. By Joseph Blenkinsopp. Library of Ancient Israel. Pp. xi + 191. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1995. Cloth, $19.00. Joseph Blenkinsopp locates the present work "at the interface of social and intellectual history" (p. 7) and attempts to identify the various social roles and the various kinds of intellectual leadership which were performed by ancient Israel's sages, priests, and prophets. The decision to focus on these three particular classes or groups and not others derives from his contention that "they are the classes that in their different ways were responsible for the biblical texts and therefore for the symbolic-conceptual world from which the texts derive, which gives the texts their distinctive character" (pp. 2-3). An overarching concept informing Blenkinsopp's present work is that of "tradition." As such, he asks: what constitutes a tradition, how do traditions originate, how do competing traditions interact , and how does leadership shape and how is it shaped by tradition? To facilitate the study, Blenkinsopp draws both on sociological insights concerning "role theory" and "role performance," and on Max Weber's (whose influence is acknowledged throughout the book) concept of the "ideal type." Questions deriving from these ideas are then put to the sources, namely, the relevant biblical texts, the archaeological record, and comparative data. When it comes to the handling of sources, Blenkinsopp is extremely cautious. He constantly reminds the reader of how little we actually know about ancient Israel. In his own modest words, he claims only to be able to make "some headway" (p. 7) in the task at hand. Blenkinsopp turns first to the sage (or scribe) and argues, against R. N. Whybray, that in spite of the relatively small amount of material that has Hebrew Studies 38 (1997) WI Reviews survived from ancient Israel's sages, one is justified nevertheless in positing an intellectual tradition which was institutionally grounded. He locates the origins of this tradition in the development of a "common ethos" which was fonnulated in the pre-state period and which emerged out of a non-literate society based on kinship networks. He sees strong connections between the fonnulation of proverbial sayings and the development of Israel's legal tradition, a point which he develops further in his discussion of Proverbs. The emergence of the state system, however, and its need for educated and literate civil servants, is what made it possible for the society to produce a genuine literary and intellectual tradition, but Blenkinsopp finds little evidence for such an identifiable tradition prior to the time of Hezekiah. Beginning then, we see evidence of a "class of literati" (p. 32) located in the royal court. In the editorial history of the book of Proverbs, insofar as it can be known, Blenkinsopp sees "a trajectory along which the consolidation of the intellectual tradition of the sages can be traced" (p. 45). Proverbial sayings from the pre-state and early state period, rising Yahwistic orthodoxy, and the national cult all come together under the rubric of "the fear of Yahweh" (p. 45) personified as Female Wisdom, which in turn is later identified with Torah. He then goes on to examine how, in response to the fall of Jerusalem, the intellectual tradition of the sages was challenged from within by Job and Ecclesiastes. He concludes this section by noting how strikingly different "the intellectual world of Judah and the contemporary Greek-speaking world" were, the former heavily focusing on the "practical and ethical" and the latter on "speculative thinking and the acquisition of scientific knowledge." He attributes this significant difference to the fact that "Greece never came under the rule of the Persians" (p. 64). Blenkinsopp's next task, the issue of priests, is a difficult one given the seemingly endless debates over the history of the priesthood in Israel...

Max Weber's Concept of Patrimonialism and the Soviet System

The concept of patrimonial domination was at first underutilized in western social science and then often used without proper clarification of its methodological basis. When the Soviet system was characterized as patrimonial, conceptual analysis was also generally lacking. In the article an attempt is made to fill in the gap between Weberian sociological theory and historical studies of Soviet society. It is argued that, although the concept of patrimonialism is applicable to the Stalinist system, this concept is not sufficient for the description of the Soviet state throughout its history. It is assumed in the article that Weber's concept of Beamtenmherrschaft might be more appropriate for the analysis of the post-Stalinist political regime in the USSR.

A Solidarist Social Economy: The Bruyn Perspective

(1994). A Solidarist Social Economy: The Bruyn Perspective. Review of Social Economy: Vol. 52, No. 1, pp. 108-121.

Priests, Prophets, Jews and Germans : the political basis of Max Weber's conception of ethno-national solidarities

When we raise the question of how ethnic groups are formed, how they evolve and how they persist over time, it is here as elsewhere good practice to start by interrogating the classical contributions to sociology. Of the sociological classics, Max Weber provides unquestionably the most significant early discussions and the most explicit contribution on ethnicity. Michael Hechter (1976, 1978) has, most directly perhaps, drawn attention to Weber's contribution and in turn tried to resolve, by means of his concept of the ‘cultural division of labour’ what he saw as difficulties in Weber's typology of class and status groups. Hechter thus addressed a theme arising from Marxist debates on class, race and ethnicity (e.g., Bonacich, 1972, 1973) in the early seventies that in recent years has reached a high level of maturity (e.g., Wolpe, 1986). Neither Hechter's thesis nor the Marxist discussion, however, deal with what I believe lies at the core of Weber's conception of ethnicity.

Max Weber, Formal Rationality, and Health Lifestyles

Max Weber's concept of formal rationality and ideas about lifestyles in general are applied to current trends in health lifestyles. The central contribution of Weber's thinking is recognition of the dialectical interplay between formal versus substantive rationality, consumption versus production, choice versus life chances, class similarities versus distinctions, and self-control versus conformity in shaping health life-styles and the reality of their operationalization in the postmodern world. In a largely applied subdiscipline like medical sociology, Weber's work offers a theoretical background on which to enrich our understanding of health lifestyles and grapple with the initial theoretical challenges posed by lifestyle research.

Lifestyle or Lebensführung? Critical Remarks on the Mistranslation of Weber's “Class, Status, Party”

Max Weber's concept of Lebensfuhrung was inappropriately translated as “lifestyle” in the two major English-language translations of his work. The result is that Weber's distinctly different terms ...

The Weberian Ideal-type: Development and Continuities

Max Weber's concept of ideal-types is presented against a background of the meth odological controversies at the turn of the century and the conceptions of some recent authors. The changes in Weber's ideal-type approach from his early studies of medieval trading companies to Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft and his studies of world religions are pointed out. It is argued that Weber's methodology was integral to his project to disclose the roots and central contents of modem Western civilization.

Max Weber's conception of the state

Max Weber's conception of the state

"On the Separatin' Place": Social Class and Relocation Among Older Women

Despite the interest in the relocation experiences of the elderly, little research has focused on the meanings of relocation. Using intensive interviews with 40 women who had relocated to facilities for the elderly, this essay demonstrates substantial variation in experiences of relocation along class lines. Middle class women were likely to have moved from homes that they had ozwned and lived in for many years. Having strong attachments to place, they coped with relocation by making their new rooms into museums of their lives. Lower class women were likely to have moved many times in their lives and were unlikely to have ozwned their own homes. Moving into a facility for the elderly was experienced as one in a long succession of moves, distinguished only by increased comfort and security. Working class women were likely to begin a downward spiral after widowhood or divorce. Moving into a facility for the elderly stopped the succession of moves to progressively smaller and less comfortable residences. In commenting on Max Weber's key concept of chances, Dahrendorf (1979) argues that we must pay attention to both words-the life of individual experiences and the of social structures that mold those experiences. As Weber ([1922] 1968) noted, social class is one of the main characteristics of social structures affecting the chances of individuals. Using occupational prestige scales and large data sets, sociologists have well-documented the ways social class affects income, wealth, and mobility rates. Less well-documented are the ways class-related experiences shape the courses of individual biographies, particularly in the later phases of life. The following paper explores the individual biographies of older women who have relocated into facilities for the elderly. This experi

Charisma, History, and Social Structure

This new collection of essays looks at Max Weber's concept of the charismatic leader and the role and significance of charismatic leadership in relation to structural developments in contemporary society. Following the editors' overview of Weber's typology, the classical commentaries of H..H. Gerth, C. Wright Mills, and Reinhard Bendix are presented. Responding to these, a subsequent essay redefines Weber's position and examines misinterpretations of his original concept. The question of illegitimate authority is considered, both in terms of specific leaders who have abused power and of the manufacture of charisma. Through case studies of the movements of Calvinism, Hasidism, the Unification Church, and modern Iran, the religious face of charismatic leadership is investigated. The falsification of charisma--the creation of superstars by the media--is studied in connection with the cynicism and impersonality that permeate our rational approach to social life and political action. The complex causal connections between charismatic leadership and social structure are analyzed, using studies of successful and unsuccessful charismatic leaders. Questions such as why some leaders fail while others succeed, and whether, or to what degree, social structure sets limits on the impact of charisma are explored. Particular emphasis is given to the structural and cultural processes that lead nations in a democratic or despotic-authoritarian direction.

Dilthey's Distinction Between "Explanation" and '"Understanding" and the Possibility of Its "Mediation"

Dilthey's Distinction Between "Explanation" and '"Understanding" and the Possibility of Its "Mediation" KARL-OTTO APEL 1. EXPOSITION OF THE THESIS MAX WEBER, THE FOUNDER of "interpretive sociology" (verstehende Soziologie), was influenced by Dilthey and the Neo-Kantians when he framed the question of "interpretive explanations" (verstehendeErkli~rungen).It was in this context that he wrote: "That an interpretation possesses a particularly high degree of evidence [i.e., qualitatively for understanding], does not itself prove anything about its empirical validity.... Rather, our 'understanding' of the context must always be checked by the usual methods of causal correlations as far as possible, before an ever so 'evident' interpretation becomes a valid 'understandable explanation.' " To this degree Weber denies "that 'understanding' and 'explanation' have no [positive] relationship to one another, although they most certainly begin at opposite poles in their work. ''2 Such statements by Max Weber are often used in systematic evaluations as arguments against Dilthey's distinction between the "understanding" typical of the human sciences and the kind of "explanation" typical of the natural sciences. In this way, e.g., Weber's demand for a way to check the evidence of claims based upon "understanding" by means of the "usual methods of causal correlations" has even been seen as a prefiguration of Hempel's argument for the "unity of science" model of nomological causal explanations or, to be more precise, of strong, deterministic and weak, statistical causal explanation. 1 See Max Weber, GesammelteAufsi~tzezur Wissenschaftstheorie(Ttibingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], x968), 428. " Ibid., 436. [131] 132 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY In fact, Hempel attributed to "empathetic understanding," as he called it, mere psychological and heuristic significance, even for historical and social sciences, in the discovery of historically testable, explanatory hypotheses. He emphasized especially that the evidence for the discovery of understandable reasons for behavior does not yet indicate that the factual occurrence of this kind of behavior can be explained. For this we need to be able to show that these "reasons" actually were causally effective. But to show this on Hempel's account we must already engage in checking a nomological explanatory hypothesis by empirical means. 3 According to this line of thought, the possible mediation of explanation and understanding, as it is already formulated in Max Weber's concept of "understanding explanation," amounts to showing that Dilthey's distinction between the two is irrelevant to the philosophy of science. Dilthey's distinction would amount then merely to a kind of ideologically destructive separation , as is sometimes claimed, even a tearing apart of the natural and the so-called "human sciences" (Geisteswissenschaften), a separation which can be traced in part to metaphysical prejudices, in part to a psychological confusion in nineteenth-century philosophy. In contrast to this interpretation, I want to uphold the following thesis. In the human and social sciences there are different types of mediation between 'understanding' and 'explanation'. The philosophical-epistemological conception of these different types of mediation does not stand in contradiction to the proper understanding of Dilthey's distinction, rather presupposes it. To my mind, this distinction and its mediation is not only psychologically relevant, but relevant methodologically as well, and, hence, relevant to the philosophy of science too. Of course, neither--the distinction and its mediation---can be made understandable under the assumptions of an abstract "logic of science." By such a logic I mean the method of explicating "explanations" as "systematizations of knowledge" (C. G. Hempel); it abstracts from the outset from the pragmatic presuppositions of explanations which answer particular questions, or it at best regards these pragmatic presuppositions as external, empirical conditions of scientific knowledge. In opposition to this view, we can, in my view, adequately explicate both the distinction between explanation and understanding as well as the types of mediations between them only by means of a transcendental-pragmatic epistemology and philosophy of science. By this I mean a transformation of Kant's approach, in the following sense. See C. G. Hempel,Aspectsof ScientificExplanationand otherEssaysin thePhilosophyof Science (NewYork:The FreePress, x965),239f., 258. EXPLANATION AND UNDERSTANDING 133 The abstract logic of science promulgated by Logical Positivism completely overlooked the categorical conditions of the possibility of synthetic...

Farming, rationality, and craftship: Beyond X-efficiency

Recent theoretical developments in economic theory have attempted to relax the assumption that human behavior is guided by “tight calculation” of profit-maximization. Harvey Liebenstein's notion of X-efficiency is a particularly important development in this regard. This article argues, however, that X-efficiency theory does not go far enough in relaxing the assumptions of economic theory. The understanding of human behavior requires a recognition of variability in the ends or goals of action as well as variability in the means which are utilized in the pursuit of these diverse ends. Max Weber's concepts of formal rationality and substantive rationality recognize this variability in the ends toward which action is oriented as well as the intrusion of habit or routine in the “calculatedness” of social and economic action. C. Wright Mills' ideal of craftship is used to represent a type of substantive rationality which contrasts with the formal rationality of calculation toward profit-maximization. The case is made that craftship is a particularly significant substantive rationality in American agriculture. It is argued that, among family farmers, other values, such as autonomy in one's work, often constitute alternative ends toward which action may be directed. Such ends may, in fact, conflict with the goal of profit-maximization. It is concluded that agricultural policy analysis and prescription which fails to consider the significant role of substantive rationalities, such as craftship, are likely to reproduce and enhance the conditions from which the present crisis in agriculture has developed.

Legitimacy and Mass Compliance: Reflections on Max Weber and Soviet-Type Societies

It is worthwhile debating the meaning of concepts only when they start to hinder the process of inquiry. This seems to be the case with Max Weber's concepts of legitimacy and legitimate authority. They are becoming increasingly popular among students of Soviet-type societies despite the numerous problems posed by their application in a socio-political context that is so different from the one Weber had in mind. This increased popularity results in a ‘conceptual stretch’. More importantly, it increases the danger of a serious misinterpretation of socio-political processes in Soviet-type societies because, as will be argued in this article, the concept of legitimacy is not appropriate for the analysis of mass compliance in such societies. Instead, the persistence of (relatively) stable social and political order in these societies, as well as the occurrences of mass dissent, may be better accounted for in terms of ‘conditional tolerance’. In order to demonstrate the utility of this concept, and to show the problematic nature of accounts in terms of legitimacy and legitimate authority, it is necessary to start with a brief reprise of Weber's conceptual scheme.

Weber's Ideal Type: A Contemporary Reassessment

Max Weber's concept of the ideal type would seem to have fallen into neglect in contemporary social science. Professor Hekman argues that Weber's concept is methodologically sound and logically consistent. Inasmuch as it offers a common basis for the analysis of subjective meaning and structural forms it may provide a corrective to what she sees as the present methodological disarray in social theory.

Modernity and the Aporias of Critical Theory

Abstract Since Weber's analysis of modernity through the category of rationalization, diagnosing the irrationality of this rationalization had been a central preoccupation of critical theory. Marcuse ended his “Industrialization and Capitalism in the Work of Max Weber” with the question: “Is there perhaps already in Max Weber's concept of reason that irony that understands but disavows? Does he by any chance mean to say: And this you call ‘reason’?” Marcuse's question was not unjustified, for it pointed to an unresolved ambivalence in Weber's own work on modernity. In diagnosing that societal rationalization processes would inevitably result in a loss of freedom (Freiheitsverlust), whereas Western cultural rationalism would lead to an irreversible loss of meaning (Sinnverlust), Weber provided a highly ambivalent evaluation of the significance of modernity in the West.

‘Toward the Iron Cage of Future Serfdom’? On the Methodological Status of Max Weber's Ideal-Typical Concept of Bureaucratization

The terms bureaucracy and bureaucratization are altogether loaded with emotional connotations. In order to get beyond this and to reach an understanding of what is actually meant when we talk of bureaucracy and bureaucratization it is worth while turning to Max Weber. Weber was among the first sociologists to discuss systematically the consequences of bureaucratization for Western societies. He developed an ideal-typical theory bureaucratization which has been extremely influential far beyond the confines of sociology as such. Undoubtedly it is of major interest to historians as well, for though systematic in its intent, it draws on a wide range of historical cases; furthermore, it was intended to throw light on significant historical developments, in particular the processes nowadays associated with the concept of modernization. Indeed, Günther Roth pointed out recently with good reason that Max Weber's retreat from history was in fact strategic rather than fundamental; his ideal-typical systematizations were meant to serve as tools and guidelines for empirical historical research just as much as for sociological analysis. ‘Socio-historical models (such as bureaucracy, patrimonialism, feudalism or the charismatic community) are useful to us in so far as they organize historical knowledge in a specifically sociological way, that is, in the form of generalizations that emphasize the general and repetitive side of history without assuming the existence of laws in any strict sense.’ Moreover, in Weber's methodology ideal types are then used in a genuine historical manner.

Rationality, Legal Change, and Community in Connecticut, 1690-1760

The paper examines certain legal changes in eighteenth-century Connecticut, primarily in the area of debt litigation, and links them with economic development and with changes in the nature and meaning of community. The legal changes proceeded in the direction of greater rationality as expanding economic activity disrupted the multiplex ties that had once characterized communities and paired people instead in single-interest relationships. Max Weber's concept of rationality provides a theoretical base for the historical study of legal change.