Weber's Understanding Research Articles

Weber's understanding of epistemological and methodological foundations of social sciences and sociology

Weber's understanding of epistemological and methodological foundations of social sciences and sociology

Sociology of Max Weber: Discussions on the Method of Understanding

Weber, who systematized the science of sociology, brought the understanding method that can be used in social action research to sociology. Influenced by German idealism during the period when the methodologies of positive sciences dominated social sciences, Weber made the method of understanding suitable for sociological research based on the ideas of William Dilthey. This research is essential in providing a new perspective to the literature by analyzing the method of understanding, which has many disagreements based on the debates. The main purpose of this study is to try to make the understanding method more comprehensible sociologically by referring to the analyzes in the literature. The research was prepared following the literature review method and expanded by scanning the Weberian literature. Due to the richness of the literature, this study is limited to several works in which Weber uses the method of understanding. The works selected for the research were determined as "Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism", "Methodology of social sciences", and "Sociology of religion". The reason for choosing these works is that they are accepted in the sociology literature as the main sources for which Weber's understanding method is used. As a result of the research, it was found that Weber's understanding method was divided into two types such as direct observational and explanatory understanding. In addition, two basic definitions are used for the understanding method. These definitions have been interpreted as an empathic analysis of human behavior and directing the researcher's work by putting himself in someone else's shoes. The main reasons for Weber's choosing to use the understanding method are to criticize the scientific methods dominated by the positive sciences, to create his research path of the social sciences, to bring the interpretive and observational research method to sociology, and to put Dilthey's philosophical approach on a scientific plane. In addition, it is the search for a method that can be used in analyzing historical studies in terms of social action. Weber used the understanding method over certain ideal types and chose the understanding method as the main way to create ideal types. As a result, in addition to the fact that the method of understanding should set a path for sociological studies, it has also been reached that the method of understanding does not only express the understanding of the subject through the mind. While the method of understanding offers a wide range of methods to the researchers in this respect, it has also been effective in breaking the effect of positive sciences on social sciences.

Yemapoetics: Towards a Theory of Healing in Indigenous Poetry from Sikkim

Literature that is being composed from or about the politico-geographical category of Northeast India focuses on violence and ethnic movements in major ways (Hazarika, 1996; Barpujari, 1998; Baruah, 2005; Paula, 2008). While Weberian understanding of indigenous cosmology has led to archiving, documenting and research on ethnic epistemologies from Northeast India, in the absence of indigenous literary theories, literature from this region faces the challenges of homogenisation or becoming case studies for ethnographic documentation and anthropological inquiry (Karlsson & Subba, 2006; Subba, 2009; Lepcha et al, 2020 in the context of Sikkim). This paper intends to propose a theory of reading that upholds the role and participation of the poet(ess) as a shaman- a transforming agent and a transformed individual herself. This theory is being named Yemapoetics, deriving its epistemic framework from the figure of shamaness or Yema in the Limboo healing tradition in Sikkim. Yemapoetics is an attempt to propose a new indigenous paradigm for indigenous literary expression around the world. This theory identifies stages of poetic composition as well as reception, ranging from purification, possession, communication to catharsis. An indigenous literary theory like this will provide contexts for locating the poet(ess), examining her/his role as community healer who connects the modern, urban psyche of individuals with communal, archetypal symbols. This enables a process of retracing and re-membering through the poetic act that is essential to healing and recovery. Just as Limboo cosmology recognises women as first humans to be created, this paper argues that women’s psychospiritual agency should be at the centre for poetic theories to accord validity and applicability of feminist spirituality to indigenous literary theorisation. For the purpose, an illustration of the proposed theory will be made with reference to select indigenous poets from Sikkim.

Противоречия советской теории этноса: история концепции и ее перспективы

The article discusses why the concept of ‘ethnos’ originated in the Russian Empire, and then in the second half of the 20th century, was developed in the USSR. The revival of the concept of ‘ethnos’ in the 1940s was caused by the need to solve such an applied problem as the drawing of post-war borders in post-war Eastern Europe. Later, Soviet ethnos theorists tried to combine incompatible Marxist ideas about the social class nature of society with the idea of an ‘ethnos’, close to Weber's understanding of an ethnic group, as a group with a specific culture and identity. At the turn of the 1980-1990s discussions began about the crisis of Soviet/Russian ethnology, primarily in the explanation of ethnicity, and several theorists suggested reorienting to the constructivist approach to ethnicity, which became dominant in English speaking science. The author considers the modern constructivist approach to ethnicity to be exhausted, since it failed to explain why members of ethnic minorities often prefer to self-identify with their ethnic ancestors more than with the states of which they are citizens, despite the efforts of states to reverse this orientation. It seems appropriate to abandon attempts to tie the ethnos to the social class structure of a particular socio-economic formation, that is, to abandon the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘nationality’ (‘narodnost’). In theoretical terms, it makes sense to rely on the criticalrealist theory developed by sociologists and representatives of other social sciences, which makes it possible to show the derivativeness of identities from structural and cultural factors and the reverse effect of identities on them. The use of the concept of ‘ethnos’ within the framework of such an approach has the advantage that it can describe the mechanism that leads to the possibility of the long-term existence of ethnic groups as important components of the social structure of society. Such a mechanism is the intergenerational transmission of ethnic identity, the core of which is ethnic self-identification, due to mono-ethnic marriages. And the most salient feature of this mechanism includes ideas of members of ethnic communities that ethnicity is associated with the ethnic origin of people and is transmitted, as it were, by inheritance from parents to children.

Revisiting Governance: Extended Statehood in Africa and Beyond

This article sets the theme for this issue. Weberian understanding of statehood has been valid and dominant for 100 years. However, it no longer reflects the complex dynamics of the superstructure resting on the social contract. One must acknowledge the widening frame of social and political influence and take it into account to make true sense of decades of failure in attempted state-building. Africa provides the scene for this argument as original focus of an ALC research project on the State in, and of, the Global South. Resulting from empirical evidence and analysis, this article not only offers the post-Weberian model of Extended Statehood, but also suggests its applicability within the realities of multilevel governance. Formal political order, even if remaining essential, has become a co-dependent element subject to fluctuating spheres of power. This research makes such dynamics visible.

Revisiting Governance: Extended Statehood in Africa and Beyond

This article sets the theme for this issue. Weberian understanding of statehood has been valid and dominant for 100 years. However, it no longer reflects the complex dynamics of the superstructure resting on the social contract. One must acknowledge the widening frame of social and political influence and take it into account to make true sense of decades of failure in attempted state-building. Africa provides the scene for this argument as original focus of an ALC research project on the State in, and of, the Global South. Resulting from empirical evidence and analysis, this article not only offers the post-Weberian model of Extended Statehood, but also suggests its applicability within the realities of multilevel governance. Formal political order, even if remaining essential, has become a co-dependent element subject to fluctuating spheres of power. This research makes such dynamics visible.
 
 

Corporate Power over Human Rights: An Analytical Framework

AbstractThis paper presents an original framework designed to systematize understanding of corporate power over human rights. The framework disaggregates four sites of this power: corporations have direct power over individuals’ human rights, power over the materialities of human rights, power over institutions governing human rights, and power over knowledge around human rights. This disaggregation is derived primarily from the work of Barnett and Duvall and focuses on the effects of corporate activity rather than the Weberian understanding of power as the ability to achieve desired outcomes. The framework captures a broad set of corporate acts based on their (potential) harm to human rights. It is argued that understanding business and human rights through the lens of power can help to advance a more comprehensive account of business impacts on human rights.

Enchantment in Business Ethics Research

This article draws attention to the importance of enchantment in business ethics research. Starting from a Weberian understanding of disenchantment, as a force that arises through modernity and scientific rationality, we show how rationalist business ethics research has become disenchanted as a consequence of the normalization of positivist, quantitative methods of inquiry. Such methods absent the relational and lively nature of business ethics research and detract from the ethical meaning that can be generated through research encounters. To address this issue, we draw on the work of political theorist and philosopher, Jane Bennett, using this to show how interpretive qualitative research creates possibilities for enchantment. We identify three opportunities for reenchanting business ethics research related to: (i) moments of novelty or disruption; (ii) deep, meaningful attachments to things studied; and (iii) possibilities for embodied, affective encounters. In conclusion, we suggest that business ethics research needs to recognize and reorient scholarship towards an appreciation of the ethical value of interpretive, qualitative research as a source of potential enchantment.

Max Weber's antinomies of the Fall: Paradisiacal ethics and the populist Zeitgeist.

This article points out that the way the biblical myth of the Fall has been interpreted in the Judeo-Christian tradition is a crucial heuristic in the works of Max Weber, an assessment that hitherto largely remained unnoticed. Nevertheless, Weber's understanding of everyday action is closely related to the various religious interpretations of what deprivations were suffered by humanity as a consequence of Adam's original sin and the paradisiacal yearning for salvation it engenders. Moreover, Weber's interpretation of the Fall is characteristic for his tragic sociology in the sense that it guarantees the freedom to subjectively create self-conscious meaning that is, however, no longer embedded in a context of common knowledge. His solution to this epistemological problem involves a Nietzschean heroic existentialism whereby individuals give personality to one's character by freely choosing their own values. Yet, he also realizes that many will not be able to choose by themselves and, therefore, will be attracted by charismatic leaders that can invoke a paradisiacal community of choice. Weber's modern antinomical interpretation of the Fall is still relevant today because it provides insight in the epistemological underpinnings of the contemporary populist Zeitgeist.

Что такое крушение государства?

The article is devoted to an overview of state failure conceptualization. One of the most popular concepts was failed state after transformed in fragile state. These two concepts are based on weberian understanding of the state that is irrelevant from historical perspective. Also critics have denoted to political labeling, incorrectness and the lack of formalization of these concepts. Since these indices were built for practical purposes, a full­fledged theoretical foundation for the idea of state weakness was elaborated in great details in a concept of state capacity. This concept tries to surpass the narrow weberian understanding of the state and offers three dimensions of state capacity: fiscal­economic, administrative­bureaucratic and the control over violence. The drawback of this concept is an absence of the threshold to understand whether the state has experienced state failure or not. The most formalized approach to measure state failure is created within a concept of state collapse. This concept has common with the previous concept because bases on the same features (fiscal, administrative and military). Using this concept faces some difficulties because of different cases are the same according to this concept. Sociology offered a concept of state breakdown which has three points: fiscal crisis, elite conflict and mass mobilization. After analyzing both sociological and anthropological literature the author offers to add to these three criteria two additional: deligitimation (or change of self­description in the system) and territorial disintegration.

Corporate Power over Human Rights: An Analytical Framework

This paper presents an original framework designed to systemize understandings of corporate power over human rights. The framework disaggregates four sites of this power: corporations have direct power over individuals’ human rights, power over the materialities of human rights, power over institutions governing human rights, and power over knowledge around human rights. This disaggregation is derived primarily from the work of Barnett and Duvall, and focuses on effects of corporate activity, rather than the Weberian understanding of power as the ability to achieve desired outcomes. The framework captures a broad set of corporate acts based on their (potential) harm to human rights. It is argued that understanding business and human rights through the lens of power can help to advance a more comprehensive account of corporate impacts on human rights.

Conflict, Order and Societal Change in Max Weber's Ancient Judaism: Substantive and Methodological Implications

Although Max Weber never formulated a theory of societal change, his study of Ancient Judaism was primarily concerned with understanding and explaining such change; especially the development of a disenchanted, this-worldly monotheistic faith having significant social and characterological consequences. Implicit in Weber's understanding of societal change is a dialectical relation between conflict and an order in which each serves both to reinforce and to transform the other. Conflict among Israelite social strata forms a consistent theme throughout Weber's discussion in Ancient Judaism, particularly the conflict between the patrimonial Israelite kings and the charismatic Hebrew prophets. This dynamic focus on conflict and change has methodological consequences which Weber illustrated with particular clarity in Ancient Judaism, especially in his application of the ideal types of traditional, charismatic, and legal Herrschaft. Presented in ‘Basic Sociological Concepts’ as terminologically precise and logically distinct, the flexibility and adaptability evident in Weber's application of these types to the empirical context of ancient Israel shows that he considered them to be profoundly interrelated.

Max Weber and the Idea of Progress

This paper examines Max Weber's understanding of progress and his evaluation of how much of it there has been in human history. Weber largely dismissed the idea of progress, arguing that modern Kulturmenschen die ‘tired of life’ — beset by meaninglessness — rather than, like the peasant, ‘satiated with life’ — that is, filled with the meaningfulness of a life lived with and for others. Weber's perspective, which imputes a sort of generic meaninglessness to modern life, is argued to be too pessimistic; improvements in health, life expectancy, and wellbeing suggest that many people might well feel that there has been considerable progress, even if Weber thinks that their lives lack meaning for them. A fairer accounting of developments in the past century suggest that there is plenty of meaning to go around, and that especially those who contributed to the improvements in modern life are likely to have had fulfilling, meaningful lives in the course of making those contributions.

Compreensão empática e as possíveis contribuições para a pesquisa nos estudos organizacionais: reflexões a partir da experiência do lado estético das organizações

Resumo O método weberiano da compreensão tem constituído objeto de discussão e debate ao longo do tempo. No entanto, especificamente, a compreensão empática ainda é pouco explorada, especialmente no âmbito do estudo das organizações brasileiras. Após levantamento feito nas principais bases de dados e periódicos abrigados no portal Periódicos Capes, verificamos ser escassa a produção acadêmica que percorre o caminho da compreensão empática, especificamente na área dos Estudos Organizacionais no Brasil. Diante disso, procuramos trazer neste artigo algumas considerações sobre o resgate da compreensão empática na pesquisa. Considerando a abordagem da estética organizacional como pano de fundo, a discussão articulou às bases epistemológicas da compreensão empática proposta pela sociologia weberiana. Esta preconiza que os estudos das Ciências Sociais devem estar ancorados prioritariamente na compreensão do sentido da ação dos indivíduos, de modo que possamos entender por que agem de determinada maneira. Então, refletimos sobre as possíveis contribuições da compreensão empática para a pesquisa, considerando a ideia do pesquisador como peça-chave para a construção do corpus de pesquisa e a plausibilidade do conhecimento, sem necessariamente empreender a ação. Almejamos que este estudo sirva de gatilho para a elaboração de novas discussões sobre as possibilidades de contribuição da compreensão empática para a pesquisa nos Estudos Organizacionais.

Gellnerovo pojetí modernity

Gellner’s theory of modernity is a complex structure, it matured several decades and during this process he modified some of its elements. The following interpretation of his theory is based on the analysis of three pillars of his thought, first on his epistemological axioms, second on his concept of philosophy of human history and third on his conception of social theory. Gellner’s theory of knowledge is a cluster composed of classical empiricism, kantian rationalism, enriched by weberian understanding of historical modifications of rationalism in modern times. Gellner adds to these two pillars his concept of cultural perspectivism and his interpretation of evolutionism, so called truncated evolutionism that concentrates on the emergence of modernity. Gellner’s philosophy of history is based on his analysis of interaction between three basic functional entities of all human societies: economy, power, knowledge. Gellner rather carefully analyzed as well the relationship between the role of material and ideational factors in human history, and between sociological analyses based on causal. In his view sociology has to use both approaches. Gellner is stressing the fact that to the most important elements of modernity belongs science, but at the same time he is fully aware of the fact that science can not tell us “what to do”. Here he follows Max Weber’s thesis on the disenchantment as an element of modernity.

Dialectics of Disenchantment: Devaluation of the Objective World— Revaluation of Subjective Religiosity

Max Weber was interested in the fate of religion precisely in the modern period, but he did not apply the concept of secularization for this. It is ‘disenchantment’ that occupies the central position in Weber's understanding of religious history. This paper addresses first the inherent connection between the section on religion in Max Weber's Economy and Society (titled ‘Religious Communities’ or ‘Sociology of Religion’) and his studies of The Economic Ethic of the World Religions. Second, it turns to Weber's concept of the process and consequences of disenchantment in these texts. Third, it traces the dialectics of disenchantment of religion in recent approaches to history, nature and society. There is a correspondence between progress in scientific knowledge and the bases of religion. Religions, divesting the world of magic and denying any inner-worldly salvation, change their own basis of existence. Religiosity takes on increasingly irrational relationships of meaning, such as ethical or mystical.

The necessity to work, according to John Calvin's duty of stewardship

This article analyses John Calvin's argument for the necessity of hard, lifelong work. Paradoxically, his argument runs alongside a condemnation of the quest for personal enrichment and the pursuit of self-interest. This apparent contradiction can be resolved if it is understood within the framework of a duty of stewardship, according to which every man has to act as God would have done in his place. Our description of this duty leads us to outline the concept of work in Calvin's thought, and to locate it within the context of Max Weber's understanding of the ascetic Calvinist interpretation of work.

The secular and the sacred: reflections on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age

ABSTRACTCharles Taylor’s A Secular Age represents a remarkable achievement. Taylor insists in a reasoned way that the sacred continues to have an important and legitimate role, and challenges assumptions, whether based on Weberian or Durkheimian understandings of religion in society, that faith no longer has a place. In doing this, he distinguishes among different aspects of the secularisation thesis. In this article I assert that there is a coherence to Taylor’s body of work, including A Secular Age, and I trace certain themes, such as a concern with notions of the self, that run through his work. I also identify in Taylor’s argument links to the thought of thinkers like Blondel, Gilson, Maritain and Marcel, and to the notion of an apologetics of hope.

Sociology and Theology

The argument turns on a Weberian account of Christianity as a rejection of “the world” understood as a domain dominated by power, wealth, status, sex and violence; and on a Weberian understanding of how that creates a persistent tension with the realities of power and wealth as articulated by sociology, political science etc. in the economic, political, symbolic and aesthetic spheres. Thus theology, insofar as it articulates the original radical template of Christianity, is against, and sociology is with, “the grain” of the world. Although the Church has to compromise with wealth and power, the template of Christianity implicitly provides a sacred reference point for a whole civilisation, whatever people’s dogmatic commitments or lack of them. The argument examines these compromises, and considers how theology and sociology interact as neighbouring cultural disciplines very different from natural science disciplines. Sociology and theology are cognate in their narrative and contingent character, in spite of different modes of operation.

The Spirit of Capitalism and the Caribbean Slave Trade

Abstract capitalist proponents and orthodox Marxists alike tend to agree that capitalism entails a significant break from systems of chattel slavery: both claim that there is a significant, substantive difference between a system that commands and oppresses labor directly and one that commands labor indirectly through the private ownership of capital, although Marxists would deny that the latter is any less oppressive that the former. Apologists for capitalism commonly claim that the rise of that system ended slavery and that the overthrow of slavery by “free labor” is the clearest evidence of capitalism’s moral superiority over other economic systems. Orthodox Marxists, such as Eugene Genovese, concur that slavery in the Americas was “precapitalist,”(45) and that capitalism brought it to an end, although they would maintain more continuities between the two systems than capitalism’s defenders would admit, and deny any moral advantage to “wage slavery” over chattel slavery. Defenders of capitalism are wrong on this matter for several reasons, but what I wish to focus upon in this paper is how a Weberian understanding of capitalism as a “spirit” or ethos, rather than in terms of a set of economic institutions and practices, demonstrates how the Caribbean slave trade was an early manifestation of capitalism rather than its antithesis.