Weber- Exam 1

Where is Max Weber from + occupation?

Germany & professor

The Weberian Perspetive

gives importance to individual action within a historically specific cultural mileu

• macro: how culture is important to us

• micro: how we orient + make meaning of culture

cultural values + beliefs, social structure, and psychological orientations of the actors

Seeks to explain the relationships among these three factors:

culture based problem

asking Q’s about society or humans is a cultural value linked act & value laden

• we can only ask questions for which a culture exists

  • in-class ex. sexual harassment claims 200 or even 50yrs ago

  • that reflect the cultural norms and values of that time period.

objective knowledge

is possible if:

• reflexivity and critically aware of our values in forming and researching our questions

  • aka understanding biases

• specifically the use of ideal types can make something objective

ideal types

• like a yard-stick against which to measure differences in the social world

  • in-class privacy ex

• without it, we can only know subjective aspects of humans

historical ideal type

• ones developed using past examples of phenomenon of interest to deduce logical characteristics

classificatory ideal type

• ones developed from logical speculation to categorize and differentiate between various social phenomena based on shared characteristics.

Verstehen

• a German term meaning "understanding"

• understanding social behavior from the actor's perspective, emphasizing the importance of interpreting subjective meanings.

• meaning in this context refers to the motivations of the actors

practical, theorietical, substantive

3 types of rationality

disenchantment

to be modern is to be rational & _________

• the process of emptying the world of its magical forces

• empties world of joy + novelty, everything is a problem to solve

• move towards rationality + ______ is historically unavoidable

legitimization

refers to the process by which power is institutionalized and importantly is given moral grounding

• in class ex. manifest destiny, “God destined us to expand” + chose America as a special land

  • a morally grounded legitimization of the system (ex. slavery, trail of tears, etc.)

the protestant ethic

gives rise to rationalization

• restless of life and work is proof of salvation