Explain how Max Weber’s ‘Interpretive Sociology’ has added new dimensions to the subject matter and methodology of sociology.
Answer format-
The dual character of society in terms of its ‘objective facts’ and ‘subjective meanings’ is what makes it a reality ‘sui-generis’. Max Weber emphasized the meaningfulness of human-behavior and social relationships in his approach of ‘interpretative sociology’ or ‘micro-sociology’. Interpretative sociology, considers the ‘individual and his actions’ as the basic unity, as it ‘atom’. Thinking rational individuals attribute specifiable reasons to their action-patterns and the task of sociology, according to Weber, is to understand their ‘assigned meanings’. Weber argued that ‘knowledge about nature’ and ‘knowledge about human-beings’ are categorically incomparable. A scientific analysis of only the ‘observable phenomena to the exclusion of subjective meanings and motives behind individual actions, would be undermining the ‘dual character of society and it s scientific explanation.
In, Economy and Society, Weber argued that ‘Sociology is a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences.’ Action, according to Weber, is all human-behaviour to which an actor attaches subjective-meaning. Action is social in so far by virtue of the subjective meaning attached to it by the acting individual, it takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course.
Therefore, Weber through his interpretative approach tried to spell out the precise limits of what could and could not be explained in sociological terms. He identified various types of action that are distinguished by the meanings on which they are based. These include:
a) Zweckrational action or rational action in relation to a goal.
b) Wertrational action or rational action in relation to a value.
c) Affective or emotional action.
d) Traditional actions where both ends and means are determined by custom.
Weber through his interpretative approach shifted the focus on ‘individuals’ and pattern and regularities of actions rather than the collectivity. He treated the ‘collectivities’ as solely the resultants and modes of organization of the particular acts of individual persons.
Making a distinction between the physical scientist studying non-human matter and social scientists studying human behavior, Weber argued that the social scientist had an added advantage of understanding a phenomena from the “inside” rather than only observing uniformities and deducing generalization. Weber’s methodology of explaining subject-matter of sociology was therefore based upon the conviction that the social scientist can “understand” meaningful social relationships.
This understanding or ‘Verstehen’ according to Weber can be distinguished into two types. One is “direct observational understanding” but this according to Weber is not a sufficient level of understanding to explain social action. The second or explanatory understanding is to understand the meaning of an action in terms of the motives of the actor. This involves ‘sympathetic introspection’ which means to put one self imaginatively in the place of the actor and thus sympathetically to participate in the experience’. This necessitated a trained social scientist.
Another complementing analytical device in Weber’s methodology has been the ‘ideal-types; they are categorizing process enabling the scientist to contrast the actual types, with their common ideals-type and thereby ascertaining the part played by irrationality, chance, emotional or other elements in any social action. They aid causal explanations of a actions or events.
Sociology under Weber, through his interpretative approach asserted its uniqueness and distinctiveness from the physical sciences. ‘Subjective understanding’ is the specific characteristic of sociological knowledge. Weber’s ‘action theory’ further helped in developing theories of individuals and their behaviour—symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and so on.
However, according to Alfred Schutz, Weber’s work on mental processes in only suggestive and hardly the basis for a systematic micro sociology. Though Weber’s interpretative sociology was about the study of ‘small scale processes’ most of his work is focused on large-scale structures (bureaucracy and capitalism). The actions of those in these structures are determined by the structures and not by their motives.
However Weber’s interpretative sociology for the first time introduced a scientific analysis of the rich breadth and depth of human behavior and emotions.