Weber’s Methodology of Social Science

IT is perhaps one of the most important canons of critical work, that the critic should attempt so far as possible to see the work of an author in the perspective of the intellectual situation and tradition out of which it has developed. This is one of the best protections against the common fallacy of allowing superficial interpretation of verbal formulae to mislead one into unfair interpretations of ideas and inadequate formulations of problems.

The most essential background of Weber’s methodological work was the ‘historical’ tradition of German thought. Back of this, in turn, lay the process by which there developed a radical dualism in the types of intellectual discipline dealing with empirical subjects, and a corresponding dichotomy of the types of method appropriate to the two, the ‘natural’ and the ‘socio-cultural’ sciences. The following is a highly schematic outline of what seems to be the most essential development.

It is convenient to take the work of Kant as the point at which to study a set of ‘preconceptions’ which, though for the most part long tacitly taken for granted, seems to have played an important part in the formulation of problems and possible directions for their solution in scientific methodology. According to this view, the world of ‘nature’ was the world of human experience in so far as it was accessible to understanding in terms of the ‘natural sciences,’ which came in the end to mean the conceptual scheme of the classical mechanics. But this realm, Kant’s ‘phenomenal world,’ tended to be treated not only logically, but also empirically, as a closed system. From this tendency, above all, seems to be derived the tacit assumption, sometimes explicitly stated, that only phenomena of nature in this specific sense were capable of being grasped in terms of a generalized analytical conceptual scheme.

The tendency of ‘Western’ positivistic thought was to identify this ‘order of nature’ with ontological reality as a whole. But this was not true of the tradition in which Weber was brought up. In Germany, rather, Kant’s conception of the world of ‘spirit’¹ developed into a great tradition of intellectual disciplines dealing with human culture and behaviour. A main pattern of thinking there throughout the nineteenth century was the conception that human knowledge fell into these two radically different categories, the natural sciences and the studies of culture and social behaviour.²

Though both were conceived as consisting of systematic empirical knowledge, subject to canons of accuracy of observation and logical precision and consistency, the tendency in Germany has been to emphasize the depth of the contrast, to hold that the methodological canons most characteristic of the natural sciences were in the nature of the case not applicable to the social-cultural and vice versa. This is particularly true of the role of generalized conceptual schemes, of theory, and this is the point at which Weber chose to make his principal attack.

On the positive side was the emphasis on the necessity, for the sciences of human behaviour and culture, of the ‘subjective’ point of view of Verstehen in the technical sense of the term in the works of such writers as Dilthey, Rickert, and Weber. But in the predominant tradition this was couched in terms of the view that explanation of human phenomena must take place in ‘historical’ terms, in terms of genetic sequences as such. The tendency was to regard each genetic sequence as unique and incapable of comparison with any other; in particular radically to deny the relevance of generalized theoretical categories.

Weber’s essential starting point is an acceptance of the subjective point of view, combined with a critical attack on the ‘historical’ position. His basic thesis in this connexion is that generalized theoretical categories are as essential to the proof of causal relationships in the human and cultural field as they are in the natural sciences.

At the same time he found it necessary to attack another very common methodological misconception, that either the aim or the actual result of scientific investigation in any field can be to attain a complete picture of the ontological reality of the phenomena. Over against this he set the view that all empirical knowledge is in the nature of the case abstract. It never includes ‘all the facts,’ even that can easily be ascertained, but only those which are relevant to certain interests of the investigator. There is, in this selectivity of facts, both for the formulation of problems and for the content of conceptualization, a very important element of relativity in all science, natural or social. Weber, however, maintained that this fact, which he not merely conceded but insisted upon, did not destroy the reliability or objectivity of propositions either in the social field, or in the natural. He held that the question of the grounds of validity of a proposition, once enunciated, is logically distinct from that of explaining the empirical process by which interest in it came about. This element of relativity touches the question of validity only at the point of calling for limitation of the relevance of the propositions concerned, and hence of the order of generalization or inference from them which is legitimate.

All this Weber developed in earlier essays³ and takes for granted in the methodological discussion of the present translation, where he proceeds directly to discuss some of the foundations of a systematic science of verstehende Soziologie, a system of sociological categories couched in terms of the subjective point of view, that is of the meaning of persons, things, ideas, normative patterns, and motives from the point of view of the persons whose action is being studied. Certain aspects of this background are, however, essential to the understanding of Weber’s treatment of a number of problems in this work, particularly the nature of the kind of generalized theoretical concept to which he paid the most attention, the ‘ideal type,’ and certain closely related problems connected with his treatment of rationality, and of the relations of sociology and psychology.

The impasse from which Weber took his departure was as follows: One tendency of the thought of his time was to attempt to assimilate the sciences of human behaviour as closely as possible to the natural sciences. Interpreting the later overwhelmingly in an ‘empiricist’ manner, the result was to squeeze out all that was most distinctive in the traditional and common-sense treatment of human problems, notably the use of subjective categories. If, on the other hand, the attempt was made to use these modes of approach it was thought that it had to be in a set of terms which excluded the principal logical characteristics of the natural sciences, notably the use of generalized theoretical categories and their integration in logically articulated theoretical systems. What Weber did was to take an enormous step in the direction of bridging the gap between the two types of science, and to make possible the treatment of social material in a systematic scientific manner rather than as an art. But he failed to complete the process, and the nature of the half-way point at which he stopped helps to account for many of the difficulties of his position.

Weber laid great emphasis in his earlier methodological work on the fact that proof of causal relationship in any scientific field, involved reference, explicitly or implicitly, to the same logical schema of proof.⁴ The most important features of this schema are, perhaps, three: (1) The description of the phenomenon to be explained in terms of a conceptual scheme, a frame of reference which was inherently abstractive and selective with respect to the facts treated as relevant and their mode of statement; (2) the subsumption of the detailed statements of fact involved under generalized theoretical categories which would make comparison and generalization possible; (3) the comparison of the state of affairs thus described and analysed with one or more others, real or hypothetical, in which the detailed facts are different but the generalized categories the same. With respect to the problem of imputation of causal significance to a ‘factor’ in the antecedent state of a system, it is logically necessary to show, by application of generalized knowledge to the comparison of states, that if the facts of the antecedent state had been different, the later state of the system, the facts to be explained, would also have been different in specific ways. Weber’s problem was to define the kinds of generalized categories which met the logical requirements of this schema and at the same time embodied the point of view peculiar to the historical-cultural sciences, the use of subjective categories.

In this connexion Weber’s polemical orientation was directed against a methodological position according to which such categories could only be used to formulate individually unique complexes of meaning and sequences of motivation. Weber fully agreed with the proponents of this position that concrete phenomena were individually unique, but disputed the relevance of this fact to his problems. Scientific conceptualization is, he said, in the nature of the case abstract and never fully exhausts or reflects concrete reality. This seems to be the logical pattern underlying his statement at the very beginning, that ‘meaning’ may be of two kinds, the ‘actually existing’ meaning to a concrete individual actor or, on the other hand, the ‘theoretically conceived pure type of subjective meaning.’⁵ This pure type, which is generally known as the ‘ideal type,’ was the first and most obvious level of generalized abstract concept which Weber’s analysis encountered, the concept which, while meeting the logical requirements of the schema of proof, was closest to the concrete individual reality.

But two other circumstances seem to be importantly involved in the direction which his methodological formulations took. As the editor has shown in previous works,⁶ it is inherent in the frame of reference of ‘action’ which is basic to Weber’s whole methodology, that it is ‘normatively oriented.’ The actor is treated not merely as responding to stimuli, but as making an ‘effort’ to conform with certain ‘ideal,’ rather than actual, patterns of conduct with the probability that his efforts will be only partially successful, and there will be elements of deviation. The ideal type, then, is not merely an abstraction, but a particular kind of abstraction. It states the case where a normative or ideal pattern is perfectly complied with.⁷ Thus Weber says:

On one plane this would be true of an ideal type which was formulated in terms of any kind of normative pattern. The special place which Weber gives to patterns of rationality involves other considerations. Part of it is a matter of the relativity in the direction of interest of the social scientist on which Weber so constantly insisted. He felt that the development and role of certain patterns of rationality constituted the most important problems of our time in the Western World, and deliberately formulated his conceptual scheme to throw them into high relief. But there is probably still a further relevant consideration. It has already been noted that Weber emphasized particularly the role of abstract generalized concepts in science. Throughout his work it is notable how intimately he associates the methodological problems of science with the substantive problems of rationality of action.⁹ The rational ideal type thus probably appealed to him precisely because the normative patterns of rationality, since they were defined by the role of scientifically verifiable knowledge, directly embodied this element of generality in the determinants of action. This is clearly brought out in his invoking, against Knies’ use of the idea of freedom of the will, the argument that in those types of action which we treated as most highly rational, there was both a high sense of freedom and a maximum of predictability and understandability in generalized terms. Thus it was that Weber, in his formulations of systematic theory, concentrated overwhelmingly on rational ideal types.

Discounting its confusion in some of Weber’s work with other kinds of concept,¹⁰ there is no doubt that the rational ideal type is an authentic generalized theoretical concept, and on one level adequately met the requirements of his methodological problems. At the same time, however, he apparently failed to place it adequately in relation to certain other possibilities, thus neglecting alternative formulations and falling into certain biases on the higher levels of generalization.

The ideal type as Weber used it is both abstract and general. It does not describe a concrete course of action, but a normatively ideal course, assuming certain ends and modes of normative orientation as finding’ on the actors. It does not describe an individual course of action, but a ‘typical’ one—it is a generalized rubric within which an indefinite number of particular cases may be classified. But it does describe what Weber called an ‘objectively possible’ course of action. It contains, within the logical requirements of the relevant frame of reference, all the necessary properties or features of a concrete act or complex of action. The importance of this lies in the fact that the different logically distinct elements which are essential to the formulation of this type may be, indeed generally are, independently variable. The ideal type contains no particular statements of fact. But it does, logically, involve a fixed relation between the values of the various variable elements involved. If analysis is confined to its use, certain possibilities of variation on other levels are arbitrarily excluded from consideration. This is not, of course, to say in any simple sense that it is ‘wrong,’ but only that it is limited in certain respects.

Weber begins the process of systematic conceptualization by setting up a classification of four types of action.¹¹ This procedure itself makes it difficult to interpret his position at a great many points because he neglected to inquire systematically on a comparable level into the structure of total social systems of action. Indeed such a conception of generalized structure would be a logically necessary prerequisite of a complete classification of types. Failing this, the classification of types is unsatisfactory in various respects. It takes its starting point from the concept of rationality and the distinction of two different kinds of ultimate-end system and the corresponding relation of ultimate ends to the choice of means. In the case of Wertrationalität the choice of means is oriented to the realization of a single absolute value without reference to considerations of cost. In that of Zwecrationalität, on the other hand, it is oriented to a plurality of values in such a way that devotion to any one is limited by the possibility of its entailing excessive cost in the form of sacrifice of the others.¹² By contrast with these rational types he then formulates what are essentially two different residual categories. The one, the ‘affectual’ type, does not distinguish what may be called biologically inherited emotional tendencies from value-attitudes which are not formulated in logically determinate fashion, hence not involved in the rational types. The other category, ‘traditional’ action, is on quite a different level. It is of great significance to Weber’s empirical research, but does not fit directly with the others in the same classification.

Having set up these four types of action Weber proceeds immediately to another structural level and deals with ideal types of social relationships.¹³ His systematic conceptual scheme is essentially a system of such logically inter-related ideal types of social relationship. The concept of a generalized system on the action level, however, though he did not develop it explicitly, is implicit in the logical framework in terms of which he develops the classification of relationship types.

This system is a remarkable structure. In the care and precision with which it is formulated, in its comprehensiveness, and above all in the closeness of its relevance to Weber’s empirical research interests, it is probably unique in the literature. Furthermore it involves a kind of conceptualization which is essential at some point in the development of systematic sociological theory. The perspective in which Weber develops it, however, leads to certain serious difficulties which will be noted presently.

It has been pointed out that, in formulating his classification of the four types of action, Weber neglected to develop the analysis of the structure of a total social system which is a logically necessary prerequisite of such a classification. Essentially the same is true, on a somewhat different level, of Weber’s types of social relationship. In each case the question is not raised of how this particular type, and the conceptual elements which make it up, fit into the conception of a total functioning social system of action or of relationships, as the case may be. Combined with this is the fact that the use of the ideal type concentrates attention on extreme or polar types. In the nature of the case the only kind of total system into which they would fit is the limiting type of system which is least likely to be found in reality even in at all close approximation.¹⁴ The result is to throw attention away from such conceptions as that of a system as a balance of forces in equilibrium, of relative degrees of integration and disorganization. It also leads to a kind of ‘type atomism’ one aspect of which is to minimize the elements which link the type in question with other elements of the structure of the same system. Some of these difficulties can best be brought out in relation to some particular problems which play a prominent part in Weber’s methodological discussion.

The first is the problem of rationality. As has been pointed out, Weber chooses to deal predominantly with rational ideal types and to treat elements other than the rational as accounting for the deviations of the actual course of action from the prescriptions of the constructed type. This seems to be the principal source of a marked tendency for Weber’s thought to move in terms of the dichotomy of rational and irrational. Thus he says¹⁵ that after having constructed a rational ideal type, ‘it is then possible to introduce the irrational components as accounting for the observed deviations from this hypothetical course.’ And further on ‘by comparison with this (i.e. the ideal type) it is possible to understand the ways in which actual action is influenced by irrational factors of all sorts, such as affects and errors, in that they account for the deviation…’

There is, of course, no objection as such to the classification of concrete actions in terms of their conformity with and deviation from a particular type, nor to the labelling of the case of conformity as ‘rational’ and of deviation as ‘irrational.’ It depends how this simple starting point is used. Now the term rationality is used as pointing to certain specific criteria distinguishing some kinds of action from others. Weber unfortunately does not give us an explicit statement of these criteria, but they can be inferred from his discussion. An act is rational in so far as (a) it is oriented to a clearly formulated unambiguous goal, or to a set of values which are clearly formulated and logically consistent; (b) the means chosen are, according to the best available knowledge, adapted to the realization of the goal. The question of efficiency, a very important one in defining rationality, is not introduced by Weber at all until Chapter II and then only in a very limited context. But these criteria do hot, even within the frame of reference of action, give an adequate description of any concrete act. They do not, for instance, specify the content of an end or goal, but only the character of its formulation. They do not describe the situation in which it is carried out, but only certain modes of relation between this situation and the end. They describe only part of the criteria by which choices of means can be determined.

But these other elements, though not included in the criteria of rationality, are none the less present in the acts, even the ideal types of acts. Thus even a theoretical limiting case of a particle in a mechanical system must have all the properties required by the frame of reference for a determinate description. All other elements, if explicitly formulated at all, however, are treated by Weber as elements of deviation from the rational type. All the important problems of a system of action which arise in connexion with Pareto’s category of that part of non-logical action which is not illogical, are obscured by Weber’s mode of approach.

Partly, this is simply an error of omission. Certain elements, the presence of which is logically implied, are ignored. But this is not all. Since the basic dichotomy of Weber’s analysis is that of the rational and the irrational, and since the latter elements are treated as elements of deviation, the tendency is to create a false, theoretically unwarranted antithesis. Elements which may well in some empirical cases be integrated with the rational elements in a system, are pushed into conflict with it. Thus ultimate values tend to be treated as an absolutely ‘irrational’ force. In a closely connected sense affect is also treated as irrational. Weber again and again, in these methodological remarks, refers to it in these terms.¹⁶

When the problem of rationality is approached in terms of the conception of the human individual as actor, as a total functioning system, a very different view emerges. The first fundamental point is that the criteria by which rational types are distinguished are not adequate to describe even a total unit act, to say nothing of a system of action. In this sense (as opposed to that of the maximization of these elements) a ‘purely rational’ act or system is a contradiction in terms—it is not ‘objectively possible.’ Speaking of a system rather than a unit act, these criteria above all fail to include the following: (a) The empirical facts of the external non-social situation; (b) the outline of the structure of the individual personality as it is relevant to ordering the actor’s orientation, not only to other actors, but to himself. Included in this is the fact that we treat people as having ‘goals,’ ‘interests,’ ‘emotions,’ etc.; (c) the basic value-orientations which individuals have and which are institutionalized in the society of which they are a part. These, and perhaps other elements, are not ‘rational,’ but neither does it make sense to speak of them as ‘irrational.’ They are essential to complete an Objectively possible’ description of a system to which the criteria of rationality apply. Certain particular ‘values’ of these generalized categories may be relevant in interpreting particular cases of deviation from the types Weber treats as rational, may hence be sources of irrationality in these cases, but this whole question lies on a radically different level from that of defining the elements of a generalized system of action. Weber, in fact, never does this explicitly at all. But these problems are logically involved in his procedure.

Irrationality, as Weber himself defines it, namely deviation from rational types, is thus not a matter of the presence of generalized elements other than those included in the criteria of rationality, but is much more complex than that. It is a problem which cannot be satisfactorily treated in terms of conformity with and deviation from an isolated ideal type. It involves at many points considerations touching the integration and malintegration of total social systems of action. In the absence of systematic analysis of these considerations, Weber falls into what is not so much a naive ‘rationalistic bias’—an interpretation against which he justifiably protests ¹⁷—but rather a question of thinking in terms of a certain kind of abstract dichotomy in a far too limited theoretical context. In ways not possible to analyze in this introductory essay, this difficulty plays an important part in some of Weber’s broadest empirical generalizations, notably those touching the ‘process of rationalization.’¹⁸

It has been stated that the basic source of difficulty lies in Weber’s failure to carry through a systematic functional analysis of a generalized social system of action. Was he aware of the possibility of doing this and its possible significance? It is probable that he was not, as is illuminatingly brought out by the way in which he discussed the ‘functional’ method without really bringing out this possible line of analysis.

After his general discussion of Verstehen and the definition of a motive, Weber introduces the topic¹⁹ in a characteristic way by stating that subjective categories can be applied only to the action of individual persons. For cognitive purposes other than the sociological it may well be useful to consider the individual as an aggregate of cells or some other elementary units or, conversely, to employ ‘collective’ concepts which treat pluralities of individuals as units. But however useful these latter concepts may be, for instance in a legal context, for sociology they must always be redefined as dealing only with certain kinds of uniformities in the action of the relevant individuals. Such concepts may also serve as norms to which the action of individuals is oriented.

From these considerations Weber arrives at a treatment of the methods of so-called ’organic’ sociology. However much this kind of analysis of the relation of ‘parts’ to a ‘whole’ may have to remain the goal of other sciences, for sociology, as he understands it, it can be only of preliminary significance. In the first place, it serves for initial orientation and in this connexion is useful and necessary though also, if it leads to illegitimate reification, dangerous.²⁰ In the second place it serves to direct attention to the problems of substantive analysis which are most important. But then he goes on to say that precisely in the field of action it is not necessary to stop with this, but it is possible to proceed with something no natural science is capable of, the subjective understanding of the behaviour of the individual component, which, in the case of cells, is out of the question.

In discussing the use of a functional approach for preliminary orientation and statement of problems Weber makes a number of references to the bearing of a phenomenon on the ‘survival’ of the system, organism or society, under consideration.²¹ This suggests that one of the sources of Weber’s failure to think explicitly in terms of a theoretically generalized social system lies in certain features of the biological thought of his time—which, though perhaps responsible for subtle biases in biology,²² are much more harmful when taken over into the social field.²³

The important feature of this thought for present purposes is the tendency to attempt to simplify dynamic problems by attributing as many as possible of the features of the organism to the necessities imposed upon it by the environment if it or its species is to survive. This has tended to divert attention from the functional analysis of the organism as a going concern to the external conditions of the survival of organisms. To a certain extent it is a result of the preoccupation in biological theory with problems of evolution rather than of physiology. But from the latter point of view the basic conceptual scheme of an organism functioning in an environment contains the germs of a generalized system of functional theory. Since all physiological process involves interchange with the environment, the existence and properties of the latter cannot be ignored. But there is no question of attempting to ‘reduce’ the organism to environmental terms except for its own propensity to survive. Indeed from this point of view the basic structural facts about the organism are treated, within the framework of the generalized theoretical system, as given in observation.

This source of difficulty is accentuated by another peculiar to the study of human society. The ‘functional’ approach has, in the history of thought, been predominantly associated with biology. Its use in other fields has hence not unnaturally been associated with a tendency to attempt to reduce the subject-matter of those fields to biological terms. In the social field this has taken two primary forms. In the first of these a social system is treated as a plurality of biological organisms and functional problems are formulated in terms of their functional needs and survival as organisms. In so doing a possibility of fundamental importance is overlooked—namely, that the functional approach could be used in terms of a different frame of reference, namely that of ‘action’—or actor-situation rather than organism-environment. If this is done biological considerations become primarily conditional to the main, explicitly considered factors. The second possibility is to treat the social system as if it were itself an organism. The logical difficulties involved in this procedure are sufficiently familiar to make it unnecessary to go into them here. Weber is quite right that this precludes any exploitation of the possibilities of analysis of individual action in terms of subjective categories. The biological version of this view shades off into another type of Organism,’ one in which a culturally specific whole which dominates its parts takes the place of the organism. In the form of the Volksgeist and other concepts this view has played an important part in the historical schools and in idealistic social thought.

Apparently Weber understood a functional approach to mean one of these things, either an individualistic form of biological orientation which precluded the use of subjective categories, or the illegitimate reification of collectivities as organisms or as cultural totalities. He did not perceive that starting from the frame of reference of subjectively interpreted individual action—which he himself used so extensively—it was possible by functional analysis to develop a generalized outline of social systems of action. As has been remarked, such an outline was in fact to a large extent implicit in the structure of his own system of ideal types.

Weber’s fundamental reason for being suspicious of too much emphasis upon a functional approach to social science lay in his strong conviction of the indispensability, in order to attain the level of knowledge he considered possible and essential, of careful detailed analysis of the motivation of the individual. To him, departure from the ‘whole’ smacked of a kind of mysticism by which it was possible to derive far-reaching conclusions without adequate empirical basis, to pull scientific rabbits out of the functional hat. Given the kind of treatment of the whole prevalent in his day, he was right. But he failed to see the possibility of developing his own type of theory further into a system which could be treated functionally in such a way as to articulate directly with his analysis of motivation. The difficulty lay in his unwarranted antithesis of the ‘functional’ approach and analysis of the motives of the individual. This calls for a few comments.

On the common-sense ‘historical’ level of analysis referred to above, the situation in which the individual whose motivation is to be analysed has to act, and the accepted ‘definitions’ (in Thomas’²⁴ sense) of that situation, are treated descriptively only, as concretely given in the individual case. Of course this description, like any other, logically implies a coherent system of generalized categories. But whatever these may be, they are not subjected to critical examination. As is the case with so many of the categories essential to the analysis of human behaviour, they arc so familiar on a certain level that any critical analysis seems superfluous.

Weber does not remain on a fully concrete ‘historical’ level in this sense. His analysis of motivation is couched in terms of ideal type concepts which generalize beyond any particular individual case, and are hence also abstract. They contain references to basic generalized categories of orientation of action, as in the distinction between Wert- and Zweckrationalität, and to generalized descriptions of situationally significant fact, as in the role of territoriality in his discussion of political organization, in the concept of Gebietsverband. Also he gives reference in a generalized form to aspects of the integration of human relationships in a social system of such references. What there is of such a system is implicit in his order of treatment, and in the logical interrelations of his types.

Now on the level of the total social system as a whole there are certain basic aspects of its structure which can be differentiated out when the system as a whole is treated from a functional point of view. The subject is far too complex to enter into fully here, but a few essential points may be stated. It would seem to be a fundamental fact, crucial to the functional approach, that the primary modes of differentiation in the structure of a system are related to its functional needs in such a way that some differentiated parts are particularly important and effective in contributing to one or a related group of functional needs. Thus in biology we speak of the alimentary system, the sense organs, etc. as functionally differentiated structures.

There can be no doubt that the same applies in general terms to social systems. The primary differentiated units in this case are component individuals and their roles and actions. The latter is more important to Weber since it is immediately to the act that a motive in his sense corresponds. Two primary functional contexts are most conspicuously related to the structure of social systems. On the one hand such a system must meet the exigencies of its external situation, both human and non-human, and on the other must be integrated so that its parts function in a certain degree of harmony. Both sets of functions must be carried on in such a way that they are compatible with the biological and psychological needs of at least a sufficient proportion of the component human individuals.

In the first case, situational facts become related to social structure in terms of their direct relevance to human interests, for instance the economically significant scarcity and technologically significant properties of the physical means for meeting human needs, or a territorial area as a sphere within which certain uniformities of human action and relationships are maintained, by political authority and otherwise. In the second case authority, for instance, is a mode of structuring human relationships which can be functionally related to the necessity of integrating the activities of many people, both by preventing disruptive activities and by co-ordinating actions in the interest of goals which could not be achieved by individuals acting independently. In each case there is a limited number of particularly crucial categories of situational fact and of integratively significant aspects of human relationships.

Systematic investigation of the relations of human activity to the external situation and to other persons would reveal, on this level, a coherent system of such generalized categories. These, along with the basic modes of orientation of actors, are fundamental to the conception of a generalized system of action and relationships on the social level. And the systematic ordering of these categories is not possible without the ‘functional’ point of view; it provides the integrating principles in terms of which such categories constitute a generalized system rather than an ad hoc collection of disconnected concepts. It is fundamental to this approach that these are generalized categories. But it is precisely in terms of them that even a coherent descriptive account of the ranges of variability of concrete social structures becomes a possibility. Without at least the implicit outline of such a system, a sense of variability would be possible, to be sure, but it would be random variability. It would be impossible to use such a scheme to work out systematically determinate uniformities in social change and process.

It is fundamental to the understanding of Weber’s relation to this problem to realize that the situational and relational categories which constitute the parts of a generalized social system inevitably enter directly into the formulation of his specific ideal type concepts. But to each of these in turn corresponds directly a complex of typical motivation in Weber’s sense. Hence the ‘subjective’ point of view is as essential to the description of social structure as it is to the action of the individual. Weber’s motives are not, as he himself clearly saw, ‘psychological’ entities. Their concreteness relative to the psychological level is precisely defined by the fact that they include socially structural definitions of the situation, and hence articulate directly with the structural-functional analysis of social systems, which means of the variability of social systems. This is precisely the reason for the fruitfulness of Weber’s ideal type analysis on the level of institutional behaviour and change, as contrasted with all the many attempts to explain such social phenomena in ‘psychological’ terms such as instinct, drives, conditioned reflexes.

The underlying problem under discussion here involves some fundamental considerations touching the role of ‘theory’ in empirical science. There are a variety of different levels on which ‘explanation’ of an individual fact or event may be attempted. On the common sense level this is usually a matter of showing the presence of certain conditions without which the phenomenon could not have happened. The conditions are usually treated as ‘given’ independently of the phenomena on which attention is centered. It may be said, however, that science becomes theoretically sophisticated in so far as it is able to treat a variety of interrelated phenomena simultaneously in terms of their interdependence. To do this without error involves the use—the more complex the system the more so—of a complex generalized conceptual scheme.

In the social field the fundamental problem is as follows. It is not difficult, knowing an individual’s ‘motives’ in Weber’s sense, and knowing the situation in which he is placed, to achieve a fairly satisfactory understanding of a particular act of his. That situation is, however, compounded of the actions, past, present, and prospective, of a large number of individuals whose action is interdependent, ‘mutually oriented,’ as Weber puts one aspect of it. Though it is thus not difficult, knowing the situation, to understand the action of any one individual, it is an entirely different matter to grasp the behaviour of the system of action as a whole, when the concrete situation of each component individual is a varying function of the action of the others. This requires a dynamic analysis which, in turn, is only possible through the use of a generalized conceptual scheme.

It would seem that in the history of science only two types of conceptual scheme have appeared which are logically capable of performing this function of making the dynamic treatment of systems as a whole possible. By far the more efficient of these is an analytical system of dynamically interrelated variables, a particular set of the values of which, taken together, is adequate to the description of a given state of an empirical system. In the classical case of analytical mechanics this makes possible, through mathematical manipulation, the direct solution of dynamic problems. Besides the values of variables as such, only the basic properties of the units of the system and the constants of its ‘environment’ are empirically needed. The feasibility of such analysis, however, depends on very specific conditions, with respect to the nature of the variables and their logical interrelations, and to the operations required to ascertain their values. Only within very narrow limits, if at all, are these conditions fulfilled in the fields of the biological and the social sciences.

There is, however, a second type, which, though technically far less perfect than an analytical system of dynamic equations, is far better than nothing. This is what may be called a generalized structural-functional system. The fundamental logical difference from the analytical type lies in the involvement of the structure of the empirical system as an essential element in the solution of dynamic problems. In analytical mechanics the structure of an empirical system at any given moment can always be derived from the basic data with the aid of the equations of the theoretical system. The necessity of structural categories in the other type of theory is an indication that the dynamic problems are too complex to admit of determinate solution without them, because there are too many variables involved, or because their nature and logical interrelations are not adequately known or are such as not to admit of the application of the requisite mathematical techniques of manipulation. The structure of the system, from the point of view of the logic of analysis, treats certain features of the empirical system as constant for the purposes in hand. They are thus removed from involvement in the dynamic problem, which is in so far simplified.

There is, however, an obvious interest in widening the area of dynamic treatment and of legitimate inference from it as much as possible. For this to be possible, the categories in terms of which structure is described must, logically, be part of the same system as those used in dynamic analysis. The essential link is supplied by the concept of function. The processes which are dynamically analysed are those which are ‘functionally’ related, in the given situation, to the maintenance of a level of functional performance by the system, as a whole, as a ‘going concern.’ Only in so far as they can thus be related do they become significant to the understanding of the behaviour of the system as a whole. And only, in turn, in so far as problems involving the behaviour of total systems are tackled can certain levels of empirical generalization be attained.

Weber’s fundamental empirical interests lay in problems of institutional change. He was absorbed in problems of the structural peculiarities of modern Western society, of the conditions on which it was dependent, and of its stability and tendencies of change. It was precisely in its differences from other social systems, in its alterations during its development, and in its possible alterations in the future, as an institutionally organized system of action, that Weber was interested. In tackling these problems he had two basic alternatives. He could dissociate the behaviour of the whole from the understanding of action on the individual level altogether, and attempt to grasp the ‘laws’ of its total behaviour. This is precisely what many idealistic and other philosophies of history have attempted to do, and what Weber protested against. He felt strongly, and rightly, that only through relating the problems of the dynamics of the whole to the motives of individuals could he achieve a genuinely scientific level of explanation. But to do this he had to employ a functional method. The only trouble was that he did not do it rigorously and systematically enough.

In practice, however, he went quite far in its use. If he had not, his ideal type theory would have been nothing but formal classification. He could have pinned labels on various types of social structure and relationship, but he never could have achieved dynamic results. But the empirical material to be discussed below shows that he did achieve dynamic results on an impressive scale. This was fundamentally possible because he did treat motivation ‘functionally’ in terms of the significance of the action of the individual for the functioning of the system as a whole.

This same situation helps to explain Weber’s attitude toward psychology and its relations to sociology. He insisted emphatically that his form of motive-interpretation was not psychology. He tended to regard psychology as no more relevant to sociology than any other science which dealt with factors conditional to human behaviour, like physics, geology, etc.²⁵ He does not anywhere discuss in detail just what he meant by the term psychology, but there was a tendency to think of it primarily in the context of natural science and hence not accessible to the application of subjective categories. He does, to be sure, mention in passing a branch of verstehende psychology which would be more closely related to sociology, but does not elaborate on it.

It must be remembered that Weber was particularly concerned with the variability of human societies, and the attendant behaviour, on the institutional level. Generally speaking, and considerably more so in Weber’s time than now, psychological approaches to human behaviour have been specifically blind to the importance of institutional variability. They have tended to relegate it to the status of secondary or contingent fortuitous ‘circumstances’ and to lay the principal emphasis on universal traits or tendencies of ‘human nature’ like instincts. This type of concept Weber found of no use for his purposes, as is shown by his critique of an instinct of ‘acquisition’ in the face of the complexity of explaining various types of ‘acquisitive’ behaviour on the institutional level.²⁶ Weber’s Sinnzusammenhänge were not psychological entities precisely because they included situational elements which were variable on the level of the situation and of the definition of the situation. Hence Weber tended not to be interested in psychology and to repudiate its relevance to his problems.

In this, it seems, through misunderstanding of the methodological situation, he went too far. If, in order to clarify many of his problems, it is necessary to place the structural elements implied in his formulations of ideal types in their context of a generalized system of social structure, it is by the same logic necessary to clarify the nature of the unit of reference, the ‘actor.’ It cannot be true that the conceptual scheme in terms of which this unit is treated is no more closely relevant to sociology than any other dealing with the conditions of action. For the actor is the unit of systems of action, and the frame of reference and other categories, in terms of which this unit is treated, are inherently part of the same theoretical system as categories on the level of types of action or social structure. Hence in some sense, a ‘psychology’ is an essential part of (not, note, ‘basis’ or ‘set of assumptions for’) a theory of social action.

In explaining Weber’s failure to inquire systematically into this field, two circumstances are perhaps of primary importance. His own empirical interests, which were so strongly on the level of the broadest institutional variation, did not force this range of problems immediately upon him. His ‘psychology’ in matters of detailed particular insight may be said to have been, on a common-sense basis, on the whole excellent. What was lacking was systematization and, given his immediate interests, this was a relatively less urgent problem than many others. He could, and did, go far without it.

Secondly, he got little help from the psychology of his own time. Psychologists as a whole have, overwhelmingly until recently, and even now to a considerable extent, been guilty of a rather gross form of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. They have attempted to reason directly from considerations of the nature of the human individual as a unit to the social level of generalization,²⁷ with results which, to a man of the scope of empirical knowledge of a Weber, must have seemed hardly less than grotesque. It was, in the state of knowledge of the time, a task which Weber would, for the most part, have had to undertake independently.

But just as psychology is an essential part of a complete system, it is indispensable that it in turn be treated as part of the system. Psychologists as a group have not treated the individual as a unit in a functioning social system, but rather as the concrete human being who was then conceived as proceeding to form social systems. They have thus not adequately taken account of the peculiar sense in which their categories are abstract. The categories of psychology in the motivational field, for instance, are not concrete motives, but elements in motivation, describing such aspects as its affectual tone. Weber was fundamentally right that the adequate concrete motive always involves the situational elements which are specifically non-psychological. By doing, however, what Weber failed to do, taking a concrete, in a sense institutional, starting point, and then using the resources of modern psychology to complete the analysis on its psychological side, it is undoubtedly possible to develop a far more adequate analysis of concrete motivation than either psychology or the social sciences have, for the most part, previously commanded.

Weber, however, got into serious trouble which could have been greatly mitigated had he extended his systematic theory into a more careful analysis in the direction of psychology. This is notably true of his treatment of rationality as that has been discussed above. The isolation of rationality and the treatment of affect as only a factor of deviation from rational norms is clearly incompatible with the findings of modern psychology, which rather point definitely to. the integration of affective and rationally cognitive elements in the same action. Much the same is true of Weber’s tendency to confine ideal type analysis to the rational case and the related tendency to confine, in his methodological formulations at least, the applicability of subjective categories to consciously intended motives. In questions like these Weber shows a vacillating uncertainty which could largely be cleared up by better psychological analysis.

The trouble has been taken to expose some of the more conspicuous deficiencies in Weber’s development of systematic theory precisely because he himself was such an eminent theorist. Without the added critical perspective which has now become possible there is danger that the difficulties inherent in the state in which Weber left his theory may play into the hands of those inclined to repudiate systematic theory altogether. Without denying their seriousness, however, these difficulties can and should be met by constructive criticism and further development rather than by regression to a scientifically more primitive level.

Explicitly, Weber’s methodological consideration of generalized theory was confined to the level of ideal types. He even went so far, on occasion, as to state that in the action field theory was possible only²⁸ on this level, a statement which his own practice, though largely implicitly, refutes.

Ideal type theory is, however, perhaps the most difficult level on which to develop a coherent generalized system. Type concepts can readily be formulated ad hoc for innumerable specific purposes and can have a limited usefulness in this way. This does not, however, suffice for a generalized system. For this purpose they must be arranged and classified in a definite order of relationship. Only then will they have highly generalized significance on either a theoretical or an empirical level. Such systematization cannot, however, be developed on an ad hoc empirical basis. Logically it involves reference both to considerations of extremely broad empirical scope and to comprehensive theoretical categories.

It may be surmised that in Weber’s case the primary pressure for a higher level of theoretical systematization came from the very great comprehensiveness of the empirical problems he attempted to throw light on, combined with the very high level of his methodological insight into the logical requirements of his procedures. In any case there is implicit in the organization of his type-system the outline of a systematized general theory on another level, that of the structure of systems of social action. This system has been analysed fully in the editor’s Structure of Social Action and need not be gone into here.

It is, however, largely confined to the ‘action’ level. Further development from Weber’s starting points would lead to a generalized scheme of the structure of social relationships and groups which is logically an indispensable immediate background for a typological classification of the possibilities of variation within each basic structural category.

Along with his inadequate attention to psychological problems the absence of this forms perhaps the most serious gap in Weber’s systematic theory. Had he developed it he could hardly have failed to see that the most fruitful mode of use of generalized theory in the social field lies in ‘functional’ analysis. For only when the motives of individuals are seen in their significance for a more comprehensive functioning system does motive interpretation achieve a truly sociological level. Much of this is implicit in Weber’s empirical work. But it would have saved him much difficulty if it could have been made clearly explicit and its consequences systematically taken into account.

1 Usually Geist in the German literature.

2 Naturwissenschaften and Geistewissenschaften or Kulturwissenschaften.

3 Notably Roscher und Knies und die logischen Probleme der historischen Nationalökonomie and Die Objektivität sozialwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis.

4 Cf. Structure of Social Action, chap, xvi, where this schema is more elaborately analysed.

5 See chap, i, sec. I, para, I, p. 89.

6 See notably the Structure of Social Action, especially chap, ii, note A.

7 Conceived, of course, as ‘ideal’ from the point of view of the actor, not of the observer.

8 P. 92.

9 Cf. Structure of Social Action, p. 586.

10 Cf. A. von Schelting, Max Weber’s logische Theorie der historischen Kulturwissenschaft, Archiv für Sozidunssenschaft, vol. xlix.

11 Pp. 115 ff.

12 For a fuller discussion see Structure of Social Action, chap. xvii.

13 Pp. 118 ff.

14 This docs not of course exclude the possibility of a critically important range of variation in actual social structures. Indeed his awareness of this is one of Weber’s most important insights. But the actual range of variation corresponds only roughly to a classification of logically extreme ‘pure’ ideal types.

15 P. 92.

16 Cf. for instance p. 92.

17 P. 92.

18 See Structure of Social Action, chap. xvii.

19 Cf. pp. 101 ff.

20 Weber refers here particularly to the work of Othmar Spann, whose ‘universalism’ he interprets as involving a functional method in this sense. Cf. p. 106.

21 Cf. p. 105.

22 Cf. Kurt Goldstein, The Organism.

23 To be sure he does at one point qualify this by inserting ‘survival and above all the maintenance of a cultural type,’ p. 107.

24 See W. I. Thomas, The Unadjusted Girl, Introduction.

25 See pp. 94, 100.

26 Remarks on this problem are scattered throughout Weber’s work. One important discussion is in chap, i of The Protestant Ethic.

27 A notable example in this field is to be found in the history of Freudian theory. Freud himself, in spite of his acute psychological insight, took little cognizance of the variability of social structures on the institutional level and attempted to spin out a complete scheme of social evolution from the concepts and facts of his psychology alone. This of course had implicit ‘institutional’ assumptions, but these were treated as constant rather than variable, contrary to the immense weight of established fact. His ‘orthodox’ followers have if anything greatly increased the sterile rigidity of this scheme. But a most important movement within psychoanalysis has developed which recognizes the necessity of integrating the specific contributions of psychoanalytic psychology with an institutional sociology derived largely from anthropological sources.

28 Pp. 92, III.