The famous German thinker and sociologist Max Weber, who lived between 1864-1920, was born in a country where his German political and intellectual life began to develop. His father is a person closely related to politics, his family friends are prominent figures of German intellectual life, and his relatives are people who are famous in human sciences.
See also : Karl Marx and the Foundations of Capitalism
Weber made important contributions to sociology, drew the general conceptual framework of sociology as a science and developed a coherent philosophy of social sciences. Weber’s importance derives from his co-founder of modern sociology as a separate and independent discipline with Emile Durkheim. HE; He gave a philosophical basis to social sciences and a conceptual framework to sociology.
In other words, Weber is known as the founder of modern sociology because he best presented the general conceptual framework of sociology as a science, developed a coherent philosophy of social sciences, and finally grasped and expressed the basic features of modern industrial society in a solid way. The aim of this study is to examine Weber’s sociological theory and his method on social sciences, as well as to examine his thoughts on religion, politics and science, and to determine the attitude towards sociology. The study focuses on how the epistemological structures of social sciences are shaped on the basis of Weber’s views.
Weber demonstrated his contribution to the methodological debates of the time by pointing out that methodological type studies are essential when methodological confusions hinder empirical research.
Thinkers such as Weber, Dilthey and Rickert continued their studies with a methodological approach different from the enlightened tradition, with their approach that ‘knowledge’ in the social sciences is qualitatively different from the natural sciences, and that this ‘knowledge’ is as valid as in the natural sciences. Weber’s importance in the sociological tradition in Europe came to the forefront with his methodological comments on the basic problems of sociology rather than his independent studies on political organization, class structure and religious behavior.
Weber’s Methodology
As a result of Weber’s methodological studies, rather than dictating a method, he made an effort to deal with social phenomena at a more understandable level. As in the positivist tradition, he refrained from displaying a rigid methodology understanding, and moved method discussions to a more flexible ground. Although Comte tried to impose a method on sociology in advance beyond all scientific inquiry, Weber avoided falling into this situation.
‘Understanding’ and ‘Explanation’ as a Method
According to Weber, understanding can be explained in two ways:
The term is first of all an average or approximate meaning of a given actor that actually exists in a particular outcome situation or that can be attributed to many particular actors; or, secondly, the assumption of a certain type of action may refer to a theoretically conceived subjective meaning ascribed to the actor or actors.
This in no way implies an objectively ‘true’ or metaphysically ‘true’ meaning. This is what distinguishes empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, from dogmatic disciplines in this field, which seek to reveal the ‘true’ and ‘valid’ meanings associated with the objects of their research, such as law, logic, ethics, and aesthetics.
Understanding is the knowledge of the inner states of individual people and the meanings they give to social behavior; understanding is attained only in the individual sciences. Understanding is a method of comprehending human actions and eventually culture, again starting from the human. In other words, understanding is a method of grasping people and culture while remaining within the people and culture.
The function of the comprehension method; is that it helps us to grasp every person, people, nation, in its own historicity and individuality. In terms of method, according to Weber, meaning should come first, understanding comes before explanation and causal analysis. Because in order to explain, it is necessary to understand first.
The understanding method emphasizes that the social sciences are incompatible with the positivist understanding method of the natural sciences. In Weber’s eyes, this situation constitutes a superiority of social sciences over natural sciences. The method by which the meaning underlying one’s social action will be interpreted, cause-effect relationships, and ultimately how to reveal the law-like regularities that dominate social phenomena and events are based on this method.
Weber arrives at interpretative understanding by making a distinction between explanatory or motivational understanding and observational (direct) understanding. For example; When someone writes a proposition like 2*2=4, we understand its meaning in a rational way and with the help of our practical knowledge.
In the same way, we can immediately understand the anger of someone who shouts and shouts from the expression on his face. These mean “understanding irrational practical knowledge” of emotions. Understanding the intended meaning of a particular achievement through direct observation. Explanatory understanding is; is to rationally understand a phenomenon, process, action based on its motives.
In other words, explanatory understanding is causal understanding. Explanatory understanding enables rational and irrational motives to be understood as causes only within a scientific discourse that is itself rational in its constitution. This approach accepts the individual and the behavior of the individual as basic science or atom. According to this; The individual is the only carrier and upper limit of meaningful behavior. Weber basically uses two methods, “ideal type analysis” and “historical type analysis”, to understand and explain concepts in the social issues he is interested in. According to Weber; In order to understand the social structure, certain features of this structure must be known. For example, in order to understand what bureaucracy is as a social phenomenon, the features and basic characteristics that distinguish it from other phenomena should be determined. On the basis of this understanding, Weber develops the ideal type form on a comparative basis and emphasizes its distinctive features. Ideal types are not real; but it has relations with reality. HE; The average situation is not an assumption or a description of reality, but the experimental, arbitrary, and utopian type.
Verstehen (Comprehension)
Verstehen is a German word meaning understanding.
German philosophers of history were opposed to positivist thinking that built ‘history’ on such subjects as in the natural sciences.
The idea that we can understand texts and human actions by describing causal regularities was developed by Dilthey and applied to sociology by Weber.
According to Weber, verstehen is not only a method, but also a way of presenting the data of the social sciences to us.
Hermeneutics is the understanding and interpretation of texts with a subjective approach. Its purpose is to understand the thought of the author and the structure of the text. Weber sought to reach from an understanding of the text to an understanding of social life.
Cultural sciences seek to understand how societies live in innumerable forms of existence that become intelligible in the light of their own interest, value and belief systems.
Understanding does not contain in Weber’s thought any mysterious ability, an ability external or superior to reason or to the logical method of the natural sciences. Intelligibility is not direct in the sense that we grasp at once the meaning of the behavior of others without prior examination. Even in the case of our contemporaries, we can almost always comment directly on their behavior or work.
But we cannot know which interpretation is more correct without research and proof. In summary, instead of direct intelligibility, it would be good to say intelligibility in essence and to remember that this intelligibility carries inherent uncertainties.
The person does not always recognize the causes of his behavior, while the observer is less able to predict them intuitively. In order to distinguish between possible and true, he must research them.
Unlike Weber, Durkheim, and the positivists, he accepted that the study of human behavior could not be limited to mere observation and that a different method (understanding-verstehen) was inevitable. But Weber had shown the drawbacks of putting limits on the scope of understanding and relying on it alone.
According to him, in order for the knowledge derived from verstehen to gain scientific reality, it must be controlled by experimental tests. However, empirical control for cultural sciences differs from natural sciences.
Empirical controllability in cultural sciences is quite limited due to the specificity of the object of these sciences, and for this reason, there is no other way in sociology than to work with abstract concepts and ideal types that have weak empirical content against reality. The thing to do, then, is to constantly resort to tests and comparisons between these concepts and reality.
Interpretive Sociology and Understanding Sociology
Weber introduced the interpretive method. Some sociology historians have even called it ‘interpretive sociology’. Weber’s point of view on this problem should be clearly stated, since the term causes many misunderstandings.
Weber did not invent the interpretative method, even the distinction between explanation and understanding. Before that, Droysen had tried to apply it to history, and Dilthey had made it a milestone in the general methodology of the humanities. Weber’s merit is that he applied this method conceptually and more precisely to sociology.
The New Idealist Wilhelm Dilthey, who argues that there is a methodological difference between the natural sciences and the spiritual sciences (or all the sciences including society and history), is the person who first used the concept of understanding after Homer and influenced the sociologist Max Weber.
He is the first leading name in the literature on the subject. According to him, it is necessary to consider the social and historical field not as a field of necessity, but as a field in which human will will form. According to Dilthey, human phenomena can be reached through an internal process, that is, through direct intuition of life. The spiritual world is not a factual world.
