Showing papers on "Ideal type published in 2001"

“We, the polish nation”: Ethnic and civic visions of nationhood in post-communist constitutional debates

Abstract: Cet article fait part de recherches concernant les definitions de nation et nationalisme dans les ex- pays communistes et particulierement en Pologne. A la lumiere de l'ideal-type de Weber, l'A expose les differences de conception des modeles ethnique/civique qui oppose traditionnellement Orient et Occident sur la nation. En revenant sur l'histoire de la Pologne, l'A. se penche sur les representations de la nation-etat et explique la preponderence de la religion dans la formation de l'unite de l'etat-nation polonais

In Search for a Psychoanalytic Research Strategy: The Concept of Ideal Types

Abstract: Aspects of a Development of a Psychoanalytic Qualitative Research Strategy "Formal psychoanalytic research has had a chequered history in psychoanalysis, a discipline rooted and developed through the clinical data of the therapeutic consulting room" (Wallerstein & Fonagy, 1999, p. 91). According to our empirically-minded critics we psychoanalytic researchers would be well advised to amend our methods to enable us to measure certain items and so get hold of so-called objective data; given the nature of our material, however, this presents us with fundamental difficulties. It is a peculiarity of our subject matter, especially the introjection of the therapeutic relationship, that the aspects which interest us are disguised, subject to change and often overdetermined because largely unconscious defence mechanisms disguise the aspects which interest us (cf. Deneke & Stuhr, 1992). There is therefore little hope of listing them neatly under distinct categories, a prerequisite for independent statistical tests. Perhaps it is a pity but, particularly in our field, that is the way things are: we cannot get hold of any data bruta. In our view there is a useful link here to the term "type" as used in the social sciences, for instance by Uta Gerhardt, who has taken Max Weber's concept of an ideal type a step further. In 1983 she wrote that, when using a biographical-typological approach like Weber's, one has to link systematically various aspects of each case to establish an ideal type. This establishment needs to come about by conducting biographical interviews fairly in a way that does not take sides with either a nomothetic or ideographic theory. It looks as though the idea of a type is the relevant link, clinically and scientifically, between nomothetic and ideographic thinking. For the problem is how to draw general conclusions from single cases or special aspects of several cases, without becoming diffuse or vague. What is required is a method which does not ignore the historical aspect and encompasses more than the single case, just as is pointed out by Glaser and Strauss (1968, p. 242) where, in their article on "grounded theory" they indicate that they are not concerned with single cases but with types of people and/or events subject to social pressures. Just "going ahead and testing it (empirically)" is no easy matter if the subject matter is biographical; everything is irretrievably in flux, and what is required in Weber's view is our capacity to make sense of things, to grasp the historical truth behind a flood of shifting images. An individual case tells us a typical story, it represents a typical structure and thereby transcends itself without sacrificing any of its iniqueness. For this Max Weber invented the term ideal type which in recent years has attracted a great deal of interest (see Weiss, 1992, p.65). It is a term that bundles past and present, giving shape and sense to disparate empirically observable attributes. Of course, the crux is the discrepancy between this invented ideal type and what one can observe empirically. The ideal type is a generalization and a hypothesis but, in conjunction with the so-called test of experience, it can form the basis for an interpretation which makes biographical details intelligible and meaningful. Uta Gerhardt's reworking of the Weber ideal type provides hints on the kind of crosschecks required: first of all an ideal type is extracted out of a series of single cases; this extraction then serves a hypothesis against which one can check further cases. Here Gerhardt is replying to the accusation often levelled against Weber that his ideas are "of little empirical use" because he explicitly excluded empirical testing. The ideal type may be seen in a single empirical case, perhaps not in pure form but more or less approximately. Where appearing in pure form in a single case, it is termed an "isolated optimal case". This isolated optimal case, a recognizable concrete example, thus empirically illustrates the ideal type. …

Schoenberg, Boulez, and Twelve-Tone Composition as “Ideal Type”

Abstract: Twelve-tone music is often defined empirically, in generalized terms of compositional practice. I contend that historians and theorists have neglected a heuristic perspective of twelve-tone composition. One heuristic model proves particularly helpful: the “ideal type,” first described by social scientist Max Weber in “Objectivity9 in Social Science and Social Policy” (1904). Weber9s ideal type can help to move the discussion away from scientistic ideas of problem solving and overly abstract invocations of “the twelve-tone idea,” and toward what Weber would call the “cultural significance” of twelve-tone methodologies (a move in line with influential revisions to the historiography of scientific “problem solving” proposed by Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos). Differences of perspective between Arnold Schoenberg and the young Pierre Boulez, at about the time the latter first arrived at Darmstadt, highlight the difficulty in establishing a coherent history of twelve-tone compositional practice (as opposed to a heuristic “ideal type”). The anonymous typescript “Komposition mit zwoolf Toonen,” linked with Schoenberg9s Viennese circle of the early 1920s, reveals how the early twelve-tone “discovery” described by Schoenberg is, no less than the later descriptions by Boulez, an a posteriori construct—or, as Kuhn and Lakatos might say, an ideological colonization of past practice.

Law As a Social Institution

Abstract: Part 1 An opportunity to reflect: an opportunity to reflect issues explored in this book a point of departure. Part 2 Max Weber's science of social action: Max Weber as social and legal theorist philosophical influences in Weber Max Weber's science of social action towards a sociological perspective on legal theory. Part 3 Hart's nucleic expository theory: Hart's approach to theory "the concept of law" -Hart's nucleic expository theory a basis for critique. Part 4 Three Gordian knots: three Gordian knots first Gordian knot - the problem of perspective second Gordian knot - the problem of "reductionism" to legal rules third Gordian knot - the problematic tendency to obscure rationality the three Gordian knots in retrospect. Part 5 Perspectives redefined: the first Gordian knot revisited the sociologically inclined jurist "index" as an ideal type the official world view. Part 6 "Reductionism" reassessed: the second Gordian knot revisited normativity in action social action and legal norms developing legal relationality. Part 7 Relationality reconsidered: the second and third Gordian knots revisited the jural relation legal relationships of social power a basic conceptual unit. Part 8 Towards a critical legal positivism: outline of a sociological perspective towards a critical legal positivism.

Ideal Type: Conceptions in the Social Sciences

Abstract: Many social sciences formulate or rely on generalizations about human behavior in its ‘subjectively meaningful’ aspect; yet taken literally, these statements appear generally to be false. Three main interpretations have been offered in defense of such statements' scientific legitimacy. First, Max Weber suggests that they are the result, not of generalizing, but of idealizing abstraction from concrete reality; they are therefore not to be understood as ‘laws,’ but as ‘ideal types.’ Second, Alfred Schutz argues that the scientific comprehension (Verstehen) of individuals' subjective action-meanings proceeds through the ‘objectifying’ (‘ideal-typifying’) grasp of their inner durations in terms of constellations of schematically conceived kinds of experiences. As long as the so-conceived experiences are completely ‘anonymous,’ i.e., not specific to any particular (kinds of) subjectivity, they can function in genuine generalizations; to the extent to which they exhibit traces of specific subjectivities, they render such statements ideal-typical in Weber's sense. Third, Daniel Hausman proposes to view these statements as definitions of systems, i.e., as models, to be used as complex predicates in assertions about the structures of parts of the social world. These (empirical) assertions must be interpreted as (implicitly) qualified by vague ceteris paribus clauses, i.e., as ‘inexact.’