Showing papers on "Ideal type published in 2004"

Économie et société

Abstract: L'ouvrage phare du pere de la sociologie allemande comporte ses concepts cles : la methode des ideaux-types, les formes de domination, la rationalisation de la societe. Une oeuvre marquante pour la discipline...

Alfred schutz, Austrian Economists and the Knowledge Problem

Abstract: The Austrian School of Economics has always taken a deep interest in methodological issues, and has used its methodological re. ections to build substantive theories towards explaining the role of ...

The Ideal Type of Authority in the United States and Germany

Abstract: Using affect control theory, an ideal type of authority is developed from the literature identifying three dimensions of meaning. This ideal type is then used to compare U.S. and German subjects. Because their power is legitimated by cultural rules, authorities are positively evaluated despite their ability to coerce. Because it is understood, authorities need not engage in expressive action to demonstrate their power. The affective meaning of role identities reflects their structural meaning, such as authority. Role identities, rated on three-dimensional semantic differential scales of affective meaning, are classified using a K-means clustering algorithm to empirically generate clusters of structural meaning. The cluster discussed here corresponds to the ideal typical authority category of potent, positively evaluated, and not expressive role identities. In the two studies reported here involving more than 1,700 U.S. and German subjects, I find a high degree of cross-cultural agreement on what is classi...

Max Weber: Precursor of economic sociology and heterodox economics?

Abstract: I Introduction MAX WEBER IS UNDOUBTEDLY one of the most fascinating and important social scientists of the last century. In this paper we will ask to what degree can Weber's contributions to the basics of social science analysis and methodology be regarded as a milestone for modern economic sociology and a basis for a heterodox economic paradigm, and if we can get some constructive suggestions for present research from his research agenda. (1) Our thesis is that Weber's outline and research program is not really helpful for present-day economic sociology and heterodox economics because Weber had a rather narrow understanding of rationality and the economy. He did not consider the heterodox underpinnings of, for example, the Austrian school (uncertainty, human agency, etc.) in his programmatic contributions. Another answer to these questions is provided in the optimistic interpretation of Eisermann (1993), who asserts that Weber succeeded in integrating a neoclassical and a historical perspective and thereby overcame the pretheoretical perspective of the historical school. However, the conclusion of our paper is opposite to Eisermann's optimistic and Swedberg's (1999, p. 579) positive view. To substantiate our claim, we will not follow the tradition of the hagiographic literature, i.e., an innumerable accumulation of citations of Weber's works, remarks on the burgeoning secondary literature, and the detection of biographical links (2)--such writing would make it far to easy to lose our intended focus, Hence, we consciously restrict our considerations to a yew few, but major, texts (cf. Swedberg 1999, pp. 562-569). (3) Further, we will pursue a hermeneutical analysis, asking first what others have said on Weber. but primarily trying to understand what he himself wants to tell us. The first text under consideration is a compilation of his lecture materials for students in his course on general economics at Freiburg and Heidelberg in the years 1894-1898 (Weber [1898] 1990). (4) The text has 34 pages and consists of an overview of his four or five one-hour lectures per week, including some 600 references. It was found in the posthumous works of his wife Marianne Weber. Although not published during his lifetime, it is Weber's most complete contribution on theoretical economics. The second and third texts are part of his posthumously published monumental Economy and Society (1968d). (5) In the second text, "Basic sociological terms" (1968d, pp. 3-62), Weber develops his general approach theoretically. It was written between 1919 and 1920 and can be regarded as his last statement on method and theory. In addition to the third text on "Sociological categories of economic action," we will include a short written commentary on "the market" (1968d, 63-211 pp. 635-640). (6) We will exclude his substantive contributions on economic history (1924), on method (1968a), his Protestant ethics thesis ([190511930), and his critiques of the historical school (1968c) (7) because they raise further questions but add no substantial additional insights for our discussion. II The Secondary Literature on Weber's Sozialokonomik (8) FOR MOST ECONOMISTS Weber is anathema. At most it is granted that he was a considerable sociologist. The usual reference is Schumpeter, who mentions that he was an eminent sociologist and at best secondarily an economist (1920, p. 833). In contrast to hundreds of contributions on Weber and sociology, the historical and the political sciences, only few contributions on Weber and economics exist. This is despite the fact that he did almost all of his teaching in economics, although Weber was trained in law. He was first appointed to a chair of economics in Freiburg in 1894, and then became successor to Knies at Heidelberg in 1897. In the German-language literature, Brandt (1990) gives a very general, brief overview on Weber's definition of economics, the method of understanding, the ideal type, and the value-neutrality concept. …

Metropolitan comparisons: London as a city-state

Abstract: This article explores ideas associated with the term ‘metropolis’, especially when used concerning London, and then takes the notion of the city-state as a heuristic device to identify recurrent and fundamental characteristics of this particular metropolis. The comparisons are between successive phases in London's history, including the present; between London and other metropolises; and between London and that elusive ideal type, the ‘city-state’.

Ideal types and scientific theories

Abstract: In this work I will put forward the idea that Max Weber’s conception of the “ideal type” may have a role in the process aimed at formulating a reliable concept of scientific law and scientific theory The connection between Weber, theorist of socio–historical science, and postpositivist philosophy of science has been made possible by Carl Hempel, who grasped the importance of Weber’s work and, at the same time, interpreted the movement towards modernization of neo-empiricism by supporting the passage to a semantic conception of scientific theories I will therefore analyze the role of idealizing procedure in the formation of theoretical entities and in the process of organization and coordination of laws that govern complex causal systems

Toward an Understanding of "Genetic Sociology" and Its Relationships to Medical Sociology and Medical Genetics in the Educational Enterprise

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to establish the fact that a new subdiscipline in the field of medical sociology is urgently needed to analyze the interrelationships and implications of genetic discoveries, diagnoses, treatments and prognoses upon societal behavior. This subdiscipline is "Genetic Sociology". Genetic Sociology aims to illuminate areas such as stem cell research; genetic discoveries and their ramifications; human embryos and society; DNA test in the courts; social, moral and religious concerns; and the analysis of religion and the human genome. We have previously delineated the area of Cellular Sociology that shows the parallels between the cell as a biological system at the micro level and the subsystem of society as a sociological cell, also, at the micro level (Fredericks, M., Odiet, Miller, and Fredericks, J., 2003). Thus, given the fact that human knowledge is never compartmentalized and given the fundamental thesis that there are concrete interrelationships between the natural and social sciences we wish to reiterate that the social can intervene in the cellular and vice versa. Coupled with the critical and fierce debate of embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, genetic engineering, (Gottweis, 1999; Mack, 2001; Thomson, 2001; Drayna, 2001; Shannon, 2001; Holden, 2001; McGuffin, 2001) we have developed the relationships between what we call Genetic Sociology and Cellular Sociology as out growths of Medical Sociology (Fredericks, M., Odiet, Miller, Fredericks, J., 2003). The method is to use inductive reasoning to explore the implications and interrelationships of genetic discoveries upon social behavior. First, what is the evidence that there are such relationships? Assuming that knowledge is never completely compartmentalized, we are attempting to show that there are reciprocal interrelationships and impact between social behaviors on the one hand and genetic diagnoses and discoveries on the other. The structure of a society as a whole can only be observed in its functioning, whereas an organic structure can be seen apart from its functional activity. Further, the structure of a society differs from a biological structure in that it cannot be seen or touched. But while it is a mental construct, an ideal type, it is no less "real" than a biological structure. The reality lies in the fact that the behavior and actions of individual human beings, over time, fall into a series of organized patterns of behavior. When these organized patterns of behavior have been located in a spatio-temporal historical context, they become institutions--ways of taking care of basic human needs in the systems and subsystems of society (Searle, 1995). We shall now attempt to develop these relationships in more detail. Society, Culture, and Personality (SCP) from a macroscopic perspective represents the global village, a nation, a community, an institution or group (Figure 1). There are a multitude of subsystems, related to subsystems in the human body, operating in any of these aggregates. For purposes of analysis, we will isolate a simple subsystem, namely, the personality subsystem. We shall demonstrate that the personality subsystem is the result of nature ([N.sub.1]), which is the genetic basis, and nurture ([N.sub.2]), which is the sociocultural basis in any society between the Gemeinschaft ([G.sub.1]) and the Gesellschaft (G2) dichotomy (Figure 1). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] The genetic (or natural) basis for personality is the combination of traits that reveals from the person's unique combination of genes. The genetic basis ([N.sub.1]) of personality (Figure 1) represents only potentiality. These potentialities, when developed under the influence of the individual's total environment, predominantly during childhood and adolescence, are shaped into a personality. Behavioral geneticists use large sample surveys, twin studies, and / or gene mapping to determine the genetic basis of personality. …

Studien zur Genese rationaler Lebensführung und zum Sektentypus Max Webers / Studies on Max Weber’s Sect as an Ideal Type and the Genesis of the Rational Way of Life

Abstract: Zusammenfassung Den Ausgangspunkt des Aufsatzes bildet die Frage, ob und inwiefern die These von der protestantischen Ethik Max Webers und der von ihm entwickelte Sektentypus als geeignete Interpretamente anzusehen sind, um das religiöse Selbstverständnis sowie das Sozial- und Wirtschaftsverhalten mennonitischer Bauernfamilien im linksrheinischen deutschen Südwesten zwischen 1632 und 1850 plausibel zu rekonstruieren und zu analysieren. Auf der Grundlage einer kritischen Würdigung des religionssoziologischen Ansatzes Max Webers und unter Berücksichtigung neuerer Forschungsansätze der Täuferforschung werden die Grade der Abweichung der mennonitischen Glaubensgemeinschaften im deutschen Südwesten vom Idealtypus der Sekte in den Bereichen Bekenntnisentwicklung, Organisations- und Ämterstruktur, familiäre und verwandtschaftliche Verankerung der Glaubensgemeinschaft und soziale Differenzierung vorgestellt und erläutert. Im Ergebnis wird der von Max Weber allen Mitgliedern protestantischer Sekten unterstellte Individualismus und Habitus rationaler Lebensführung, der als wesentlicher mentaler Faktor für die Ausprägung des kapitalistischen Geistes anzusehen ist, weitgehend auf bestimmte Mitglieder eingeschränkt, die informelle und formelle Führungsaufgaben übernahmen. Die Genese rationaler Lebensführung wird hypothetisch als das Produkt dialektischer Prozesse endogener und exogener Faktoren beurteilt. Zu den endogenen Faktoren gehören Abkehr von Mission, Anerkennung der Obrigkeit, kirchenähnliche Gemeindebildung, Schärfung der Kirchenzucht und Intensivierung innerweltlicher Askese sowie Zuwachs zentraler Aufgaben bei einzelnen Mitgliedern, zu den exogenen Faktoren sind tolerantere Religionspolitik und wachsende Bedeutung ökonomischer Zielvorgaben der Obrigkeiten, verbesserte Rechtslage für Minderheiten sowie Verdichtung und Dynamisierung von Marktbeziehungen zu zählen. Summary This article starts from the question, if and to what extent Max Weber’s thesis of the Protestant Ethic and his ideal type of the sect are suitable for analysing the religious mentality and social and economic behavior of Mennonite peasant families in South West Germany on the left bank of the Rhine between 1632 and 1850. After a critical appreciation of Weber's approach and a consideration of new concepts in the research on Mennonites the differences between Mennonites in South West Germany and the ideal type of the sect are pointed out and explained in respect to religious group formation, the structure of the organization and its offices, family roots and relationships in the religious community, and social inequality. The conclusion is that individualism and the rational way of life, which Max Weber attributed to all members of Protestant sects and which he thought be a crucial mental factor for the spirit of capitalism, was limited to group members with formal and informal leadership functions. The article puts forward the hypothesis that the genesis of a rational way of life results from dialectical processes involving endogeneous and exogeneous factors. Some of the endogeneous factors are the renunciation of mission, the acceptance of secular authority, community formation similar to church organization, a sharpening of sect discipline, intensified asceticism, and the concentration of central tasks on special members. Exogenous factors, in contrast, include more tolerant religious policies, the increasing importance of economic goals on the part of the authorities, the improved legal position of minorities, and more dynamic and denser market relations.