Topic
Ideal type
About: Ideal type is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 400 publications have been published within this topic receiving 8012 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
More filters
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that historians and theorists have neglected a heuristic perspective of twelve-tone compositional practice, and propose a new approach based on the ideal type, first described by social scientist Max Weber in "Objectivity9 in Social Science and Social Policy" (1904).
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.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a critique of The Roots of War is presented, in which a single, ostensibly authoritative account is given of deep-rooted ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia while failing to provide adequate substantiation and evidence.
Abstract: The major part of this article is taken up with an analysis of the television documentary The Roots of War, which played a pivotal role in the Channel 4 `Bloody Bosnia' season, screened in the summer of 1993. The analysis involves a critique of the programme's mode of argumentation in which a single, ostensibly authoritative account is given of deep-rooted ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia while failing to provide adequate substantiation and evidence. This fairly typical `serious' documentary is contrasted unfavourably with an ideal type of critical social theory. The latter is self-reflexive about its modes of reasoning, aware of multiple perspectives and ontological complexity, and scrupulous about its use of evidence and explanatory procedure (past-modern). The article leads up to the detailed critique of The Roots of War through prior reference to recent reflections on the quality of the public sphere and citizens' faculties of reasoning, empathy and moral deliberation in relation to distant an...
16 citations
TL;DR: Weber's concepts of the ideal type and Verstehen are perhaps the most often discussed and debated but least understood of all his methodological formulations as discussed by the authors, in part a consequence of the complexity regarding the historical and intellectual matrix in which he developed his conceptual thought, and in part the relationship of Weber's ideal types to other central aspects both of his methodology and theoretical works.
Abstract: Weber's concepts of the ideal type and Verstehen are perhaps the most often discussed and debated but least understood of all his methodological formulations. This is in part a consequence of the complexity regarding the historical and intellectual matrix in which he developed his conceptual thought, and in part the relationship of the ideal type and Verstehen to other central aspects both of his methodology and theoretical works. The full scope of Weber's effort, and the relevance of this to contemporary sociological and historical investigations, can be found in his orientation to positivism and its role vis-a-vis the social sciences. A return by social scientists to mathematical modeling (which is not necessarily the province of the natural sciences) may, ironically, provide the foundation for returning back to a reconsideration of Weber's methodological thought, while repositioning the role of the ideal type and positivism in sociological investigations.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, Weber and his contemporaries constructed ideal types as theoretical or definitional statements and analyzed subsequent revisions as they relate to the subject matter of the social sciences, and suggested suggestions for improving the explanatory powers of typologies are made based on the kinds of knowledge deemed relevant for observer and actor at differing levels of social world.
Abstract: Though widely used in the literature of sociology ideal types have received little systematic explication. One of the difficulties is the ambiguity surrounding the usage of types as theoretical or definitional statements. Beginning with the types constructed by Weber and his contemporaries the discussion proceeds by analyzing subsequent revisions as they relate to the subject matter of the social sciences. Suggestions for improving the explanatory powers of typologies are made based on the kinds of knowledge deemed relevant for observer and actor at differing levels of the social world.
15 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, Weber's ideas about bureaucracy preselnted by Weber and qualified and expanded upon by Blau are discussed, and it seems more likely to the author that the concept of unofficial change, if it serves to rescue Weber's "ideal type," succeeds in doing so only at the serious risk of losing bureaucracy.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with certain ideas about bureaucracy preselnted by Weber and qualified and expanded upon by Blau. Based upon the information gathered in a year-long participant observation study of "The Single Men's Unit" of a public welfare department from February 1959 to February 1960, during which time he was employed as a "social caseworker," the author has introduced the notion of "symbolic bureaucracy." The discussion, which is centered around this concept, seriously questions whether Blau's "unofficial change" and "adjustive development" will suffice to save Weber. It seems more likely to the author that the introduction of the concept of unofficial change, if it serves to rescue Weber's "ideal type," succeeds in doing so only at the serious risk of losing bureaucracy. B ureaucratization offers above all the optimum possibility for carrying through the principle of specializing administrative functions according to purely objective considerations. Individual performances are allocated to functionaries who have specialized training and who by constant practice learn more and more. The 'objective' discharge of business primarily means a discharge of business according to Calculable Rules and 'without regard for persons.'"'
14 citations