Читать книгу Essential Concepts in Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 49

The concept of the ideal type was devised by Max Weber as part of his method for studying social action as a form of sociology. For Weber, understanding and explaining social life was not possible using the same methods as the natural sciences. Human beings, unlike other beings in the natural world, create a meaningful environment, and to understand their individual actions we have to set these within the context of that social environment. Of course, people create organizations and social institutions, which some sociologists see as their main object of research, but Weber ([1904] 1949) argued that a full account of social phenomena has to be understandable at the level of individual action. This approach to sociology is known as Verstehen, and Weber used it to explore the origins and key aspects of capitalism and its relationship to religious belief, the different types of economic life across societies, types of authority and leadership, and forms of organization in different historical periods. Constructing ideal types was an important element of Weber’s method that allowed him to bring together the macro and micro levels of sociological analysis.