Max Weber (1864-1920) PDF

MAX WEBER (1864-1920) Max Weber was born to German parents. Being a product of experience or developments of his time, Weber, had sufficient exposure and practice of his legal knowledge and teachings as professional callings that is, as a lawyer and university don. He received his docto...

MAX WEBER (1864-1920) Max Weber was born to German parents. Being a product of experience or developments of his time, Weber, had sufficient exposure and practice of his legal knowledge and teachings as professional callings that is, as a lawyer and university don. He received his doctoral degree in law dealing with the legal provisions of medieval European merchants or trading enterprises. His Works Weber’s works were detailed historical studies of competing traditions in history, jurisprudence, economics, and philosophy amongst others. His works include. The protestant ethnic and spirit of capitalism, published in 1958 “the economy and society” published in 1968 Essays in Sociology” published in 1958, and “the methodology of the HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIOLOGY Max Weber had a great impact on sociology. Among sociologists, he is known not only for his theoretical contributions but also for a number of specific ideas that have generated considerable interests and research in their own right. Many common but important ideas that we use to understand social life have their origin in the work of Weber, including bureaucracy, lifestyle, the protestant ethic, and charisma. His sociology work covered a wide range of topics, including politics, organization, social stratification, religion, capitalism, music, the city and cross-cultural comparison. His works continue to influence sociological scholarship today. Weber argued that sociology should focus on the study of human subjectivity, the intentions, values, beliefs, and attitudes that underlie people’s behaviour. Weber employed the German word verstehen – meaning “understanding” or “insight”  One of the major contributions of Max Weber is that he strived to provide a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of a modern economy and society. This brought him into areas Karl Marx was also concerned with – i.e. the specific characteristics of modern capitalism, and the situation of its emergence and development.  Max inverted the major tenets of Marxist thought in his work. His work on protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism was concerned with the role of ideas, partly religious ideas in transforming Western Europe into a capitalist society. From his earliest studies to the essays he wrote just before he died, Weber never showed much interest in theory that was not applied to the critical issues facing modern societies. Weber believed that the unit of analysis for sociology should not be the abstraction “society” but the action of real flesh-and-blood - social individuals. Weber was particularly interested in how social action is often conceptualized by social actors in terms of means-ends chains.  Weber pointed out that we cannot analyze much of our social behaviour by the kinds of objective criteria we use in natural sciences. To fully comprehend behaviour, we must learn the subjective meanings people attach to their actions – i.e. how they themselves view and explain their behaviour.  Another notable sociological contribution of Weber is the concept of the ideal type. An ideal type is a concept constituted by sociologists to portray the principal characteristics of something they want to study. It is a construct, a made-up model that serves as a measuring rod against which actual cases can be evaluated. In his works, Weber identified various characteristics of bureaucracy as an ideal type. In presenting this model of bureaucracy, Weber was not describing any particular business, nor was he using the term ideal in a way that suggested a positive evaluation. Instead, his purpose was to provide a useful standard for measuring just how bureaucratic an actual organization is. Weber also stressed the importance of a value-free sociology. He emphasized that sociologists must not allow their personal biases to affect the conduct of their scientific research. Weber recognized that sociologists, like everyone else, have individual biases and moral convictions regarding behaviour. That he insisted that sociologists must cultivate a disciplined approach to the phenomena they study so that they may see facts as they are, not as they might which them to be.  Max Weber outlined three authority types that confer legitimacy: 1. Traditional authority which rests on the obedience to a command out of reference for old established patterns of order or custom. 1. Charismatic authority where obedience is justified because the person giving order had some sacred or outstanding qualities/characteristics. Such a person retains power so long as the belief in his special abilities persists. 2. Legal-rational authority. Here men believe that a person giving an order acts in accordance with his duties as stipulated in a code of legal rules and regulations.