Importance of Ideal Types - Essay Example

Importance of Ideal Types Importance of Ideal Types Max Weber, a German ant positivist sociologist, laid the foundation for Ideal Types. He wanted to establish sociology as an objective social science. He studied the objectivity and subjectivity of society, the human agency and the society’s role in shaping an individual’s personality and forming his or her perspectives about life. Weber was ascertained that the historical development of society would be based upon incomplete set of information and could be fractional only. Weber studied the history as a relationship of cause and effect. It is impossible to quote all events which were interrelated to the cause and effect of an event in history and thus a social scientist must only choose events which he deemed important. Weber is antagonistic to all theories, propositions and methods that claim to describe history in detail as reality can not be deduced from a given set of concepts and theories in his opinion. He believes all these theories are ‘emanationist’ and far from real life; they are just a reflection of the words or reports of a social scientist and nothing else. (LEE, D., & NEWBY, H. (1983). In human society, it is almost impossible to calculate human activities which are either based on one’s emotions or habits. These humanly acts are considered irrational by natural science but social science handles them perfectly. Such cases impose a deviation from rational reality to irrational arguments. He explained it better by giving an instance of a stock exchange market where you firs consider all the rational propositions of conducting any act of conduct and then you ponder upon the irregularities caused by irrational factors. These unreasonable factors can be explained by a sociologist and then further implications be based on his concepts But in actuality, we are focusing on the social scientist’s point of view and emphasizing our research thereon. This is not a right frame of action; and thus Weber came up with his concept of ‘ideal’ or ‘pure type’. (LEE, D., & NEWBY, H. (1983). Weber explains Ideal Types as a one-sided perception of one or more view points by accumulation and amalgamation of distinct, disseminate, sometimes present but mostly absent individual experiences. These accentuations are all compiled together in a incorporated analytical demeanor. It is a utopia because in reality, mental setup can not be found anywhere empirically. Weber practical approach has divided the ideal types into three phases. In the first phase, he considered ideal types to be used as heuristic tools to understand the historical and social phenomena clearly. Subsequently in the middle phase, the ideal types were deemed so important to be considered as the highlight of social sciences. In the final phase, ideal types were subdivided into three categories in an attempt to realize universal history. These were types of religious societies, economic organization types and categories of authority. Other people regard Weber ideal types as general type and individual types. But Weber is tended towards focusing on heuristic means of ideal types rather than on the sociological investigation. (OHEAR, A. (1996). Ideal types were classified into four broad types according to Weber. These are emotional rationality, goal rationality, value rationality, and traditional rationality (the customs and habits). The characteristics of Ideal types are hereditary notion, not a premise or supposition only; and assists in organizing the historical and pragmatic reality of life. It is of crucial importance to take into consideration that ideal types are constantly formulated and changed due to changes in history and differing perceptions of different people. Ideal types itself is not a hypothesis but helps in the formulation of several hypotheses. It does not give a deep insight into reality but gives an unmistakable insight or expression into reality. In actuality, it deal with how far does the human frame of mine is in compliance with reality and how does it diverges. (CALHOUN, C. J. (2002). Ideal types deal with both the empirical lifestyle as well as the Hermeneutic Model. Let’s take a deep insight into the Empirical form of reality. This reality model describes the outstanding features of economic life of a region. Weber brings into front line his arguments by referring to Newton’s assumptions of x and y origins. He believed that empirical reality is predefined by the scientists in to other classes of science and his jurisdiction is to bring it into sociology. His belief is to give equal importance to ideal types as it clearly defines the traditional authority. Empirical tool provides a measuring instrument for theoretical things like agricultural and industrial labor and act as a heuristic tool. The ideal types take up a significant form defining the laws of society as a whole. They are related to the realities of life (OHEAR, A. (1996). The generalized form of ideal types may also be classified as Empirical model. It is also known as ‘explanation law’. It is the generalized or casual form of ideal types. But Weber contradicts this pre assumption by further dividing the empirical model into these types. He carried out observations and came to the conclusion that not empirical prompt nesses are part of generalized or casual form of regularity. They can be differing in status as well. Secondly, not all empirical models are dogmatic or derivable from empirically insubstantial realities so it becomes a matter of concern as to deducing conceptual ideas or information from it is ingenious or not. Weber’s existence forms are an exemplary instance of whether concrete information should be derived from it or not is a question. In addition, historically the evidence should be proved and dealt with and historians must prove the authenticity of it by naming the geographical and chronological aspects of it. If natural laws are established by scientists so sociology should confirm its point of view as well. (HUFF, T. E. (1984). The basis of Empirical model in relation to ideal types is that it should be applicable and convincing so that whoever go through it might get the idea as t why this happened and how. If the natural scientists can stick to the specific laws of science, the social scientists should follow the lead to have their point proven. If social sciences have to make it declare as sciences, it should perform like a science according to Weber’s argument. Scientific procedures must be entertained and it should be studied with same zeal and excitement as natural science. Max Weber’s ideal types which are concluded from the empirical formulation are capitalism and bureaucratic structure. The traits of capital system which are mandatory for an ideal type are the formulation of a free market system, Production techniques which are balanced, Accurate and trustworthy law, fraud in production goods, free or cheap labor, a definite partition of households and business organizations, a capitalism character, working only for the sake of working, no personal relationships or distant relations, basic systems for accounting, business commercialization, distinctiveness, individuality, and a disciplined and orderly attitude towards life. (LEE, D., & NEWBY, H. (1983). The Bureaucratic system is a balanced system under the heading of ideal types. It focuses on implementations of rules in all organizational structures and offices, a subject for capability, a form of hierarchy for organization, no cross culture, top to bottom organization chain is deemed best, administrative tasks beheld by administration while production assignments be the responsibility of the production department, methodological rules to be governed in offices, no cheating or fraud on seats in offices by the office fellow colleagues, and all the rules and regulations be formulated in writing. Weber’s interest in capitalism laid the foundation for ideal types. He did not endeavor to find out rational or general rules for the explanation of capitalism; rather he focused on historical and cultural aspects of capitalism. As an economist, he focused on the eras in history to study how capitalism prevailed in society. He identified assessable economic factors in society at a given point in time. Then he combined all fundamentals together to form an ideal type. This term is used as a representation of capitalism and to determine the natural history of it at any known time in history as well as the area where the information came from. (LEE, D., & NEWBY, H. (1983). Hermeneutic Model (interpretative) model is in contradiction to empirical model to study on various issues. The interpreter’s instance in this model is creativity and it gives meaning and symbolizes a sign by using a qua interpreter. Advocates of Hermeneutic Model argue that it is unjustifiable to divide the human society on the basis of informal associations and universal laws. The commencement of defining social events conceptually is unsuitable with the natural events of life. Wilhelm Dilthey, who was also on the forefront in establishing this approach, proposes his argument that life on Earth-human life is best understood via gaining knowledge about the physical world. Human behavior should be studied on such indentions as ‘value’, ‘ideal’, ‘development’ and ‘purpose’. (WEINERT, F. (2009). . Bibliography LEE, D., & NEWBY, H. (1983). The problem of sociology: an introduction to the discipline. London, Hutchinson. Top of Form OHEAR, A. (1996). Verstehen and humane understanding. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press CALHOUN, C. J. (2002). Classical sociological theory. Malden, Mass, Blackwell. HUFF, T. E. (1984). Max Weber and the methodology of the social sciences. New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Books. WEINERT, F. (2009). Copernicus, Darwin, & Freud: revolutions in the history and philosophy of science. Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell. Read More