REL 2000 Chapter : A Source Of Social Action Max Weber
Document Summary
Academic success cut short by his death. View not strictly functionalist/ reductionalist: rejected that some things are always causes or effects. Weber insisted that understanding people is not the same as understanding the natural world. Intense debate about how to study science: reason- human beings assign meaning- driven by beliefs and emotions, durkheim and weber do not see eye to eye on this. Wilhelm dilthey called for use of imagination and intuition to understand why people do what they do: weber thought this was impossible, cannot look at every individual and can"t ever know what everyone is actually experiencing. Describe historical circumstance -> based on what we understand predict future events -> look at actual events -> determine motives that caused things to happen that way. Determining motivates people is difficult because: motives are diverse (people do the same things for different reasons) Individuals shape social motivations- social forces are not external realities.
