001. Husserl e Weber

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    Sociological Inquiry

    51 (2) 99-104

    Edmund HusserFs Impact on Max Weber*

    Kenneth R. M U S E

    Earlham College

    In correcting Rickcrt, Weber was influenced by Dillhey when he accepted th e central place

    of interpretive understanding in the Geisteswissenschaften. But it was partly th e influence

    of Husserl

    that

    led

    Weber

    to

    correct Dilthey's psychological reductionism

    in two respects,

    both

    of

    which

    are

    imporuint

    in

    Weber's concept

    of

    ideal

    types: (I) categorial

    understanding,

    such as H'f have no t only in mathematical analysis bu t also in the anaiysi.'io f rational action,

    does no t depend on psychological peculiarities, and (2) perceptual understanding, such as

    th e

    investigator

    may

    have

    of

    irrational

    an d

    nonrational

    action, is not

    given

    by

    immediate

    intuition alone but is partly constructed, and the validity of the construction must be tested

    by causal

    analysis.

    The author

    argues,

    further, that there is a phenomenological aspect to

    Weber's well-known types

    of

    authority,

    for

    example. (Editor)

    In this brief inquiry, I propose to raise the

    question of whether there is any discernible

    impact of the work of Edmund Husserl. the

    "founder" of phenomenology, upon that of Max

    Weber, or to phrase the question the other way

    around, whether Weber appropriated anything

    from Husserl's endeavors. Num erous scholars

    have claimed that there are "phenomenological"

    types of notion in Weber's methodological for-

    mulations,' such as his doctrine of Verstehen, or

    interpretive understanding, or his notion of in-

    tended meaning {gemeinter Sinn), but no one, to

    my knowledge, has ever claimed that Weber

    himself understood these notions to be phenom-

    enological, much less that they were directly bor-

    rowed from phenomenological writers in his day.

    All that these scholars usually wish to claim is

    that these notions are similar in basic meaning to

    a number of ideas that since Weber's time have

    become associated with the phenomenological

    mo vem ent. N o one, as far as I know, has yet

    attempted to discover whether there exist direct

    links between Weber and the phenomenological

    movement of his day, or to explore the nature of

    those con nect ions, if they exist. I propose to

    open this area of inquiry by claiming that there is

    strong evidence, if somewhat intricate, of a direct

    impact of Husserl on Weber. However, as we

    shall see, this impact had reverberations in an area

    Presented at Max Weber Colloquium, University

    of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, April 21, 1977.

    'See, for example, George Psathas, Phenomeno-

    logical Sociology: Issues and Applications

    (New

    ork: John Wiley & Sons, 1973), pp. 2-3. See also

    tome remarks by Helmut R. Wagner in the same

    work, e.g. p. 63. James Heap and Philip Roth ("On

    of Weber's methodological work where it has sel-

    dom been looked for, indeed where it might

    - from certain perspectives be least expecte d: in

    his doctrine of ideal types.

    I will endeavor to show that Weber was well

    acquainted with Husserl's early work, at least,

    and that Weber's major appropriation from that

    work was, eventually, to conceive of ideal type

    construction asat least in parta "phenom-

    enolog ical" procedure. If this can be show n

    with at least a degree of plausibility, then the

    inquiry, tentative as it is, can be expected to

    have two possible pay-offs. First, a new eleme nt

    will perhaps have to be added to the ongoing

    debate over ideal-type construction, namely, the

    possibility that the procedure involves at least

    in part a phenom enological m ethod. A nd sec-

    ondly, there may be implications for the whole

    arena of recent attempts to devise a phenom-

    enological socio logy . I have long been suspiciou s

    of attempts to make a wholesale application of

    Husserlian notions directly to socio logy . Th e

    question as to how a philosophical approach such

    as phenomenology is to be related to a scientific

    approach such as sociology is far from simple,

    I believe. Perhaps we can take some clues from

    Weber in this regard, and learn from his selective

    appropriation from Husserl's work.

    Let us now turn to the issue of Husseri's direct

    impact upon Weber. A s nearly as I can deter-

    mine, there are no fewer that seven references

    to Husserl in Weber's Wissenschaftslehre, his col-

    lected me thodo logical writings. This may appear

    to some as too small a number to support a

    contention that Husserl had an impact upon

    Weber's me thodo logicai stance. Ho we ver, it is

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    SOCIOLOGICAL INQU

    fore, at least on the face of it, the number of

    references to Husserl, though relatively small,

    does not argue against his having had a signifi-

    cant methodological effect.

    By far the majority of those references are

    contained within Weber's early essay on Roscher

    and Knies, published in three parts in 1903, 1905,

    and 1906. Th e work of HusserKs that is men -

    tioned is the Logical Investigations, published in

    tw o volum es in 1900 and 1901. Weber's refer-

    ences are all to Volume II of that work, particu-

    larly to Investigation V, Investigation VI, and the

    Appendix, since these sections are the most rele-

    vant ones for the social sciences. Weber's

    references to these sections range from the

    very beginning right through to the Appendix,

    indicating, I think it is fair to say, a thorough

    reading of the work.

    Weber's treating Husserl's work in this context

    stems from his concerti in the essay to correct

    a deficiency in the scheme of the sciences set forth

    by Heinrich Ricker t. Weber has told us early in

    the essay that "it is one of the purposes of this

    study to test [erproben] the usefulness of his ideas

    for the metho dology of our discipline."' Ho w-

    ever, Rickert's framework is lacking in that it

    does not have an adequate theory of interpreta-

    tion [Deiitt4ng] or of interpretive understanding

    [deutend Verstehen]. "Even granting the fun-

    damentals of Rickert's position, the following

    p o i n t . .. is indisputable: the methodological con-

    trast between the sciences, with which Rickert

    was concerned in his work, is not the only

    contrast The following fact re m ai ns . . . :

    both the course of human action and human

    expressions of every sort are susceptible to a

    meaningful interpretation

    [sinnvollen Deutung]. '

    Weber is at this point revising Rickert's frame-

    work by adopting insights from the figure whom

    Rickert consistently viewed as his primary antag-

    onist: Wilhelm Dilthey.* This beco m es clearer

    a few sentences later when Weber asserts that

    "contrary to what Rickert thinks, [this sort of

    interpretation] is the definitive criterion that jus-

    tifies us in classifying together into a special

    group of human sciences [Ceisteswissenschaften]

    all those disciplines that employ such interpreta-

    tions for methodological purposes.""

    Weber has here adopted one of Dilthey's cen-

    tral concernsthe notion of interpretationand

    'Roscher and Knies: The Logical Problems of

    Historical Economics, trans. Guy Oakes (New York:

    The Free Press, 1975), p. 213, n. 9 (I will occasionally

    rework Oakes's translation in minor respects).

    'Ibid.,

    pp. 217-218, n. 22.

    has chosen to designate the social sciences

    Dilthey's term [Geisteswissenschaften] and

    Rickert's term [Kultttrwissenschafteti], conce

    by Rickert in opposition to Dilthey's terminol

    I have argued elsewhere that this pas

    initiates Weber's preoccupation with the prob

    of interpretive understanding, a preoccupa

    that grew to such proportions as to explode

    Rickertian framework altogether and led W

    to adopt a revised form of Dilthey's stance

    the time of Weber's late methodological work

    But it would lead us astray to treat such is

    in greater detail. It is sufficient to simply no

    that this passage initiates Weber's life-long

    cern with the problem of Verstehen, and th

    is in this context that Weber finds Husserl us

    Husserl's Logical Investigations became usefu

    Weber by providing a view of interpretive un

    standing that avoided two of Dilthey's error

    his formulation of the same notion.

    The first error in Dilthey's notion of in

    pretive understanding is that, for Dilthey,

    interpretive understanding of the expression

    mental

    [geistige]

    life is best grounded upon

    science of psychology, not a positivistic psyc

    ogy but a descriptive [beschreibe nde] psychol

    "Psycho logy, s

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    ED M U ND HUSSERL'S IMPACT ON MAX WEBER

    101

    When I interpretively understand another person's

    life expressions, according to Dilthey, I "project"

    myself into his inner life and relive his experi-

    enc es. "On the basis of this projection [Hinein-

    versetzens], this transp osition, arises the highest

    form in which the totality of mental life is actu-

    alized in understandingthat of reproducing or

    reliving [das Nachbilden oder Nacherlehen]. '"

    Weber wished to dissociate his theory of inter-

    pretation from this sort of naive realism, from

    this epistemological optimism. He acknow ledges

    that the interpretive understanding of others does

    have a kind of intuitive self-evidence. "There is

    certainly a sense in which the play of human

    'passions' can be 'intuited' [anschauUch] and re-

    produced in inner experience [nacherlebbar], in

    a qualitatively different sense from 'natural' pro-

    cesses." " And in a discussion of the philosopher

    Theodor Lipps, Weber acknowledges that the

    empathic understanding [Einfiihlung] of other

    persons has a unique kind of self-evidence [vj-

    denzV But it is precisely because my inter-

    pretive understanding of others often seems self-

    evident that the method is epistemologically

    suspect. Th e intuitive obviousness of interpretive

    understanding masks its subjective character: in

    the domain of empathy, says Weber, "everyone

    sees what he bears in his heart." " Therefore,

    he conclud es, this self-evidence [Evidenz] of the

    object of interpretive understanding must be care-

    fully distinguished from every relation germane

    to 'validity' [Geltung]

    Weber's solution to the problematic status of

    interpretive understanding is well kno wn : it was

    to check interpretive understanding against other

    methods, in particular, causal explanatory meth-

    o d s . "

    But our concern here is with the way in

    wh ich Husserl fits into all of this. Weber's prob-

    lem is this: he wishes to m ove beyond R ickert

    in the direction of Dilthey by acknowledging a

    '"Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften,Vol. VIT, p. 214.

    Roscher and Knies. p. 174.

    Ibid.,

    pp. 163-166. Any full understanding of

    Weber's indebtedness to the phenomenological move-

    ment of his day would have to sort out Weber's

    relationship toLipps,as well as to Husserl. We must

    recall that Lipps and his students had already begun

    to move in similar directions as Husserl during the

    early years of the century, and that the early phenom-

    enological movement grew out of bothfiguresand the

    students they shared (see Herbert Spiegelberg.

    The

    Phenom enological Movem ent: A Hiitorical Intro-

    duction, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (The Hague: M artinus

    Nijhoff, 1965], Vol I, pp . 21-22). What is significant

    is that Weber, at least at the time of the R oscher and

    Kniet essay, seems to associate the term "phenomeno-

    logicat" more with Lipps than with Husserl (see

    legitimate role within sociology for interpretive

    understanding; yet he wish es to avoid two con -

    comitants of Dilthey's view of interpretive under-

    standing, namely, the overemphasis upon psy-

    chology and the overemphasis upon immediate

    self-eviden ce. It is Husserl. I maintain, to whom

    Weber turned for a solution to both of these

    problems.

    Why Husserl? Weber uses Husserl, I suspect,

    because Dilthey had, in 1905, immediately prior

    to Weber's writing of the Roscher and Knies

    essay, praised Husserl's Logical Investigations as

    providing the necessary epistemological frame-

    work for Dilthey's view of the human sciences.

    As Herbert Spiegelberg documents, "In 1905, in

    presenting his 'Studies for the Foundations of the

    Geisteswissenschaften' to the Berlin Aca dem y,

    [Dilthey] took occasion to refer to the 'excellent

    studies of Husserl,' who 'from a related standpoint

    had prepared a strictly descriptive foundation of

    an epistemology as a phenomenology of knowl-

    edge and thus a new philosophic discipline.'

    A little later he went out of his way to acknowl-

    edge 'once and for all how much, by way of the

    use of description in epistemology, I owe to

    Husserl's epochal Logical Investigations'. T o

    be sure, Dilthey's relationship with Husserl later

    became strained, but at the time of Weber's writ-

    ing of the Roscher and Knies article the con-

    nection was being very much affirmed by Dilthey,

    and Weber was surely aware of this since he

    makes reference in the article to Dilthey's 1905

    Berlin Academy address."

    Since Dilthey had placed his stamp of approval

    upon Husserl's Logical Investigations, there is

    a touch of irony in Weber's use of that work

    to correct the deficiencies of Dilthey's stance.

    Weber is in a sense using Htisserl against Dilthey.

    The key notion that Weber found helpful in the

    Logical Investigations is Husserl's distinction be-

    tween categorial intuition [kategoriaie Anschau-

    ung]

    an d

    sensuous

    or

    perceptual intuition [sinn-

    liche Anschauung]. TTiey key passag e in this

    respect goes as follows:

    The intuitive self-evidence

    [anschauliche

    Evidenz]

    of mathematical propositions is quite different from

    the "intuitabllity" [Anschatilichkeit]of the m ulti-

    plicities of "experience," immediately given "In" us

    and "external to" us, experienced [erUbte] and

    accessible to experience [erlebhare]. To use Htis-

    serl's terminology, the distinction is between

    "categorial" intuition and "perc^tual" intuition.

    . . . When empirical science treats a given manifold

    as a "thing" ... then it is

    invariably

    the case that

    this object is only "relatively determined." I.e., it

    is a conceptual construct that always includes

    aspe ct that are empirically "intuited." But at the

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    SOCIOLOGICAL INQU

    There

    is no

    need here

    to

    unpack this very

    intricate passage. The way in which Husserl's

    work is significant for Weber can be explained

    in very simple language . Husserl's notion of

    categorial intuition, one of the paradigms of

    whichis theintuition ofmathematical statements,

    provided Weber with

    a

    model

    of

    interpretive

    understandingand intuitive self-evidence thatwas

    not,as Husserl repeatedly emphasized, subject to

    psychological reductionism, and that was not

    as subject to the distorting biases that Weber

    detected in much of our empathic understanding

    of others. Weber's way of appropriating this

    insight for the interpretation of action was to

    place a great emphasis upon

    rational

    action,

    which he felt shared thekind of categorial intui-

    tion which was characteristic of mathematical

    statements.

    Weber goes

    on to

    elaborate this notion

    in the

    Roscher and Knies

    essay, but I should like to

    examine this notion in itslaterand more familiar

    contex t, Weber's last methodological work, Basic

    Concepts. My purpose in treating the notion

    in that contextis to showthe essential similarity

    of the discussion there to the earlier one,since

    Husserl's name is not mentioned in the later

    context. In this way, I hope to indicate that

    Husserl's influence was felt throughout Weber's

    work, even where Husserl's name is not cited.

    Further, I wish to trace Weber's handling of

    Husse rlian themes through

    the

    'Basic

    Con-

    cepts essayinsucha way as tosuggestapossible

    link between Husserl and Weber's notion of

    meaning-adequacy.

    The continuation of these earlier themes into

    Weber's later work is found in the opening

    passage of Basic Con cepts. Husserl is not

    mentioned here by name(heismentionedat the

    beginning of the methodologically similar essay

    Cber einige Kategorien der verstehenden Sozio-

    logie as an important, if indirect, methodo-

    logical influence'), but the thematic indebtedness

    to Husserl

    is

    evident

    in

    four sections,

    nos. 3, 6,

    10,and 11under theheading I.Methodological

    Foundations. It is interesting to notice that

    the term ideal type isexplicitly mentioned only

    four times in Basic Conc epts and those four

    mentions occur in sections 3, 6, 10, and 11,

    indicating a coincidence between Husserl-related

    themesandideal types.

    In section 3, Weber discussesthekindsof self-

    evidence (Evidenz) there are, and he continues

    touse the Husserlian distinction between mathe-

    matical

    and

    logical self-evidence

    on the one

    hand,

    an d empathic (einfiihlend) self-evidence on the

    other, although he no longer uses the explicitly

    Husserlian terms, categorial and sensible. R

    er, Weber now uses solely the terms ratio

    and irrational to characterize the two sor

    self-evidence and the two sorts of action

    responding to them. These terms have

    plantedtheHusserlian ones.

    It

    is in

    this passage that Weber makes

    famous statement about rational ideal type

    For the purposes of scientific analysisit isco

    ient to treat all irrational, afTectually determ

    meaning complexes

    of

    behavior

    as

    factors

    of

    d

    tion from

    a

    conceptually pure type

    of

    rat

    ac t ion . . .. The construction of a strictly ra

    courseof action in such cases serves the socio

    asa type ( ideal type ) thathas the merit of

    evident understandability

    (evidenten Verstand

    keit)

    and

    u nequivocality (Eindeutigkeit).

    By

    parison with this

    it is

    possible

    to

    understand

    ways

    in

    which actual action

    is

    influenced

    by

    tional factors of all sorts, such as affects

    errors,in that they account for the deviation

    the line of conduct that would be expected o

    hypothesis that

    the

    action were purely rational

    Therefore, at the time of Basic Conc

    Weber continues to feel that a preference

    ideal types of.r tion l action puts his rel

    upon interpretive understanding on a fi

    epistemological ground: the interpretive u

    standingof

    rational

    action seemsto him to

    the same kind

    of

    self-evidence

    as

    that

    of

    m

    matical and logical propositions, as he tel

    explicitly in section 3, comparing the evid

    status of the interpretation of rational a

    with that of the proposition 2 x2 = 4.

    was precisely to this kind of self-evidence

    Husserl gave the name categorial {katego

    And it was categorial self-evidence that

    Husserl escapes any redtKibility to psycholo

    origins. The interpretive understanding of

    rational and irrational action has a charact

    self-evidence,but the interpretive understan

    of

    r tion l

    action

    has an

    additional feature:

    deutigkeit, which could be translated as e

    unequivocality or unambiguity.

    Weber reaffirms this point again

    in

    sectio

    once again comparing rational action to m

    matical reasoning.

    The

    meaning

    of a

    tra

    mathematical reasoning thata person carrie

    is not in the relevant sense 'psych ic.' Sim

    the rational deliberationof anactoras towh

    the results of a given proposed course of a

    willor willnot promote certain specific inte

    and the corresponding decision, do not be

    on e

    bit

    more understandable

    by

    taking 'ps

    logical* considerations into ac co u nt .., . H

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    ED M U ND HUSSERLS IMPACT ON M AX WEBER

    103

    ociology has no closer relationship on a general

    nalytical level t o . . . psychology than to any

    ther science."

    ''

    That this reliance upon rational action traces

    back to the epistemological difficulties of inter-

    retive understanding discussed earlier and to

    eber's use of Husserl's notion of categorial

    ntuition to place interpretive understanding upon

    irmer epistemolog ical ground , should by now

    airly clear. How ever, I should like to con-

    sider a further link to Husserl present in "Basic

    Co ncepts." I wish to maintain that Weber's

    erm "meaning adequacy" {sinnhafte Addqitanz)

    eserves to be understood as part of this set

    f themes that go back to Weber's reading of

    Husserl. How ever, this claim must be somew hat

    ore tentative than the previous one, since the

    term

    sinnhafte Addquanz

    is far from a central

    usserlian term. There is considerable emphasis

    n the

    Logical Investigations

    upon the "ideal

    f adequation (Addquation) between meaning-

    ntention and meaning fulfillment," but it is diffi-

    ult to know whether Weber's terms relate to

    his discussion or not. In the absence of a clear

    erminological link to Husserl, I shall have to

    argue that the meaning of the term and the

    ontext in which it occurs suggest strongly that

    t belongs to this "Husserlian" complex of themes

    understanding.

    The term "meaning adequacy" is first intro-

    uced in section 6 of "Basic Concepts," where

    it is discussed as a counterpoint to causal ade-

    That discussion is well know n, and we

    ave already discussed Weber's claim that inter-

    retive understanding, no matter how self-evident,

    lways requires corroboration by causal explana-

    {Geltung). W e are here more concerned with

    eaning adequacy itself and with the possibility

    hat it should be understood as "phenomenologi-

    character; therefore we can turn imm e-

    iately to section 11, where the term is expanded

    upon.

    Weber informs us there that a generalizing

    science such as sociology can compensate for the

    rather abstract character of its concepts by offer-

    a greater precision of concepts." "This pre-

    ision," he tells us, "is obtained by striving for

    he highest degree of meaning adequacy (5(>irt-

    dUquanz). But how does this relate to the

    sectio n, section 3? Th e

    relation of this passage to section 3 can be seen

    y examining the word that "precision" translates:

    he word is Eindeutigkeit. It wa s discovered in

    section 3 as the kind of self-evidence the inter-

    pretive understanding of

    rational

    action possesses.

    We can also see by Weber's very next sentence

    that he is here continuing the themes of section 3.

    "It has already been repeatedly stressed that this

    aim can be realized in a particularly high degree

    in the case of concepts and generalizations that

    formulate rational processes."

    But in this treatment, Weber begins to moderate

    and soften the preference for rational ideal types

    exhibited in section 3. "But sociologica l investi-

    gation attempts to include in its scope various

    irrational phenomena, such as prophetic, mystic,

    and afTectual modes of action, which, to be sure,

    are likewise formulated in terms of theoretical

    concepts that are meaning adequate." Later in

    the same paragraph, both rational and irrational

    ideal types are again classified under meaning

    adequacy: "But when reference is made to 'typi-

    cal' cases, the term should always be understood,

    unless otherwise stated, as meaning ideal types,

    which may in turn be rational or irrational as

    the case may be, but in any case are always

    constructed with a view to adequacy on the level

    of meaning. '

    Here we begin to see that meaning adequacy

    is but a substitute term for the earlier term self-

    evidence {Evidenz). It cov ers precisely the sam e

    territory, occurs in the same thematic context,

    and appears to be a preferable term because it is

    more specific to interpretive sociology, whereas

    Evidenz applied to all the sciences. W hen we

    recall that this whole discussion is indebted to

    Husserl, we begin to see that what Weber means

    by the criterion of meaning adequacy is that

    ideal types must strike us as self-evident, as

    intuitively correct, whether that self-evidence be

    of a rational or an emp athic sort. They must

    make intuitive sense.

    If it is true that Weber's criterion for ideal type

    construction has, at least in part, a phenom-

    enological character, that meaning adequacy

    means something like "intuitive consistency" or

    "faithfulness to lived experience as it gives itself

    or some such phrase, then it is perhaps not so

    far-fetched to claim that Weber's meaning-ade-

    quate ideal types represent a "phenomenology of

    social reality."

    To buttress this tentative argument, I should

    like to illustrate how it is that Weber's ideal types

    could be seen to have a phenomenological char-

    acter by examining one set of ideal types from

    Economy and Society.

    As my example, I have chosen the well-known

    types of legitimate authority: bureaucracy, tradi-

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    SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIR

    history as he could, and has found three sorts

    of legitimate authority to have kept recurring;

    he then described them as consistently as

    possible in "pure" terms. Th is sounds like an

    ordinary enou gh scientific procedure. Why call it

    "phenomenological"?

    In the first place, the three "sorts" of authority

    that kept recurring are not identified by means

    of numerical averages or some such quantitative

    procedure. Web er is, dare I use the hated word,

    "intuiting" the basic qualitative types of authority

    that emerge from the flux of historical data.

    Secondly, a healthy dose of intuition is generally

    acknowledged as a respectable, even necessary,

    procedure in even the "hardest" of natural sci-

    ences for the purposes of generating hypotheses

    and theories. It is only that those sciences do not

    remain satisfied with the intuitive self-evidence of

    their hypotheses but go on to test them by other

    m ethods before accepting them . But so does

    Weber, as we have seen: mea ning adequacy needs

    cattsal adequacy as a check.

    Finally, when we look at the result of Weber's

    intuitive work in this area, we see that it has some

    "phenomenological" features, most notably an

    attempt at a sort of "eidetic completion," a

    description of the "pure possibles" that can be

    imagined within the sphere of authority.

    Try as one may, it is difficult to even conceive

    of ways of exercizing political leadership that

    can lay claim to legitimacy other than appeals

    to formal rules and regulations (bureaucracy),

    to traditional roles (patriarchalism and patri-

    monialism), or to extraordinary personal qualities

    (charisma). Tak e, for example, a father wh o

    wishes to lead his family out of its current lack

    of togetherness in the direction of greater com-

    munal cohesiveness. Assum e that he wishes to

    not simply force such togetherness through physi-

    cal violence (naked power, M achi), but rather

    wishes genuinely to lead with the "consent of the

    govern ed" (legitimate authority). What option s

    are available to him? He can encourage the

    family to "legislate" rules or regulations (every-

    one shall do one family-oriented deed per day,

    there shall be a weekly family gathering, etc.) that

    apply across-the-board to all family members

    (legal-rational or bureaucratic authority). H e

    might appeal to his traditional role as The Father

    ("I am your father, and I say.,,") and attempt

    to gain consent for his scheme in that fashion

    (traditional authority). Or finally he might en-

    deavor to draw the family together through

    generating a sense of infectious excitement

    ("Tennis, anyon e?" "Let's all take in a movie "

    "Come, follow me; I have an exciting new vision

    I of course do not wish to pass judgement

    the ethical status or the pragmatic chances

    success of any of these scheme s; I wish mer

    to point out that it is difficult to imagine a

    scheme by means of which a single individ

    might successfully lead a group of people w

    their consent, in some form, that would not f

    into one or the other of these "pure possibl

    or that would not be merely a combination

    one or more of these.

    I do not think that Weber would ever h

    wanted to claim that his ideal types were tota

    exhaustive: he had more respect for the vari

    of empirical reality than that. But I do w

    to suggest that there is at least a press in

    direction of some basic structures of social l

    some "pure possibilities" that "give themselve

    "present themselves" to human action in cert

    spheres. Ideal-type constr uction, thus conce iv

    is far from any pure operationalism in which o

    simply throws together a set of factors and s

    "This will be my working ideal type for t

    study." The method appears to be far m

    rigorous than that. Ideal-type constructi

    according to this line of thinking, would be

    merely an ad hoc procedure, but a methodolo

    cal procedure with its own sorts of requiremen

    involving, it appears, an attempt to descr

    phenomenologically the given structures wit

    each action sphere, and aiming at a rather f

    if not exhaustive, listing of some of the "p

    possibles" that present themselves to social m

    Before closing, I should like to notice in pass

    one feature that this way of looking at id

    types opens up. Viewed in this way , ideal ty

    appear to relate to both the micro- and mac

    levels of social life. In my exam ple, I noted h

    an individual actor finds a limited set of ways

    which to exercise authority. Th e example w

    handled purely at the micro-level of analy

    Yet, we are all aware that Weber's three p

    types of authority allowed him to describe

    number of macro-level institutiotial forms, e

    elaborating at the level of leader and st

    not to speak of educational, cultural, and ot

    institutions, the 'log ic" of each action type. P

    haps,

    then, this view of ideal types allows us

    see how Weber links the two levels of focus

    I do not wish to develop at this point a

    further implications of this analysis for eit

    ideal-type construction or phenomenological so

    ology. M y point has been simply to suggest i

    tentative way that there exist connections betw

    Weber and Husserl, the "founder" of phenom

    nology, and that those connections may well

    fairly significant for an understanding of Webe

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