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On the Centrality of Action: Social Science, Historical Logics, and Max Weber's Legacy
Abstract
This article draws attention to the fundamental centrality of “action” – i.e. symbolically constituted behavior – for the historical and social sciences. The work of Max Weber and contemporary American historian and theorist William H. Sewell, Jr. are examined, so as to shed light on the debate concerning social science's central subject matter as well as on the implications of this work for sociological and historical theory. The examination of Sewell's view leverages the importance of the concept of action underlying Weber's concept of “social action.” Weber's position on action and social action is of great interest not only to general theory but also to the field of cultural sociology, which has neglected to develop systematically upon the theoretical purchase Weber offers to it.
... 26 This arguably has roots in Durkheim's insistence that sociology study "social facts." 23 Another contributing factor may have been what is argued to be an internal conundrum stemming from sociology's historical lack of consensus around a central object of study, as compared to biology, with its theoretical debates focused more on methodological concerns (Malczewski 2015). 24 According to Catton (2008), "A few sociologists (such as Robert E. Park, of the University of Chicago) had quickly begun to apply some of the ideas from Clements and other ecologists in their efforts to understand human experience…(they) came to regard succession in human communities essentially as a process of aggression: Invaders were imagined to be succession's driving force, pushing out prior occupants who supposedly might otherwise have thrived forever on a given site…(but) among sociologists who called themselves 'human ecologists' most seemed oblivious to the important fact that occupants of a site may make it unsuitable for themselves after a time by the use they have made of it" (p. ...
... 56-57), though it should be stressed that this is also a social construction. 43 Again, it has been argued for some time in sociology that separating the practical from the ideal is problematic and misleading (see, for example, Malczewski 2015), but in sidelining the environment, this separation is reinforced and perpetuated. While the material and ideal are clearly intertwined, for a conceptual framework such as this, breaking down the larger concept of landscape to its component parts-the land, meanings associated with it, and the practices that result-allows each element and their interrelationships to be better understood. ...
Aldo Leopold made great contributions to our understanding of the interconnections between people and their environments, and community is central to his best-known work. The social dimensions of the land-community concept were not his focus, however, and subsequent research on Leopold has not emphasized such issues. Community was foundational to sociology, and while the concept faded from prominence during the significant social change of the post-war era, some scholars in the field continue to debate its meaning and salience more than 130 years later. They generally do not discuss Leopold, though, and the “fusion” of ecological and sociological thought that he desired remains elusive. I propose a convergence via the integrative landscape interactional field extension of community. The goal is to revitalize the community concept and strengthen the connection between ecological and sociological research, while helping us better understand the reality of humans and their environments—how we live and might live in particular places.
... As Durkheim understood well (1893;1895), every research program must be distinguished by a central subject matter around which constellations of problems, approaches, concepts, and explanatory theories revolve (see Malczewski, 2013Malczewski, , 2014Malczewski, , 2015b. Given the significance of empirical justification in scientific scholarship, the definition of the relevant set of phenomena and specification of its qualities (to include relevant explanatory relationships within this set) must be the primary task (1895; 1898a). ...
... 11 Although ordering principles are arbitrary in the sense that they do not inhere in the motions, behaviors, or material objects that significantly constitute their phenomenal form (and which are essential conditions of their realization), they are not arbitrary in the sense that individuals may take them or leave them as they wish. One, the ordering principles are external both to individuals as well as to the group of individuals that comprise a given collectivity (Malczewski, 2013(Malczewski, , 2014(Malczewski, , 2015b). Durkheim's emphasis on the coercive nature of social facts is well known, but equally important is the implicit idea of an elementary reciprocity in recognizing and acting in accordance with an ordering principle -it is the principle itself that constitutes and aspect is seen as concomitantly in the object (i.e. ...
... Examination of the putative autonomous motive force of symbolic organizing principles constitutes the foundation of sociological inquiry (Malczewski, 2014(Malczewski, , 2015. Within the program for the study of material symbols, the study of icons, and iconic power -that is to say, the study of the visual aspect (icon: likeness or image; from the Greek eik-ō n) of material symbolic life -draws into the examination an analysis of the visually perceptible aesthetic qualities of the material vehicles that help make the social sensual. ...
... The concept of iconic depth -or, given its applicability for material symbols generally, symbolic depth -denotes the set of symbolic principles embodied by or concretized in the material object. These principles provide the conditions and structure of action qua action (Malczewski, 2015), but they are not deterministic. Here the emphasis is placed on the represented symbolic content, or the discursive and moral meaning (Alexander, 2012), which is analogous to Durkheim's totemic principle (1995Durkheim's totemic principle ( [1912; Cf. ...
This article builds on the cultural sociological program for the study of materiality, material symbolism, and iconic power. Having a theoretical basis in Durkheim?s claims regarding the social potency of totems and other material symbols, two new concepts ? sensuous surface and conductive surface ? are introduced. These concepts, which distinguish between icons? formal aesthetic power and their power as repositories and conduits of symbolic principles of control, elaborate and extend Jeffrey Alexander?s notion of iconic surface. The analytical purchase of these concepts is demonstrated in an analysis of the works of the 19th century American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt. Bierstadt played a key role in the genesis of the variety of iconic nature ? the aesthetically potent, symbolically resonant, and conductively efficacious image of the physical landscape ? characteristic of American modernity. The sensuous features of Bierstadt?s work offer a representation of nature carrying constitutive power that is autonomous from its symbolic resonances. This case is significant, given the role played by iconic nature in modern American experience. By shining light on the genetic roots of the American variety of iconic nature, this article helps nuance accounts of the role played by material symbols in the process of cultural differentiation.
... In the wake of these movements, a strong current of scholarship developed that interrogated the semiotic, meaningful, and significant dimension of action and order and accorded them analytic centrality (Alexander 1988;Alexander and Smith [2001] 2004; Biernacki 1997Biernacki , 2001Douglas 1970;Geertz 1973;Greenfeld 1992;Kane 1992;Sewell 1992). The legacy of these transformations-specifically the emphasis on what I term the symbolic dimension of social life across levels of analysis (Malczewski 2014(Malczewski , 2015-endures in the rethinking of the role of meaning for the sociological bases of motivation (Vaisey 2009), differentiation of spheres (Alexander 2006;Alexander and Colomy 1990) and institutions (Abrutyn 2009;Eisenstadt 1980Eisenstadt , 2012, and the symbolic facets of the material world (Alexander 2008(Alexander , 2010Alexander, Bartmański, and Giesen 2012;Malczewski 2016). These developments illustrate the contemporary sociological imperative to produce accounts that articulate the most profound sources of action and order with their manifest instantiations. ...
This article offers an account of a conceptual framework in Max Weber’s writings offering leverage on empirical, normative, and theoretical questions. Weber relied on the notion of Voraussetzung—presupposition—across his work to distinguish the criteria of concepts of empirical phenomena, accounts of such phenomena, and conditions shaping evaluative stands among alternative courses of action. Weber also refers to Denkvoraussetzungen—presuppositions of thought—which refer to sets of fundamental principles structuring experience. Presuppositions of thought represent historically specific metaphysical and ontological orientations. Based on a systematic analysis of Weber’s work, this article reconstructs the three main forms taken by the concept Voraussetzung in Weber’s writings (i.e., structuring logics, value stands, and presuppositions of thought). This article challenges sociologists to identify presuppositions of thought and to describe their ramifications throughout society.
... The core lesson of cultural sociology, the lesson of which stands as sociology's first principle, is that symbolic organizing principles are real, potent and effective and that they help create as well as give form to affect, emotion, values, reason, will and social structures (Malczewski, 2014). The symbolic organizing principles both manifest in Durkheim's basic binary of sacred and profane and constitutive of Sinn (meaning), which Weber specifies as the preeminent quality of the set of phenomena relevant to sociology, not only differentiate types of action but also constitute them (Malczewski, 2013(Malczewski, , 2015. The signal challenge for those who seek to obtain objective knowledge of the human transformation of nature is to grasp the symbolic organizing principles that motivate and structure human societies and to understand the theoretical entitiesfor example, emotions and other meaningful sentiments, esthetic ontologies, patterned activities, value systems and so onthat these principles help reveal. ...
Denne boken handler om bred kultursosiologi i praksis. Den viser frem det tematiske og teoretiske mangfoldet i kultursosiologien, og illustrerer hvordan teoriene kan og bør anvendes i empirisk forskning.
Noen av bidragene gjennomgår på en systematisk måte kultursosiologiens bidrag på spesifikke empiriske forskningsfelter, mens andre går i dybden på et utvalgt tema og viser frem hvordan en empirisk kultursosiologisk studie ser ut i praksis. Boken forener slik en rekke empiriske forskningstradisjoner rundt kultursosiologi som et overordnet perspektiv, og den søker gjennom det å motvirke fragmenteringen av sosiologifaget.
One of the most influential interpretations of Max Weber's sociology has been that provided by Talcott Parsons, especially in The Structure of Social Action. We contend that the Parsonian interpretation is erroneous both in many of its particulars and in the general cast that it gives to Weber's theoretical product. The crux of Parsons' misrepresentation is his overweening emphasis on the category of the normative. A confusion of "factual regularities" with "normative validity"--despite Weber's numerous warnings against such--led Parsons to an exaggeration of the importance Weber assigned to normative orientations of social action, legitimacy and collectivity integration, and, correspondingly, to a severe understatement of the importance of nonnormative aspects of social action and structures of dominance. In consequence, Parsons expanded what was but a part of Weber's sociology and made it very nearly the whole.
This essay surveys the contributions of William H. Sewell Jr.'s
Logics of History
and concludes that the book sketches a compelling agenda for an integrated historical social science. The author first summarizes Sewell's ontological and epistemological claims concerning social structure and event, history and temporality, and sociohistorical causality. The author then discusses five main areas in which ambiguities in Sewell's approach might be clarified or his arguments pushed farther. These concern (1) the relationship between historical event and traumatic event; (2) the idea of the unprecedented event or “antistructure”; (3) the theory of semiosis underlying Sewell's notion of a multiplicity of structures; and (4) the compatibilities and differences between the concepts of
structure
and
mechanism
(here the author argues that social structures are the distinctive “mechanisms” of the human or social sciences). Finally, (5) Sewell's call for “a more robust sense of the social” in historical writing locates the “social” mainly at the level of the metafield of power, or what regulation theory calls the mode of regulation; the author suggests a possible integration of this society-level concept with Pierre Bourdieu's theory of semiautonomous fields.
Only a few writers have attempted to construct a comprehensive philosophy of social science, and of these Weber is the most relevant to the present. The structure of his conception places him in a close relationship to Donald Davidson. The basic reasoning of Davidson on action explanation, anomalous monism, and the impossibility of a 'serious science' of psychology is paralleled in Weber. There are apparent differences with respect to their treatment of the status of the model of rational action and the problem of other cultures, as well as the problem of the objectivity of values, but on examination, these turn out to be modest but, nevertheless, interesting. Weber's use of the notion of ideal-types, though it is not paralleled directly in Davidson, allows him to make parallel conclusions about the relation of truth and interpretation: both make the problem of intelligibility rather than correspondence with some sort of external reality central, and each addresses, though in different ways, the dependence of considerations of intelligibility on normativity and the impossibility of a theory of meaning without idealization. Methodological and philosophical writings about the social sciences are plagued by the eternal recurrence, typically in slightly different guises, of the same issues: abstraction, rationality and its relevance to causal explanation, the problem of cultural and historically specific perspectives as a condition for constituting and defining topics and the problem of reconciling this with claims to universality of knowledge, and various other problems relating to the question of the a priori conditions of knowledge itself, which in the social sciences often involves conflicting choices between possible starting points. Dealing with any of these complex issues as they relate to the polymorphous and pluralized disciplinary and subject-matter worlds of the humanities and human sciences is difficult. But attaining some sort of reasonable perspective on the relations of these problems to one another and to the problem of the relations between the human sciences and such related enterprises as the natural sciences and the normative disciplines, for example law, is overwhelmingly difficult. The thinkers who have attempted to deal with these problems by reductive simplifications are numerous. The thinkers who have seriously attempted to deal with all
If scholars accept that all knowledge is socially constructed, and historically situated, we must also understand social research methodologies as historically produced social formations that circumscribe as well as produce culturally specific forms of knowledge. In this article I examine some of the ways in which an underlying 19th century philosophy of science constrains the ability of contemporary researchers to examine 21st century cultural complexities. In particular, I discuss how the notion of evidence derived from the physical sciences prevents social sciences from examining a range of phenomena such as routine relations of privilege and contemporary media. Taking up the argument that social sciences need social epistemologies, I explore sociological studies of language as one form of epistemic shift that would enable researchers to apprehend the circulation of power as expressed in routine relations of privilege, as well as apprehend the porous social relations introduced through media old and new.
Part 1 The formation of Weber's world-view: religious faith in an intellectual's world reason and the indiviudal - the Kantian Unity the Nietzschean challenge the scientist in search of salvation towards a science of social reality. Part 2 Constructing an empirical social science: the scholarly and polemical context the meaning of rationality from premises to constructs - modelling social life the structure of collective action the historical development of rationality. Part 3 Explorations in Weberian social theory: understanding and social structure the empirical study of values society and the market from social theory to sociology.
Based on a close reading of Weber's work, the essay offers a mentalist (focused on the mind) reinterpretation of his sociology, sharply distinguished from the academic discipline of sociology as it has been taught and practiced. It then reevaluates the significance of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as a theory of dramatic social change (a reorientation of a sphere of social action), treating as irrelevant the philosophical framework of materialism vs. idealism in which the work is usually placed and arguing that (a) this significance is not diminished by the refutation of the specific thesis regarding the role of Protestantism in shaping the spirit of capitalism, and (b) that concentration on the relationship between religion and economy blinds the reader to the broader sociological import of Weber's theory. Finally, building on this theory, it offers a new explanation of the emergence of modern economy, replacing Protestantism as the causal factor by nationalism and briefly outlining the psychological mechanisms through which the latter's egalitarianism and inherent competitiveness leads to the orientation to sustained growth.
Understanding Weber provides an accessible and comprehensive explanation of the central issues of Weber's work. Using the most recent scholarship and editions of Weber's writings, Sam Whimster establishes the full range, depth and development of Max Weber's approach to the social and cultural sciences. This ground-breaking book: locates the central issues in Weber's writings and relates them to the golden era of social and cultural sciences, argues that Weber remains the major exponent of the classical tradition still relevant today, offers a new interpretation of the dynamic of Weber's career as historian, social-economist, methodologist and sociologist. Weber's sociology still stands as a successful and valid underwriting of the substantive fields of power, law, rulership, culture, religion, civilizational configurations, and economic sociology. At a time of the turning away from grand theory to empirical policy studies, this book asserts the authority of Weber's conception and calls for a critical engagement with his legacy in order to understand the dynamics of a globalizing modernity. Thisis an indispensable guide to Weber's writings and will be an invaluable companion to The Essential Weber (2004). The book closely tracks the development of Weber's thinking, an exploration that will make it an obligatory choice for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as researchers in the fields of sociological theory, economic sociology and cultural studies.
Literary claims to ownership of the third culture of sociology are considered and the rise of scientific method traced. The institutional history is summarized from the establishment of a chair of sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1907. Phases of expansion (1950-67), revolt (1968-75) and uncertainty (1976-2000) are described. Analysis of the professors-their origins, careers and fame-is presented. A content analysis of three leading British journals of sociology is reported. An epilogue is finally added of eight essays by well-known sociologists-A. H. Halsey, Z. Bauman, C. Crouch, A. Giddens, A. Oakley, J. Platt, W.G. Runciman, and J. Westergaard.
The aim of this article is to demonstrate that approaching social science as a ‘patterned activity’ draws attention both to the distinctive nature of social science and to its central subject matter – meaningful (symbolically oriented) behavior and theoretical entities based on it – enabling therefore a constructive perspective on the major debate regarding social science’s organizing principles. A patterned activity is defined as a cluster of behavior oriented to a basic (that is, characteristic or defining) goal or aim accorded value; the goal or aim, by which the norms of the patterned activity are bounded, is the satisfaction of a certain appetite, desire, or need. The concept of a patterned activity is rooted in and developed from elements of Max Weber’s methodological writings. This concept is evaluated against Clifford Geertz’s ‘cultural systems’ approach and Robert K. Merton’s view of the norms of science, and the article then addresses the legacy of Talcott Parsons more generally. Lastly, Émile Durkheim’s and Weber’s respective approaches to social science are assessed so as to illuminate their views regarding its central subject matter and to demonstrate a convergence of their views.
The Myth of Social Action is a powerful critique of contemporary sociology and a call to reject the prevailing orthodoxy. Arguing that current sociological theory has lost its way, Colin Campbell presents a case for a new `dynamic interpretivism', a perspective on human conduct more in keeping with the spirit of traditional Weberian action theory. Discussing and dismissing one by one the main arguments deployed against individualistic action theory, he demonstrates that this has been wrongly rejected in favour of the interactional, social situationalist approach now dominating sociological thought.
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The concept 'charisma' was used by Weber in relation to two different categories of phenomena: proximity (whether of institutions, people, or objects) to the ultimate values of a society (transformed and routinized charisma); and a personal ability to generate and express intense excitement (genuine charisma). The latter aspect of 'charisma' has been largely neglected in sociological literature and is analyzed in the present paper. The two varieties of charisma fulfill the important social function of providing models for conduct; both are, thus, connected to the human need for guidance in action. However, what makes their influence possible is different in the two cases: the influence of genuine charisma relies on the propensity for unreflective imitation of others, whereas the influence of routinized charisma is based on the propensity for internalization of symbolic constructions. Being ultimately dependent on properties of the human mind both charismas can be found in any society irrespective of its level of complexity.
Although widely recognized as one of sociology's true classics. Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism has largely failed to influence the development of sociological theory in the United States. Because it has been read almost exclusively as a study of the "role of ideas" in economic development, its diverse and multifaceted theoretical contributions generally have been neglected. This study explicitly calls attention to The Protestant Ethic as a theoretical treatise by examining this classic in reference to four major debates in postwar sociological theory in the United States. Moreover, it demarcates an array of major parameters in American theorizing. The conclusion speculates upon the reasons for the strong opposition to The Protestant Ethic's theoretical lessons and argues that a style of theorizing unique to sociology in the United States has erected firm barriers against this classic text.
Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action.
This article addresses three critiques that pull at the loose ends of
Logics of History
, revealing weaknesses and bringing new theoretical resources to problems raised by but not satisfactorily resolved in the book. Each critic suggests reformulations of my claims about how structures, events, and social transformations should be theorized: George Steinmetz from wide-ranging and theoretically eclectic perspectives, Dylan Riley from a broadly Marxist standpoint, and David Pedersen from a perspective that is predominantly Peircian. While agreeing with aspects of their critiques, I also reaffirm certain features of my own arguments.
How does the logic of language combine with the logic of labor to explain historical change? This article suggests that William H. Sewell Jr.’s work can be divided into three periods, each characterized by a different answer to this question. In the work of the early cultural turn, labor and language codetermine historical change; in that of the high cultural turn, the logic of language becomes dominant; and in that of the postcultural turn, labor returns to a more central position. The article argues that these shifts result from tensions in Sewell’s account of historical change and suggests a comparison with Jürgen Habermas’s account of work and interaction.
This article takes up a central theme in William H. Sewell Jr.’s Logics of History, the relationship between relatively durable structures or systems and the more fleeting and contingent moments of their formation, their reproduction, and occasionally their radical altering. The article seeks to highlight how this tension between generals and particulars lies at the heart of the theoretical and disciplinary divisions that Sewell’s book seeks to overcome. Arguing that Sewell’s partial reliance on a framework inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure is inadequate for the goals of the book, the article points out that an alternative approach derived from the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce is more in keeping with Sewell’s objectives.
Just as the beginning of Western civilization is marked by the permanent settlement of formerly nomadic peoples in the Mediterranean basin, so the beginning of what is distinctively modern in our civilization is best signalized by the growth of great cities. Nowhere has mankind been farther removed from organic nature than under the conditions of life characteristic of great cities. The contemporary world no longer presents a picture of small isolated groups of human beings scattered over a vast territory, as Sumner described primitive society1. The distinctive feature of the mode of living of man in the modern age is his concentration into gigantic aggregations around which cluster lesser centers and from which radiate the ideas and practices that we call civilization.
title Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Wissenschaftslehre. In these studies, Weber developed his views on what, in the parlance of the time, were termed the "logical" and "methodological" issues of the social sciences: the demarcation between the natural sciences and the social sciences; the status of the concepts of culture and history; the theory of action and agency; the relationship between explanation and interpretation: and the complex of questions posed by the fact that, the subject matter, problems, and theoretical interests of the social sciences are in some sense defined by values. The dominant tradition in the secondary literature on these writings is based on the assumption that the concept of Max Weber's Wissenschaftslehre is not merely a term of editorial artifice. On the contrary, the essays in this book articulate an internally consistent and unified set of positions: "Max Weber's methodology." Debate within this tradition is not primarily concerned with the soundness of Weber's theses or the validity of his arguments, but centers on the sources of his ideas and the basis of their unity. In the early years of the tradition, Alexander von Schelting situated the unity of Weber's methodological thought in Heinrich Rickert's theory of the logic of concept formation in the cultural sciences (von Schelting, 1934). Later Dieter Henrich argued that the Wissenschaftslehre contains not only a complete philosophy of science, but an integrated analysis of theoretical and practical reason (Henrich, 1952). Master key metaphors seem to have attracted more recent proponents of the tradition. The late Friedrich Tenbruck 'Review essay of Frilz Ringer, Weber's Methodology: The Unification of the Cultural and Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).
Can a standard set of sociological theories be formulated that would command consensus across the globe? Sociology developed
in the context of nation-specific knowledge communities and hence constitutes a singular endeavor anchored deeply in the respective
regions of its birth. Every society’s mode of sociology analysis varies. A case study — Sociology in the US — illustrates
this position. A discussion of the original contours and developmental trajectory of German Sociology is utilized in order
further to isolate the uniqueness of sociological theory’s „location” in American Sociology. Pivotal differences continue
to anchor nation-specific traditions and approaches to sociological theory, all of which preclude standardization attempts.
Some of the most celebrated theories of nationalism exemplify the self‐confirming, evidence‐averse, deterministic, and ideological aspects of social science as we know it. What has gone wrong? The social sciences have modeled themselves on physics, failing to grasp the essential difference between the contingent, historical development of cultural particularity and the universal, law‐like regularities of inanimate matter. The physicist's tools for conducting the method Popper called “conjecture and refutation” are largely inappropriate when dealing with imaginative and therefore unpredictable human beings. Obsessive quantification and the assumption of universal “social” laws, in particular, need to be de‐emphasized in favor of a Weberian willingness to make conjectures about the causes of unique events, and to test those hypotheses by comparing them to apparently similar cases.
Max Weber's understanding of the role of people's interests in determining their behavior has been widely misunderstood, because of a misinterpretation of a famous passage in which he analogizes interests to railway “switchmen.” Contrary to this widespread view, Weber does not see material self‐interest as the driving force behind human action. Rather, he distinguishes between material and “ideal” interests; emphasizes the latter; and, arguably, suggests that even the former are, to a great extent, culturally constructed, not least because they rely on ideas about the way the world is. It is almost fair to say, then, that the notion that Weber reduces ideas to interests has things completely backwards.
Contemporary sociology is saddled with a culture–structure binary but the fault for its existence lies mostly with cultural sociology. This article is devoted to four related assertions: (1) There has never been any agreement on the definition of culture, making cultural sociology a field unable to define its central concept. (2) The binary ignores the fact that the proper explanation of social behaviour requires both structure and culture; culture cannot be its own cause. (3) Cultural sociology is soft and sentimental, avoiding conflict as well as politics. (4) It neglects policy and policy-relevant research even more than the rest of sociology. Structural sociology has some shortcomings as well, however, and the culture–structure binary should be abandoned.
It is noted that Max Weber is held in very high regard by the majority of contemporary sociologists, while his essay, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, is generally considered his most important as well as his most famous work. However attention is drawn to the marked contradiction between the practice of today’s sociologists in routinely heaping praise on this essay and the fact that their own self-confessed theoretical statements constitute a direct rejection of Weber’s approach. This contradiction is illustrated by demonstrating that although The Protestant Ethic is essentially an examination of the role of motives in human action the concept of motive is effectively missing from contemporary sociology. A possible explanation for this apparent contradiction is then considered in the form of the claim that those theoretical positions favoured by contemporary sociologists could be considered as ‘developed out of’ or ‘descended from’ Weber’s theory of ‘motivational understanding’. This however is shown to be an untenable claim, given that the vocabulary of motives perspective, the treatment of motives as reasons, and rational choice theory all represent straightforward rejections of Weber’s position. Consequently it is concluded that there remains an unresolved and largely unrecognised contradiction between the iconic status accorded to Weber’s essay by contemporary sociologists and their own very obvious rejection of his theoretical approach.
The debate about the relationship between religion and economic activity in the wake of Weber has been cast largely in terms of belief and values. This article suggests an alternative focus on practice. It argues that taken for granted practices of church governance formed to-hand resources for the organization of economic activity. The argument is developed through an examination of the historical development of church governance practices in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, with particular emphasis on the way in which theological belief gave rise to practices of accountability and record keeping. In turn such practices contributed to a ‘culture of organization’ which had implications for economic activity. A focus on governance practices can help to illuminate enduring patterns of difference in the organization of economic activity.
This paper attempts to clarify the concept of rationality in Max Weber's sociology of religion. Three new terms: rationalism, rationalization, and rationality, are used to distinguish the different meanings Weber gives to rationality. Efficient orientation of means to ends (rationalism) is distinguished from the systematization of ideas (rationalization). Rationality, finally, is the control of action by ideas. Rational social action is produced only by powerful irrational motives, and it holds a distinct place in Weber's sociology of ideas.