Reflections Upon The Methodology Of Max Weber's Social Sciences

Max Weber, whose identity is composed of sociologist, economist, jurist, philosopher, and scholar on politics of the comparative, study on culture . at the turn of the Century of 19th and 20th . The West , He was regarded as a giant in the field of social sciences and encyclopaedia of a scholar. His theory of sociology is full profound thoughts with broad prospective, especially for his methodology. He has tried to reconcile the conflicts between humanism and positivism in his theory and established an edifice of methodology centered on "understanding", which developed a school of his own. Weber wrote a lot on the subject of methodology, most of which were created on the conditions of debating. It was the philosophical elements in his theory that made him a philosopher just as some scholar called him. His methodology of the social sciences is rooted in individualism, which is different from positivism that is in the main hold by Durkheim in his study on sociology. Weber's aim is tomake a combination of Durkheim's positivism and Dilthey's humanism which has infact transcended and sublated both of them.It is very necessary to think Max Weber's methodology, in learning about the historical background and the origin of Weber's theory. Based on the analysis at that time background, the writer believes that the thoughts in Weber's methodology are reflections of the confrontation of idea in his epoch. There are to resources of Weber's thinking on the methodology. One of them is Dilthey's thinking on " understanding" in his " science of spirit "which was arranged in the key position of weber's sociology of understanding, the other is the thoughts about particularity and individuality reflected by " two kinds of science" and the ideas of value which are the ideas of Windelband and Rickert who are classified as the philosopher of Neo-Kantianism. Windelband's idea that every step of soft science's develompent has to be grounded on the propositions of strict science for surporting has a direct influence on Weber's thinking on constructing the " ideal type " of general propositions in his methodology. Rickert's idea of the limitation to the formation of natural science's concepts lay thefoundation for Weber's thinking on Causal analysis of "ideal type" and the solutionto the contradictions of methodology.The main subject this thesis talks about is Weber's two basic principles methodolog's of namely, " relation to values "and" value neutrality "that have revealed elements of the truth on the one hand and contain contradictions and unsignificnce on the other, which is a formidable dilemma Weber have to meet. The presenting of these two principles aroused wide discussion. It has a deep influnce even on today's social sciences.The whole theory of Weber's methodology is also our concern. Weber's methodology of the social sciences has its own characteristics which contains four points as follows: the universal and key concept of the social sciences, namely, " ideal type " ;the method for sociologist imploring the social behaviour, namely, interpretation and understanding; the possibility of objectivity in social sciences, so-called the pluralistic proper causation; the key principles of the study in sociology, namely, "relation to values" and "value neutrality" .Other methodology categories of the social sciences are constructed of cetering around these four aspects. If we want to understand the connotation of Weber's methodology precisely and comprehensively, the whole structure of his methodological theory must be well mastered.Another important subject on studying Weber is the comparative study between his theory and Karl Max's. Weber was regarded as Max of capitalist class. The relation between them is wortheng mentioning. In short there are as many differences as in common between them.There is no doubt that investigation on the methodology of Weber's social sciences is significant to see a more clear vein of the methodology of the social sciences and adapt to the main current of strengthening the study on p...