Weber’s Theory Of Ideal Types complete notes

Max Weber’s Theory Of Ideal Types

The concept of “ideal type” is one of the major concepts in Weberian sociology. In fact, it has an important place in his methodology. In methodology, it is known as “typological analysis.” It is said that the inspiration which Weber had derived from the writings of Plato and Immanuel Kant enabled him to make use of the concept of “ideal type.”

Weber’s view on Ideal Type

Weber used ideal types extensively in his book like ‘Economic and Social Organization’, ‘The City’, ‘Sociology of Religion’ and so on. 

According to Weber, ‘Ideal Types’ is a type of objective methodology to study social action.

He defined as – ‘An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct… In its conceptual purity, this mental construct… cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality’. 

According to Weber, Ideal Type is not a reality in itself, but a way to express the reality. The individual elements may be meaningless, but when combined with other elements form reality. Ideal types act as fixed point of reference. 

According to Weber himself, ‘Its function is the comparison with empirical reality in order to establish its divergences or similarities, to describe them with the most unambiguously intelligible concepts, and to understand and explain them causally’. Ideal type is not a conception of a perfect or desirable, but it is a pure or typical form of certain phenomenon. Although ideal types are to be derived from the real world, they are not to be mirror images of that world. Rather, they are to be one-sided exaggerations (based on the researcher’s interests) of the essence of what goes on in the real world. 

Formulation Of Ideal Types 

Ideal types are formed by a number of elements which though found in reality, may or may not be discovered in their specific form. These elements must be found by trained investigator in the form of abstractions drawn from subjective meanings of the individual. Investigator must be capable of looking at the phenomenon from the eyes of an individual actor. These elements are thus based upon interpretation of investigator, but are definitive specific traits which constitute the reality. 

Characteristics of Ideal Type

1. An ideal type is a set of relevant and essential characteristics of the phenomenon under study and not a general or average characteristic of that phenomenon.

2. Although the ideal type is created on the basis of real elements only, but it does not express all the aspects of that reality, but only a partial aspect of that complete reality.

3. Ideal type neither explain any definite concept of reality nor present any hypothesis, but they are helpful in the interpretation of reality and in the formation of hypotheses.

4. Ideal type is not related to any kind of ideal or evaluation. The word ideal here refers to the pure type in the form of a model. Society can make any problem or incident an ideal type for scientific analysis, whether the problem is related to prostitutes or religion.

5. Ideal type are pure type/model on logical basis only. Reality in its conceptually pure form is not found anywhere.

6 Ideal type do not explain predetermined causality. According to Weber, the main purpose of ideal type is to present a comparative study.

7. Every phenomenon cannot be studied through an ideal type, but it has to be created at the time of every study and as soon as the study is over, the usefulness of that ideal type also ends.

8. Weber’s ideal type studies ‘what is’ and not ‘what should be’ or ‘what if’.

                                It is clear that Weber’s ideal type is an important method for multifactorial / comparative interpretation of social phenomena, which he himself used in his social action (goal-oriented, value-oriented, emotional and traditional action), power, (rational-legal, charismatic and traditional power). , Bureaucracy, Protestantism, Modern Capitalism, etc.

Classification Of Ideal Type 

Ideal types developed by Weber are grouped into many categories –  

I. Ideal Types of Historical Particulars – These are ideal types of particular historical phenomena like – some ancient city, protestant ethics, capitalism etc.

II.Ideal Types of Abstract Phenomena in Social Reality – It involves developing abstract phenomena like – social action, authority etc which can be used to understand a social phenomenon.

III. Ideal Types of Particular Behavior – He also developed ideal types of particular behaviors like economic or political behavior.

IV. Structural Ideal Types – These are forms taken by the causes and consequences of social action (for example, traditional domination).

Criticism

His ideal type methodology is criticized for following reasons – 

I. Weber has not suggested any specific method to identify elements of ideal type and it is totally left on investigator. 

II. Despite his claim of objectivity, ideal type is highly susceptible to subjectivity of investigator, especially in selection of elements of ideal type.