Weber's interpretive project and the practical failure of meaningful action

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2397934
AutoresSveta Klimova (Glasgow Caledonian University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2012
Volumen15
Número2
Páginas261-278
Fecha de publicación2012-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1368431011423599
OpenAlexW2140802134
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas16

The practical failure to understand in conflicts, where participants routinely challenge each other's attribution of meaning, undermines the key assumption of the Weberian interpretive project: that the subject acts meaningfully. This article revisits Weber's concept of meaning as an object of understanding for a social scientist. Ascertaining the empirical fact of subjective attribution, as Weber advised, may not be sufficient when it comes to understanding action whose meaning is disputed. The article uses the example of E.P. Thompson's interpretation of eighteenth-century English food riots to show that the disputed empirical meaning is a product of rational understanding, which Weber would classify as dogmatic meaning. The social scientist fails to understand what the critic claims to: a failure to act meaningfully in cultural terms. Furthermore, because the subject acts meaningfully without fail, we close off the option of explaining conflict as a rational disagreement

Action (physics · Attribution · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Object (grammar · Sociology · Subject (documents · Computer Science · Philosophy · Political Conflict and Governance · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Psychology · Social Psychology · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory