Ideal Types as Hermeneutic Concepts
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4504673 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Asaf Kedar (University of California, Berkeley, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 318-345 |
| Publication date | 2007-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the Philosophy of History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1872-261X • E-ISSN: 1872-2636 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/187226307x229380 |
| OpenAlex | W2070853905 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
My paper sets out to demonstrate that Weber's ideal-typical theory of concept formation, subject to certain modifications, is compatible with the principles of philosophical hermeneutics and is therefore a valuable strategy of concept formation for interpretive historical inquiry. The essay begins with a brief recapitulation of the philosophical-hermeneutic approach to the human sciences. I then chart out the affinities as well as the discrepancies between philosophical hermeneutics and Weber's theory of the ideal type. Against this backdrop, I proceed to offer a number of correctives and additions to Weber's theory so as to tighten its fit with philosophical hermeneutics. First, I argue that the ideal type's proper logic of concept formation is a logic of significance rather than a logic of commonality. Second, I claim that the relationship between the various empirical cases to which a given ideal type is (or can be) applied is a Wittgensteinian relationship of family resemblance. Finally, I present two main kinds of epistemological functions that ideal types can fulfill within the framework of historical inquiry: argumentative and orientational-clarificatory
Argumentative · Epistemology · Hermeneutics · Ideal (ethics · Ideal type · Social science · Sociology · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Religion and Society Interactions · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory
| Citations per year | 0.38 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |