Verstehen

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Verstehen (German pronunciation:

sociological positivism and economic determinism, rooted in the analysis of social action.[2] In anthropology
, Verstehen has come to mean a systematic interpretive process in which an outside observer of a culture attempts to relate to it and understand others.

Verstehen is now seen as a concept and a method central to a rejection of positivist social science (although Weber appeared to think that the two could be united). Verstehen refers to understanding the meaning of action from the actor's point of view. It is entering into the shoes of the other, and adopting this research stance requires treating the actor as a subject, rather than an object of your observations. It also implies that unlike objects in the natural world human actors are not simply the product of the pulls and pushes of external forces. Individuals are seen to create the world by organizing their own understanding of it and giving it meaning. To do research on actors without taking into account the meanings they attribute to their actions or environment is to treat them like objects.[3]

Meaning

Interpretive sociology (verstehende Soziologie) is the study of society that concentrates on the meanings people associate to their social world.[4] Interpretive sociology strives to show that reality is constructed by people themselves in their daily lives.[4]

Verstehen roughly translates to "meaningful understanding" or "putting yourself in the shoes of others to see things from their perspective." Interpretive sociology differs from positivist sociology in three ways:[4]

  1. It deals with the meaning attached to action, unlike positivist sociology which focuses on behavior;
  2. It sees reality as being constructed by people, unlike positivist sociology which sees an objective reality "out there;" and
  3. It relies on qualitative data, unlike positivist sociology which tends to make use of quantitative data.

Dilthey and hermeneutics

Verstehen was introduced into philosophy and the

natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) is explanation (erklären), while that of history is understanding (verstehen).[5][6][7][8]

The concept of Verstehen was later used by the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey[9][10] to describe the first-person participatory perspective that agents have on their individual experience as well as their culture, history, and society. In this sense, it is developed in the context of the theory and practice of interpretation (as understood in the context of hermeneutics) and contrasted with the external objectivating third-person perspective of explanation (das Erklären) in which human agency, subjectivity, and its products are analyzed as effects of impersonal natural forces in the natural sciences and social structures in sociology.

Twentieth-century philosophers such as

Alfred Schutz's analysis of the "lifeworld." Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel
further transformed the concept of Verstehen, reformulating it on the basis of a transcendental-pragmatic philosophy of language and the theory of communicative action.

Weber and the social sciences

social scientist accesses and evaluates this "first-person perspective." This concept has been both expanded and criticized by later social scientists. Proponents laud this concept as the only means by which researchers from one culture can examine and explain behaviors in another. While the exercise of Verstehen has been more popular among social scientists in Europe, such as Habermas, Verstehen was introduced into the practice of sociology in the United States by Talcott Parsons, an American sociologist influenced by Max Weber. Parsons used his structural functionalism to incorporate this concept into his 1937 work, The Structure of Social Action.[16]

Weber had more specific beliefs than Marx where he put value to understanding and meaning of key elements—not just with intuition or sympathy with the individual but also the product of "systematic and rigorous research". The goal is to identify human actions and interpreting them as observable events leading us to believe that it not only provides for a good explanation for individual actions but also for group interactions. The meaning attached needs to include constraints and limitations and analyze the motivation for action. Weber believed that this gives the sociologist an advantage over a natural scientist because "We can accomplish something which is never attainable in the natural sciences, namely the subjective understanding of the action of the component individuals."[17]

Criticism

Critics of the social scientific concept of Verstehen such as Mikhail Bakhtin and Dean MacCannell counter that it is simply impossible for a person born of one culture to ever completely understand another culture, and that it is arrogant and conceited to attempt to interpret the significance of one culture's symbols through the terms of another (supposedly superior) culture.[citation needed] Just as in physical science all knowledge is asymptotic to the full explanation, a high degree of cross-cultural understanding is very valuable. The opposite of Verstehen would seem to be ignorance of all but that which is immediately observable, meaning that we would not be able to understand any time and place but our own. A certain level of interpretive understanding is necessary for our own cultural setting, however, and it can easily be argued that even the full participant in a culture does not fully understand it in every regard.[citation needed]

Critics also believe that it is the sociologist's job to not just observe people and what people do but also share in their world of meaning and come to appreciate why they act as they do. Subjective thoughts and feelings regarded as bias in the sciences is an important aspect to be controlled for while doing sociological research.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Verstehen: The Sociology of Max Weber". Archived from the original on 2011-03-07. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
  2. ^ "Anti-positivism" Archived April 3, 2012, at the Wayback Machine at Historylearningsite.co.uk
  3. ^ "Verstehen." Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences.
  4. ^ a b c Macionis, John, and Linda Gerber. 2010. Sociology (7th ed.).
  5. ^ Droysen, J. Gustav, Historik: Vorlesungen über Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der Geschichte. Stuttgart: Fromann-Holzboog, 1977 [1858]: 22, 150f.
  6. ^ Droysen, J. Gustav. 1862. Grundriss der Historik. Berlin: Verlag von Veit & Comp. p. 4ff.
  7. ^ Droysen, J. Gustav. 1868. Grundriss der Historik. Berlin: Verlag von Veit & Comp. Pp. 11–4.
  8. ^ Udehn, Lars. 2001. Methodological Individualism: Background, History and Meaning. London: Routledge. p. 27.
  9. ^ Dilthey, Wilhelm. 1894. Ideen über eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie. Berlin. p. 1314.
  10. ^ Dilthey, Wilhelm. 1991. Introduction to the Human Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  11. Truth and Method
    . Crossroad.
  12. ^ Martin Heidegger, Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity, Indiana University Press, 1999.
  13. ^ Charles R. Bambach, Heidegger, Dilthey, and the crisis of historicism, Cornell University Press, 1995, p. 199–200.
  14. ^ Simmel, Georg. 1920. Die probleme der Gechichtsphilosophie. Eine erkentnistheoretische Studie. Munich: Verlag von Dunker und Humboldt.
  15. ISBN 978-0-13-700161-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  16. ISBN 978-0-13-700161-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  17. ^ Gingrich, Paul. "Weber, Economy and Society". Sociology 250. University of Regina Department of Sociology and Social Studies. p. 15. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
  18. ISBN 978-0-13-700161-3
    .

External links

  • The dictionary definition of verstehen at Wiktionary
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