Max Weber's "Verstehen"

Author(s): William T. Tucker

Source: The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Spring, 1965), pp. 157-165
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Midwest Sociological Society
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Max Weber's Verstehen

Southern Illinois University

WILLIAMT. TUCKER,

WEBER,like all other scholars in social science who are justifiably

dignified with the label "great," was concerned with the construc-
tion of a conceptual scheme oriented toward the explanation of
the nature and the determinants of social conduct. Thus, Weber
conceived of sociology as the science with the task of "the inter-
pretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive
at a causal explanation of its course and effects." 1 Social action, to
Weber, meant action on the part of individuals participating in
social relationships. According to Weber, "interpretative sociology
considers the individual and his actions as the basic social unit,"
and he felt that the task of sociology was "to reduce [certain cate-
gories of human interaction] to 'understandable' action." 2
Social action, in the Weberian sense, is distinguished from mere
behavior. Action which is oriented toward inanimate objects, for
example, does not qualify. Action is "only social if, and then only
in so far as, it takes account of the behavior of someone else." "
Further, action involves more than mere contact of individuals.
Being jostled about by people in a crowded department store does
not, according to Weber, constitute social action. Action of a social
character "is confined to cases where the actor's behavior is mean-
ingfully oriented to that of others." In short, behavior which is
intentional, and which is oriented toward the behavior of other
human beings qualifies as social behavior.5
Intentional behavior, meaningful behavior, and subjectively
understandable behavior are, all three, synonymous with regard to
1 Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization,translated by
A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1947), p. 88.
2 Marianne Weber, Max Weber: Ein Lebensbild (Tiibingen, 1926), p. 102, as

quoted by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, "Introduction:The Man and his Work,"
in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, translated and edited with an introduction
by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1946), p. 55.
3 Max Weber, op. cit., p. 113.
4 Ibid.
5 H. P. Secher, "Introduction,"in Max Weber, Basic Concepts in Sociology,
translatedwith an introductionby H. P. Secher (New York:The Citadel Press, 1962),
p. 14.
157

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158 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

Verstehen. However, when these terms are used to render, in Eng-

lish, the concept Verstehen, much confusion is generated. This re-
sults, it seems, from a failure on the part of Weber's critics to keep
in mind that the concept is a methodological tool to explain not
all behavior,but behaviorwhich is of a social nature.This would
exclude from consideration all behavior which is strictly reflexive,
much "mystical" behavior, and practically all behavior of those
persons who are severely deranged mentally. In this connection
Weber points out:
In the case of many psychophysical processes, meaningful, i.e.,
subjectively understandable, action is not to be found at all; in
others it is discernible only by the expert psychologist. Many mys-
tical experiences which cannot be adequately communicated in
words are, for a person who is not susceptible to such experiences,
not fully understandable.6
On the other hand, Weber continues:
At the same time the ability to imagine one's self performing a
similar action is not a necessary requisite to understanding; 'one
need not have been Caesar in order to understand Caesar.'...
Understandable and nonunderstandable components of a process
are often intermingled and bound up together.7
Similarly, Gerth and Mills point out that Weber's concepts "are
not concepts that contemplate the supposed substances of great
men and epochs .... Not Julius Ceasar, but Ceasarism; not Calvin,
but Calvinism is Weber's concern." 8 It is important that the reader
of Weber thoroughly understand this point at the outset.
This does not mean, however, that Weber is not concerned with
the individual as such. It would be absurd to talk about meaning-
ful, or intentional, or subjectively understandable action in other
than individual terms. It should be entirely obvious that all human
conduct is individual conduct. Further, it should be obvious that
sociologically meaningful conduct comes about only as the indi-
vidual orients himself with reference to the conduct of others.
Bendix points out that "[individual] human conduct, as the locus
both of meaning and of the 'social,' is the subject matter of soci-
ology." 9
5Max Weber, op. cit., p. 90.
7Ibid.
8
Gerth and Mills, op. cit., p. 55.
9 R. Bendix, "Max Weber's Interpretationof Conduct and History," American
Journal of Sociology, 51:518 (May, 1946).

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 Max Weber's Verstehen 159
Further, Weber refers to the importance of the individual in
his conceptual scheme by referring to the individual as the only
unit in which meaningful conduct can possibly reside. "The indi-
vidual is . . . the upper limit and the sole carrier of meaningful
conduct." Concepts designating collectivities or categories of re-
ciprocal human action such as clique, association, organization,
state, etc. are reducible "to 'understandable' action, that is, without
exception, to the actions of participating individual men." 10
It seems to me that the term "participating" is the key word
in the above statement. Its inclusion indicates the necessity of
involving the nature of the situation in which the individual action
occurs in any meaningful explanation of action. Although the indi-
vidual act is the basic unit of analysis, it can not be analyzed socio-
logically without consideration of the nature of the social relation-
ship in which it was perpetrated. For example, an adult male who
is observed kneeling on the floor making hideous faces, thumbing
his nose, and making gurgling and cooing noises could, on the ex-
clusive basis of the information just given, be justifiably judged
insane by an observer. And this would be the most tenable explana-
tion provided the individual to whom we are referring were alone
in the room. However, if we add to this scene one small child seated
on the floor in front of the man, watching his antics very intently
and reacting by laughing uproariously, it would be quite the oppo-
site of "tenable" to judge the man insane. On the contrary, he
would be called a normal, healthy, good father, or a nice man who
likes children very much. It is only the latter case, however, that a
sociological interpretation, ai la Weber, is applicable, the former
being a case which is a problem for psychology.
The latter case is meaningful and, thus, understandable because
it conforms to the social prescription regarding the proper behavior
of "good fathers" or "nice men" in relation to small children. In
short, the intention of the adult male in this situation is patterned
after an ideal construct defining the expectations of the role, "good
father," or of the role, "nice man." Thus we can understand the
intention, i.e., external motivation of the adult male in the situation
described, provided he is a member of the culture in which the
social behavior takes place and is given meaning.
The use of the term, external motivation, however, should be
clarified at this point. It refers to the goal orientation of the indi-
10oMarianne Weber, op. cit. (as quoted by Gerth and Mills).

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160 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

vidual (or individuals) involved. For example, the "nice man" is

motivated to act, in regard to the small child, as a "nice man" is
expected to act in order to live up to the normative expectations
of this role. However, his reasons, or internal motivations, for want-
ing to fulfill these expectations (i.e., why he does it), depends
upon inner or internal "tensions." If he wishes to impress the small
child's mother, who is a widow, he will act in the prescribed way
toward her child. He might not "give a hang" about the child; he
is solely concerned with impressing the mother. In order to deter-
mine this, one would have to delve into his inner motivations. Ex-
ternal motivation, then, refers to "a complex of subjective mean-
ing which seems to the actor himself or to the observer an ade-
quate ground for the conduct in question."", We can thus clearly
see that simply portraying the role of "nice man" is sufficient rea-
son for an adult male's conduct in the stiuation described above.
It would certainly appear so to both the actor and the observer.
If this were not true, the actor would be unable to conceal his
inner motivations from the mother and from the observer. Under-
standing of this variety is labeled by Weber understanding which
is adequate at the level of meaning. In the "nice man" example used
above, it is possible to discern a "single sufficient reason for a cer-
tain type of behavior." 12
A more complete interpretation of the situation described above
could be obtained through understanding which is causally ade-
quate. "A causally adequate interpretation is achieved when the
probability of a recurrence of a phenomenon under the same cir-
cumstance is empirically determined." '1 This simply means that
a particular individual involved in a (not necessarily continuous)
series of similar situations will probably behave in a similar man-
ner. The "nice man," for example, who defines the situation of being
confronted by the widow's child as requiring conformist type
behavior, might define other similar situations as requirements for
conformist behavior. Confronted with the parents of an unmarried
woman to whom he is attracted, he might wish to impress them
in order to get them to encourage the daughter to pursue the re-
lationship. As a matter of fact, almost all young men would define
the situation in this way. However, a causally adequate interpre-

11Max Weber, op. cit., p. 98.

12
Secher, op. cit., p. 17.
13Ibid.

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 Max Weber's Verstehen 161
tation of this type of behavior would involve observing the young
man in question in a number of these situations in order to deter-
mine whether or not his actions are strictly exploitative regarding
the woman. It is known, for example, that some men are interested
in women only to the extent that they can use them sexually, while
other men are interested in women for more stable and more far-
reaching reasons, including finding a life-long companion and mate
with whom to embark upon a family career. In order to place a
particular individual in either of these categories, however, it would
be necessary to observe his behavior in a number of situations in-
volving a member of the opposite sex. With the knowledge of the
outcome of prior similar instances on the part of a particular person,
we can justifiably say that we understand a person's behavior in a
specific case. On the basis of this, we can say that we understand
why this particular individual is conforming to normal role-expecta-
tions of the situation.
All of this can be determined without reference to the psyche
of the individual; thus it falls within the realm of understanding
with regard to external motivation. To understand that an individ-
ual is behaving in a particular way, with regard to a particular
situation, in order to attain a certain goal is understanding with
regard to motivation, but it is quite different from understanding
why a particular goal is valued. Herein lies the difference between
what I am labeling external and internal motivation.
Insofar as an individual is induced or given incentive to act
in a certain way due to "inner" tensions, his action is a result of
internal motivation. Obviously, both kinds of motivation are in
operation in all individuals at all times. However, only the external
motivation can be subjected to sociological interpretation. The
inner motivation must be referred either to biology or psychology
for interpretation. This is not intended to mean that a sociologist
does not need knowledge of biology and psychology to aid his
understanding of human action. As a matter of fact, an elementary
knowledge of both is necessary in order for the sociologist to dis-
tinguish externally motivated behavior from internally motivated
behavior. But, as Weber's work indicates, the sociologist is con-
cerned with behavior which results from relationships with other
individuals.
This same distinction is made by Munch, in different terms. He
distinguishes between motivation and meaning.

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162 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

'Motivation' (Zweck) is something separate from the act and can

only be 'understood' in a broader situational context, while 'mean-
ing' (Sinn) is something inherent in the act itself, a 'property' of
the act rather than a 'cause' or 'purpose.' Therefore, one can 'under-
stand' (i.e., perceive) what a person is doing (in terms of his 'in-
tention') without knowing why he is doing it.1"
MacIver implicitly recognizes this distinction in a discussion
of the nature of social facts:
Social facts are in the last resort intelligible facts .... It is because
. . there is always an inside story, or in other words a meaning, in
human affairs that we never attain more than partial or relative
truth. Here is the paradox of knowledge. The only things we know
as immutable truths are the things we do not understand. The only
things we understand are mutable and never fully known.'5
According to MacIver, facts that we can fully know are facts
known only from the "outside,"while things that we can understand
are known from the "inside."16
This does not mean that we must go inside the individual psyche
to understand social action, but that we must go inside the social
situation to understand it. When referring to facts obtained by
"inside" information, Maclver points out that "we must project
ourselves into the situations we are investigating. We must learn
the values and the aims and the hopes of human beings as they
operate within a particular situation. There is no inside story of why
a meteor falls or why a liquid freezes." 17
Thus, to understand a social action or actions, we need not
search the mind of the individual actor or actors in the same way
that psychologists or psychiatrists would; but by knowing enough
about the nature of the situation in which the action takes place,
we are able to infer (external) motivation.
In view of the above comments, it is obvious that Weber's con-
ceptual scheme of interpretation, of which the process Verstehen
is the basis, is to be applied only to social situations, and that
any knowledge obtained by application of the scheme is primarily
14Peter A. Munch, "EmpiricalScience and Max Weber's verstehende Soziologie,"
American Sociological Review, 22:29 (Feb., 1957).
'1 Robert M. MacIver as quoted by Harry Alpert, "Robert M. MacIver's Con-
tributions to Sociological Theory,"in Freedom and Controlin Modern Society (edited
by Morroe Berger, Theodore Abel, Charles H. Page (New York: D. Van Nostrand
Co., 1954), p. 291.
16Ibid.
'7 Ibid. (emphasis added).

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 Max Weber's Verstehen 163
knowledge about the nature of the situation, and not primarily
knowledge about individuals.
The above observations can be upheld by reference to a few
statements by Kaufmann regarding a card game, an analogy for
which he acknowledges indebtedness to Weber. He states:
The players form a society by engaging in a social activity that
implies observation of certain rules, namely, the rules of the game.
Each player pursues his own ends, which run counter to the ends
of at least one other player and are more or less determined by the
rules of the game and by the given situation (distribution of the
cards, etc.). Consequently an observer can explain, and, to a cer-
tain extent, predict, the behavior of the players in terms of the
rules of the game. Every card game is thus a field of application
of rules.'8
In view of the importance attached to "situation" in the above
comments, one can not ignore a profoundly important twentieth-
century American sociologist, namely, W. I. Thomas, since his theo-
retical scheme of sociological explanation is very similar to the one
portrayed here. This similarity can be readily detected in the fol-
lowing quotation from Timasheff:
Thomas chose behavior, and later especially adjustive behavior, as
the central concern of his sociological theory. Action in a social
situation, he held, is the social fact to be explained. The social situa-
tion (often referred to as the total situation) consists of three inter-
related elements: objective conditions, which include socially en-
forced rules of behavior; pre-existing attitudes of the individual
and of the group; the definition of the situation by the actor him-
self, influenced, however, by the group.'9
Reference to "pre-existing attitudes" and "definition of the situa-
tion" no doubt trouble many sociologists since knowledge of these
things is thought to come only from an intensive search of the
minds of the individuals in question. This is not true in regard to
sociological interpretation. If so, sociology would not be different
from psychology. If we know enough about the situations from
which individuals come, and couple this with knowledge of a par-
ticular situation in which they are involved at the time of obser-
vation, we can predict with a high degree of probability their so-
18 Felix Kaufman, Methodology of the Social Sciences (New York: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1944), p. 162.

19 Nicholas S. Timasheff, Sociological Theory: Its Nature and Growth (New
York: Random House, 1957), p. 149 (emphasis added).

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164 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

cially generated motivations for behaving in a particular manner.

The desire to become accepted by one's peers is certainly observ-
able in action, and could certainly be regarded as external motiva-
tion of action. Further, it is easy to observe that those individuals
desiring acceptance by peers will act in accordance with the norms
and values of the peer group. All of this is explicable in socio-
logical terms. If there are, in addition, deep-seated psychophysical
factors which dictate the need for acceptance by peers, then this is
one of the problems to be dealt with by psychology.
It seems to me that all of the above comments lend support
to the notion that Weber's Verstehen might best be viewed as a
methodological tool designed to discover the nature of the situa-
tion-including in the concept, "nature of the situation," the co-
ersive forces (i.e., normative prescriptions, observable values held
by the different individuals composing the situation, and the ap-
parent goals of these individuals in terms of their known values
and situational norms)-in which human social action takes place.
It seems that some of the critics of Weber's Verstehen have
failed to take the above observations into account. In view of
this charge, it might be instructive to consider briefly Abel's criti-
cisms since they are extremely pointed and fairly representative.
In his evaluation of Verstehen, Abel identifies two limitations:
(1) "its dependence upon knowledge derived from personal ex-
perience," and (2) "it is not a method of verification."20 According
to Abel, these limitations render Verstehen virtually useless as a
methodological tool. However, a closer look, with the position taken
in the preceding pages in mind, will reveal that Abel is overlook-
ing some important distinctions made by Weber.
First, in regard to the charge that Verstehen is necessarily intro-
spective, the distinction between internal and external motivation
(as defined here) is overlooked. For example, Abel uses the hy-
pothetical case of the neighbor going to chop wood upon experi-
encing a sudden drop in temperature to illustrate the important
role played by introspection when Verstehen is used to explain this
behavior.21 One very simple fact that he overlooks is that the be-
havior of the hypothetical woodchopper reacting to this hypothet-
ical drop in temperature is not involved in a hypothetical social

20 Theodore
Abel, "The Operation Called Verstehen,"American Journal of Soci-
ology, 54:216 (November, 1948).
2 Ibid., p. 212.

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 Max Weber's Verstehen 165
situation. Since Weber's scheme is designed to explain social action
(i.e., action resulting from reciprocal interrelations with other indi-
viduals), and since Abel's hypothetical situation is nonsocial, it
would be reasonable to assume that Weber's scheme would not be
applicable. If Abel had recognized this, "Case I" could have been
eliminated from his description and criticism of Verstehen.
Secondly, in stating that Verstehen adds nothing to the statis-
tical operations that establish the high correlation between rate
of marriage and rate of crop production, Abel is overlooking that
statistical correlations of this sort without Verstehen are useless. For
example, it is conceivable that a statistical correlation could be es-
tablished between the number of Protestant ministers and the
amount of rum consumed in the state of Illinois. However, this
does not prove or necessarily even indicate that Protestant minis-
ters are heavy drinkers of rum. A great deal more than statistical
correlations are necessary for adequate interpretation of statis-
tical correlations. The operation Verstehen establishes the rele-
vance or irrelevance of statistical correlations.

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