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I
Ideal Type: Conceptions in the Social
Sciences
constellations of causal antecedents. The prototypical
individual concept, then, consists in an entire causal
narrative in which the development of some unique
aspect of a people’s civilization is traced from its
first beginnings to its (temporarily) final condition (see
Narrati
The term ‘ideal type’ (
Idealtyp
) was chosen by Max
Weber (1864–1920) to denote the methodological
status of certain theoretical constructions central to
many social sciences, e.g., the economists’ ‘law of
demand’ or any of the concepts defined in his
Economy
and Society
(‘social relationship,’ ‘sultanism,’ etc.).
Common to all is their reference to the subjective
action-orientations of individuals, for in Weber’s
opinion, socio-cultural phenomena become objects
of social-scientific interest precisely under their des-
cription as ‘subjectively meaningful’ (see
Problem
Selection in the Social Sciences: Methodology
). His
point in labeling such constructions ‘ideal types’ is to
emphasize that they cannot be rightfully interpreted as
‘laws.’ This tenet has never ceased to be controversial.
e, Sociology of
).
As regards its implications for Weber’s conception
of the ideal type, Rickert’s account of abstraction
concept formation has two noteworthy features. First,
concepts are viewed as assertions that something
is
was empirically the case. Individual concepts (his-
torical narratives) state the occurrence of complex
cause-effect sequences. General concepts explicate
their claims in their definitions (which are thus
interpreted as summations of numerous findings,
depicting the common features of the phenomena
classed together). Classification and generalization
amount to the same thing. Second, since generalizing
abstraction aims to encompass ever wider domains of
phenomena, it must necessarily discard their subjec-
tively meaningful aspects. A science of socio-cultural
phenomena that preserves them as such can therefore
only be historical (see
Generalization: Conceptions in
the Social Sciences
;
Classification: Conceptions in the
Social Sciences
;
Explanation: Conceptions in the Social
Sciences
).
Rickert’s ideas ground Weber’s position in the
controversy following Carl Menger’s (1840–1921)
criticism of the German economists’ rejection of
‘abstract theory’ in favor of economic history. Predis-
posed to defend the historical approach, yet convinced
of the value of theory, Weber seeks to accommodate
both within Rickert’s framework. His problem is that
of squaring the historical narrative’s unavoidable
reliance on general concepts (including economic
ones) with the incongruity of these concepts’ general
form with their reference to individuals’ subjectively
meaningful orientations (which is a requirement of
their serviceability in historical narratives). The
methodologically crucial manifestation of this incon-
gruity is the disparity between the conceptual defini-
tions’ claim to the uniform, explicit, and unalloyed
presence of these meanings in the minds of the relevant
individuals, and the observed variations in clarity and
purity. Given his understanding of general concepts as
summarizations of singular instances, Weber tries to
make methodological sense out of the conceptual
representation of empirical spectra of meaning as
strictly general uniformities. His solution is straight-
forward: their general form notwithstanding, these are
not truly ‘generalizing’ concepts, but ‘idealizing’ ones;
1. The Ideal Type as Summary of Empirical
Findings (Weber)
Most of Weber’s methodological reflections bear on
the defense of historical science against the Positivist
doctrine that to be worthy of the name, a science must
aim to discover laws. His reasoning follows the
philosopher Heinrich Rickert’s (1863–1936), who sub-
mits that a discipline’s scientific legitimacy is a function
of the cognitive value of the selective representation of
concrete reality constructed by it, and that to qualify
as worth knowing, a representation has either to
encompass every phenomenon or to accommodate
every significant detail of a single properly selected
phenomenon. On this view, scientific ‘knowledge’ is
obtained through the methodical application of a
suitable principle of abstraction (or ‘concept forma-
tion’). There are two such principles: generalizing
abstraction—defining natural science—proceeds by
disregarding all properties that make things dissimilar,
so as to arrive at a set of generalizations universal in
scope (‘laws of nature’) under which every phenom-
enon can be subsumed and in this sense explained.
Individualizing concept formation—defining his-
tory—singles out a culturally significant social ar-
rangement and aims to depict it as a configuration of
component features that make it unlike any other. The
explanation of this conjunction can only be historical,
as the combined effect of a unique sequence of unique
7139
Ideal Type: Conceptions in the Social Sciences
they depict not those aspects with regard to which
phenomena are exactly like others (of a class), but
those that by degrees render them ‘culturally signifi-
cant’ or ‘typical.’ Hence, their methodological status is
that of ‘ideal types’ (see
Causal Counterfactuals in
Social Science Research
).
Weber considered the formulation of ideal types to
be the task of a specialized generalizing discipline—
sociology—that would supply the individualizing sci-
ence of history with its apparatus of general concepts.
Methodologically speaking, ideal-type formation is
therefore constitutive of a Weberian sociology; it also
denies it autonomous scientific value (see
Theory:
Conceptions in the Social Sciences
). Whatever cogn-
itive value ideal types may have relates to their utility
for historical science. This utility is first of all heuristic:
As descriptions of characteristic patterns ideal types
can furnish initial guiding assumptions for the scrutiny
of sources, especially regarding complex and non-
obvious causal relationships and the unobtrusive
presence of specific meaning elements in the opaque
tangle of concrete action-orientations. Second, they
can serve as a basis for educated guesses to bridge gaps
in the available evidence. Finally, they are irrep-
laceable as descriptive devices. To historians who
desire precision they provide a clear terminology and
an e
cient way of pinpointing a phenomenon’s
peculiarity by specifying its deviation from an ideal-
typical definition functioning as a benchmark.
e Methods: Macro-
methods
). Accordingly, Schutz formulates a theory of
the experiencing of meanings, and of the differences
between its everyday and scientific versions. His
argument proceeds through a discussion of four
scenarios:
(a) An agent’s (ego’s) understanding of his or her
own action’s subjective meaning is described as his or
her direct awareness of its specific identity as the
entailment of his or her action’s wherefore (‘in-order-
to motive’ or ‘project’).
(b) Ego’s understanding of someone else’s (
alter’s
)
subjective action meaning is analyzed as his or her
experience of what alter is
e Meth-
was experiencing, through
the medium of
alter’s
inner experiences’ outward
manifestations (such as acts or pronouncements).
Manifestations can be perceived ‘objectively’ as self-
contained entities with identities of their own (as
specific things, performances, states); they can also be
taken as purveyors of information about their pro-
ducers’ ‘inner durations.’ In ‘objectifying’ perception,
a bundle of experiences is disembedded from its
original setting—the cognizing subject’s ever-changing
stream of consciousness—and, as a unit, held still over
and against it so as to appear as a de-subjectified,
bounded, and stable entity classifiable in a schema
of ‘objective’ meaning. Any agent’s perceptual be-
stowal of such objectivity, unity, and permanence
(with its attendant assimilation into an objective-
meaning schema) on elements lifted from the pri-
mordial flow of his or her lived experiences, for Schutz
constitutes (ideal-)typification. Even after objectifica-
tion, however, the reference of action-products to the
processes in human consciousness underlying their
generation is not obliterated, and in subjectifying or
symptomatic perception, it can be made topical. Ego’s
grasp of
alter’s
inner life (understanding) is always
based on the subjectifying exegesis of his or her own
experiences of such manifestations, aiming to recover
their constitutive in-order-to motives. Understanding
thus presupposes a particular ‘intentional’ attitude,
i.e., the ‘directing’ of the ‘attention’ toward the
phenomena not as objective entities but as embodi-
ments of their creators’ projects.
In everyday face-to-face relationships a most im-
portant role is played by the ‘signitive’ apprehension
of
alter’s
body as an expressive field. This apprehen-
sion—neither inferential nor hypothetical, but a
sui
generis
grasp of the other person’s lived experiences at
the very moment of their occurrence—is of such
immediacy that
alter’s
consciousness appears to ego
2. The Ideal Type as Mode of Experience
(Schutz)
While Weber’s position harnessed theory and history
together, its ultimate vindication of the historical
approach could hardly satisfy Menger’s intellectual
heirs. Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) objected that the
most general propositions of social science could not
possibly be derived inductively from atheoretical
historical data since the sources are incomprehensible
unless they are apprehended in terms of ‘the principle
of action.’ The grasp of human life-manifestations as
instrumental and preference ordering underwrites all
experience of them as ‘actions’ and therefore has
a
priori
status, like the principle of causality. In von
Mises’ view, the theorems of economics are nothing
but logical implications of the axiomatic category of
action and therefore are universally valid independent
of all empirical evidence, their grasp made possible
through (categorical) ‘conception’ (
Begreifen
), which
is the special mode of cognition that reveals the
universal aspects of meaningful behavior. For, so von
Mises, human conduct is reason in action, and the
universality of reason is the basis of the universality of
conduct’s structures.
Von Mises’ critique of Weber on the grounds of an
epistemology of comprehension is shared by Alfred
Schutz (1899–1959), who also proclaims the universal
7140
ods: Micromethods
;
Interpreti
validity of ‘pure’ economic theory. That he simul-
taneously considers its concepts to be ideal types
indicates a conception fundamentally different from
Weber’s; certainly, his analysis of
Verstehen
as the
ideal-typifying grasp of subjective meanings is at
least in part conceived to offer a phenomenological–
empiricist alternative to von Mises’ rationalism (see
Phenomenology in Human Science
;
Interpreti
Ideal Type: Conceptions in the Social Sciences
without any opaqueness and as operating in a manner
exactly like his or her own. This prereflective con-
viction supports the procedure by which ego grasps
alter’s
inner life through an explication of his or her
own experience of its manifestations. Fantasizing
them as generated by himself or herself, he or she
imagines what for him or her would function as their
in-order-to motives, and treats them as
alter’s
own.
(c) When
alter
is not physically present, ego must
do with a set of manifestations much reduced in
number and symptomatic reach.
Alter
loses his or her
quality as a palpable, many dimensional, and multi-
layered dynamic presence and becomes a more or less
anonymous and schematic ‘contemporary.’ As a func-
tion of this anonymity, ego’s subjectifying intentional
attitude—his or her ‘Other-orientation’—undergoes a
profound change in structure. In the face-to-face
situation, the ‘Thou-orientation’ founding signitive
apprehension captures the other person as a concrete,
spontaneous, live self. Beyond this sphere, direct
apprehension becomes impossible, and ego-
alter
in-
teraction is no longer structured through dynamic
mutual attunement; instead, the participants now treat
each other as objects of predicative orientation. The
corresponding ‘They-orientation’ directs ego’s atten-
tion to those of his or her experiences that can function
as substitutes for the unavailable direct experience of
alter’s
duration. These substitutes are found in ego’s
store of objectified motivational constellations accu-
mulated in past encounters with numerous individuals’
consciousnesses. They can serve this function because,
lifted from their original context, they have become
de-subjectified and anonymous. The result of their
deployment is the experience of
alter
as a type with a
typical project, indistinguishable from other individua-
tions of the same type.
(d) Sociologists adopt the same orientation as
contemporaries, but use scientifically tenable (clear
and precise) ideal-typifications to grasp their subjects’
typifying action orientations. Since these structure the
interactions sociologists are interested in, sociological
ideal types must be compatible with the agents’ types.
In addition to exhibiting this ‘adequacy at the level of
meaning,’ they must also be ‘causally adequate,’
singling out the meanings likely to be the operative
ones. Both criteria are satisfied through the form-
ulation of types of rational action orientation, as these
are clearly understandable and pervasively used by
contemporaries.
The ideal-typical character of social-scientific for-
mulations does not preclude their universal validity, as
Weber would have it, confounding the types’ ‘ideality’
with their ‘anonymity.’ As long as the elements
synthesized in them have been so abstracted (idealized)
as to exhibit a
nity to any particular (kinds of) inner
durations no longer, they depict totally anonymous,
fully generic processes of consciousness. Such are the
propositions of theoretical economics, capturing the
actions of a faceless ‘pure anyone,’ of whom nothing is
presumed except that he or she is exchanging goods to
satisfy preferences.
In making the universal validity of economic theory
a function of the empirical vacuousness of the project
attributed to the anonymous ‘one,’ Schu
tz’s considerations
here are articulated by Felix Kaufmann (1895–1949),
who charges theory with providing the ‘basic concepts’
(‘forms’) that serve as a field’s
a priori
foundation
by defining its phenomena, and distinguishes this task
from empirical ‘application,’ where questions of
empirical evidence become relevant. One must not
confuse,
a
la
Weber, the universality of a field’s
categorical forms with the empirical confirmation of
generalizations in its domain of application.
3. The Ideal Type as Definition of a Model
The more recent proponents of nomological social
science do not propose a theory of abstraction but
highlight the role of general empirical hypotheses
in nomological-deductive explanations; accordingly,
they focus on the explanatory potential of ideal-typical
generalizations (see
Explanation: Conceptions in the
Social Sciences
). Hempel, for instance, regards ideal
types as theoretical systems akin to idealizations in
natural science (e.g., the theory of ideal gases); these
postulate that under ‘ideal’ conditions the systems’
behaviors exhibit specific regularities. Prototypically
these conditions describe empirically never encou-
ntered extremes of actual system properties or entities,
which raises the question of the explanatory value of
‘laws’ that either have no empirical domain or lead to
false predictions when applied to existing nonideal
constellations. This problem is resolved when the law
can demonstrably be derived from an independently
established, more general theory, but Hempel notes
the nonavailability of such a theory even in economics,
the most advanced social science, and ends up rega-
rding its idealizations as ‘intuitive’ initial simplif-
ications awaiting further refinement. However, econ-
omists have not been moving to improve their central
axioms, and Rosenberg considers them essentially
unrefinable generalizations of folk psychology: their
fundamental categories (‘belief,’ ‘preference,’ etc.) fail
to classify phenomena in terms of natural kinds and
therefore cannot yield genuine laws.
Hausman undertakes to defend the discipline’s
methodological peculiarities by viewing theories as
general hypotheses that predicate the assumptions of
specific models of particular portions of the world. In
this perspective, models are definitions of more or less
complex predicates (concepts, structures, systems),
such as ‘classical particle system’ (defined by Newton’s
laws of motion and gravitation), ‘simple consumption
7141
tz adopts von
Mises’ position. Both authors also agree that sub-
stantive assumptions about goals of action are prop-
erly regarded as a matter of economic history, where
Weberian ideal types reign. Schu
Ideal Type: Conceptions in the Social Sciences
system’ (Hausman 1992, p. 35), or ‘exchange’ (Weber
1968, p. 72), and are constituted by sets of assumptions
which
per se
assert nothing about the world but merely
describe a structure. They may, however, be declared
true of some empirical domain, as attributes of actual
systems, which are thus asserted to exhibit the struc-
ture defined by the model. A predication of this sort is
a theoretical hypothesis.
The point behind model construction is to simplify
reality’s complications. In natural science it is often
possible to create experimental situations approaching
the model’s simplifications and thus to test its em-
pirical adequacy as a predicate. The unavailability of
this opportunity in economics has led, on the one
hand, to a preoccupation with model construction
per
se
, disregarding empirical issues, and, on the other
hand, to a conception of economics as ‘inexact,’ only
approximately true (see
Systems Modeling
).
Economic models usually are definitions of (hy-
pothetical) economies or markets, suggesting to Haus-
man that the discipline is less concerned with the
establishment of genuine nomological propositions
than with the implications of certain behavioral
generalizations—presumed to be roughly correct—for
the actions of individuals, markets, and institutions
operating in particular circumstances. Compared with
the corresponding empirical domains, they represent
radical simplifications and idealizations, achieved
through the deduction of a basic system structure from
a set of theoretically favored principles of economic
behavior, and by treating whatever is not so deducible
as the confounding effects of ‘external,’ (nonecon-
omic) factors (which for this reason are excluded from
the model).
The highly ‘abstract’ character of economic models
may well be unavoidable. Yet in view of the ‘inexact-
ness’ of the underlying behavioral premises, conjoined
to the practical impossibility of empirically controlling
for the effects of the ‘external’ variables, the models’
lack of ‘realism’ raises the question of their usefulness
as predicates in assertions about the real world. In
Hausman’s view, to make scientific sense, statements
employing such predicates must be understood as
(implicitly) qualified by vague
ceteris paribus
clauses,
which make their truth dependent on the satisfaction
of a number of unspecified conditions. Ideally, a
ceteris paribus
clause serves as a shorthand for a list of
specific and separately analyzable causal factors whose
explicit inclusion in a model renders true otherwise
false statements predicating it of some empirical
structure(s). Economists, however, frequently invoke
the clause without having any precise idea of what
specifically is covered by it. This sort of employment
amounts to the claim that there are some unidentified
factors whose inclusion in the model predicated of
some empirical system(s) will make the otherwise false
assertion true. Hausman is very much aware that the
line between an assertion’s ‘vague qualification’ and
its permanent immunization against falsification is
easy to cross. How much one may want to stake on
vaguely qualified assertions will vary with the context
and must depend on one’s assessment of the extent of
the basic behavioral postulates’ ‘inexactness.’ Haus-
man believes that a case can be made in their favor but
also acknowledges economists’ anti-sociological com-
mitment to economics as a ‘separate’ science, whose
enduring appeal seems to involve more than matters of
scientific fruitfulness.
See also
: Causal Counterfactuals in Social Science
Research; Classification: Conceptions in the Social
Sciences; Generalization: Conceptions in the Social
Sciences; Interpretive Methods: Macromethods; Inter-
pretive Methods: Micromethods; Narrative, Socio-
logy of; Phenomenology in Human Science; Problem
Selection in the Social Sciences: Methodology; Schtz,
Alfred (1899–1959); Systems Modeling; Theory:
Conceptions in the Social Sciences; Weber, Max
(1864–1920)
Bibliography
Burger T 1976
Max Weber’s Theory of Concept Formation
. Duke
University Press, Durham, NC
Hausman D M 1992
The Inexact and Separate Science of
Economics
. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
Hempel C G 1965
Aspects of Scientific Explanation
. Free Press,
New York
Kaufmann F 1925 Logik und Wirtschaftswissenschaft.
Archi
fu
konomie
.G.
Fischer, Jena, Germany
Mises L von 1960
Epistemological Problems of Economics
.D.
van Nostrand, Princeton, NJ
Rosenberg A 1992
Economics—Mathematical Politics or
Science of Diminishing Returns?
University of Chicago Press,
Chicago
Schu
tz A 1932
Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt
. Julius
Springer, Wien, Germany
Schu
tz A 1967
The Phenomenology of the Social World
.
Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL
Weber M 1922
Gesammelte Aufsa
tze zur Wissenschaftslehre
.
bingen, Germany
Weber M 1949
Max Weber on the Methodology of the Social
Sciences
. Shils E A, Finch H A (eds. trans). Free Press, New
York
Weber M 1956
Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft
, 4th edn. J. C. B.
Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tu
bingen, Germany
Weber M 1968
Economy and Society
. Bedminster Press, New
York
T. Burger
Idealization, Abstraction, and Ideal Types
1. Abstraction
Abstraction is a psychological action in which usually
one, but possibly more, aspects of a thing or process,
7142
r Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik
54
: 614–56
Mises L von 1933
Grundprobleme der Nationalo
J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tu
Idealization, Abstraction, and Ideal Types
or a group of things or processes, are mentally
separated out from that thing or process, or group of
things or processes. All intelligent thought about the
sensible empirical world can be understood as being
abstractive. The empirical world throws up an ever-
changing melange of details which invades the senses.
To render this datum intelligible, inconvenient details
and transitory changes need to be abstracted away
from and the simple, stable, and general located. The
successful identification of natural and social kinds
would seem to require the ability to perform abstrac-
tions. Individual police o
cers, who instantiate the
social, kind
police o
cer
, vary considerably in personal
appearance and in other forms of possible identifi-
cation. In order to reliably identify an individual as a
police o
cer, the stable and enduring underlying
properties that are common to the kind police o
cer
must be identified.
Because the process of abstraction involves the
disregarding of particular features of things or pro-
cesses in an attempt to develop more general concepts,
abstractions are sometimes conflated with universals.
However, there is no requirement that a successful
abstraction need lead to the development of a concept
which identifies a universal. A successful abstraction
may lead to the identification of relatively invariant
generalizations about a kind of thing or process which
fall well short of being universally applicable. Whereas
the universal is conventionally contrasted with the
particular, the opposite of the abstract is usually held
to be the concrete.
Not everyone would accept that abstraction is as
pervasive in the mental lives of individuals as has been
suggested here. Plato can be interpreted as denying
that the intelligibility of the sensible requires ab-
straction. It may appear that the mind is abstracting
from the experience of concrete entities to the identi-
fication of underlying general kinds. However, Plato
would argue that it is actually noticing resemblances
between particular entities and a world of perfect
forms, which it was familiar with before this life.
Berkeley and Hume also downplay the role of abstrac-
tions in everyday thought. They object to an account
of abstraction provided by Locke, holding that what
cannot be separated in reality cannot be separated in
the mind either (Baxter 1997). Berkeley and Hume see
no need for abstraction from the empirical, in order to
render the world intelligible, because they do not allow
that the sensible is distinct from the intelligible.
Whether or not Berkeley and Hume are right to
reject portrayals of abstraction as being all pervasive
in thought, it is clear that the process of abstraction
plays a central role in the mental lives of individuals.
The ability to apply the sophisticated apparatus of
modern mathematics and logic to actual situations
depends,
inter alia
, on the capacity to reason
abstractly. Also, the capacity for abstract thinking
enables previously unfamiliar experiences to be ren-
dered intelligible, by relating these to the familiar. The
nineteenth century empiricist John Stuart Mill pre-
sents the example of ‘South-Sea islanders,’ whose only
experience of four-legged animals is of hogs. The
islanders are able to make sense of European talk of
other four-legged animals by abstracting from the
concrete example of hogs to the general concept of the
quadruped (Mill 1950, p. 299).
2. Idealization
Idealization, which is enabled by abstraction, is also a
psychological act which, while not as pervasive as
abstraction in everyday thought, has been extremely
important in modern scientific thinking. While ab-
straction only involves the mental separation of
aspects of things or processes, from those things and
processes, when these may not be so separable in
reality, idealization involves the mental rearrangement
of features of reality so as to assist the development of
explanations. A familiar idealization is the frictionless
plane, used to exemplify mechanical explanations. To
conceptualize the frictionless plane, real planes which
have friction-causing surfaces are abstracted away
from. However, frictionless planes are not merely
abstractions. It is convenient to imagine things which
have surfaces that are frictionless, even though it is
generally accepted that all surfaces exert some friction
on objects which they come into contact with, however
slight. For the purposes of thought experiments,
disbelief is suspended and the convenient idealized
fiction of a rearranged and simplified reality, which
suits explanatory needs, is allowed; a reality in which,
for example, a surface can come into contact with an
object and exert no force of friction on that object
whatsoever.
The application of scientific laws and models to real
complex situations often requires considerable idealiz-
ation. In order to practically apply Newtonian mech-
anics to predict the trajectory of a driven golf ball, the
golf ball is idealized as a perfect sphere which is struck
with a constant force in the direction in which it is
intended to travel. Details of the shape and surface of
the actual ball which, in reality will affect its trajectory,
are conveniently ignored. Other, potentially relevant
causal factors such as wind resistance and humidity
are also ignored. The resulting idealized calculation of
the golf ball’s trajectory will, at best, be approximately
true some of the time. The trajectory of a golf ball
which is hooked or sliced will not be accurately
predicted, nor will the trajectory of an irregularly
shaped golf ball be accurately predicted, and nor will
the trajectory of a golf ball which is struck into a
strong wind be accurately predicted. The idealizations
made are useful ones. The utilization of a simple
model which exactly describes the motion of an ideal
golf ball enables an approximate description of the
motion of actual golf balls in a useful range of cases.
An explanation of the golf ball’s trajectory which did
7143
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