Besides Bourdieu, the theorist I like the most is Max Weber. He approached the subject cautiously, built the bridge between the canonic theories and the latter ones, and is extremely relevant to many phenomena that happen nowadays.
Before we delve into the specific arguments of him, first of all, he was very cautious of making any absolute claims, and I respect such cautiousness especially in the study of the society and of the social because causality is so hard to define. For example, unlike Durkheim, Weber did not intend to establish sociology as another scientific body that is different from psychology or economics, but rather he emphasized the importance of empirical investigation and interpretation (Hughes et al. 2003). In addition, unlike …show more content…
The biggest different between Weber and Durkheim or Marx is that Weber put much more emphasis on individuality. Weber thought that the society was too complicated and there was too much multidimensionality of individuals to be possibly comprehended by humans, let alone establish a body of scientific, systematic knowledge. His emphasis on individuality is the introduction of the synthesis of structure and agency, which we have discussed in question one in this exam. This kind of emphasis on individualism certainly had an influence on later theorists who put more emphasis of human interaction on the individuals – for example, Foucault, Bourdieu, and symbolic interactionist like Erving Goffman. In addition, Weber viewed religious beliefs as the cause of people’s devoted involvement …show more content…
I admire him because he proposed these very relevant and probably never outdated theories when he lived in a very different time from ours (maybe not that drastically different, considering how both societies are experiencing radical changes but in different forms). For example, his descriptions of bureaucracy are simply accurate even though he was trying to make some generalization of some emerging trend during his time. What Weber described in bureaucracy is indeed how businesses, organizations, and governments are run in the 21st century, and in almost all parts of the world. I do experience the iron cage and the impersonality of rules on a daily basis. In addition, many of Weber’s categorizations are genius, and thinking along with his categorizations, I can make sense of the world to a great extent. Some categorizations that I find brilliant including the three types of social groups as social classes, status groups, and parties and the three types of domination as traditional, charismatic, and
Before we delve into the specific arguments of him, first of all, he was very cautious of making any absolute claims, and I respect such cautiousness especially in the study of the society and of the social because causality is so hard to define. For example, unlike Durkheim, Weber did not intend to establish sociology as another scientific body that is different from psychology or economics, but rather he emphasized the importance of empirical investigation and interpretation (Hughes et al. 2003). In addition, unlike …show more content…
The biggest different between Weber and Durkheim or Marx is that Weber put much more emphasis on individuality. Weber thought that the society was too complicated and there was too much multidimensionality of individuals to be possibly comprehended by humans, let alone establish a body of scientific, systematic knowledge. His emphasis on individuality is the introduction of the synthesis of structure and agency, which we have discussed in question one in this exam. This kind of emphasis on individualism certainly had an influence on later theorists who put more emphasis of human interaction on the individuals – for example, Foucault, Bourdieu, and symbolic interactionist like Erving Goffman. In addition, Weber viewed religious beliefs as the cause of people’s devoted involvement …show more content…
I admire him because he proposed these very relevant and probably never outdated theories when he lived in a very different time from ours (maybe not that drastically different, considering how both societies are experiencing radical changes but in different forms). For example, his descriptions of bureaucracy are simply accurate even though he was trying to make some generalization of some emerging trend during his time. What Weber described in bureaucracy is indeed how businesses, organizations, and governments are run in the 21st century, and in almost all parts of the world. I do experience the iron cage and the impersonality of rules on a daily basis. In addition, many of Weber’s categorizations are genius, and thinking along with his categorizations, I can make sense of the world to a great extent. Some categorizations that I find brilliant including the three types of social groups as social classes, status groups, and parties and the three types of domination as traditional, charismatic, and