Understanding and Explaining

From Geography

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Revision as of 08:17, 23 October 2012

'Verstehen' simply means to understand, i.e. 'understanding'. It is a term associated with Max Weber. It refers to the process of an observer who tries to relate to and understand others. It is the reasoning behind people's motives and decisions which can only be found by asking the individual as you cannot generalize as every reasoning and motive is individually characteristic.

To relate to Max Weber's 'understanding' of others action we have to understand what he means by a social action. In Weber's terms a movement isn't an action until coupled with subjective meaning for the individual involved. The individual acting therefore must have an awareness of their actions with intentions and motives that caused this action. Weber understands that actions by individuals are similar in terms of the actual action, but each individual can act intentionally toward a situation without being aware of the others intentions.

According to Weber (Campbell, 1981) explaining behaviour involves understanding it, and understanding requires entering into the mind and feelings of the social actors involved in the behaviour. So to understand (verstehen) social action it requires the observer to grasp the complete complex meaning that is behind the reasoning and motives for action. To do this, it is necessary 'to put one's self imaginatively in the place of the actor and thus sympathetically participate in his experiences' (Campbell, 1981, p. 172). There has to be looked at the subjective meaning, Sinn, of the actors (Campbell, 1981, p.173). Understanding one's behaviour can only be done when there is knowledge of the used symbols (in general this is language) that the actor used to describe his own behaviour.

Weber argued that to explain an action we must interpret it in terms of it’s subjectively intended meaning. A person’s action is to be explained in terms of the consequences he or she intended purpose rather than in terms of its actual effects the two are often at variance. (SEO, 2011)

References

Campbell, T. (1981). Seven theories of human society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

SEO Expert Chennal. (2011). Found on 17th of October 2012, at http://www.sociologyguide.com/social-action/max-weber.php

Kant Academy. (n.d.). Verklaren en begrijpen. Founded at 17 October at http://kantacademy.nl/508/Verklaren%20en%20begrijpen

Contributors

Published by Catherine Hughes (4172159)

Improved by Boudewijn Idema User:BoudewijnIdema, 17 October 2011, 20:59 (UTC)

Page enhanced and page outline enhanced by Aafke Brus --AafkeBrus 16:45, 20 October 2011 (CEST)

Improved by Lars-Olof Haverkort --LarsHaverkort 17:12, 9 September 2012 (CEST)