Ideal Types
From Geography
Ideal Types are types mostly associated with antripositivist sociologist Max Weber. The construction of these Ideal Types was to construct certain hypothetical concepts that, by being abstract, could situate certain situations for the development of social science.
An ideal type is constructed of certain phenomena and characteristics of people. With this input the ideal type is a form of a perfect image of a certain characteristic. With these different ideal types, that were contradictory to one and another by enlarging its own characteristic, various of social situations could be made. The main focus of an ideal type is to refer to perfect things and to stress certain elements of given phenomena. With this diferent types of view different perspectives are created. With different perspectives certain subjects are viewed differently. With this kind of perspectives, society can be viewed from different angles and hereby see more aspects of a society. An these perspectives conbined give a complete view of a society. Maybe the easiest way to explain these ideal types is to say that ideal types create perspectives by standing above society, so they look upon society. This gives a view of the social world without interferring with it and gives a broad view of different perspectives. Viewing upon the social world can be best compared with someone in a ships crows nest which gives this person the ability to oversee everything from all kind of angles. With this position this persion is granted with the ability of that things can be viewed, understood and anticipated from every angle. Max Weber categorised 4 different ideal types:
- Zweckrational (goal-rationality)
- Affektual (emotional-rationality)
- Wertrational (value-rationality)
- Traditional (custom, unconscious habit)
References
- Thinking Like a Sociologist: Ideal Types and Sociological Perspectives
Contributors
- page created by Paul van den Hogen Paulhogen October 2, 2012, 16:50
