Interpretive Historical Sociology: discordances of Weber, Dilthey and others |
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| Authors: | DAVID K. BROWN |
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| Affiliation: | DAVID K. BROWN is a doctoral candidate at Northwestern University. He has taught at Illinois State University, Loyola (Chicago) University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Northwestern University. His research interests include Weberian sociology, historiographic methods, historical social change in American higher education, and the sociology of the frontier. He has previously published on Georg Simmel's notion of historicalunderstanding. |
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| Abstract: | Abstract Relations of several notions of historical understanding to issues of explanation, historical complexity, practical and moral reason, and the differentiation of historical and natural science are discussed. Examination of the historical context of the German Methodenstreit exhibits similarities with current disjunctions within historical sociology and allows specification of crucial questions about its methods and cognitive goals. Max Weber and Wilhelm Dilthey are discussed as proponents of radically opposed methodological positions. Claims about Weber's reliance on Dilthey are dispelled as it is shown that Weber neither developed nor practiced a 'method' of verstehen , while Weber's congruence with Heinrich Rickert is upheld. Oppositions within historiography (Droysen vs.Buckle) and economics (Schmoller vs. Menger) are analyzed as prefigurations of the Weber-Dilthey rivalry. Finally, contemporary historical strategies are summarized with reference to pertinent issues extracted from earlier debates. |
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