Abstract
The development and use of the ideal type construct in the methodology of Max Weber and Alfred Schutz is considered in order to contrast the different purposes for which each of these sociologists made use of the construct. Weber’s focus on substantive empirical historical and comparative problems led him to select the ideal type as a methodology suited for making comparisons between the type and empirical reality.
Schutz’s original interest in the ideal type was to clarify the epistemological and theoretical foundations of the methodology and provide clarifications and explications via a phenomenologically based analysis. His endorsement of the ideal type methodology for sociology was consistent with his view of the theoretical attitude of science and of scientific work but led him away from the detailed empirical study of the world of everyday life which his phenomenological grounding would have made possible.
I am grateful to Stephen Kalberg, Tom Wilson, Egon Bittner, Hisashi Nasu and Martin Endress for their helpful comments and suggestions.
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Psathas, G. (2005). The Ideal Type in Weber and Schutz. In: Endress, M., Psathas, G., Nasu, H. (eds) Explorations of the Life-World. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 53. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3220-X_7
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