Max Weber och idealtypernas nödvändighet

Sammanfattning: This thesis has two aims: first, to investigate Max Weber’s account of “objective validity” in the cultural sciences; second, to elaborate a more concrete version of this position using Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later remarks on language.Chapter 1 introduces Weber’s idea of objective validity and proposes that in order to understand Weber’s idea of ideal types, we need to re-evaluate Weber’s understanding of the term Bedeutung in “The ‘Objectivity’ of knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy”.Chapter 2 presents Weber’s notion of ideal types and raises a number of problems to be dealt with in the following chapters. The central questions are i) why Weber thinks that ideal types are sometimes necessary in order to reach objective validity, and ii) under which circumstances this might be the case. The chapter argues that the answer to the last question is that Weber thinks that ideal types are necessary for objectivity within a specific kind of study of meaning (Bedeutung) within the cultural sciences. Chapter 3, in turn, focuses on why ideal types are necessary within this kind of cultural science by taking a closer look at how to understand Weber’s concept of given reality and the connection between meaning, concepts, reality and values in the methodological writings that constitute “Roscher and Knies and the Logical Problems of Historical Economics”.In chapter 4, the central issue of objective validity can finally be addressed. The investigation shows that what Weber says about objective validity does not cohere with what follows from his arguments concerning the relation between meaning, given reality, values and concepts. I conclude that Weber fails to provide a clear and consistent account of what objectivity could mean in the cultural sciences. This also means that Weber fails to clarify the necessity of formulating ideal types.These deficiencies notwithstanding, I argue, Weber succeeds in formulating cogent arguments concerning the relationship between given reality, values and concepts. In chapter 5, I use Wittgenstein’s later remarks on language to develop a clear and consistent conceptualization of ideal types, and propose an account of what objectivity can mean in the cultural sciences and how it can be realized.