Verstehen Essay ⋆ Sociology Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Usually translated as ”understanding,” the concept of verstehen has become part of a critique of positivist approaches to the social sciences. Rather than explain behavior with reference to impersonal ”causes” verstehen places understanding of social meanings as central to a sociological approach. Whereas natural science (and positivistic methods in social science) constitutes a world of objects to be explained, verstehen regards human actors as subjects with whom the researcher enters into dialogue. Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) was crucial in the development of hermeneutic philosophy into a sociological method arguing that since sociologists were part of the world that they studied sociology can develop deeper and more intimate knowledge of its subject matter than is possible in natural sciences. As members of society we learn to decode symbols and develop the capacity for empathy – reconstructing and ”reexperiencing” emotions, intentions, social situations etc. By drawing on shared experiences we have the ability to project ourselves into a text or form of life and understand its meaning. As cultural scientists we are surrounded by cultural objects, ”Roman ruins, cathedrals, and summer castles,” fragments of the history of mind that can be understood only by interpretive techniques grounded in the life process of individuals (Dilthey 1986). This approach was resolutely universalistic in its assumption that whatever humans had created can be understood through reconstruction of their meanings and in intentions.

Max Weber (1864-1920) used the method of verstehen most famously in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit ofCapitalism where he supplemented structural and economic accounts of the origin of capitalism in Europe with reconstruction of the worldview of seventeenth-century Protestants. His claim that the Calvinist belief in predestination provoked ”an unprecedented inner loneliness” and consequent search for signs of salvation in the worldly but ascetic pursuit of capital accumulation, placed the understanding of meaningful action at the center of his explanation of the rise of capitalism. Verstehen has subsequently been central to the methods of interpretive sociology, notably symbolic interactionism.

However, the use of verstehen is open to criticism. First, critics have argued that this is not a distinct method, but an elaboration of what all social actors do routinely in everyday life. Second, there is no way of validating verstehende interpretations since they cannot be tested against replicable evidence. Third, it is claimed that interpretation of meanings adds no new knowledge and by definition recycles what is already known about society. Fourth, verstehen is at best a source of hypotheses that then require testing against evidence. Fifth, it is accused of over-emphasizing meaning at the expense of material structures and unintended consequences of actions. Finally the emphasis on understanding might have a conservative orientation that gives too little attention to power relations. To some extent these criticisms focus on verstehen as a form of introspection or imaginative reconstruction of meanings rather than as a systematic dialogue with a range of social materials – texts, archives, conversations, worldviews, and cultural artifacts – in which suggested interpretations can be ”tested” with reference to the extent that they open up new layers of understanding.

Bibliography:

Dilthey, W. (1986) Awareness, reality: time. In: Mueller-Vollmer, K. (ed.), The Hermeneutics Reader. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 149-64.
Ray, L. J. (1999) Theorizing Classical Sociology. Open University Press, Buckingham.
Weber, M. (1984) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Allen & Unwin, London.