Max Weber: precursor of economic sociology and heterodox economics?

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Nov, 2004 by Helge Peukert

   [W]e also understand what a person is doing when he tries to
   achieve certain ends by choosing appropriate means on the basis
   of the facts of the situation ... [t]he interpretation of such
   rationally purposeful action possesses, for the understanding of
   the choice of means, the highest degree of verifiable action. With
   a lower degree of certainty, which is, however, adequate for most
   purposes of explanation, we are able to understand errors. (1968d,
   p. 5)

The whole problematic of Weber's methodology is couched here.

To more fully elaborate this issue, Weber introduces his four types of social action:

   (1) instrumentally rational (zweckrational), that is, determined
   by expectations as to the behavior of objects in the environment
   and of other human beings; these expectations are used as
   "conditions" or "means" for the attainment of the actor's own
   rationally pursued and calculated ends; (2) value rational
   (wertrational), that is, determined by a conscious belief
   in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic,
   religious, or other form of behavior, independently of its
   prospects of success; (3) affectual (especially emotional),
   that is, determined by the actor's specific affects and feeling
   states; (4) traditional, that is, determined by ingrained
   habituation. (1968d, pp. 24-25)

The action types play a major function in Weber's theoretical edifice. Historically, the universal process of rationalization can be described in terms of these four patterns of variables, but structures can also be analyzed vertically with them. A society is composed of different levels of social relationships that can be described according to their relative mixture of the four action types along the axes traditional/affectual, value-rational, and instrumentally rational. There coexist mixtures in usage (Brauch), fashion (Mode), and custom (Sitte) that have to be distinguished from convention (Konvention) and law (Recht). Law has the highest degree of instrumental rationality. On a micro level, Weber then analyzes social relationships such as communal and associative, open and closed, and voluntary and compulsory associations.

Furthermore, the importance of the action types is underlined by the fact that they are used to demarcate four ideal types of legitimate political order. According to Weber there are no relatively stable political units without a certain belief in their existence and legitimacy, transforming power relations in domination (Herrschaft), and characterized by the probability that a command with a specific content will be obeyed and accepted by a group of persons. "The actors may ascribe legitimacy to a social order by virtue of: (a) tradition: valid is that which has always been; (b) affectual, especially emotional, faith: valid is that which is newly revealed or exemplary; (c) value-rational faith: valid is that which has been deduced as an absolute; (d) positive enactment which is believed to be legal" (Weber 1978, p. 36; emphasis in original). Three ideal-type legitimate orders are distinguished: the rational, the traditional, and the charismatic order (divided, e.g., in hereditary and charisma of office).