ABSTRACT
When we construe empirically adequate ideal types of this kind, then, according to Weber, we arrive at a motivational, as distinct from actual, understanding of human action. ‘Actual’ understanding is equivalent to selecting the ‘right’, i.e., the empirically adequate, intentionalistic description.14 Motivational understanding, argues Weber, rests on our nomological knowledge. To have the required type and amount of nomological knowledge at our disposal is the same as to know-either by acquaintance or by description-the rules of experience that in the eyes of people living in a particular society or culture assign given means to given ends.
