ABSTRACT
The theme of Max Weber’s sociology as a whole is rationalization of life: in the methodology, he is concerned with the translation of subjective rationality into objective knowledge; and in the analysis of world civilizations, with the social conditions of the varieties of rationalization. The basis of his methodology, the structure of individual causal explanation, does not lead in Weber’s work to a preoccupation either with the form of historical description or a causal, comparative study of the implications of a particular institution, or with the means of perceiving the ‘meaningful’ unity of a phenomenon, as it does in the numerous derivations from his ideas. Weber’s refutation includes two fundamental discussions: on an objectively workable theory on the historical knowledge of a particular phenomenon, and on the concept of individuality as its essential constituent. The whole of Weber’s methodology is centred on the theory that the historical knowledge of actual individual events, especially causal interrelations, is inseparable from knowledge generally.
