Ideal Type

Ideal type (German: Idealtypus), also known as pure type, is a typological term most closely associated with antipositivist sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). For Weber, the conduct of social science depends upon the construction of hypothetical concepts in the abstract. The "ideal type" is therefore a subjective element in social theory and research; one of many subjective elements which necessarily distinguish sociology from natural science.

An ideal type is formed from characteristics and elements of the given phenomena, but it is not meant to correspond to all of the characteristics of any one particular case. It is not meant to refer to perfect things, moral ideals nor to statistical averages but rather to stress certain elements common to most cases of the given phenomena. It is also important to pay attention that in using the word “ideal” Max Weber refers to the world of ideas (German: Gedankenbilder "thoughtful pictures") and not to perfection; these “ideal types” are idea-constructs that help put the chaos of social reality in order.

Weber himself wrote: "An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those onesidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct... " It is a useful tool for comparative sociology in analyzing social or economic phenomena, having advantages over a very general, abstract idea and a specific historical example. It can be used to analyze both a general, suprahistorical phenomenon (like capitalism) or historically unique occurrences (like Weber's own Protestant Ethics analysis).

To try to understand a particular phenomenon, one must not only describe the actions of its participants but "interpret" them as well. But interpretation poses a problem for the investigator who has to attempt to classify behavior as belonging to some prior "ideal type". Weber described four categories of "Ideal Types" of behavior: zweckrational (goal-rationality), wertrational (value-rationality), affektual (emotional-rationality) and traditional (custom, unconscious habit). After Dirk Käsler the characteristically features of the “Ideal Type” are such that see It as a genetic notion, but it is not a hypothesis, although helps to systematize the empirical and historical reality. Quite important to notice is that the results of procedure through defining of ideal types are the process of constant changes and different interpretations because of historical changes as well as the necessity not to avoid the arising of new “Ideal Types”.

Therefore Weber, who is keenly aware of “Ideal Type's” fictional nature, states that the “Ideal Type” never seeks to claim its validity in terms of a reproduction of or a correspondence with social reality. Its validity can be ascertained only in terms of adequacy, which is too conveniently ignored by the proponents of positivism. This does not mean, however, that objectivity, limited as it is, can be gained by “weighing the various evaluations against one another and making a ‘statesman-like’ compromise among them”, which is often proposed as a solution by those sharing Weber's kind of methodological perspectivism. Such a practice, which Weber calls “syncretism”, is not only impossible but also unethical, for it avoids “the practical duty to stand up for our own ideals” ]

Critics of ideal type include proponents of the normal type theory. Some sociologists argue that ideal type tends to focus on extreme phenomena and overlook the connections between them, and that it is difficult to show how the types and their elements fit into a theory of a total social system. H. Freyer, as Philosopher and Sociologist, and the first Bearer of the German professorship for Sociology in Leipzig, keeps the mind that the notion of “Ideal Type” is “a logical peculiarity of historical and cultural cognition” and “oversees the contrast of personal and general methods of thinking, on one hand, by defining the logical character in individual, and on the other, by progressing on the way to generalization only till showing the typicalness and not the pure general rule”. First of all Freyer tries to underline that “first basic considerations” about “Ideal Type” were formulated from Weber for the adaption of historical types, considering that in the history “the cognition of appropriate connections and typical regulators – are just means, and not the aim of perfectly typical creation of conceptions”. Freyer ascertains that Weber speaks about “Ideal Type” in conformity not only with ideological, but also with nomotetical science, particularly sociology. Although by the Freyer’s interpretation of Weber, the “Ideal Type” that projects sociology, must be as “pure” as possible in contrast to “Ideal Type” in the history, which presents a quite complexable conceivable formation because of its orientation towards the understanding of single historical appearance. But then in Freyer’s opinion that he attributes to Weber, arises the necessity to “accept the historical part even in very general sociological types”. That is why Freyer tries to interpret Weber “Ideal Types” in the way that their sociological subcontext would be seen and which is supposedly concealed in their logical designed text. What Freyer tries to do in his critical statements is to show in what way the most abstract and universal sociological ideal types bare in themselves in form of their essential buildings a central of nonevident historical substance.