Hermeneutics is a system of interpreting human meaning and values which are structurally linked to inseparable from the culture, time an place where they are observed.

1. Positivist methodology is too restrictive to capture human motivation in its entirety; it’s better suited for natural science

2. Contrasts with the rational choice perspective where decisions are based on the utility maximization principle

HERMENEUTICS & NEO-KANTIANISM

Jürgen Habermas

Wilhelm Dilthey

Humans are feeling creatures; more than rational Theology / metaphysics removed from academia, but still present in

society Introspection / interpretation / divination needed to understand the human

experience

Social and cultural-historical study is separate from natural science

Assuming other humans share similar qualities to the observer; motivations, culture, and mindset can be reconstructed to understand a subject’s reality

The subjective, emotive and reasoned values a subject holds are derived from a system of meaning that is bound to time and place.

A commonly (culturally) shared normative structure is created by communication and interaction

Through this form of interpretation, it is possible to overcome subject-object divide

HERMENEUTICS & NEO-KANTIANISM

Theory Concepts Comparative Analysis

Weberian Economic Sociology

Ontology - society in which subjects are motivated by a combination of ‘value rationality’

Epistemology – gain insight into society by interpreting what motivates others

Relationship between cultural values and beliefs that structure society.

Unlike Positivism, he believed there to be a separation between social sciences and natural sciences.

He developed his work in the antipositivist, hermeneutic tradition.

COMPARATIVE GPE CONCEPTS

MAX WEBER (1864-1920)•The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

• The connection between religion and the development of Capitalism:

Protestanism (notably Calvinism) related both religious conviction

and professional ethic on the idea of predestination

• Subjective Rationality, Irrational World

• Social action is motivated by a specific rationality that combines

instrumental rationality with normative commitments – ‘value

rationality’

• Reality as such cannot be known – it is inherently irrational

•Weber’s Legacy:

• Methodology - ‘Ideal-types’ - concepts in which some element or

aspect has been raised to compare with experienced facts

• Value Community – Most important of human communities – the

nation.

• Theory of Action – Subjects act on the basis of ‘values’

WEBERIAN ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY

Theory Concepts Comparative Analysis

Constructivism 1. A subjective ontology in which agents construct their own world and in which any rationality that the world reveals, must be traced to the agents investing in it.

2. The inter-subjective constitution of the social world via ideational interaction; there are no natural laws of society or economics or politics.

1. Rational Choice Theory

2. Positivism and neo-Positivism

COMPARATIVE GPE CONCEPTS

CONSTRUCTIVISM

What is Constructivism?

FROM CARR TO CONSTRUCTIVISM

“Anarchy is what states make of it.” – Alexander Wendt

Constructivism concerns itself with the relationship between agents and structures. How do agents produce structures and how do structures produce agents?

“…we are cultural beings with the capacity and the will to take a deliberate attitude toward the world and lend it significance.” – Max Weber

The focus of constructivism is on human awareness and its place in world affairs, analysing the ideas and beliefs that inform actors as well as the shared understanding between them. It rejects the premise put forward by Rational Choice theorist that humans are ‘pre-social’.

Rational Choice vs. ConstructivismRational Choice Constructivism

Rational choice begins with the individual. Actors are pre-social, rational and self-interested beings.

Actors are social – knowledge shapes how actors interpret and construct their social reality

Rational choice treats individual interests as fixed – utility maximizing individuals

Interests are constructed by the environment and social interactions.

The ‘environment’ regulates the actions of pre-social individuals/actors. As humans are born with a propensity to maximize their utility, whatever happens in the social world can be explained by individual choices.

As the world is constructed by social interactions and inter-subjective awareness, individuals/actors can be shaped by their environments within a specific place and time.