Max Weber and the Empirical Historical Inquiry

Abstract

This contribution deals with Max Weber’s methodological reflections about the handling of empirical-historical data in social and cultural sciences. It stresses the common knowledge base of historical sciences and sociology as empirical sciences of human action. Sociology grasps human action more with general concepts, whereas history focuses on the “causal analysis and imputation of individual and culturally relevant actions, structures, and personalities” (Economy and Society). Weber captured reality by concepts and categories, as demonstrated at the example of his Sociology of Domination. The concept formation is open and dynamic, because it considers a changing empirical world.