This article is excerpted from: Social Science Methodology
Author: Maksu Weber
Translator: Han Shuifa/Moxi
Marx Weber made an unparalleled contribution to contemporary social science and social thought, and a considerable part of this contribution is his methodological doctrine. The book "Social Science Methodology" is actually composed of three long articles selected from the "Collection of Scientific Papers", which expound some important contents of Weber's methodological thinking, and are representative works of Weber's methodological works. The following excerpt is taken from the article "Objectivity" in Social Science Understanding and Social Policy Understanding, which is included in this book.
As we have already seen, in the field of empirical socio-cultural sciences, the possibility of attaining meaningful knowledge of what is essential to us in infinitely rich events depends on the constant application of unique views which, in the final analysis, point to values. These values themselves, while they can be identified and encountered in experience as factors of all meaningful human action, cannot be effectively found in empirical material. On the contrary, the scientific "objectivity" of social science knowledge depends on the fact that the acts and deeds of experience, though always transferred to the only values which make them worthy of knowing, and are understood by the meanings they have derived from those values, will never be made into pillars on which these ideas cannot be proved empirically by their validity. We all believe in some form that the ultimate values we use to anchor the meaning of our existence have super-experiential validity. This belief is not exclusive, but contains the variability of concrete ideas on which empirical reality is derived from. In its irrational reality, life does not dry up, the content of life does not dry up in the possible sense, and the concrete forms of value relations are therefore constantly changing, undergoing constant changes when entering the hazy future of human civilization. The light of the ultimate value concept illuminates the finite fragments of the infinite chaotic flow of events that will rush forward with time.
All this should not be misunderstood now as the fundamental task of the social sciences should be to constantly chase new ideas and the composition of new concepts. On the contrary, the following proposition deserves more clear emphasis than any other: the commitment to the knowledge of the cultural significance of concrete historical connections is the only ultimate end, and conceptual construction and conceptual critique, among other means, must serve this end. - In our field there are also such as F. Fischer (F. Th· Vischer) calls "material hunting gods" and "meaning hunting gods". The former's desire for facts can only be filled by archival materials, statistical volumes, and survey forms, and he has no feeling for the delicacy of new ideas. The latter, by always coveting the exquisiteness of new ideas, corrupts the appreciation of facts. True artistic talents, such as the great talent of the historian Ranke, are always manifested in knowing how to generate new understandings by associating familiar facts with familiar ideas.
All cultural scientific research in an epoch of specialization, once they have established their methodological principles by asking specific questions directed at established materials, will regard processed materials as ends in themselves, rather than continuing to consciously examine the epistemic value of individual materials according to the idea of ultimate value, much less always realizing that this epistemic value is rooted in the ultimate value. There's nothing wrong with that. But at one point, the atmosphere changed. The meaning of the view, which has been applied without reflection, becomes uncertain, and the road is lost in the darkness. The light of great cultural problems leads the way again. So science is ready to change its own foothold and conceptual system, looking down on the flow of events from the height of thought. It follows celestial bodies that are the only ones that indicate the meaning and direction of their labor:
...... And my new impulses continue to rise,
I'm going to swallow the eternal splendor,
Day is in front of me, night is behind me,
The blue sky is above me, and the sea is below me.
This article is reproduced for Peking University Public Communications
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Edited by | Yin Xiuxuan
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