Max Weber and the Unity of Normative and Empirical Theory

Although Max Weber is often invoked as an authority to justify the distinction between ‘normative’ and ‘empirical’ theory, both his methodological and theoretical work call into question any such distinction. All specifically social or collective concepts, Weber argued, are derived from the subjective commitments of the researcher. It is impossible for such concepts to be ‘objectively’ valid. In the first part of this essay, Weber's analysis of the role of values in the formation of collective concepts is discussed, as well as the sense in which he believed that social scientific knowledge could be objectively valid in spite of the normative nature of social conceptualization. The second part will demonstrate the normative basis of Weber's own social theory, and its consequent political prescriptions.