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Verstehen (, ), in the context of German philosophy and in general, has been used since the late 19th century – in English as in German – with the particular sense of the "interpretive or participatory" examination of social phenomena. The term is closely associated with the work of the German sociologist Max Weber, whose antipositivism established an alternative to prior sociological positivism and economic determinism, rooted in the analysis of social action. "Anti-positivism" at Historylearningsite.co.uk In anthropology, Verstehen has come to mean a systematic interpretive process in which an outside observer of a culture attempts to relate to it and understand others.
Verstehen is now seen as a concept and a method central to a rejection of positivist social science (although Weber appeared to think that the two could be united). Verstehen refers to understanding the Meaning-making of action from the actor's point of view. It is entering into the shoes of the other, and adopting this research stance requires treating the actor as a subject, rather than an object of your observations. It also implies that unlike objects in the natural world human actors are not simply the product of the pulls and pushes of external forces. Individuals are seen to create the world by organizing their own understanding of it and giving it meaning. To do research on actors without taking into account the meanings they attribute to their actions or environment is to treat them like objects. "Verstehen." Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences.
Verstehen roughly translates to "meaningful understanding" or "putting yourself in the shoes of others to see things from their perspective." Interpretive sociology differs from positivist sociology in three ways:
The concept of Verstehen was later used by the German philosopher Wilhelm DiltheyWilhelm Dilthey. 1894. Ideen über eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie. Berlin. p. 1314.Wilhelm Dilthey. 1991. Introduction to the Human Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press. to describe the first-person participatory perspective that agents have on their individual experience as well as their culture, history, and society. In this sense, it is developed in the context of the theory and practice of interpretation (as understood in the context of hermeneutics) and contrasted with the external objectivating third-person perspective of explanation ( ) in which human agency, subjectivity, and its products are analyzed as effects of impersonal natural forces in the natural sciences and social structures in sociology.
Twentieth-century philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg GadamerGadamer, Hans-Georg. 1989. Truth and Method. Crossroad. were critical of what they considered to be the romantic and subjective character of Verstehen in Dilthey, although both Dilthey and the early Heidegger were interested in the "facticity" and "life-context" of understanding, and sought to universalize it as the way humans exist through language on the basis of ontology.Martin Heidegger, Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity, Indiana University Press, 1999.Charles R. Bambach, Heidegger, Dilthey, and the crisis of historicism, Cornell University Press, 1995, p. 199–200. Verstehen also played a role in Edmund Husserl and Alfred Schutz's analysis of the "lifeworld." Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel further transformed the concept of Verstehen, reformulating it on the basis of a transcendental-pragmatic philosophy of language and the theory of communicative action.
Weber had more specific beliefs than Marx where he put value to understanding and meaning of key elements—not just with intuition or sympathy with the individual but also the product of "systematic and rigorous research". The goal is to identify human actions and interpreting them as observable events leading us to believe that it not only provides for a good explanation for individual actions but also for group interactions. The meaning attached needs to include constraints and limitations and analyze the motivation for action. Weber believed that this gives the sociologist an advantage over a natural scientist because "We can accomplish something which is never attainable in the natural sciences, namely the subjective understanding of the action of the component individuals."
Critics also believe that it is the sociologist's job to not just observe people and what people do but also share in their world of meaning and come to appreciate why they act as they do. Subjective thoughts and feelings regarded as bias in the sciences is an important aspect to be controlled for while doing sociological research.
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