Weber had outlined his particular approach in a set of paradigmatic statements, published in their final form only after his death. He started by defining sociology as “a science which attempts to understand social action interpretatively and, thereby, to explain it causally in its course and effects.” Action is human conduct which may consist of physically tangible activities, of activities of the mind, of deliberately refraining from acting, or of intentionally tolerating actions of others. In each case, however, human conduct is considered action only when and insofar as the acting person attaches a meaning to it and gives it a direction which, in turn, can be understood as meaningful. Such intended and intentional conduct becomes social if it is directed upon the conduct of others. This, in a nutshell, is Weber’s conception of subjective meaning as a crucial criterion of human action. It was because of this conception that Schutz saw in Weber’s theory of action a bridge which would allow him to pass from the realm of phenomenology to that of sociology.
Weber insisted that sociology is, or at least should be centrally concerned with subjective meaning of social conduct. But he used the term subjective-meaning in more than one way: he designated by it the meaning which the actor himself ascribes to his conduct as well as the meaning sociology imputes on the conduct of an observed actor. In the latter case, he again envisaged two possibilities: either the sociologist tries to find what would be a typical average of the meaning numerous persons ascribe to the same type of action; or he constructs an extreme, or ideal type of such conduct, showing its characteristics under “pure” conditions. Essentially, any ideal type of action is based on the assumption of strictly rational conduct on the part of the ideal-typical actor. Weber was predominantly concerned with “rational action” not because he assumed that it was the most frequent type of human conduct, but because it was that type which is most accessible to outside analysis. However, he allowed for two additional types: traditional conduct, following the lines of custom; and non-rational behavior, actually a residual category which he failed to analyze properly.
{[WAGNER, Helmut. Alfred Schutz. On Phenomenology and Social Relations. Selected Writings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970]}