Ideal Type

Ideal type, also know as pure type or idealtyp, is an typological term invented by sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920).

An ideal type is formed from characteristics and elements of the given phenomena but it is not meant to correspond to all of the characteristics of any one particular case. It is not meant to refer to perfect things, moral ideals nor to comparative study in analyzing social or economic phenomena, having advantages over a very general, abstract idea and a specific historical example. It can be used to anlyse both a general, suprahistorical phenomena (like capitalism) or historically unique occurrences (like Weber's own Protestant Ethic's analysis).

To try to understand a particular phenomena, one must not only describe the actions of its participants but "interpret" them as well. But interpretation poses us a problem for we have to attempt to classify behavior as belonging to some prior "ideal type". Weber gave us four categories of "Ideal Types" of behavior: zweckrational (rational means to rational ends), wertrational (rational means to irrational ends), affektual (guided by emotion) and traditional (guided by custom or habit).

Weber admitted employing "ideal types" was an abstraction but claimed it was nonetheless essential if one were to understand any particular social phenomena because, unlike physical phenomena, it involved human behavior which must be interpreted by ideal types.

Critic of ideal type includes the theory of normal type. Some sociologists argue that ideal type tends to focus on extreme phenomena and overlook the connections between them, and that it is difficult to show how the types and their elements fit into a theory of a