Problém subjektivního smyslu jednání v díle Maxe Webera, Clifforda Geertze a Rudolfa Bultmanna

Abstract

Max Weber, Clifford Geertz, & Rudolf Bultmann are often cited by anthropologists & sociologists who are trying to determine the essence of human sciences through a deep analysis of the subjective meanings that the actor sets to his/her behavior. This article provides an analysis of theoretical & epistemological conceptions of the three thinkers mentioned above, & the author concludes that each of them uses the construction of subjective justification in a different way. Weber distinguishes behavior itself from its meaning, which is constituted by a subjective reference to the values of the actor, & also of the recipient (or researcher). In Weber's point of view, someone else's meaning of behavior is eventually undeterminable, & the researcher can only come close to the subjective meaning through an ideal-typical construction, although Weber eventually does not refuse such ideal-typical constructions behind the cognitive possibilities of the actor. Geertz's attempt at an orientation of a description according to the actor primarily leads to the view of cultural & social facts from a bird's eye perspective, to a presumably deeper understanding than the actor is able to have. In this article the author argues that the differences between Weber's & Geertz's theoretical constructions originate in their contrasting conceptions of the nature of culture. Another such case is Bultmann, owing to the fact that he does not concentrate on the subjective meaning of action in a narrow sense, while he aims at, in his eyes, all human existential experience of reality.