Verstehen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German word: wiktionary:de:Verstehen

Verstehen (also known as Interpretative Sociology, German for understanding, (pronounced fair-SHTAY-en) was used by Max Weber to describe a process in which an outside observer of a culture (such as an anthropologist) relates to an indigenous people on their own terms, rather than interpreting them in terms of his own concepts. Verstehen involves a kind of empathic or participatory understanding. In Anthropological terms this would be referred to as cultural relativism. It relates to how people in life give meaning to the social world around them. This concept has been both expanded and criticized by later social scientists. Proponents laud this concept as the only means by which researchers from one culture can examine and explain behaviors in another. While the exercise of verstehen has been more popular among social scientists in Europe such as Jürgen Habermas, verstehen was effectively introduced into the practice of sociology in the United States by Talcott Parsons, an American follower of Max Weber. Parsons incorporated this concept into his 1937 work, The Structure of Social Action.

Critics of the concept of verstehen such as Mikhail Bakhtin and Dean MacCannell counter that it is simply impossible for a person born of one culture to ever completely understand another culture, and that it is arrogant and conceited to attempt to interpret the significance of one culture's symbols through the terms of another (supposedly superior) culture.