Max Weber
The German philosopher and sociologist Max Weber is one of the founding fathers of sociology. He is regarded as the proponent of anti-positivism thought and argued that society can be understood by studying social actions through interpretive meaning the actors (individual) attach to their own actions.
Sociology, for Max Weber, is "a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects". Whereas Durkheim focused on the society, Weber concentrated on the individual and their actions (i.e. structure and action). Compared to Marx, who argued for the primacy of the material world over the world of ideas, Weber valued ideas as motivating actions of individuals, at least in the big picture.Key Ideas: Protestant ethic, Anti-positivism, Theory of Bureaucracy