- German word: de:Verstehen
Verstehen (also known as
Interpretative Sociology,
German for understanding, pronounced as though it rhymes with fair-SHTAY-en) was used by
Max Weber to describe a process in which outside observers of a culture (such as
anthropologists) relate to an indigenous people on their own terms, rather than interpreting them in terms of the observers own concepts. Verstehen involves a kind of empthic or participatory understanding. 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.
See also the emic and etic distiction.
See also
Sociology | Criminology topics
理解社会学
"Verstehen"