A second, related consideration requires stressing that Weber’s most fundamental
concern has to do with explaining how modes of thought and practice
come about, become socially entrenched, and then are or are not open to various
transformations. We lose sight of all this if we think of ideal-types too
much in terms of their initial purpose of grasping the subjective meaning of
things for agents, without adding that ideal-types are ultimately for causal
explanation (Weber 1949, 43), and emphasizing that the key causal claims for
Weber are singular ones. The resulting sequences reveal historical origins and
developments, and comparative instances of these, and focus Weber’s abiding
contribution and question: how has this or that kind of economic system, or
structure of authority, or type of organization, or mode of rationality, emerged
in a given context and then altered it or been altered by it?
Third, as emphasized throughout, integral to all this are not just explanations
of dominant forms of thought and conduct, but also, unavoidably, evaluations
in some measure of them. These latter enter regarding how far agents are aware
of the presuppositions and tendencies of the structures in which they live. Idealtypes
focus these things. And they thereby also focus for us, when equipped
with them, social choices or a new awareness of our options. Weber famously
says that one who finds intolerable the modern world with its disenchantment,
that is, its loss of traditional meanings, may understandably choose to return to or try to revivify the Church or some such structure of authority and meaning
(Weber 1946, 155). That, clearly, is not Weber’s own choice. But here again,
with alternatives mapped, and in ways evaluated, the sociologist ceases to
speak. As instruments for illuminating options and also the limits to specialized
knowledge for deciding ultimately between them, ideal-types are unique and
valuable contributions by Weber to the methodology of the social sciences.