Even so, he thought that economic systems were
heavily infl uenced by other factors in a society.
Unlike many early analysts who believed that values
could not be separated from the research process,
Weber emphasized that sociology should be
value free—research should be conducted in a scientifi
c manner and should exclude the researcher’s
personal values and economic interests (Turner,
Beeghley, and Powers, 2002). However, Weber realized
that social behavior cannot be analyzed by the
objective criteria that we use to measure such things
as temperature or weight. Although he recognized
that sociologists cannot be totally value free, Weber
stressed that they should employ verstehen (German
for “understanding” or “insight”) to gain the ability
to see the world as others see it. In contemporary
sociology, Weber’s idea is incorporated into the
concept of the sociological imagination (discussed
earlier in this chapter).