Weber’s insistence that all theoretical constructs are shot through with biases of one kind or another is not easy to reconcile with the explanatory claims he make on behalf of idea types. Sine it is possible to construct quiet different idea types of the same phenomenon, there is an initial problem of how to decide between them . On what grounds could we conclude that one carried grater explanatory weight than another? The natural temptation would be to say that the matter could be settled by exposing them to the test of the factual world and comparing their performance. But since for Weber such a factual world does not exist independently of the constructs through which we will it, a straightforward comparison is not really possible. Each ideal-type would simply feed upon those social facts of it own making.