Social action is the simplest and most directly perceived phenomenon of social reality. The concept of social action was introduced by M. Weber: “We call action a person’s action (regardless of whether it is external or internal, whether it comes down to non-intervention or patient acceptance, if and insofar as the acting individual or individuals associate subjective meaning with it. “Social” we call such an action that, according to the meaning assumed by the actor or actors, correlates with the action of other people and focuses on it. "It follows from the definition that an action that a person does not think about is not a social action. Thus, social action cannot be attributed an unintentional fall of a person or an involuntary cry of pain, because they simply lack a thought process. An action in which a person simply does not see a real goal is not a social action. Thus, an unintentional or unconscious participation of a person in one or another gathering cannot be attributed to social action , campaign, political action, because in this case There is no thought process and consciously purposeful activity. Another important observation that the sociologist makes is that the subject of his paradigm is the actions of individuals, not collectives. When using the concepts of state, corporation, family, military unit, etc., one should keep in mind that these and other social structures are not in themselves subjects of social action. Therefore, from the point of view of Weber, it is impossible, for example, to understand the actions of a parliament or a presidential administration, a firm or a family, but one can and should strive to interpret the actions of their constituent individuals.

Human action turns into social action if it contains two fundamental points:

1) the subjective motivation of an individual who puts a certain meaning into his act;

2) focus on the behavior of other people.

Weber singled out four types of social action individuals who differed in the degree of rationality present in them. It goes without saying that in reality a person does not always know what he wants. Sometimes people's behavior is dominated by some value orientations or just emotions. Focusing on the possible real behavior of people in life, Weber identifies the following types of action:

1. goal-rational,

2. value-rational,

3. affective,

4. traditional.

Let us turn to Weber himself: “Social action, like any other behavior, can be:

1) goal-rational, if it is based on the expectation of a certain behavior of objects of the external world and other people and the use of this expectation as "conditions" or "means" to achieve one's rationally set and thought-out goal;

2) value-rational, based on the belief in the unconditional - aesthetic, religious or any other - self-sufficient value of a certain behavior as such, regardless of what it leads to;

3) affective, primarily emotional, that is, due to affects or the emotional state of individuals;

4) traditional, that is, based on a long habit.

Weber pays special attention to the problem of understanding social action, highlighting several types of understanding. He refers to the first type understanding through direct observation. An example of this is the observation on television of the immense joy, well-being of one or another modern Russian politician, his corresponding gestures, which contrasts sharply with the image of a politician even in the 80s - always serious, preoccupied, gloomy. The viewer can understand, rather, feel the positive emotional state of almost any person from politics. The image itself personifies optimism, rightness, disinterestedness, aspiration to the future. But is it really so? According to Weber, direct observation is not enough to understand the essence of social action.

The second type of interpretation of social action is explanatory understanding. It involves the clarification of the motives of a particular social action. In our example, it is required to understand what prompted a happy, life-affirming politician to be the hero of a TV show - whether he came to celebrate an election victory, to gain support for the adoption of desired decisions, or, as they say, puts on a good face on a bad game. For this type of understanding to take place, it is necessary, as Weber argues, to put ourselves in the place of the individual whose behavior we are trying to explain, and thereby clarify the motives behind his actions.

The third type is causal explanation. It involves finding out what initiated the very motives that led to the corresponding social actions. Here the sociologist insists on the need to find connections between a whole series of actions or events. This, of course, presupposes serious sociological research. This kind of research was conducted by Weber himself, seeking, in particular, to reveal the links between religious principles and the behavior of individuals, especially their economic and political activities.

The sociologist, on the other hand, often has to analyze social actions, to understand the social life of its participants when they are distant, and not only in space, but also in time. The scientist has materials at his disposal, interpreting which he tries to understand the subjective meanings that existed in the minds of people, their attitude to certain values, in order to give a comprehensive idea of ​​a single social process. How possible is such a complex representation? How is sociology as a scientific discipline able to determine the degree of approximation in the analysis of certain specific social actions of people? And if a person is not aware of his own actions (due to health reasons or, being influenced by protest passions, is subjected to psychological pressure, etc.), will a sociologist be able to understand the behavior of such an individual?

Considering such problems (moreover, in the context of different cultures), Weber proposed an original method to solve them - the construction ideal-typical model social action of the individual. According to Weber, the ideal type allows:

First, construct a phenomenon or social action as if it were taking place under ideal conditions;

Secondly, consider this phenomenon or social action regardless of local conditions (it is assumed that if ideal conditions are met, then the action will be performed in this way).

Thirdly, it is possible to compare how a phenomenon or action, in terms of its quantitative and qualitative parameters, fits the ideal type. By deviation from the ideal type, the researcher can establish characteristic trends in the course of events.

Interactions lead to the formation of stable social relations. social process- a set of unidirectional and repetitive actions that can be distinguished from many other cumulative actions. This is a consistent change in the phenomena of social life, social changes in dynamics.

Social processes include:

fixture- acceptance by an individual or group of cultural norms, values ​​and standards of action of a new environment, when the norms and values ​​learned in the old environment do not lead to the satisfaction of needs, do not create acceptable behavior. A prerequisite for the adaptation process is submission, since any resistance makes it much more difficult for an individual to enter a new structure, and conflict makes this entry or adaptation impossible. Compromise is a form of accommodation that means that an individual or group agrees to changing conditions and culture by partially or completely accepting new goals and ways to achieve them. A necessary condition for the successful flow of the adjustment process is tolerance towards the new situation, new cultural patterns and new values.

Assimilation- the process of mutual cultural penetration, through which individuals and groups come to a common culture shared by all participants in the process.

Amalgamation- biological mixing of two or more ethnic groups or peoples, after which they become one group or people.

Competition- an attempt to achieve rewards by eliminating or outperforming rivals striving for identical goals.

In addition to six types of social action, according to their orientation, Weber identified four more special types: goal-oriented, value-rational, affective and traditional Patrushev A.I. The disenchanted world of M. Weber. p.- 103. “Social action, like any action, can be defined:

1) purposefully rational, that is, through the expectation of a certain behavior of objects of the external world and other people when using this expectation as a “condition”

Or as "means" for rationally directed and regulated ends (the criterion of rationality is success);

2) value-rationally, that is, through a conscious belief in the ethical, aesthetic, religious or otherwise understood unconditional own value (self-worth) of a certain behavior, taken simply as such and regardless of success;

3) affectively, especially emotionally - through actual affects and feelings;

4) traditionally, that is, through habit.

It is impossible not to immediately pay attention to the fact that even the last two types of action - affective and traditional - are not social actions in the strict sense of the word, because here we have nothing to do with the sense conscious and underlying the action. Weber himself notes that "strictly traditional behavior, as well as purely reactive imitation, stands entirely on the border, and often on the other side of what can be called in general an action oriented" according to meaning "for it is very often only a blunted a reaction to habitual stimuli proceeding according to a habitual attitude once adopted. Only value-rational and purpose-rational actions are the essence of social action, in the Weberian sense of the word.

“Purely value-rational,” writes Weber, “one acts who, regardless of foreseeable consequences, acts in accordance with his convictions and does what he thinks duty, dignity, beauty, religious prescription require of him, reverence or importance of some ... "case." Value-rational action ... is always an action in accordance with the commandments or requirements that the actor considers presented to himself. In the case of a value-rational action, the purpose of the action and the action itself coincide, they are not dissected, just as in the case of an affective action; side effects, both in the first and in the second, are not taken into account.

In contrast to the value-rational action, the last, fourth type - the purposeful rational action - can be dissected in all respects. “The one who orients his action in accordance with the end, means and side effects and at the same time rationally weighs both means in relation to the end, as goals in relation to side effects, and, finally, various possible targets in relation to each other.

Four of these types of action are arranged by Weber in order of increasing rationality: if traditional and affective actions can be called subjective-irrational (objectively, they can turn out to be rational), then the value-rational action already contains a subjective-rational moment, since the actor consciously correlates his actions with a certain value as a goal; however, this type of action is only relatively rational, since, first of all, the value itself is accepted without further mediation and justification, and (as a result) the side effects of the act are not taken into account. The actual flowing behavior of an individual, says Weber, is oriented, as a rule, in accordance with two or more types of action: it has both goal-oriented, and value-rational, and affective, and traditional moments. True, in different types of societies, certain types of action may be predominant: in societies that Weber called "traditional", the traditional and affective types of orientation of action predominate, of course, two more rational types of action are not excluded. On the contrary, in an industrial society, the purposeful rational action acquires the greatest importance, but all other types of orientation are present to a greater or lesser extent here Gaidenko P.P., Davydov Yu.N. History and Rationality (Max Weber's Sociology and the Weberian Renaissance). Moscow: Politizdat, 1991. p. 74.

Finally, Weber notes that the four ideal types do not exhaust the whole variety of types of orientation of human behavior, but since they can be considered the most characteristic, then for the practical work of a sociologist they are a fairly reliable tool Patrushev A.I. The disenchanted world of M. Weber. from. 105.

The typology of the increase in the rationality of social action expressed, according to Weber, the objective trend of the historical process, which, despite many deviations, had a worldwide character. The increasing weight of purposeful rational action, which displaces the main types, leads to the rationalization of the economy, management, the very way of thinking and the way of life of a person. Universal rationalization is accompanied by an increase in the role of science, which, being the purest manifestation of rationality, becomes the basis of economics and management. Society will gradually transform from traditional to modern, based on formal rationalism.

In Weber's teaching, rationality is divided into formal and material, the difference between which is very significant.

“The formal rationality of the economy should designate the measure of the calculation that is technically possible for it and actually applied by it.” On the contrary, material rationality is characterized by the extent to which any provision of material goods with the goods of a certain group of people takes or can take on the form of an economically oriented social action in terms of certain value postulates.

Material rationality is associated with the value-rational type of action, formal - with the goal-rational, which turns it into rationality in itself.

Max Weber , essays: “Economic ethics of world religions”, “Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism”, etc.

The criterion for highlighting the main thing in the individual, according to Weber, is “reference to value”. Values can be - theoretical (truth), political (justice), moral (goodness), aesthetic (beauty). These values ​​are significant for all existing subjects, have absolute significance within a certain historical era.

The need to understand the subject of one's research, according to Weber, distinguishes sociology from the natural sciences. It considers the behavior of a person only insofar as the person associates a certain meaning with his actions. action human behavior is called if and insofar as the acting individual or individuals associate a subjective meaning with it. Sociology, according to Weber, must be understanding, since the action of the individual is meaningful.

Listing the possible types of social action, he identifies 4: purposeful; value-rational; affective; traditional .

Purposeful rational can be defined through the expectation of a certain behavior of objects of the external world and other people, and using this expectation as "conditions" or "means" for rationally directed and regulated goals. The criterion of rationality is success.

Value-rational - through a conscious belief in the ethical, aesthetic, religious or any other understood unconditional own value (intrinsic value) of a certain behavior, taken as such and regardless of success.

affective - affectively or especially emotionally through feelings.

Traditional - through habit.

The basis of M. Weber's political sociology is domination. It means a chance to meet obedience to a certain order. There are three types of dominance.

16. Comrade Parsons' General Theory of Action.

Talcott Parsons. According to Parsons, reality, despite its immensity, is organized logically, rationally and has a systematic order. The general model of action singled out by him, called a single act, implies a generalized model of any human action, taken in its essential features. This model includes:

1. one person (current face ), endowed with the ability and desire to act, having definite goals and able to describe ways to achieve them;

2. situational environment - variable and immutable factors in relation to which the action is directed and on which it depends.

Situational environment - changeable and immutable factors in relation to which the action is directed and on which it depends.

The concept of a system is taken by Parsons from general systems theory.

Action systems are open , therefore, in order to continue their existence (maintain order), they must satisfy human system needs or functionally necessary conditions: 1) adaptation; 2) goal setting; 3) integration; 4) latency.

Latency- maintaining a certain pattern. Thus, each system can be represented by four subsystems, formed by satisfying the system needs necessary for the continued existence of the system as such:

1. each system must adapt to its environment (adaptation);

2. Each system must have the means to determine the order in which goals are achieved and to mobilize resources in the order in which they are achieved. This is called goal setting;

3. each system must maintain its unity, i.e. internal coordination of its parts and prevent possible deviations. This is called integration;

4. Each system must strive for an appropriate balance. This is latency.

Parsons identified the following levels of hierarchy, starting with the living system, including organisms. The living system includes 4 subsystems:

1. Physico-chemical consists of physical and chemical processes. Uses the functions of adapting to the inorganic environment.

2. An organic system performs the functions of goal-setting for a living system.

3. Transcendental, including the conditions for the existence of a living system and performing the function of maintaining order and relieving tension within a living system.

4. System of action (single act) - these are actions controlled by decisions made under the influence of the situation and performing the functions of integration, a living system.

For the action system (4), 4 more subsystems are distinguished: a) biological system; b) the personality system formed in the process of socialization; c) social system - a set of role statuses controlled by norms and values; d) cultural system - a set of ideas, various ideals.

Further, Parsons substantiated the thesis that any system is controlled by a subsystem that has a large information potential, but consumes the least amount of energy. Among the systems of action, the biological system has the greatest energy potential. It creates a condition for the course of action, but at the same time has the least control effect. The system with the lowest energy potential is the cultural one and it has the highest controlling status.

concept "social action" first introduced M. Weber. It was this researcher who defined the new sociological term and formulated its main features. Weber understood by this term the actions of a person, which, according to the assumption of the actor, the meaning correlates with the actions of other people or is guided by them. Thus, according to Weber, the most important features of social action are the following:

1) the subjective meaning of social action, i.e., personal understanding of possible behaviors;

2) an important role in the action of the individual is played by a conscious orientation to the response of others, the expectation of this reaction.

Weber identified four types of social action. This typology was made by analogy with his doctrine of ideal types:

1) purposeful action- the behavior of the individual is formed exclusively at the level of the mind;

2) value-rational- the behavior of the individual is determined by faith, the adoption of a certain system of values;

3) affective- the behavior of the individual is determined by feelings and emotions;

4) traditional activities Behavior is based on habit, pattern of behavior.

Significant contribution to the theory of social action was made by T. Parsons . In the concept of Parsons, social action is considered in two manifestations: as a single phenomenon and as a system. He identified the following characteristics:

1) normativity - dependence on generally accepted values ​​and norms;

2) voluntarism - dependence on the will of the subject;

3) the presence of sign mechanisms of regulation.

Social action, according to Parsons, performs certain functions in a person's life that ensure his existence as a biosocial being. Among these functions, four can be distinguished depending on the subsystems of the individual's life in which they are carried out:

1) at the biological level, the adaptive function of social action is performed;

2) in the subsystem of the assimilation of values ​​and norms, social action performs a personal function;

3) the totality of social roles and statuses is provided by the social function;

4) at the level of assimilation of goals and ideals, a cultural function is carried out.

Thus, social action can be characterized as any behavior of an individual or a group that is significant for other individuals and groups in a social community or society as a whole. Moreover, the action expresses the nature and content of relations between people and social groups, which, being constant carriers of qualitatively different types of activities, differ in social positions (statuses) and roles.

An important part of the sociological theory of social action is the creation of a theoretical model of behavior. One of the main elements of this model is the structure of social action. This structure includes:

1) the acting person (subject) - the carrier of active action, having the will;

2) object - the goal towards which the action is directed;

3) the need for active behavior, which can be considered as a special state of the subject, generated by the need for means of subsistence, objects necessary for his life and development, and thus acting as a source of the subject's activity;

4) method of action - a set of means that is used by an individual to achieve a goal;

5) result - a new state of the elements that have developed in the course of the action, the synthesis of the goal, the properties of the object and the efforts of the subject.

Any social action has its own mechanism of accomplishment. It is never instant. To start the mechanism of social action, a person must have a certain need for this behavior, which is called motivation. The main factors of activity are interest And orientation.

Interest- this is the attitude of the subject to the necessary means and conditions for satisfying his inherent needs. Orientation- this is a way of distinguishing social phenomena according to the degree of their significance for the subject. In the sociological literature, there are various approaches to the analysis of the motivation of social action. So, within one of them, all motives are divided into three large groups:

1) socio-economic. This group includes, first of all, material motives that are associated with the achievement of certain material and social benefits (recognition, honor, respect);

2) implementation of prescribed and learned norms. This group includes motives that are of social significance;

3) life cycle optimization. This group includes motives associated and conditioned by a certain life situation.

After the motivation of the subject arises, the stage of goal formation begins. At this stage, rational choice is the central mechanism.

Rational Choice is an analysis of several goals in terms of their availability and suitability and their gradation in accordance with the data of this analysis. The emergence of the goal can be carried out in two different ways: on the one hand, the goal can be formed as a kind of life plan that has a potential character; on the other hand, the goal can be formulated as an imperative, i.e., have the character of obligation and obligation.

The goal connects the subject with the objects of the external world and acts as a program for their mutual change. Through a system of needs and interests, situational conditions, the outside world takes possession of the subject, and this is reflected in the content of the goals. But through a system of values ​​and motives, in a selective attitude to the world, in the means of goal-fulfillment, the subject seeks to establish himself in the world and change it, that is, to master the world himself.

Social actions act as links in the chain of interactions.

M. Weber: the concept of social action and its types

3.2 Special types of social action according to M. Weber

In addition to six types of social action, according to their orientation, Weber identified four more special types: goal-oriented, value-rational, affective and traditional Patrushev A.I. The disenchanted world of M. Weber. p.- 103. “Social action, like any action, can be defined:

1) purposefully rational, that is, through the expectation of a certain behavior of objects of the external world and other people when using this expectation as a “condition”

Or as "means" for rationally directed and regulated ends (the criterion of rationality is success);

2) value-rationally, that is, through a conscious belief in the ethical, aesthetic, religious or otherwise understood unconditional own value (self-worth) of a certain behavior, taken simply as such and regardless of success;

3) affectively, especially emotionally - through actual affects and feelings;

4) traditionally, that is, through habit.

It is impossible not to immediately pay attention to the fact that even the last two types of action - affective and traditional - are not social actions in the strict sense of the word, because here we have nothing to do with the sense conscious and underlying the action. Weber himself notes that "strictly traditional behavior, as well as purely reactive imitation, stands entirely on the border, and often on the other side of what can be called in general an action oriented" according to meaning "for it is very often only a blunted a reaction to habitual stimuli proceeding according to a habitual attitude once adopted. Only value-rational and purpose-rational actions are the essence of social action, in the Weberian sense of the word.

“Purely value-rational,” writes Weber, “one acts who, regardless of foreseeable consequences, acts in accordance with his convictions and does what he thinks duty, dignity, beauty, religious prescription require of him, reverence or importance of some ... "case." Value-rational action ... is always an action in accordance with the commandments or requirements that the actor considers presented to himself. In the case of a value-rational action, the purpose of the action and the action itself coincide, they are not dissected, just as in the case of an affective action; side effects, both in the first and in the second, are not taken into account.

In contrast to the value-rational action, the last, fourth type - the purposeful rational action - can be dissected in all respects. “The one who orients his action in accordance with the end, means and side effects and at the same time rationally weighs both means in relation to the end, as goals in relation to side effects, and, finally, various possible targets in relation to each other.

Four of these types of action are arranged by Weber in order of increasing rationality: if traditional and affective actions can be called subjective-irrational (objectively, they can turn out to be rational), then the value-rational action already contains a subjective-rational moment, since the actor consciously correlates his actions with a certain value as a goal; however, this type of action is only relatively rational, since, first of all, the value itself is accepted without further mediation and justification, and (as a result) the side effects of the act are not taken into account. The actual flowing behavior of an individual, says Weber, is oriented, as a rule, in accordance with two or more types of action: it has both goal-oriented, and value-rational, and affective, and traditional moments. True, in different types of societies, certain types of action may be predominant: in societies that Weber called "traditional", the traditional and affective types of orientation of action predominate, of course, two more rational types of action are not excluded. On the contrary, in an industrial society, the purposeful rational action acquires the greatest importance, but all other types of orientation are present to a greater or lesser extent here Gaidenko P.P., Davydov Yu.N. History and Rationality (Max Weber's Sociology and the Weberian Renaissance). Moscow: Politizdat, 1991. p. 74.

Finally, Weber notes that the four ideal types do not exhaust the whole variety of types of orientation of human behavior, but since they can be considered the most characteristic, then for the practical work of a sociologist they are a fairly reliable tool Patrushev A.I. The disenchanted world of M. Weber. from. 105.

The typology of the increase in the rationality of social action expressed, according to Weber, the objective trend of the historical process, which, despite many deviations, had a worldwide character. The increasing weight of purposeful rational action, which displaces the main types, leads to the rationalization of the economy, management, the very way of thinking and the way of life of a person. Universal rationalization is accompanied by an increase in the role of science, which, being the purest manifestation of rationality, becomes the basis of economics and management. Society will gradually transform from traditional to modern, based on formal rationalism.

In Weber's teaching, rationality is divided into formal and material, the difference between which is very significant.

“The formal rationality of the economy should designate the measure of the calculation that is technically possible for it and actually applied by it.” On the contrary, material rationality is characterized by the extent to which any provision of material goods with the goods of a certain group of people takes or can take on the form of an economically oriented social action in terms of certain value postulates.

Material rationality is associated with the value-rational type of action, formal - with the goal-rational, which turns it into rationality in itself.

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