Abstract
M. Weber's “R. Stammlers >> Überwindung << der materialistishen Geschichtsaffassung” (1907) and “Nachtrag” to the same essay (posthumous work) hold a very important position in the formation process of his sociology. We give attention to that Weber took the methodological standpoint of a rigid distinction between dogmatical and empirical consideration in the course of his debate with Stammler about regularity or regulatedness of social lives of men. For this standpoint summariges his precceding methodological works in a sense and moreover provides a direct presuppose to the formation of his sociology as well.
Therefore, in the first place, we try to arrange into three items what the dogmatics implies for Weber, as a clue to understand this methodological standpoint. Namely, (1) valuativeness (2) telelogical concepts formulation (3) dogmatical abstraction. Through them we understand what way of thinking in social theory the intermixing of dogmatical and empirical consideration, which Weber criticised, implies. According to our understanding, it relates to how to deal with collective concepts. In dogmatical consideration, collective concepts are dealt with as autonomous regulation-bases which are independent from individual subjects and endowed with the normative character. On the other hand, it is a mistake, into which collective concepts using empirical sciences often fall, to identify such collective concepts immediately with really existing collectivity. Here is the principal reason why Weber emphasized a distinction between dogmatical and empirical consideration.
In the next place, in order to clarify how this standpoint participates in the formation of Weber's sociology, we comment upon two fundamental thoughts in his sociolgy, i.e. “methodologischer Individulismus” and “sociologische Regeln”. The former is a methodological assertion to reduce dogmatical collective concepts into “Maximen” of individual actions and whereby to exclude careless intermixing of dogmatics and empirical sciences. Founding on this assertion, the latter serves as a principle of concepts formulation to establish more positively the sociology of Weber himself.
