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Ideal type

The ideal type was a central concept in Weber's methodology. He interpreted them as having been indispensable for it. Due their taking of meaning into account, they are unique to the social sciences. The term "ideal type" was derived from Georg Jellinek 's use of it. Weber outlined it in " The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy " and the first chapter of Economy and Society. The ideal types' three functions are the formulation of terminology, classifications, and hypotheses. The latter task was of the greatest importance of the three. In terms of their construction, an ideal type is a schematic that represents a social action and considers the role of meaning in it. By its nature, it was an exaggeration of the empirical situation through its assumption that the involved individuals were rational, had complete knowledge of their situation, had complete awareness of the situation, were completely aware of their actions, and made no errors. This was then contrasted with empirical reality, allowing the researcher to better understand it. However, ideal types are not direct representations of reality and Weber warned against interpreting them as such. He placed no limits on what could be analysed through the use of ideal types. Since, for him, rational methodology and science were synonymous with one another, ideal types were constructed rationally.