Abstract
The problems of understanding and meaning are strongly intertwined with building sociological theory from its classic beginnings. A key question emerges concerning the relational solution to this problem. Relational sociology goes beyond reconstructive efforts to rebuild systematic sociology.
The aim of this chapter is to seek an innovative approach to the problem of relational understanding. It combines the relational perspectives of agents and observers, as well as objectified systems of meanings that are grounded in social relations. A relational approach to understanding implies a stratified concept of meaning: cognitive, evaluative and affective.
Sociology of the twentieth century has been plagued by the opposition between interpretative and normative paradigms. Relational understanding overcomes this counterproductive divide.
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Notes
- 1.
My characterization of the normative and interpretative models of interaction is based on my own findings published previously (Hałas 2006: 110–118).
- 2.
Stephen Turner discusses the various ways in which Weber understood Verstehen, and points out that Weber didn’t take into account empathy as complete understanding, phenomenologically analyzed by Edith Stein (Turner 2019: 4–5).
- 3.
The domination of the concept of knowledge over understanding is an interesting issue from the perspective of history and sociology of ideas, but cannot be discussed at length here.
- 4.
In order to highlight relational understanding in the process of role-taking, I have refrained from a more literal explication of Ralph H. Turner’s concepts (Hałas 2006: 243).
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Hałas, E. (2023). Relational Understanding: Beyond the Interpretative and Normative Divide. In: Hałas, E. (eds) Methodology of Relational Sociology. Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41626-2_3
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