Weber and the Historical School

Although Weber was a member of, and had done his studies in the tradition of, the Historical School, he did not entirely dismiss theoretical constructs. He understood that the need for economic theory was real, but he could not bring himself to accept the validity of Menger’s search for “exact laws” of economics. He believed that they were too deterministic and precise. As an alternative, he devised the concept of the ideal type. The ideal type is an abstract approximation of a recurring historical phenomenon. We can study the phenomenon by comparing it to the ideal type.