Weber defines sociology, in his specific sense, as a science that seeks causal explanation of the co… — Max Weber

Weber defines sociology, in his specific sense, as a science that seeks causal explanation of the course and consequences of social action by construing and interpretively understanding that action.

By Max Weber, from Economy and Society

Key Arguments

He qualifies that he is using a word "often used in quite different senses" and stipulates that, for his purposes, sociology "shall mean" a particular kind of science.
He specifies two core elements: (1) construing and understanding social action (i.e., interpretive reconstruction of meaning) and (2) seeking causal explanation of its course and effects.
By tying causal explanation explicitly to interpretive understanding of meaning, he rejects a purely behaviorist or positivist approach and grounds sociological explanation in Verstehen.
The definition emphasizes "social action" as sociology’s object, thereby excluding phenomena that lack a meaningful, intersubjective orientation.

Source Quotes

Stammler, Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung, together with my critique of it in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vol. 24 (1907),5 which contains the foundations of much that follows here. I deviate from the method Simmel adopted in his Soziologie and Philosophie des Geldes6 in that I make as clear as possible a distinction between intended and objectively valid “meaning,”7 a distinction that Simmel not only sometimes fails to make but often deliberately allows to run together. §1. Sociology, in the meaning understood here of a word often used in quite different senses, shall mean: a science that in construing and understanding social action seeks causal explanation of the course and effects of such action. By “action” is meant human behaviour linked to a subjective meaning8 on the part of the actor or actors concerned; such action may be either overt, or occur inwardly—whether by positive action, or by refraining from action, or by tolerating a situation.

Key Concepts

§1. Sociology, in the meaning understood here of a word often used in quite different senses, shall mean: a science that in construing and understanding social action seeks causal explanation of the course and effects of such action.

Context

Opening definitional paragraph (§1) of 'Basic Sociological Concepts,' where Weber provides his canonical definition of sociology as interpretive and explanatory.