for both individual and group action that both oriented behavior and gave meaning to specific behavior (p. 129). According to Weber, thus, involvement in ideal-type social phenomena produces definite and predictable consequences, while simultaneously eliminating the possibility of alternative social outcomes. Ideal-type social phenomena and autonomous logic, thus, may be said to characterize Weber's comparative sociology (p. 135).
Weber's comparative sociology rejected the ideal that social laws could be discovered from the analysis of associations between social phenomena (Smelser, p. 142). Rather, Weber contended that social outcomes in an historical sense always were the result of a constellation of different variables. Weber, thus, tended to reject the concept of concomitant variation, or correlation.
Weber's comparative sociology relies heavily on the use of analogy (Smelser, p. 148). Analogy comes into play when known historical events are designated as a specific type of event on the basis of researcher judgment. Weber's comparative sociology
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