What Has Become of Verstehen in Sociology? A Comparison of Developments in Qualitative-Interpretive and Quantitative-Analytical Research

Abstract Verstehen has been a central concept in sociology since its institutionalization as a discipline. Yet its precise meaning, methodological status, and relationship to other epistemological objectives remain contested. This paper examines what has become of Verstehen across the qualitative-interpretive and the quantitative-analytical traditions, focusing on three issues that have been underexplored so far. First, we discuss how Verstehen is, or can be, distinguished from description and explanation—a task that proves difficult given the lack of consensus on these neighboring concepts. Second, we reconstruct classical positions on Verstehen (Dilthey, Weber, Schütz, and Mannheim) and analyze how these are translated into concrete procedures in contemporary textbooks on qualitative social research methods. Although the works present sophisticated interpretive techniques, Verstehen is only vaguely defined, and explicit criteria for determining when it has been successfully achieved are rarely specified. Third, we examine how Verstehen figures in the quantitative-analytical tradition, with particular attention to theories of action and the measurement of mental constructs. While this tradition retains the explanatory ambitions of the classical program, it tends to treat Verstehen as implicit. In comparing these two research paradigms, we propose that Verstehen be conceptualized as an intelligible result of uncovering the meaning of social action, either empirically or theoretically. Accordingly, meaningful Verstehen leads to more convincing descriptions and explanations.