Ideal type
Ideal type. A key concept and strategy in the study of religions, introduced by M. Weber. Because of the complex and fluid nature of social (and thus of religious) phenomena, Weber realized that observations of actual instances have to be described through the isolation of characteristic features: examples are ‘economic man’, ‘marginal man’, ‘sect’, ‘church’, ‘Gemeinschaft’ (a group in which social bonds are based on close personal ties of kinship and friendship), ‘Gesellschaft’ (secondary relationships prevail, i.e. of a formal, contractual, specialized, impersonal; or expedient kind). Weber insisted that ideal types are never found in pure, uncontaminated form.
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Ideal type
