This article discusses relations among the multiple levels of analysis present in macro-sociological explanation—i.e., relations of individual, structural, and institutional processes. It also criticizes the doctrinal insistence upon single-level individualistic explanation found in some prominent contemporary sociological theory. For illustrative material the article returns to intellectual uses of Weber's "Protestant Ethic thesis," showing how an artificial version has been employed as a kind of proof text for the alleged scientific necessity of individualist explanation. Our alternative exposition renders the discussion of (...) Protestantism and capitalism in an explicitly multilevel way, distinguishing possible individual-level, social-organizational, and institutional linkages. The causal processes involved are distinct ones, with the more structural and institutional forms neither captured nor attainable by individual-level thinking. We argue more generally that "methodological individualisms" confuse issues of explanation with issues about microfoundations. This persistent intellectual conflation may be rooted in the broader folk models of liberal individualism. (shrink)

The Weber thesis on a hypothetical imprint of Protestantism in the «spirit» of capitalism has been widely spread. Not willing to discredit his proposal, the truth is that, being falsifiable with difficulty, some careless wordings have been derived from it claiming to explain the present economical circumstances through differential religious facts. Being religion an unparalleled all covering feature, such circumstances depend on many factors. It has been claimed some scientific status through the most diverse socioeconomic data. This is something also (...) applicable to those who claim to refute him. The intoxication so emanated from the Weber’s work seems disconcerting, seeing in it from an attempt to legitimate capitalism to a confirmation of the Black Legend. This work does not try to support or reject the thesis, but to investigate the kind of issues that could cause its formulation. For this purpose, it focuses on less usual questions, such as the analysis of the doctrinal features of Protestantism from which the Weber’s arguments would arise. (shrink)