<i>Chance</i>, Orientation, and Interpretation: Max Weber’s Neglected Probabilism and the Future of Social Theory

The image of Max Weber as an “interpretivist” cultural theorist webs significance that people use to cope with a meaningless world reigns largely unquestioned today. This article presents different Weber’s sociology, where meaning does not transport actors over abyss meaninglessness but rather helps them navigate Chance. Retrieving this concept from late writings, we argue the fundamental basis orders sociologists seek understand is chaos. Action rendered interpretable, rather, extent persons orient themselves possibilities and probabilities, which remain real unknowable. In framework, interpretation probability are allies, antagonists. systematic probabilistic notion Chance central resource for formation sociological explanation seriously challenges current understandings purely statistical, atheoretical concern. We outline conceptual difference it makes when basic categories sociology understood rooted in Chance, point larger implications probabilism contemporary debates around issues prediction, action, interpretation.