<P> The concept of Verstehen was later used by the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey to describe the first - person participatory perspective that agents have on their individual experience as well as their culture, history, and society . In this sense, it is developed in the context of the theory and practice of interpretation (as understood in the context of hermeneutics) and contrasted with the external objectivating third - person perspective of explanation (das Erklären) in which human agency, subjectivity, and its products are analyzed as effects of impersonal natural forces in the natural sciences and social structures in sociology . </P> <P> Twentieth - century philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Hans - Georg Gadamer have been critical of what they considered to be the romantic and subjective character of Verstehen in Dilthey, although both Dilthey and the early Heidegger were interested in the "facticity" and "life - context" of understanding, and sought to universalize it as the way humans exist through language on the basis of ontology . Verstehen also played a role in Edmund Husserl and Alfred Schutz's analysis of the "lifeworld ." Jürgen Habermas and Karl - Otto Apel further transformed the concept of Verstehen, reformulating it on the basis of a transcendental - pragmatic philosophy of language and the theory of communicative action . </P> <P> Max Weber and Georg Simmel introduced interpretive understanding (Verstehen) into sociology, where it has come to mean a systematic interpretive process in which an outside observer of a culture (such as an anthropologist or sociologist) relates to an indigenous people or sub-cultural group on their own terms and from their own point of view, rather than interpreting them in terms of his or her own culture . Verstehen can mean either a kind of empathic or participatory understanding of social phenomena . In anthropological terms this is sometimes described as cultural relativism, especially by those that have a tendency to argue toward universal ideals . In sociology it is an aspect of the comparative - historical approach, where the context of a society like twelfth century "France" can be potentially better understood (Besserverstehen) by the sociologist than it could have been by people living in a village in Burgundy . It relates to how people in life give meaning to the social world around them and how the social scientist accesses and evaluates this "first - person perspective". This concept has been both expanded and criticized by later social scientists . Proponents laud this concept as the only means by which researchers from one culture can examine and explain behaviors in another . While the exercise of Verstehen has been more popular among social scientists in Europe, such as Habermas, Verstehen was introduced into the practice of sociology in the United States by Talcott Parsons, an American follower of Max Weber . Parsons used his structural functionalism to incorporate this concept into his 1937 work, The Structure of Social Action . </P> <P> Weber had more specific beliefs than Marx where he put value to understanding and meaning of key elements--not just with intuition or sympathy with the individual but also the product of "systematic and rigorous research". The goal is to identify human actions and interpreting them as observable events leading us to believe that it not only provides for a good explanation for individual actions but also for group interactions . The meaning attached needs to include constraints and limitations and analyze the motivation for action . Weber believed that this gives the sociologist an advantage over a natural scientist because "We can accomplish something which is never attainable in the natural sciences, namely the subjective understanding of the action of the component individuals" (Weber, Economy and Society, p. 15). </P>

Verstehen is defined in the reading as which of the following