How does Weber's Verstehen address the objectivity-subjectivity debate in sociology? (Answer in 150 words)

- How does Weber's Verstehen address the objectivity-subjectivity debate in sociology? (Answer in 150 words)
Introduction
Verstehen does not settle the objectivity-subjectivity quarrel; it relocates it.

Body

1. What the debate turns on: Whether sociology can produce findings independent of the observer. Positivism says it can, by confining the subject to observable behaviour; its critics say the object is meaningful action, reachable only from inside, which appears to surrender objectivity.

2. What Verstehen does about it: Weber refuses the choice. Social action is conduct to which the actor attaches meaning, so meaning is the object, not a contaminant. Understanding is then made methodical: observational understanding of what is done, explanatory understanding of the motive, and the ideal type as a one-sided construct. An interpretation must pass two tests, adequacy at the level of meaning and causal adequacy.

3. How far it settles the debate: Not fully. Abel argued that Verstehen supplies hypotheses but cannot verify them, and Schutz held that Weber never explained how meaning is constituted. What it secures is procedural objectivity — value-relevance in choosing the problem, value-freedom in reaching the finding.

Conclusion
That is the most objectivity a science of meanings can have.