
C. CAMPBELL
then it is also unlikely to be recognised as action by those per-
spectives, currently popular in the discipline, that do focus on
individual, non-interactive conduct, such as rational choice or
rational action theory. For characteristically these perspectives
only employ abstract models of human behaviour, taking little
interest in the real subjective experience of actors, whilst also
focusing exclusively on decision-taking. Hence, while such
perspectives might be applied to an understanding of why Roy
decided to take the job of clipper in the first place (and possibly
even, had he been forced to abandon it, why he had done so),
how he managed to handle the strains and stresses of the job
itself would not be subject to investigation2.
Yet there would seem to be no good reason for excluding
what Roy recounts doing in his game of work from the subject
matter of the discipline. For it does fall into the category of
action as traditionally defined and understood. That is to say it
meets Weber’s requirement of being “human behaviour to
which the acting individual attaches a subjective meaning”
(1964: p. 88), while the fact that his behaviour is solitary in
nature and neither oriented to others or observed by them would
not appear to be a problem given that Weber’s most famous
example of action—that of the woodcutter chopping wood—is
also an instance of an individual acting alone and presumably
unobserved. Furthermore the fact that the conduct he describes
was apparently covert, or at least not actually noticeable to
others, would also not seem to be a problem given that, as We-
ber also asserts, action may be “either overt or purely inward or
subjective” (1964: p. 88). One is thus left to wonder why, in
this case, the kind of experience Roy recounts is typically not
the subject of sociological attention. But then, despite Weber’s
remark, it is actually the case that almost none of the theoretical
traditions that flourish in contemporary sociology concern
themselves with covert conduct, focusing exclusively on that
portion of an individual’s behaviour which is overt and hence
observable to others3. To what extent sociologists should be
censored for this omission is debatable given that Weber him-
self appears to overlook the significance of his own observation
when illustrating his interpretive method as he fails to provide
any real examples of covert actions; that is ones resembling that
provided by Roy4, apparently making the mistake of assuming
that the concept covered no more than the deliberate absence of
overt action5.
But then what is especially interesting about the behaviour
Roy describes is that it is neither a simple example of overt or
of covert action but rather a combination of the two, and hence
it is a surprise to realise that Weber seems to have made the
assumption—in which he was followed by Schutz (1967)
among others - that all actions could be divided into the two
simple categories of overt and covert rather than considering
the very real possibility that they might be a combination of the
two. Now although Roy does not make it clear in his account to
what extent it would be apparent to the casual observer that his
actions as a clicker-operator followed his own distinctly pat-
terned sequence, he does observe that he subsequently discov-
ered that many of his fellow-workers employed similar strate-
gies to his own game of work, something that he would pre-
sumably have discovered on his first day had this been an easily
observable feature of their conduct. So here we have an exam-
ple of a genuine action (or sequence of actions) which are
partly overt in so far as Roy’s fellow-workers, not to mention
his supervisor, can clearly see that he is operating a clicker
machine, whilst also being partly covert in the form of his game
of work, a combination that presents special difficulties as long
as one sticks to the conventional sociological approach to the
identification of action6.
Identifying Action
A long-standing and stubborn problem at the heart of action
theory has been that of how to successfully identify the unit act
and in identifying it describe it correctly. Weber himself as-
sumed that this could be achieved by a process of “direct ob-
servational understanding” (1964: p. 95) an assumption that is
still prevalent in sociology today. And yet, as Schutz has ob-
served, only the actor is really in a position to give an accurate
description of what he or she could be said to be “doing” (1973:
p. 22). Certainly if we applied Weber’s famous formula to
Roy’s conduct we would be forced to conclude that he was
“operating a clicker machine” much as Weber confidently de-
clared that the woodcutter was “chopping wood” (an assertion
that has a suspiciously tautological ring to it). But we know
from Roy himself that this is an inadequate or at least incom-
plete description of what he was doing. Where therefore a con-
sideration of Roy’s experience appears to lead is to a reconsid-
eration of the difficult problem of how to successfully identify
and describe action. Clearly the danger with the conventional
approach is the error of assuming that an individual’s action
consists of merely that portion which is overt and observable.
But of course not only may this not be equivalent to all that an
individual is “doing” it may not even be the portion that con-
tains “subjective meaning”, being performed habitually, as is
currently the case for example with my typing of this article;
for it is the covert portion—my thinking about what it is that I
am typing—that represents the section of my conduct that
really does possess “subjective meaning”. As long therefore as
sociologists consider it important to study action, as opposed
that is to mere behaviour, there will always be a crucial issue
that needs to be decided: notably, which portion of an individ-
2In principal phenomenological sociology, given its derivation from a phi-
losophical tradition that focused on the description of experiences, ought to
e a theor eti cal p ers pect iv e th at co ul d in deed reg ard Ro y’s g ame o f wo rk as
a phenomenon worthy of study. In reality however this strand of theorising,
as it has influenced sociology, has tended to focus on shared knowledge and
experience (see Berger & Luckmann, 1966).
3The decision-making that comprises the basic subject matter of rational
action theory could be said to be largely covert in character since it pre-
sumably consists of mental processes. However, as noted, this theoretical
perspective does not study real phenomena as such choosing to work with
models of human action.
4As suggested below Weber could be said to supply real examples of covert
action in what might be called his applied work, such as The Protestan
thic and Spirit of Capitalism, even if he doesn’t do this in his brief meth-
odological statement.
5Schutz also observes that action may be covert and he gives the example o
someone attempting to solve a scientific problem mentally. However he
seemsto forget about this example in his subsequent discussion where he
follows Weber’s lead in assuming that covert action equals inaction (1973:
p. xxxiv an d 20).
6In fact most true actions are likely to be partly covert in the manner o
Roy’s game. That is to say some crucial part of the action is likely to be
occurring intra-subjectively in the form of cognitions, feelings or imagin-
ings that are not apparent to an observer. One of the examples that Weber
gives to illustrate understanding an action in terms of motive illustrates this
oint. He writes that we can understand the action of an individual “w r it[ing
down the proposition twice two equals four” in the course of “balancing a
ledger” (1964: p. 95). But of course only part of the relevant action here is
overt: the actual writing in the ledger. The calculation itself is covert, since
it occurs in the accountant’s mind, not on the paper in front of him.
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