Weber’s account of action and its mode of study are closely examined. He outlines a two-stage process in which action is first identified through observation and then ‘explained’ by the discovery of its ‘motive’. There are problems with this procedure. He says that action may be ‘covert’, which would exclude observation. He fails to explain how the sociologist discovers the motives that underpin action, while ‘motive’, understood as the end-in-view, is crucial to the definition of the act and hence cannot be used to explain it. Some of these problems can be overcome by recognising that ‘motive’ has two meanings. Weber also identifies ‘action’ as ‘meaningful behaviour’ as opposed to ‘merely reactive behaviour’. However, the opposite of ‘reactive’ is ‘proactive’, meaning voluntarism concerns the exercise of will rather than the possibility of choice. There is also the problem of the nature of ‘social action’ and why such a concept is needed. The last problem is Weber’s designation of ‘power’ as located in a social relationship when, in essence, ‘power’ is simply the ability to get things done. It is concluded that these problems could have been avoided had Weber’s theory of action been rooted in a theory of agency.