MAX WEBER (1864-1920)

Max Weber

Arguably the foremost social theorist of the twentieth century, Max Weber is known as a principal architect of modern social science along with Karl Marx and Emil Durkheim. Weber's wide-ranging contributions gave critical impetus to the birth of new academic disciplines such as sociology and public administration as well as to the significant reorientation in law, economics, political science, and religious studies. His methodological writings were instrumental in establishing the self-identity of modern social science as a distinct field of inquiry; he is still claimed as the source of inspiration by empirical positivists and their hermeneutic detractors alike. More substantively, Weber's two most celebrated contributions were the “rationalization thesis,” a grand meta-historical analysis of the dominance of the west in modern times, and the “Protestant Ethic thesis,” a non-Marxist genealogy of modern capitalism. Together, these two theses helped launch his reputation as one of the founding theorists of modernity. In addition, his avid interest and participation in politics led to a unique strand of political realism comparable to that of Machiavelli and Hobbes. As such, Max Weber's influence was far-reaching across the vast array of disciplinary, methodological, ideological and philosophical reflections that are still our own and increasingly more so. SOURCE

1. Life and Career
2. Philosophical Influences
2.1 Epistemology: Neo-Kantianism
2.2 Ethics: Kant and Nietzsche
3. History
3.1 Rationalization as a Thematic Unity
3.2 Calculability, Predictability, and World-Mastery
3.3 Knowledge, Impersonality, and Control
4. Modernity
4.1 The “Iron Cage” and Value-fragmentation
4.2 Reenchantment via Disenchantment
4.3 Modernity contra Modernization
5. Knowledge
5.1 Understanding (Verstehen)
5.2 Ideal Type
6. Politics and Ethics
6.1 Charismatic Leadership Democracy
6.2 Nationalism and Power-Politics
6.3 The Ethics of Conviction and Responsibility
7. Concluding Remarks
Bibliography
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