Max Weber

Collected Methodological Writings

Hans Henrik Bruun, Sam Whimster, Hans Henrik Bruun, Sam Whimster, Hans Henrik Bruun

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136642418
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Social Sciences

Weber's methodological writings form the bedrock of key ideas across the social sciences. His discussion of value freedom and value commitment, causality, understanding and explanation, theory building and ideal types have been of fundamental importance, and their impact remains undiminished today. These ideas influence the current research practice of sociologists, historians, economists and political scientists and are central to debates in the philosophy of social science. But, until now, Weber's extensive writings on methodology have lacked a comprehensive publication.

Edited by two of the world's leading Weber scholars, Collected Methodological Writings will provide a completely new, accurate and reliable translation of Weber's extensive output, including previously untranslated letters. Accompanying editorial commentary explains the context of, and interconnections between, all these writings, and additional useful features include a glossary of German terms and an English key, endnotes, bibliography, and person and subject indexes.

ARTICLES

ROSCHER AND KNIES AND THE LOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORICAL ECONOMICS

Preliminary remarks

The following fragment¹ is not intended as a literary portrait of our great masters. Instead, it limits itself to an attempt to show how certain elementary problems of logic and method, which during the last generation have been discussed in the science of history and in our own specialized discipline, manifested themselves in the early stages of historical economics,² and how the first great achievements of the historical method have tried to come to terms with those problems. It is only natural that this discussion will in many instances to a large degree also demonstrate the weaknesses inherent in those achievements. Weaknesses of just this sort can lead us to constant reflections on the general presuppositions with which we approach our scientific work; and that is the only meaningful purpose of such investigations which must, quite deliberately, abstain from presenting an “artistic” overall picture, in favour of an extensive analysis of subjects which are, or seem to be, self-evident.

Nowadays it is usual to name Karl Knies and Bruno Hildebrand together with Wilhelm Roscher as founders of the “historical school”. Without wishing in any way to disparage Hildebrand’s great importance, he can be disregarded for our purposes, even though it was precisely Hildebrand – and, in a certain sense, only Hildebrand – who really employed the method which is nowadays called “historical”. On the points which we are concerned with here, the relativism embodied in his Economics is merely an application of ideas which had already been developed, partly by Roscher, partly by others. On the other hand, in [giving] an account of Knies’ methodological views, it is indispensable [for us] first to set out Roscher’s method[olog]ical position. Knies’ principal methodological work ‹2› – which was dedicated to Roscher – discusses those of Roscher’s works which had already been published just as much as [it deals with the works of] the representatives of [the school of] classical economics which, apart from Roscher, dominated our universities and whose acknowledged leader at that time was Rau, Knies’ predecessor at Heidelberg.

Consequently, we shall begin with an exposition of Roscher’s basic method[olog]ical views, as they can be found in his book Thucydides (1842), his programmatic Outline (1843) and his essays from the 1840s; ‹3› we shall also consider the first editions of the first volume of his System (1st ed. 1854, 2nd ed. 1857), which were only published after Knies’ book, as well as Roscher’s later works, inasmuch as they merely contain a consistent elaboration of that standpoint which Knies intended to subject to critical discussion.¹

I Roscher’s “historical method”

Roscher’s taxonomy of the sciences

Roscher² distinguishes between two kinds of scientific treatment of reality, which he calls the “philosophical” and the “historical”: the first is conceptual comprehension, by way of generalizing abstraction, where the “contingent” elements of reality are eliminated; the second is descriptive representation of reality in its full actuality. One is immediately reminded of the distinction made nowadays between sciences of laws and sciences of reality, a distinction which manifests itself most clearly in the method[olog]ical contrast between the exact natural sciences on the one hand, and political history on the other.³

On the one hand, [therefore, we have those] sciences which strive to order the extensively and intensively infinite multiplicity [of phenomena] by means of a system of concepts and laws which, as far as possible, have unconditionally general validity. The logical ideal [of these sciences] – which is most perfectly realized in pure mechanics – compels them to strip away progressively the individually “contingent” elements of perceived [reality] from “things” and events as they are ideationally given for us, in order that the content of their concepts can attain the precision which the[se sciences] must by necessity strive for. They are unceasingly compelled by logic to [attempt a] systematic subordination of the general concepts formed in this way, under other, even more general ones; and this, combined with their striving for strict precision, impels [these sciences] to reduce, as far as possible, the qualitative differentiation of reality to quantities which can be measured exactly. If they want, finally and fundamentally, to go beyond the mere classification of phenomena, then their concepts must comprehend potential judgements with general validity; and for these judgements to be absolutely strict and mathematically evident, it must be possible to express them in causal equations.

The result of all this is an increasing remoteness from the empirical reality, which is, everywhere and at all times, only given and perceivable as concrete, individual and qualitatively differentiated. The ultimate consequence is the creation of entities which are conceived as being absolutely nonqualitative, and therefore absolutely unreal, and which are subject to purely quantitatively differentiated processes of change, [processes] whose laws can be expressed in causal equations. The specific logical instrument [of these sciences] is the use of concepts with ever wider scope and, consequently, with an ever increasing lack of content. The specific logical products [of these sciences] are relational concepts with general validity (laws). Their field of inquiry is to be found wherever those features of a phenomenon which, in our eyes, are essential (worth knowing about) coincide with its generic features; in other words, wherever our scientific interest in an empirically given individual case lapses as soon as we are able to subsume it under a generic concept as a specimen.

And on the other hand, [we have] sciences which set themselves the task which the sciences of laws described above are necessarily prevented from fulfilling, owing to the logical nature of their approach: [the task of] attaining knowledge of reality, with its constant and universal character of qualitative differentiation and uniqueness. However, since it is in principle impossible to reproduce exhaustively even the most limited part of reality with its (at least always intensively) infinite differentiation from all the other [parts of reality], [the object of this second group of sciences must be] knowledge of those constituent parts of reality which, with their individual distinctive character and because of that character, are in our eyes the essential ones.

The logical ideal of those sciences is to separate the essential features of the individual phenomenon which is being analysed from the “contingent” (which in this context means: unimportant) ones and to bring them out in a clearly perceivable form. This ideal, together with the need to place the individual [elements] in a universal context of concrete “causes” and “effects” which are immediately and clearly evident, compels these sciences to a continual refinement of concepts, [and] these concepts will constantly approximate the invariably individual, actual reality [because they are elaborated] by means of a selection and synthesis of those features which we judge to be “characteristic”.

The specific¹ logical instrument [of these sciences] is therefore the formation of relational concepts² with ever greater content³ and, consequently, with ever narrower scope.⁴ The specific⁵ products [of these sciences] are (to the extent that they have the character of concepts at all) individual object concepts⁶ with universal (or, as we usually say, “historical”) significance and importance. Their field of inquiry is to be found wherever what is essential about the phenomena – that is to say, what we regard as worth knowing [about them] – is not limited to their [being placed] [as a specimen] in a generic concept; [in other words], where it is concrete reality as such which interests us.

It is certain that, apart from pure mechanics on the one hand and certain parts of historical science on the other, none of the empirically existing “sciences” – whose division of labour is of course based on quite different and often “accidental” factors – can form its concepts solely from one or solely from the other of the two [above-mentioned] points of view [concerning the aims of science]; we shall return to this point later. But it is equally certain that the difference [between the two kinds of concept formation] is in itself a fundamental one, and that any taxonomy of sciences from a method[olog]ical point of view must take it into account.⁷

Now, since Roscher describes his own method as “historical”, his version of economics would apparently have the exclusive task of producing a clearly perceivable reproduction of the total reality of economic life, in the same way and with the same instruments as historical science, – in contradistinction to the ambition of the classical school, [which was] to reveal the law-like, uniform way in which elementary forces were at work in the multiplicity of events.

In Roscher’s work, one does indeed occasionally find the general remark that economics “should study the differences between things with the same interest as their similarities”.

One is therefore astonished to find the statement (Outline, p. 150) that, before Roscher, the work of “historical” economics was in particular advanced by Adam Smith, Malthus and Rau, and (p. V) to see the last two described as those scholars to whom the author feels especially close. It is no less astonishing when (p. 2) the work of the natural scientist is described as being similar to that of the historian, and (p. 4) politics (which includes the “science of political economy”) as the science of the evolutionary laws of the state; when, furthermore, Roscher – as is well known – again and again deliberately speaks of the “laws of nature” of the economy; and, finally, when (p. IV) knowledge of what is essential¹ is even identified with knowledge of what is law-like in the mass of phenomena, and [the acquisition of such knowledge] is taken to be the only conceivable task of all science.² Now, since genuine “laws of nature” governing events could only be formulated on the basis of conceptual abstractions and by eliminating “historically contingent” elements, then it must follow that the ultimate goal of economic inquiry must be the construction of a system of generic and law-like concepts; and these concepts must be as logically perfect as possible – that is to say: as far as possible stripped of all individual “incidental features”, and therefore as abstract as possible. This in spite of the fact that Roscher had apparently in principle rejected precisely this goal. But only apparently. In reality, Roscher’s critique was not aimed at the logical form of classical theory, but at two quite different points, namely, (1) the deduction of absolutely valid practical norms from abstract-conceptual premises (this is what he calls the “philosophical” method) and (2) the hitherto prevailing principle for the selection of the subject matter of economics. In principle, Roscher does not doubt that the interrelation of economic phenomena can only and should only be conceived as a system of laws.³ For him, “causality” and “law-like regularity” are identical: the former only exists in the shape of the latter.⁴ But – and this is what is important for Roscher – the aim of scientific inquiry is to find out how the laws work themselves out not only in simultaneous, but also in successive, phenomena: it should establish not only the law-like interrelation of contemporary phenomena, but also, and above all, the evolutionary laws governing the historical course of phenomena.

This position of Roscher’s prompts the question: What is his conception, in principle, of the relationship between law and reality in the course of history? Is it certain that that part of reality which Roscher wants to catch in his net of laws can be integrated into the envisaged conceptual system in such a way that the system really contains those elements of the phenomena which are essential for our knowledge? And if we have to be certain that this is the case, what would then be the logical nature of those concepts? Has Roscher recognized these logical problems for what they are? –

In method[olog]ical matters, Roscher followed the example of the approach of the German historical school of jurisprudence, ‹5› whose method he expressly referred to as being analogous to his own. In fact, however – and this was already in essence clear to Menger – [Roscher performed] a characteristic reinterpretation of that method. What mattered to Savigny and his school in their struggle against the legislative rationalism of the Enlightenment was to demonstrate that law which originated in and obtained for a national community had a fundamentally irrational character which could not be derived from general principles. They emphasized the inseparable connection between law and all other aspects of national life; and in order to make clear that any truly national legal system must necessarily have an individual character, they hypostatized the concept of the – necessarily irrational and individual – “genius of the nation” as being the creator of law, language and the other cultural assets of nations. In this connection,¹ the concept of the “genius of the nation” is treated not as a temporary receptacle – an auxiliary concept used to designate provisionally a multitude of perceivable individual phenomena which had not yet been subjected to logical treatment – but as a unitary real entity with metaphysical character; it is viewed not as the resultant of innumerable cultural influences, but, on the contrary, as the real cause of all individual cultural manifestations of the nation, which emanate from it.

Roscher stood squarely within this intellectual set of ideas, which in its origins goes back to certain lines of thought of Fichte’s. As we shall see, he, too, believed in the metaphysical unitary nature of the “national character”² and saw the “nation” as an individual³ which in itself experiences the gradual development of economy, like that of the political constitution or of law, as part of its vital processes – which [Roscher] conceived as analogous to the development of the life of human beings. “The national economy comes into being together with the nation. It is a natural product of the predispositions and instincts which make human beings human.”¹ The concept of “nation” in itself is not discussed further in this connection. But the fact that Roscher occasionally ([System,] §12, note 2) applauds Fichte and Adam Müller for their opposition to the “atomistic” conception of the nation as a “mass of individuals” in itself seems to indicate that [the “nation”] should not[, in his opinion,] be seen as an abstract generic concept with little substantive content. He is (§13) too cautious to unreservedly regard the concept of the “organism” as an explanation of the essence of the “nation” or the “national economy”; instead, he emphasizes that he only wishes to employ the concept [of “organism”] as “the shortest common expression of a large number of problems”. But one point at least emerges clearly from these remarks: he is not satisfied with the purely rationalistic view of the “nation” as being the totality of politically associated citizens at some given time. In place of this generic concept, formed by means of abstraction, he saw [the “nation”] as the intuitable totality of a complete entity which was significant as a bearer of culture.

Now, in order to be able to construct concepts that are historical and not emptied of [substantive] content as a result of abstraction, the logical processing of these infinitely manifold totalities would have to bring into relief those of their constituent elements which are significant in the concrete context which is being discussed. Roscher was quite aware of the principles defining the nature of this task: he is in no way a stranger to the logical nature of historical concept formation. He knows that it presupposes a selection from the multiplicity of the perceptually given, [a selection] oriented not towards the generic features, but towards the “historically” essential ones.² But here, the “organic” theory of society³ intervenes, with its unavoidable biological analogies, and gives him the idea – which he has in common with so many modern “sociologists” – that [the generic] is identical with [the significant] and that, consequently, the recurrent elements of history must, as such, be its only significant parts.⁴ Therefore, Roscher believes that he can treat the perceivable multiplicity of “nations”, without further elucidation of the concept of “nation”, in the same way as biologists treat the perceivable multiplicity of, say, “elephants” of a particular type.⁵ In his view, “nations” are in reality as different from each other as individual human beings; but just as the differences between human beings do not prevent those engaged in anatomical and physiological inquiry from abstracting from those differences, so the individual distinctive char...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Max Weber Bibliography,With Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Editorial Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Articles
• Contributions and Interventions (Excerpts)
• Letters Excerpts
• Notes and Drafts
• Endnotes
• English Key to Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index of Persons
• Subject Index