The Social Thought of Max Weber

Stephen Kalberg

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781483371498
• eBook ISBN: 9781483371511
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Stephen Kalberg?s The Social Thought of Max Weber, the newest volume of the SAGE Social Thinkers series, provides a concise introduction to the work, life, and influence of Max Weber, considered to be one of three most important founders (along with Marx and Durkheim) of sociology. The book serves as an excellent introduction to the full range of Weber's major themes, and explores in detail the extent to which they are relevant today.  It is ideal for use as a self-contained volume or in conjunction with other sociological theory textbooks.

1 The Person and the Intellectual Context

The Person

Max Weber was born in Erfurt, Germany, into a distinguished and cosmopolitan family of entrepreneurs, scholars, politicians, and strong women. Most of his younger years were spent in Berlin. He attended a series of excellent schools that required a strenuous regimen of study.

Recognized early on as an exceptional student, he developed a precocious love of learning and a particular fondness for philosophy, literature, and ancient and medieval history. His teenage essays and letters comment on, among many others, the merits of Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer. They analyze in depth the societies of the Renaissance and ancient Rome. They also demonstrate, as the eldest child, an abiding affection for his many siblings and a concern for his overworked, devout mother. Although influenced strongly by his father, a central figure in the city government of Berlin and the state government of Prussia, and an elected member of the German parliament (Reichstag), he deplored his patriarchal ways and insensitive treatment of his wife.

Weber studied economic history, law, and philosophy at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin, and Göttingen. In Berlin, he became the protégé of the legal historian Levin Goldschmidt (1829–1897) and the Roman historian Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903). At an unusually young age he was appointed to a chair in commercial law at Berlin’s Humboldt University. He accepted in 1894 a chair in economics and finance in Freiburg and in 1896 he received an appointment in economics at the University of Heidelberg.

At the age of 33 in 1897, having recently married a distant cousin, Marianne Schnitger, Weber evicted from their Heidelberg home his visiting father, who had mistreated his mother. His father’s death soon afterward seemed to have served as the catalyst for a paralyzing mental illness that endured for more than five years. During much of this time, Weber traveled and passively pondered the fate of persons living in the new world of secularism, urbanism, and capitalism.

A 10-week trip to the United States in the autumn of 1904 played a significant part in his recovery. Journeying across much of the east, south, and Midwest, he gained an appreciation for America’s dynamism, energy, and uniqueness, as well as for the widespread self-reliance and distrust of authority among its citizens. His most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (2011), was completed soon after his return to Germany. Although unable to teach until 1918, Weber began once again to publish on a vast array of topics.

His interest in the “ascetic Protestantism” of the American Calvinist (Presbyterian), Methodist, Baptist, Quaker, and Mennonite churches derived in part from the religiosity of his Huguenot mother, Helene, and her sister, Ida Baumgarten. These Christian social activists and admirers of 19th-century American Unitarianism and English progressive theology transmitted to the young Weber a heightened sensitivity to moral questions, an appreciation of the ways in which the life of dignity and meaning must be guided by ethical standards, and a respect for the worth and uniqueness of every person. While Marianne reaffirmed these values, they opposed the lessons taught by Max’s father: the necessity to avoid “naïve idealism,” to confront the ways of the world in a pragmatic, even amoral, fashion, and to avoid personal sacrifice.

Nonetheless, Weber waged impassioned battles throughout his life on behalf of ethical positions and scolded relentlessly all who lacked a rigorous sense of justice and social responsibility. As his student Paul Honigsheim reports, he became a man possessed whenever threats to the autonomy of the individual were discussed (see Honigsheim, 1968, pp. 6, 43)—whether to mothers seeking custody of their children, women students at German universities, or bohemian social outcasts and political rebels.

Not surprisingly, his concerns for the fate of the German nation and the future of Western civilization drove him perpetually into the arena of politics. Vigorously opposed to the definition of this realm as one of “sober realism,” or wheeling and dealing (Realpolitik), he called vehemently for politicians to act by reference to a stern moral code: an “ethic of responsibility” (Verantwortungsethik). (On Weber’s life, see the sources listed in Chapter 12.)

The Intellectual Context

Long before Weber formulated his sociological concepts and research procedures, many 17th- and 18th-century thinkers in the West had sought to discover, through the systematic investigation of the natural and social worlds, proof of the existence of an all-powerful supernatural Being. If the centipede’s 100 legs moved in a coordinated fashion, this extraordinary achievement must itself indicate the intelligence of a superior Being as its creator (see 2005, p. 325). ¹ Moreover, the “hand of God” must be at work as well in the social world’s “natural laws,” it was believed.

Once proven, God’s existence implied the necessity for “His children” to follow His Commandments. Hence, the investigation of the natural and social worlds held out the promise of embattled Christianity’s renascence. The “divine order” would appear on Earth. Soon thereafter, the triumph of Christian compassion and universal love would banish the danger of a Hobbesian “war of all against all.”

Although the 19th century brought these hopeful and optimistic investigations to a close, social thinkers in the West only grudgingly set aside an idea prominent in all salvation religions: All history and all activities of the human species possess a higher meaning and direction. Even as openly theological explanations for the purpose of life and history waned, the notion remained that a component more majestic than everyday activity was bestowed on human life. Whether Utilitarians in England at the beginning of the century or Spencerian Social Darwinists at its end; whether Hegelians or Marxists in Germany; whether followers of Saint Simon or Comte in France: All these schools of thought, although otherwise so different, articulated the idea that history moved in a lawful manner and in an evolutionary direction.

It thus contained a meaning all its own. In his expansive studies, the distinguished mid-century historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) discovered the values of Christian Humanism at work through the ages, and the idealist philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) charted the history of the West as a progressive realization of the idea of freedom. Even thoroughly secularized German intellectuals at the end of the century—the philosopher Heinrich Rickert (1863–1936), for example—argued that history offered evidence for a firm hierarchy of true values, indeed ones capable of guiding our lives today. The economic historian Gustav Schmoller (1838–1917) sought to discover, through historical research, the underlying moral justification for the development of modern capitalism.

For all these thinkers, history retained a teleology and an “objective meaning.” Conformity with its unified value system would ensure progress, as well as the just ordering of society, it was believed. Throughout the 19th century, and despite the turning by Marx of ethereal Hegelian thought “on its head,” a rearguard reluctance to abandon the notion of a transcendental guiding force—now manifest in impersonal forms rather than understood as the direct will of a monotheistic and anthropomorphic God—prevailed.

Even Marx’s “scientific socialism” formulated “dialectical laws of history.” The present must be understood as only one of many historical stages, he argued, all of which lead along a predetermined route toward more advanced societies. Protestant Christianity’s optimistic view regarding man’s capacity to master his sinful human nature and to improve earthly existence constituted the facilitating cultural background for a flourishing of the secular ideas of Progress, Reason, and Freedom, as well as for all ideals of natural justice and all value hierarchies.

Max Weber’s works stand directly antagonistic to these ideas of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. With his sociology, a new position for the human species crystallized, one steadfastly opposed to the notion that history possessed an independent meaning: Persons now existed as the unequivocal makers of their destinies and as the cause of their activities. At the dawning of the 20th century, Weber insisted that meaning could arise only out of struggles to mold “meaningful lives” and the choices people made on this behalf:

Every single important activity and ultimately life as a whole, if it is not to be permitted to run on as an event in nature but is instead to be consciously guided, is a series of ultimate decisions through which the soul . . . chooses its own destiny; that is, the meaning of its activity and existence. (1949, p. 18; translation altered; original emphasis; see also p. 81; 2005, pp. 331, 334–335)

Several currents of thought that placed the individual in the forefront came here to a synthesis: The Enlightenment’s individual endowed with Reason and Rationality, the creative and introspective individual of the German Romantics (mainly Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [1749–1832] and Friedrich von Schiller [1759–1805]), and ascetic Protestantism’s activity-oriented individual. ²

The same antagonism to the notion that the flow of history contained a transcendental meaning accounts as well for Weber’s opposition to the grounding of knowledge and activity beyond the empirical realm. With the prominent exception of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), he saw more acutely than his contemporaries that, once the axial turn from theocentrism and quasi-theocentrism to anthropocentrism had been taken, a unifying set of quasi-religious values, the “course of history” and the “idea of progress” could no longer erect a firm foundation for the social sciences. The study of the meaning-seeking person must now move to the forefront and must be firmly rooted in reality. To Weber, “[t]he type of social science in which we are interested is an empirical science of concrete reality” (Wirklichkeitswissenschaft) (1949, p. 72; original emphasis).

The formation of this central tenet of Weber’s sociology was directly influenced by the secular and industrial character of German society, as Weber himself acknowledged. Nonetheless, it must not be concluded that his research is empowered to investigate exclusively those few epochs and civilizations in which individualism has come to the fore and unified constellations of values have vanished. On the contrary, as noted, a highly comparative and historical horizon characterizes his investigations.

Weber knew well that subjective meaning may be created in a vast variety of ways. Indeed, his research revealed that the overriding beacon of light and guiding force for persons for millennia had originated from diverse orientations to the supernatural realm (see 2005, p. 331). Even though the notion of subjective meaning stands at the core of Weber’s sociology, and hence the individualism dominant in his own epoch’s “value ideas” (Wertideen) is apparent in its fundamental axioms, Weber’s methodology emphatically leaves open—to be studied empirically on a case-by-case basis—the extent to which the formation of subjective meaning is influenced by the mundane world or the supernatural realm.

This monumental shift to a radically empirical sociology rooted in an identification of the subjective meaning of persons in groups must be acknowledged as foundational to Weber’s entire sociology. Recognition of this turn allows its central features to become more easily comprehensible. They can be best discussed and illustrated by an examination of Weber’s volume, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (PE). This study is the subject of the next chapter. Having investigated its argument and major methodological tools, Weber’s concepts and research procedures become more accessible. In the subsequent chapter (Chapter 3), his methodology captures our attention in more detail.

Study Questions and Thoughts to Ponder

1. The author has argued that the secular ideas of Progress and Evolution had their roots in the realm of religion. Summarize and evaluate his argument.
2. Please review the foundational tenet of Weber’s sociology: the endeavor to study the subjective meaning of persons.
3. Weber’s sociology takes an “empirical turn.” Please explain.
4. Why was the proof of God’s existence so important to 17th- and 18th-century thinkers?
5. Nineteenth-century thinkers saw a “higher meaning and direction” in all history and human activity. Trace the sources of this notion.
6. What foundational axiom in Weber’s methodology opposed strictly the idea that “history possessed an independent meaning”?
7. Is the “formation of subjective meaning” influenced only by the mundane world? Only by the supernatural realm? By both?

Notes

1. Unless otherwise noted, all references are to Weber.

2. That these major currents of thought remained otherwise so difficult to render into a unity laid the foundation for tensions that run throughout Weber’s sociology. This will become apparent.

2 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and the “Sect Essays”

“The Protestant Ethic Thesis” I: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Weber wrote the latter half of PE (1904–1905) after returning from his 10-week sojourn in the United States. Its thesis regarding the important role played...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Acknowledgements
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Detailed Contents
• Series Editor’s Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Person and the Intellectual Context
• 2 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and the “Sect Essays”
• 3 Weber’s Methodology
• 4 Economy and Society 1
• 5 The Social and Political Context
• 6 “Rationalism” East and West: The Economic Ethics of the World Religions and the Turn Toward a Sociology of Civilizations
• 7 The Sociology of Civilizations I: Western Rationalism and Modern Western Rationalism
• 8 The Sociology of Civilizations II: The Rationalism of China
• 9 The Sociology of Civilizations III: The Rationalism of India
• 10 Applying Weber: The Birth and Growth of the American Civic Sphere
• 11 An Assessment
• 12 Further Readings
• Glossary
• References
• Index
• About the Authors