Weber Max (1864–1920), German social theorist and sociologist. Born in Berlin in a liberal and intellectual household, he taught economics in Heidelberg, where his circle included leading sociologists and philosophers such as Simmel and Lukacs. Although Weber gave up his professorship after a nervous breakdown in 1889, he remained important in public life, an adviser to the commissions that drafted the peace treaty at Versailles and the Weimar constitution. Weber’s social theory was influenced philosophically by both neo-Kantianism and Nietzsche, creating tensions in a theorist who focused much of his attention on Occidental rationalism and yet was a noncognitivist in ethics. He wrote many comparative studies on topics such as law and urbanization and a celebrated study of the cultural factors responsible for the rise of capitalism, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904). But his major, synthetic work in social theory is Economy and Society (1914); it includes a methodological introduction to the basic concepts of sociology that has been treated by many philosophers of social science. One of the main theoretical goals of Weber’s work is to understand how social processes become ‘rationalized,’ taking up certain themes of the German philosophy of history since Hegel as part of social theory. Culture, e.g., became rationalized in the process of the ‘disenchantment of worldviews’ in the West, a process that Weber thought had ‘universal significance.’ But because of his goal-oriented theory of action and his noncognitivism in ethics, Weber saw rationalization exclusively in terms of the spread of purposive, or means–ends rationality (Zweckrationalität). Rational action means choosing the most effective means of achieving one’s goals and implies judging the consequences of one’s actions and choices. In contrast, value rationality (Wertrationalität) consists of actions oriented to ultimate ends, where considerations of consequences are irrelevant. Although such action is rational insofar as it directs and organizes human conduct, the choice of such ends or values themselves cannot be a matter for rational or scientific judgment. Indeed, for Weber this meant that politics was the sphere for the struggle between irreducibly competing ultimate ends, where ‘gods and demons fight it out’ and charismatic leaders invent new gods and values. Professional politicians, however, should act according to an ‘ethics of responsibility’ (Verantwortungsethik) aimed at consequences, and not an ‘ethics of conviction’ (Gesinnungsethik) aimed at abstract principles or ultimate ends. Weber also believed that rationalization brought the separation of ‘value spheres’ that can never again be unified by reason: art, science, and morality have their own ‘logics.’
Weber’s influential methodological writings reject positivist philosophy of science, yet call for ‘value neutrality.’ He accepts the neo-Kantian distinction, common in his day under the influence of Rickert, between the natural and the human sciences, between the Natur- and the Geisteswissenschaften. Because human social action is purposive and meaningful, the explanations of social sciences must be related to the values (Wertbezogen) and ideals of the actors it studies. Against positivism, Weber saw an ineliminable element of Verstehen, or understanding of meanings, in the methodology of the human sciences. For example, he criticized the legal positivist notion of behavioral conformity for failing to refer to actors’ beliefs in legitimacy. But for Weber Verstehen is not intuition or empathy and does not exclude causal analysis; reasons can be causes. Thus, explanations in social science must have both causal and subjective adequacy. Weber also thought that adequate explanations of large-scale, macrosocial phenomena require the construction of ideal types, which abstract and summarize the common features of complex, empirical phenomena such as ‘sects,’ ‘authority,’ or even ‘the Protestant ethic.’ Weberian ideal types are neither merely descriptive nor simply heuristic, but come at the end of inquiry through the successful theoretical analysis of diverse phenomena in various historical and cultural contexts. Weber’s analysis of rationality as the disenchantment of the world and the spread of purposive reason led him to argue that reason and progress could turn into their opposites, a notion that enormously influenced critical theory. Weber had a critical ‘diagnosis of the times’ and a pessimistic philosophy of history. At the end of The Protestant Ethic Weber warns that rationalism is desiccating sources of value and constructing an ‘iron cage’ of increasing bureaucratization, resulting in a loss of meaning and freedom in social life. According to Weber, these basic tensions of modern rationality cannot be resolved. See also CRITICAL THEORY, DILTHEY, EXPLANATION , PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCE. J.Bo.