Author

photo credits: Wikimedia Commons
Max Weber
German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist (1864-1920)
wd:Q9387
1864
-
1920
country of citizenship: Kingdom of Prussia, Weimar Republic
language of expression: German
educated at: Heidelberg University, University of Freiburg, University of Vienna, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, University of Göttingen, Humboldt University of Berlin
occupation: jurist, economist, sociologist, philosopher, anthropologist, lawyer, university teacher, musicologist, politician, historian

Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; German: [ˈveːbɐ]; 21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German historian, sociologist, jurist, and political economist, who is regarded today as one of the most important theorists on the development of modern Western society. His ideas would profoundly influence social theory and social research. Despite being recognized as one of the fathers of sociology, along with Karl Marx, Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim, Weber never saw himself as a sociologist, but as a historian.Unlike Émile Durkheim, Weber did not believe in monocausal explanations, proposing instead that for any outcome there can be multiple causes. As such, he was a key proponent of methodological anti-positivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive (rather than empiricist) methods, based on understanding the purpose and meanings that individuals attach to their own actions. Weber's main intellectual concern was in understanding the processes of rationalisation, secularisation, and "disenchantment", which he took to be the result of a new way of thinking about the world, associating such processes with the rise of capitalism and modernity.Weber is best known for his thesis combining economic sociology and the sociology of religion, emphasising the importance of cultural influences embedded in religion as a means for understanding the genesis of capitalism (contrasting Marx's historical materialism). Weber would first elaborate his theory in his seminal work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), where he attributed ascetic Protestantism as one of the major "elective affinities" involved in the rise of market-driven capitalism and the rational-legal nation-state in the Western world. Arguing the boosting of capitalism as a basic tenet of Protestantism, Weber suggested that the spirit of capitalism is inherent to Protestant religious values. Protestant Ethic would form the earliest part in Weber's broader investigations into world religion, as he later examined the religions of China and India, as well as ancient Judaism, with particular regard to their differing economic consequences and conditions of social stratification.
In another major work, "Politics as a Vocation", Weber defined "the state" as an entity that successfully claims a "monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory". He would also be the first to categorise social authority into distinct forms: charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal. Among these categories, Weber's analysis of bureaucracy emphasized that modern state institutions are increasingly based on the latter (rational-legal authority).
Weber also made a variety of other contributions in economic history, theory, and methodology. His analysis of modernity and rationalisation would significantly influence the critical theory associated with the Frankfurt School. After the First World War, he was among the founders of the liberal German Democratic Party. He also ran unsuccessfully for a seat in parliament and served as advisor to the committee that drafted the ill-fated democratic Weimar Constitution of 1919. After contracting Spanish flu, he died of pneumonia in 1920, aged 56.
Read more or edit on Wikipedia
Series
0Works
30The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
1905 book by Max Weber
wd:Q392937
author: Max Weber
1905
Economy and Society
German-language work in economics and sociology by Max Weber
wd:Q1422823
author: Max Weber
1922
Science as a Vocation
text of a lecture given in 1918 by Max Weber
wd:Q1530590
author: Max Weber
1919