Why should we read Max Weber today? : his conception of Wissenschaft

Abstract

In 1964 the question of Weber’s present-day significance was an open one which was passionately debated, but in 2014 his canonical position is so secure that it seems superfluous. Nonetheless, the question should be asked, because if it is not, then any view of Max Weber as an integral thinker recedes into the distance, and he dissolves into a series of specialized fragments. The lecture suggests that Weber is important above all because he is a universalist thinker capable of operating under modern conditions, such as specialization and cultural difference, that are radically hostile to universalism. How could he do this ? To answer this question, we should consider, first, the more obviously universalist areas of his thought (academic “science” or Wissenschaft, religion, law) and then the one that is not (politics). However, this is matter for four lectures at least. So here we shall begin at the beginning: with Wissenschaft.