Max Weber Biography - Research Paper Example

Max Weber: Sociologist, Philosopher and Political Economist Max Weber was born in 1884 and was a German philosopher, political economists and a sociologist whose works were in the sociology discipline. On top of that, he had influence on social theory and social research (Weber, 2009). He is regarded as the father of social science with Karl Marx and Emil Durkheim (Sung, Ho, 2007). He advocated for anti-positivism methodology where he argued that individuals attach their actions through understanding the purpose of social action. His intellectual concerns were on rationalism, disenchantment and secularization in the hope of understanding capitalism and modernity (Habermas, 1990) which he viewed as the world’s new way of thinking. The major thesis of concern was the Protestant and the Spirit of Capitalism where he discussed economical sociology and sociology of religion. This thesis dealt with ascetic Protestantism as one of the main “elective affinities” which relates the rise of Western market which was driven by capitalism and rational-legal national-state. Weber emphasized on cultural influences as the bedrock of capitalism (Kalberg, 2002). In search for religion insight, Weber’s publication of protestant ethics, he was able to identify the non-development of capitalism in the societies: ancient Judaism, religion of China and religion of India and was able to analyze the social stratification of such societies. Weber’s methodological works were influential in launching the self-identity in modern social science as a field of inquiry. Empirical positivists and hermeneutic detractors got their inspiration from Weber. The most important of Weber’s work are the “Protestant Ethic thesis” which was about a non-Marxist genealogy of present capitalism and “Rationalization thesis” which talked about the analysis of the dominance of west in the present times. On top of these two works, his contribution to politics is only comparable to that of Machiavelli and Hobbes. Weber entered politics after the World War 1 and ran for a seat in parliament which he failed to capture. He served as an advisor to the ill-fated democratic draft of 1919 that is Weimar Constitution. His work was cut shot by the untimely death which occurred at a tender age of 56 in 1920. He contacted a Spanish flu and died of pneumonia. Introduction Early life and family background Weber was the eldest of the Max Weber Sr. born in 1884 in Erfurt, Thuringia. Weber sr. was a prominent civil servant and wealthy. He was the National Liberal Party member and married to Helene who was from French Huguenot and had strong ethical absolutist ideas. Being a politician, he exposed his family to a public life with many scholars and public figure. This intellectual atmosphere was conducive for the young Weber and his other siblings. Weber joined the University of Heidelberg in 1882 as a law student. He transferred to the University of Berlin after attending a military service for a year. He graduated in 1886 and continued his studies and earned his doctorate in 1889. Weber joined the University of Berlin where he is a lecturer and a government consultant. Early career In 1893, Weber married Marianne Schnitger, who was his distant cousin. In 1894, he got a job at Freiburg University as an economic teacher and in 1896 was a professor at Heidelberg. Since he chose to live an astute live, he developed a conflict with his father in 1897 which finally went unsolved. Weber suffered a mental breakdown in 1897 after his father died (Radkau, 2011). He was unable to teach since he suffered from depression, anxiety and insomnia. This resulted in him being in and out of sanatoriums for the next five years He did get well in 1903 and was able to work again. He got a job as an editor in a social science journal. He was invited to give a lecture at the Congress of Arts and Science in 1904 at St. Louis, Missouri. Weber viewed America as a country which was striped of its morality and distanced itself from religious foundation (Scaff 2011). This is a fact which he had written in his essay, The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism which was published in 1904 and 1905. In this essay, he argued that the rise of present capitalism was an aspect of Protestantism and Calvinism to be specific. Later Work Weber published three books after spending some time as a volunteer in the medical service. These publications were on religion but from a sociological point of view. They included: The Religion of China and the Religion of India which were both published in 1916 and Ancient Judaism (1917-1918). In these publications, Weber contrasted religions and culture of those countries to that of Western World. He analyzed historical outcomes by putting more emphasis on the importance of economic and religious factors. In 1918, Weber returned to teaching but his intention of publishing Christianity and Islam was short lived as he died in 1920 after contacting the Spanish flu. He had not finished on the article Economy and Society at his time of death but his wife did manage to complete it and published it in 1922. Review of the Relevant Literature Weber’s Thought Inspirations With all the contributions of Weber, he cannot be classified in the same category to that of Marx, Darwin and Nietzsche. In this context Weber had to be influenced by such people in his way of thinking. This can be in under epistemology and ethics. Hence, Neo-Kantianism was a German idealism who influenced Weber’s thinking (Kim, 2007). The belief that chaotic and incomprehensible was reality checks were important to Weber’s work. The social sciences methodologies of Weber did finally differ from neo-Kantian and that of Georg Simmel, who was a pioneer in sociology. Kantian ethics also influenced Weber’s work but he did think that these ethics missed in the modern age religion. This was as a result of the conflict which arose between Kantian moral imperatives and that of Nietschean in analyzing the culture of modern world (Sung Ho, 2007).Weber understood Kant as one who has undergone conceptual template which was set by psychological morals and philosophical anthropology. Kant’s perspective was a principled, self-disciplined and freedom and autonomy was expressive. Methodology Despite Weber regarded as father of modern social sciences, he did not lay down rules regarding the governance of social sciences or sociology. Unlike other scholars like Durkhelm and Marx who focused on the society, Weber focused more on individuals and culture. Weber dwelt on individuals and their actions while Durkhelm concentrated on society and while Marx was for material world rather than ideas, Weber saw ideas as motivating an individual’s actions. Weber distinguished social action and social behavior where social action is as a result of how one understands an individual and how he subjectively relates with others. Social action can be viewed through interpretive means where one has to understand how individuals attach their actions to the meaning and purpose of the action plan. Weber understood the importance of subjectivity to social sciences and attributes as the base to which rules can be based on. According to Weber, social actions are due to an historical occurrence and needed the understanding of the motivations behind the action of an individual. To arrive at this, he emphasized on using comparative historical analysis. This resulted in outcome which was based on previous historical processes and it was hard for him to predict the future outcome of such events. Rationalization Weber’s work has been by many scholars as being based on the individual’s freedom in a normal society. This was based on the relationship which existed in religion, psychological motivations and social structure that is the economy. According to Weber, he first understood an individual’s perspective on the society then incorporates the individuals to a wider organization under bureaucratic system of governance. Finally, he understood the reality in a more general sense through disenchantment. In his publication, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, Weber tried to argue the relationship which exited between work and piety. He observed that Calvinism achieved economic gain by shifting the efforts of human beings towards rational efforts. The root cause of Protestantism was as a result of some individuals overgrowing larger than the religion hence became incompatible hence they were discarded. He investigated further on this matter in his later works like bureaucracy where he saw a society embracing rationalization. Rationality can also be seen in economy where developments were made on rational and calculating capitalism. Weber believed that the European West is far apart from the rest of the world because of rationalism. Ethical, cultural, religion and psychological changes are attributed to rationalism and these changes first to place in the Western civilization (Habermas, 1990). Rationalism features include: knowledge increment, impersonality growth and enhanced social control and material life. Weber was hesitant towards rationalization but acknowledged that it was important in freeing an individual from tradition and criticized it for dehumanizing individuals and restricting their freedom and locking them in a bureaucracy that is iron cage of rationality and bureaucracy. Enchantment process relates to rationalism and this is where the world is more explained and religions are moving from polytheistic to monotheistic and finally, the science of modernity is Godless. These processes have removed sublime values from the public life and consequently making art to be much less creative. Calculability, Predictability, and World-Mastery In all areas of life of an individual ranging from religion to law to architecture, rationalization implies the capability of an individual to master through calculation all things (Weber 1946). For instance, modern capitalism is achieved through production calculations and is a result of rational mode of economic life. Predictability and calculability are not of value in political, economical and social context without changes in ethics, religion and culture. Institutional rationalization is as a result of prediction on a unique rational type of personality. Rational Western civilization was an outcome of complex exchange of ideas and interest coupled with the rich resources and the capacity of their culture to search for world-mastery. Sociology of religion The main issue of discussion in Weber’s work relating to religion was centered on effect of religious ideas on economic activities, and the relationship that exists between social stratification and religious ideas. Also of note were the distinct characteristics of Western civilization. Religion was viewed by Weber as one of the core forces to the society and wanted to find out why there were more paths of cultures without judging them as other scholars did. Weber’s main aim was to give an insight into the Western civilization and the major characteristics which stood out. In his analysis, he found out that social innovation and economic development of the West were majorly based on the Calvinist religious ideas. Weber concluded the study of sociology of religion by focusing on disenchantment of the world as the distinct part of Western culture. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism In this publication, Weber was not concerned in the deeper insight into Protestantism but regarded it as the basis through which he would analysis his later works. This later works were on the relations of different religious ideas and economic performance of individuals as part of economic system rationalization. In this thesis, Weber was trying to explain that the development of capitalism was as a result of Calvinist ethic and ideas. Weber noted that societies with developed capitalist economy had more Protestants and that Protestants in societies with different religions were the most successful business leaders (Ritzer, 2009). Religion of China: Confucians and Taoism Weber’s second largest work was on sociology of religion and was more concerned with those aspects which differed between the Chinese and the Western Europe, Puritanism in particular. He did question in his work why capitalism did not extend to China (Bendix, 1977). He found out that Chinese development was different from that of Europe because of the following: Chinese patrimonialism and officialdom in addition to Chinese religion and philosophy especially Confucianism and Taoism (Bendix, 1977) Confucianism and Puritanism according to Weber are mutually exclusive where each tries to explain a way of life basing their arguments on the religion. These two rational thoughts acknowledged self-control and restraint and accumulation of wealth (Bendix, 1977). Confucian were actively working for wealth and this made Weber to conclude that this was the major cause of the differences between the West and the Chinese in terms mentality and social attributes. This in turn ensured that capitalism developed in the West and it never worked in china (Bendix, 1977). The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism This was the second largest work of Weber under sociology of religion. He was majorly concerned with the structure of Indian society in the context of two doctrines: orthodox which was practiced by Hinduism and heterodox doctrine which was practiced by the Buddhism. Also of importance was the impact which religion beliefs had on Indian society secular ethic (Bendix, 1977). He observed that Hinduism was a barrier to capitalism (Ritzer, 2009). The Indian castle system prohibited advancement of individuals beyond their castle and also economic activity was seen as unimportant to the soul’s advancement (Ritzer, 2009). Ancient Judaism This work was meant to explain the factors which caused the early differences in oriental and occidental religiosity (Bendix, 1977). Weber noted that Judaism is at the same level with Hellenistic and Roman cultures in influencing Christianity and Islam. In summarizing on the sociology of religion, Weber proposed a model of socio-evolutionary which was for religious change. The model shows the movement of societies from magic to polytheism, to monotheism and then to ethical monotheism. This movement is a complex process and covers different groups of people and cultures. This led to development of hierarchy of gods and with societies becoming more powerful and centralized the need for a universal God. Politics and government In his work, “Politics as a Vocation”, Weber identifies a state as an entity which has powers to delegate legitimate use of physical force and politics as the capabilities of sharing power of the state among many groups and political leaders should exercise this power. According to Weber, politicians are not supposed to be men of Christian ethic as this will conflict since politicians are ought to have both ethics of both ends and responsibility ethics. On top of that, politicians should have vocational passion and capacity to distinguish himself from his subjects. A distinction of ideal political leadership consisted of charismatic dominion, traditional dominion and legal dominion. He observed that lack of charismatic authority will lead to a more structured authority and a pure traditional type of leadership may result in traditional revolution (Sung Ho, 2004). In his work, “Economy and Society”, Weber discusses public administration and governance and the ideal ways of achieving a rational-legal structure of authority. This authority was viewed as a major process of rationalization in the Western society. The size and space of administration, complexity of administering an effective system and the emergency of monetary economy are some of the pre-conditions characterized by the emergence of bureaucracy (Weber, 1996). An efficient administration system is possible with developed technologies in communication and transportation. In addition, culture democratization and rationalization has resulted in a new system to be demanded which will serve everybody equally (Hoy & Miskel, 2013). Technical superiority has been a decisive reason why bureaucratic organization has advanced over other form of organization (Weber, 1995). Though, bureaucracy is viewed as the most efficient form of organization, it is a threat to freedom of individuals and increased rationalization of human life traps. Politicians and entrepreneurs are needed in the system to counteract bureaucrats. Social stratification Weber developed a theory of stratification which had three components which are theoretically different elements: social class, social status and political part. Where social class relates to the economical factors to the market and includes owner, renter, and employees while status class deals with non-economical qualities like honor. Finally, party class is based on association in a political platform. The consequences of these three elements are called “life chances” according to Weber. The city In his publication, “Economy and Society”, a chapter XV1: The city, Weber viewed a city a characteristic locus on where the social and the economic relations, arrangement of political agenda and ideas were used to describe the West (Weber, 1924). Weber viewed the city as a politically self-governing organization of individuals who live closely together, working in different trades and is disjoint to the countryside. This city fully developed and shaped its culture evolution as that of the West (Bendix, 1977). Weber argued that urban context can make it possible for Judaism, theology, early Christianity and modern science can thrive in attaining full development as that of the West (Swebberg & Agevall, 2005). The domination in the history of medieval was only possible under great powers of economic and military and the organization of the city-dwellers (Swebberg & Agevall, 2005). Economics Though Weber saw himself as a political economist (Weber Max, 1918), his main contributions are today associated with sociology. His contributions were in methodological individualism which associates microeconomics and macroeconomics. The second economic contribution was marginalism and psychophysics where he accepted the marginal theory of value unlike other historicists. In an article, he distinguished the psychology and economics and argued that economics’ marginal theory of value is not the same as a psychological response to a given stimuli. Conclusion Weber’s work had high degree of consistence and this led him to search for solutions in politics and science. The publication on The Protestant Ethics provided a base for Weber’s efforts to revive a character who can rationally and willfully work in all environments including a society with bureaucracy and value fragmentation. The modern world is influenced by the ethics described by Weber A thesis by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “Dialectics of Enlargement” conflicts Weber’s work but his contribution to modern society is enormous. Weber’s publications showed how much he was in capitalism and modernity. He wrote publications to explain this through rationalization, secularization and enchantment. Through the publications on sociology of religions, his work can be understood by modern Christianity as they will be able to understand the major contributions which were done by early Christianity. It also helps one to appreciate other religions and this will enable people to live peacefully with others in a society more so, societies with diverse religions. In the sociology economy, it is easier for one to understand modernization or the Western civilization through how he described The City. For modernity to exist, every individual is living and relating with other members of the society. In addition, the kind of leadership should be autonomous and effective. In the publication of Politics as a Vocation, one is able to identify the ideal types of political leadership which are essential to efficient leadership. Lack of or over-emphasize on any of those leadership styles will lead to discomfort to the subjects and the reaction of such subjects can adversely affect the economy and peaceful co-existence of people in a society. Implications for future research Weber’s work was on capitalism and modernity which was viewed under rationalization, secularization and disenchantment. It is therefore important for any research to understand the historical background of the society he intends to research on. On top of understanding them, the researcher should be able to analyze the behaviors of individuals in that society and the able to obtain the factors which have necessitated such behavior. Rationalization should play a role in researching as every individual should be given the right to be understood and how he understands the society or the system should be under consideration. On top of that rationalization increases knowledge and improves one’s personality and the society will be enhanced through control of material life. From the above discussion, one will no doubt acknowledge Max Webber for the good work he has done to the modernity and capitalism which is essential in understanding rationalism, secularization and enchantment. References Encyclopedia Britannica. (2009). Max Weber. Retrieved from www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/638565/Max-Weber Habermas J. (1990). Modernitys Consciousness. Cambridge: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1990). The philosophical Disclose of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hans, H.G & Turner B.S. (1991). From Max Weber: essays in sociology. Philadelphia: Psychological Press. Hoy, W.K. & Miskel, C.G. (2013). Educational administration: theory, research and practices. New York: McGraw-Hill. Kalberg, S. (2002). Max Weber: the Protestant and the Spirit of Capitalism. MA: Roxbury Press. Radkau, J. (2011). Max Weber: A Biography, Patrick Camiller (trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Scaff, L. (2011). Max Weber in America, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sung Ho, Kim. (2002). “Max Webers Liberal Nationalism.” History of Political Thought, 23: 432–57. Sung Ho, Kim. (2004).Max Webers Politics of Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Swedberg, R. (2005). The Max Weber Dictionary, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Read More