Max Weber, Johannes von Kries and the Kinetic Theory of Gases

Abstract

By his own admission Max Weber 'plundered' the doctrine of 'objective possibility' from Johannes von Kries, who originally conceived it. The application of this doctrine is sufficiently well-known from the example given by Weber of a mother boxing her child's ears (Collected Methodological Writings, 2012, pp. 177f.; Wissenschaftslehre, pp. 279f.). Less well-known is the close connection of this doctrine with the so-called theory of range (Spielraum), which requires three conditions to be present: indifference, comparability, originality (= range principle). Again, it is well-known that ideal games of chance offer optimal preconditions for the theory of range. But what is less well-known is that this is also true for the kinetic gas theory developed by Ludwig Boltzmann: in both cases the same three required conditions are specified. Just as the mother in Weber's example would have been astounded to learn that she had been making 'judgements of objective possibility' in everyday life, so Weber would have been astonished to find that he, in his selective 'plundering' of the study of the 'Concept of objective possibility' (1888) for his own purposes, had borrowed unknowingly from a theory in physics, the kinetic gas theory – something which to date has remained concealed from most Weber interpreters.