Production de sens et légitimation sociale Karl Marx et Max Weber

Abstract

The article begins with a survey and comparison of Marx's critique of religion and Weber's sociology of religion. Marx prefers to analyze religion as an ideology, i.e., he sees above all the negative function of religion which is to legitimize social relations of domination, and interprets it 1) as a neces sary but inverted reflection of a social reality in which men do not control nature ; 2) as a mechanism of projection in which man projects his genuine being into a world beyond, a projection destined to fade away when man in society is capable of rationally controlling his collective existence. In his analysis Weber prefers the meaning-producing function that religion performs in different ways during different periods of historical development. Nevertheless he does not neglect the legitimizing function of religion which he analyzes minutely.