Reflections on the Reception of Veblen and Weber in American Sociology

Abstract

The rise and fall of heroes within the tradition of academic sociology corresponds not only to the perceived worth of their scholarly contributions but also to other factors including their personal and political standing in the academic community.1 Another factor is the tradition, school or per spective with which a scholar's name might be associated. Since the pack aging of scholars, at least in modern times, falls within the textbook mode of instruction and learning, the contributions of scholars who cannot be easily pigeonholed are not likely to survive in the struggle for continuing recognition. This essay is an attempt to explore these issues through an examination of the comparative careers of Veblen and Weber. Both these scholars were controversial contemporaries with similar intellectual interests. The prob lem at hand is not the relative merits of their scholarly work but the matter of universal recognition of the one scholar over the considerable neglect of the other. The following presentation will proceed in some historical sequence if only to reveal the undeniable influence of socio-political cli mates on the making of intellectual repute.