Reviewed by: Max Webers Sprache. Neue Einblicke in das Gesamtwerk by Edith Hanke Barbara Thériault Edith Hanke, Max Webers Sprache. Neue Einblicke in das Gesamtwerk (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2022), vii+206pp. (pbk). ISBN 978-3-447-11775-3. €49.00. ‘How one would have loved to be there!’ (‘Zu gerne wäre man dabei gewesen!’) (89). It’s hard to doubt Edith Hanke’s sincerity when she exclaims how much she would have liked to attend one of Weber’s conferences. As scientific editor and, since 2005, general editor of the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, she came as close to it as it gets. Her contribution to deciphering and interpreting material (manuscripts, letters, notes on slips of paper) gathered over the years was instrumental in reconstructing the evolution of Weber’s concepts and life. Max Webers Sprache is a collection of seven loosely connected chapters structured around language, somewhat following the division of the MWG (writings and speeches, letters, lectures and transcripts of lectures). The book has been released in the wake of the publication, in 2020, of the last of the 47 volumes of the MWG—the largest social science publishing endeavor ever made in terms of financial and time investments1—and could be seen as a kind of ‘bonus content’ intended for Weber’s fans, to help them wean off their long-lived series. One discovers developments in the protagonist’s personality, learns about his torments, and gains some new insights into his work process and teaching style, while also getting to meet some background characters (women, students and colleagues, family members). Although the first two chapters focus on language in a narrow sense, one should not expect a formal analysis of Weber’s ways of writing and speaking. Chapter 1 (‘Max Webers Sprache—Zur Einführung’) introduces general aspects of Weber’s written language (his use of exclamation points, dashes, or italics for instance) and style. A central [End Page 126] aspect of this style is nicely captured by Gangolf Hübinger’s reflection: ‘Within the pathos of objectivity his rhetoric is always rigorous, always bossy, always agonal’ (‘Im Pathos der Sachlichkeit ist seine [Webers] Rhetorik immer rigoristisch, immer rechthaberisch, immer agonal’) (9). Drawing on examples from Weber’s best-known concepts and research interests, Hanke explores in chapter 2 (‘Begriffsprägungen—die Sprache als Arbeitsinstrument’) his language and characteristic thinking patterns, reconstructing the birth and the shaping of the concepts of capitalism, domination, bureaucracy, and charisma. Although one could argue that it is nearly impossible to really write anything new about these concepts in just a few pages, it turns out to be quite interesting to set them in their historical context, for instance, how the three domination patterns (traditional, constitutional, plebiscitary] were already present in political discourses at the end of the nineteenth century. In chapter 3 (‘Sprachliche Ausdrucksformen: brutal—männlich— witzig’) the author takes Weber’s Freiburg inaugural lecture as a starting point to share some of his harshest and most nationalist comments at the turn of the 20th century. She introduces us to Weber’s historical and political context and offers us a taste of some of the swearwords prevailing at the time (verfluchter Pack, Rindviehcher, Schweinebande, Hundsfott). Weber is portrayed as polemical, brutal, macho, provocative, hurtful, but also—as Hanke stresses—funny. In chapter 4 (‘Redekunst—Die Macht des gesprochenen Wortes’) Hanke’s interest turns to the effect Weber had on his audience. She is attentive to his tone, mentions how members of the audience from his two vocation lectures stressed his confident bearing and his elegant hand movements, his way of talking freely, relying only on a few notes. Weber was a popular speaker who was reduced to silence for many years (1898–1904) by anxiety, insomnia, and aphasia. He did eventually go back to writing and talking, but those activities—especially teaching –now used up all of his strength. In chapter 5 (‘Das Briefwerk—die Metaphorik der Gefühle’), Hanke contrasts Weber’s talents as a public speaker with his limitations when it came to talking about emotions. Late in his life, as some love letters reveal, he did seem...
Read full abstract
Nov 6, 2024
Daniel Reales + 2
Open Access
Just Published
