Weber's Sociology Research Articles

Worldview and relationships to the world: The concepts of karma(n) and bhakti in Weber's study on Hinduism and Buddhism

Weber's Comparative Essays on the Sociology of Religion raise the problem of intercultural translation, still insufficiently attended to in discussions of Weber's work. This article discusses questions of translation in the context of his concept of world relations and with respect to his representation of Hinduism. Weberian sociology of religion has established a schematic classification of world religions in terms of world views and attitudes towards the world. The article contends that a relationship to the world comprises phenomenological, hermeneutic, and practical-ethical aspects. It criticizes Weber's textualist reading of Hindu religions and his neglect of the interpretive capacities of groups in India embedded and living in the world. The article demonstrates the implications of this neglect for intercultural translation and understanding taking the examples of karma theory and of world-affirming attitudes of bhakti.

A Sociologia Weberiana e sua Articulação com a Pesquisa em Políticas Educacionais

Resumo: Este artigo busca articular os principais elementos da chamada Sociologia Compreensiva de Max Weber com as potencialidades de pesquisa no campo das políticas educacionais. Discutindo questões importantes na sociologia weberiana, como o conceito de Estado, o artigo aproxima o debate das Ciências Sociais e da Ciência Política com os objetos de interesse das Políticas Educacionais, com vistas a evidenciar que, para este campo, as ferramentas conceituais edificadas por Weber podem revelar-se pertinentes para a análise de temas e problemas que escapam a esquemas explicativos rígidos.

VAGARIES OF DISENCHANTMENT: GOD, MATTER, AND MAMMON IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

In the lecture “Science as a Vocation,” Max Weber gave a reckoning not only of his own scholarly life, but also of our fate in a world bereft of wonder. Self-possessed intellectuals command knowledge with authority. Yet their technical prowess also points up intractable limits. Calculation falters in securing value, whether in its moral or economic guises. If “we live as did the ancients when their world was not yet disenchanted of its gods and demons,” Weber mused, we nonetheless do so “in a different sense.” Once-knowing entities have shed their skins, to assume the mien of “impersonal forces.” These remarks assemble elements of Weber's religious sociology within a single frame, from the “this-worldly asceticism” of the Protestant ethic to portrayals of rationality as an “iron cage,” where spirits—much less the Spirit—dare not tread.

Weber’s listening: Non-purposive figures in Weber

The article attempts to uncover non-intentional impulses in Weber’s sociology that are at odds with his ‘official’ theory of action and with textbook understandings of ‘interpretative’ Weberian sociology. In the first part of the article, I critically sketch what I take to be central dogmas in Weberian thought and in the literature blocking for new or different interpretations of his work and his concept of calling. In the second part of the article, I investigate the concept of personality in late Weber, his picture of creativity in scientific (and political) practice and his concept of charisma and charismatic inspiration. I try to demonstrate that Weber’s reflections in all three cases are grounded in non-intentional figures, and that this grounding runs counter to the dualist, Cartesian and Kantian vocabulary pervading much of his work. I even try to find such figures in Weber’s account of puritanism. In conclusion, I assess the wider significance of my findings for our image of Weber and the merits of his sociology.

The emergence of Islam through the theoretical prism of Max Weber: The role of spatial context, social actors and social strata in the process of defining and expansion of the Islamic religion

Weber's theoretical legacy contains only fragments of thinking about Islam, primarily in the texts and monographs that as the main object of study did not have this religion. This fact is a big problem to contemporary researchers who want to reconstruct Weber's perception of Islam and positioning it in its theoretical and methodological coordinates. However, this barrier gives rise to modern researchers to engage in the challenge of reconstruction of the mentioned segment Weber's thoughts. This paper is an attempt of such a reconstruction. The paper analyzes the emergence of Islam, ie. spatial and social context of the founding of the Islamic religious dogma. The author starts from the hypothesis that in Weber's theoretical and analytical equation the importance of urban areas for the development and spread of Islam is absent. Also, in the paper author points to another error that Weber makes. Weber classified Islam in the category of warrior religion, and ignored the role of trade and commercial bed in the formulation of Islamic dogma and the (economic) practices. In order to more adequately respond to the request 'placement' of Islam in the theoretical coordinates of Weber's sociology (of religion), author of the paper emphasizes the universality of the rationalization process, proving that Islam is one of the better examples of substantive rationality in the religious domain (because Islamic dogma implies a holistic approach to the believer and the high level of submission to the sacred text in all areas of its life).

“Valentes de batina”: a coragem e o uso da violência por clérigos em Goiás

<p>Este artigo analisa clérigos que se identificaram com a ética da valentia. A valentia é um campo valorativo baseado na demonstração pública de coragem e na perícia no manejo da violência. Nesse sentido, observou-se que, entre os clérigos católicos, um contingente minoritário, mas heuristicamente representativo, realizou ações típicas de pessoas valentes, como a coragem de matar outro ser humano ou de empregar a violência para resolver conflitos cotidianos. O texto está dividido em três partes: a primeira, denominada de “Igreja católica e violência”, analisa, a partir da sociologia weberiana, as relações tensas entre religião e violência. Na segunda, “a valentia e os clérigos” procura-se conceituar valentia e demonstrar a sua aplicabilidade aos membros do clero a partir de exemplos histórico. Por fim, o tópico denominado “padres valentes em Goiás” estuda os casos de padres, no contexto da história goiana, antes de 1930, que se aproximaram da ética da valentia, assumindo uma personalidade que destoa do comportamento socialmente esperado para esta categoria.</p>

FROMMYTHOSTOLOGOS: JEAN-PIERRE VERNANT, MAX WEBER, AND THE NARRATIVE OF OCCIDENTAL RATIONALIZATION

This article begins with a remark by Jean-Pierre Vernant in his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France about the inadequacy of Max Weber's historical sociology for the study of ancient religions. Despite posing shared research questions and often reaching similar conclusions, Vernant, one of the most influential twentieth-century ancient historians, neither engaged nor acknowledged Weber and thereby secured his absence in the field of ancient religions generally. Vernant's narrative of the historical emergence of Greek rationality is at direct odds with Weber's views on the matter inSociology of Religionand elsewhere, and I argue that, beyond methodological concerns, Vernant's fundamentally Durkheimian position inherits early twentieth-century polemics between French and German sociologists. Vernant's relationships with Marcel Mauss, Ignace Meyerson, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, and his participation in the French Resistance, moreover, reaffirmed his Durkheimian views about society and committed him to a long tradition of anti-German scholarship. I conclude with a brief coda on the historiographical implications of these observations for the study of religion and its relation to social life.

Con-fliggere. La complicità dei litiganti

The shape of the conflict this article explores is the one which normally takes place in the realm of language, when two or more individuals face one another in what is commonly identified as a “quarrel”. Redefining quarrel as personal conflict, and distinguishing it from differring opinions is the premise on which my article rests, so that personal conflict may be conceptualized as a discourse, i.e., a reality that is not to be found behind or beyond the words of the conflicting parties, and not in their “real motives” or “real interests”, but rather in their discursive coming together (inter-esse). We will not start from asking “why” two or more individuals come into conflict, but “what” they do with words while they quarrel. Taking as its background the Weberian sociology of the sense of action, my article tries to answer this question by taking cues from Austin’s speech act theory, Barthes’s semiotics, Bakhtin’s polyphonic theory, and Wittgenstein’s philosophical grammar, as well as some recent contributions made by analysts and professional “mediators”’ of personal conflicts.

European New Legal Realism and International Law: How to Make International Law Intelligible

AbstractInternational law remains in many ways a challenge to legal science. As in domestic law, the available options appear to be exhausted by either internal doctrinal approaches, or external approaches applying more general empirical methods from the social sciences. This article claims that, while these major positions obviously provide interesting insights, none of them manage to make international law intelligible in a broader sense. Instead, it argues for a European New Legal Realist approach to international law accommodating the so-called external and internal dimensions of law in a single more complex analysis which takes legal validity seriously but as a genuinely empirical object of study. This article constructs this position by identifying a distinctively European realist path which takes as its primary inspirations Weberian sociology of law and Alf Ross’ Scandinavian Legal Realism and combines them with insights originating from Bourdieusian sociology of law.

Os limites do carisma na instituição tradicional: Reflexões sobre as reformas do Papa Francisco em chave weberiana

The present text presents a reflection on the reforms undertaken by Pope Francis in the Catholic Church since his first audience, after the crisis that has led to the resignation of Pope Benedict VI. Having as reference Weberian types of powers such as charismatic powers, traditional powers and bureaucratic powers, this paper analyzes the current ecclesial situation under the influx of the reformed Charism of Francis, legitimated by the tradition of apostolic succession and established in the ecclesiastical bureaucracy. The current Pope adds in his person and function, the charismatic, traditional and institutional powers. Although Weberian sociology provides analytical keys for reflection, it should not lead to the identification of pure charismatic type powers in the person of the renovator. The tension between the charism, the tradition and the bureaucratic organization constitute a challenge and the possibility of reformation in the structure and functions of the Church. Pope Francis faces the challenge of implementing reforms in an organization whose function is to preserve and not to innovate; being necessary to use strategies to translate their ideals into objective rules. This passage from the personal charism to institutional objectivity can lead the whole Church to reform despite inherent resistances to every bureaucratic institution in order to produce the desired reforms.

DURKHEİMCİ BİR SOSYOLOG: İSMAYIL HAKKI B

The subject of this paper is the view of Ord. Prof. Dr. Ismayil Hakki Baltacioglu on religion and society, who has a significant place in Turkish Sociology and whose ideas were shaped under the effect of Durkheim and sociology of Gokalp. Baltacioglu, who witnessed many phases of the Republic and who had a multifaceted personality, is a philosopher and sociologist on whom several discussions are made. Baltacioglu’s educator aspect is in the oreground,however; he has taken place in the term discussions on religion-society with distinctive remarks and interpretations about subjects such as worship in Turkish, tradition, morality,societal improvement and faith. Ziya Gokalp, who is the most important follower of Durkheim in Turkish sociology and related to his effect, intense signs of Durkheimian and Weberian sociology leap out on Baltacioglu. Baltacioglu pays special attention to religion for societal improvement, at the same time; emphasizes that the religion needs to be reformed via making Turkish. With the entrance of sociology to our country in order to find solutions for social problems, there were different poiltical and ideological breakups and interpretations showed up, concordantly; Turkish sociology has taken form in the political and social breakups of the term. Durkheimian sociology had effects on Turkish intellectuals when it was also effective in western Sociology. In this context, new social structure manifested after the Ottoman period and seek of identity has shaped the perspective of Turkish sociologists on religion.

European New Legal Realism and International Law: How to Make International Law Intelligible

International law remains in many ways a challenge to legal science. As in domestic law, the available options appear to be exhausted by either internal doctrinal approaches applying a sui generis legal method in order to identify valid law, or external reductionist approaches applying more general empirical methods, predominantly taken from the social sciences. The claim of this paper is that while these major positions obviously provide interesting insights, none of them manage to make international law (or national law for that matter) intelligible in a broader sense. Instead, the paper argues for a New Legal Realist approach to international law, which accommodates the so-called external and internal dimensions of law in a single more complex analysis, which takes legal validity seriously but as a genuinely empirical object of study.The way the paper constructs this position within New Legal Realism is however not via the well-trodden path of American Legal Realism, but rather by identifying a different, distinctively European path. The approach takes as its primary inspirations Weberian sociology of law and Alf Ross’ Scandinavian Legal Realism and combines them with insights originating from Bourdieusian sociology of law. While these prominent authors are typically viewed as belonging to very different intellectual traditions, the paper demonstrates how there is in fact a distinct intellectual trajectory from Weber over Ross to Bourdieu and European New Legal Realism with regard to developing a rigorous legal science. This approach shares some of its roots with American New Legal Realism as articulated in recent years by a number of scholars, notably via the overall empirical research interest, yet it articulates a different position particularly with regard to the crucial epistemological question of what is legal science. This approach – which is dubbed European New Legal Realism – is however not simply an exegesis of the possibilities of knowledge on law, but rather an operational program for better explaining international law and its institutions.

Legislação, Educação e Política: percepções sociais sobre a Lei de Diretrizes e Bases e o Plano Nacional de Educação (2011-2020)

This paper analysis the relationship between education and legislation, in the perspective of Political Sociology, based on the perceptions of citizens on the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educacao Nacional and the Plano Nacional de Educacao (2011-2020), based on the following issues: what degree of knowledge of the population on the LDB in its 15 year lifetime? (3) what level of public interest and expectations about the PNE? The methodology consists of the survey technique, applying questioning with national sampling of 1,010 respondents, as well as bibliographic and documentary research. The theoretical scope is focused on Weberian political sociology, in which education and legislation are seen as resulting from historical Western rationalization. The data show low popular interest in LDB and the PNE. However, schooling raises the level of knowledge / interest. Education is recognized as an important national issue, but the political connotation is just outstanding, especially when it comes to the recognition of the parliament as a forum for debate on educational policies. The role of the parliament is associated with providing and monitoring of resources.

Book Reviews

Ten papers explore the importance of emotions in the study and understanding of finance and money. Papers discuss magic thinking and panic buttons in the callous financial transaction chains (Helena Flam); immoral panic and emotional operations in times of financial fragility (Alexandros-Andreas Kyrtsis); how European sovereign debt became the new subprime—the role of confidence in the European financial crisis, 2009–10 (Richard Swedberg); shame and stock market losses—the case of amateur investors in the United States (Brooke Harrington); the grammar of trust (Susan Shapiro); revisiting the credit theory of money and trust (Geoffrey Ingham); methodology in Max Weber's economic sociology—what place emotions in Roman agrarian history and today's finance sector? (Sam Whimster); states of disorder—new reflections on sociology's contribution to understanding financial booms and crises (Shaun Wilson and Peter McCarthy); “nicotine for protein”—culture and the emotions of hard trading in Japanese prisoner of war camps (Benjamin Manning); and the emotions of money—assessing betrayal and reform (Jocelyn Pixley). Pixley is Professorial Research Fellow with the Global Policy Institute at London Metropolitan University and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University.

Max Webers Rechtssoziologie und die juristische Methodenlehre. 2nd edition by Jens Petersen (review)

[MWS 14.2 (2014) 269-272] ISSN 1470-8078 Book Review Jens Petersen, Max Webers Rechtssoziologie und die juristische Methodenlehre. 2nd edi tion (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 181+xiv pp. ISBN 978-3-16-153159-0. €54.00. In his Max Webers Rechtssoziologie und die juristische Methodenlehre Jens Petersen has drawn much needed attention to Max Weber's sociology of law. Considerably ear lier Hubert Treiber had argued that an 'elective affinity' exists between Weber's 'Rechtssoziologie' and his 'Religionssoziologie', and this 'elective affinity' is his notion of rationalization (Treiber 1984: 7-8, 56-59). Despite this close relationship between Weber's 'sociology of law' and his 'sociology of religion', the former has been relatively neglected in contrast to the latter. Petersen clearly makes this point in his preface where he notes that an 'entire library' can be filled with books on Weber's 'sociology of religion' whereas only a few volumes have been devoted to his 'sociol ogy of law' (p. vi). Like Treiber, Petersen recognizes the importance of rationaliza tion for Weber's sociology of law (p. 37). However, rationalization is only one, albeit a major, component, thus he focuses primarily on Weber's legal methodology. In this way Petersen intends to draw more attention to Weber's 'Rechtssoziologie'. As Hubert Treiber noted in his review of the volume on law ('Recht') in the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe Weber's sociology of law is difficult to understand, in part because its history had not yet been so thoroughly investigated and because of the difficult nature of the material. However, Treiber also notes how crucial law is to Weber's general sociology and he commends the editors of the 'Recht' volume for helping to clarify its origins and providing some much needed historical context (Treiber 2011). Although Petersen follows others in noting that one of Weber's greatest contribu tions to the sociology of law is with the recognition of the importance of the process of rationalization, he Petersen goes beyond them in his emphasis on certain aspects of rationalization; for example, Weber's distinction between 'law creation' ('Rechtss chöpfung') and 'law finding' ('Rechtsfindung') (pp. 36-39). Regarding the former, Weber emphasized that humans rationally make laws and rejected the idea that divinities arbitrarily decree them. Regarding the latter he underscored how legal analysts were able to deduce increasingly specific legal findings from the more gen eral norms. In addition, Weber warned about the tendency of lay people to believe that legal thinking vacillated between vague legal theories and hair-splitting judicial decisions. What was warranted was an empirically-based system of legal principles that included clearly articulated judicial concepts (pp. 40-43). For Weber, this system should be clear and complete, that is, it needs to be readily understandable, not have any gaps; and, it should be free from internal contradictions (pp. 54,61,64-66, 79). Weber's clear implication was that a great many earlier legal philosophies were fun damentally flawed. One of Petersen's greatest services in this regard is his juxtapo sition of Weber's new 'sociology of law7 against the 'legal methodological doctrines' ('juristische Methodenlehre') of his time and he does so by pointing to the specific© Max Weber Studies 2014, Clifton House, 17 Malvern Road, London, E8 3LP. 270 Max Weber Studies problems Weber had with three important legal methodological doctrines: the pure theory of law, common law, and natural law. Weber objected to the first because it is too abstract and appears to lay people as being 'alien to life' (pp. 102-103); he objected to the second because it relies solely on experience and rejects logic (p. 87); and he objected to the third because it was not so much a legal doctrine as it was a theological one, and a Catholic one at that (pp. 75-77). Having dispensed with Weber's criticisms of the existing legal approaches, Petersen turns his attention to reconstructing Weber's own approach. Petersen draws a connection between Weber's sociology of law and his doctrine of method; both are heavily involved with conflict and with values. Regarding the first, there is no doubt that Weber believed that his methodology was crucial but...

Max Weber's Sociology of Civilizations: The Five Major Themes

As is well-known, Max Weber's three-volume Economic Ethics of the World Religions on China, India and ancient Israel yield 'contrast case' analyses that isolate the uniqueness of 'Western' and 'modern Western' rationalism. Less well-known is the sociology of civilizations contained in these volumes and in Economy and Society. This study identifies five themes that, taken in combination, are central to this project. Uniquely, Weber's approach to the study of civilizations stresses (a) the researcher's capacity to understand the subjective meaning of action by persons in groups quite different from those familiar in the modern West, (b) the constitution of the distinct 'rationalisms' of varying civilizations past and present, and (c) the capacity of values, under certain circumstances, to 'rationalize' action beyond utilitarian calculations. Comprehension of each civilization on its own terms comes here to the forefront, as does the unusually broad—civilizational— range of Weber's sociology.

Us, them, and others: reflections on Canadian multiculturalism and national identity at the turn of the twenty-first century.

The John Porter Lecture at the annual meeting of the Canadian Sociological Association in Victoria 2013 draws upon my book Us, Them, and Others: Pluralism and National Identity in Diverse Societies. Incorporating the findings from an analysis of Canadian English-language newspaper discourses during the 1990s into a theoretical framework inspired by Weberian sociology, the book argues that pluralism is best understood as a dynamic set of triangular relations where the compromise between unequal groups--"us" and "others"--is rendered meaningful through the confrontation with real or imagined outsiders ("them"). The lecture summarizes the theoretical contribution and explains how multiculturalism became consolidated in dominant Canadian discourses in the late 1990s. The lecture then discusses changes to Canadian multicultural identity at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Book Review: Political Theory: Max Weber's Comparative-Historical Sociology Today: Major Themes, Mode of Causal Analysis and Applications

Book Review: Political Theory: Max Weber's Comparative-Historical Sociology Today: Major Themes, Mode of Causal Analysis and Applications

A Recepção Controversa de Max Weber no Brasil (1940-1980)

This article deals with the controversial reception of Max Weber during the early decades of institutionalization of sociology in Brazil, arguing that the German scholar's ideas were grasped on the basis of Brazilian sociology's own issues. This perspective suggests that central propositions of Weberian sociology such as the formulation of ideal types and the meaning of science were received reservedly in Brazil and reworked to the extent that he was read together with other authors. The point of departure was to revisit articles from Sociologia journal, followed by a focus on the valorization of propositions by Hans Freyer and Karl Mannheim as opposed to Max Weber's positions on the sociologist's role, concluding with an approach to the controversy on ideal types, led by Maria Sylvia de Carvalho Franco, which involves writings by Florestan Fernandes and Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

DEBATAI DĖL „GALIOS“ SOCIALINĖJE IR POLITINĖJE TEORIJOJE

Power is one of the basic, but at the same time one of the most disputed concepts in political science, as well as other social sciences contiguous to it. The dispute over the meaning of power is best instantiated by the ongoing debate between political scientists and sociologists which started around 1960s – the so-called “faces of power debate”. Although different conceptions of arguably the same phenomenon where termed “faces of power” relatively recently by the scientists taking part in this debate, these conceptions have their roots in various paradigmatic social and political theories, and methodological traditions (Weberian comparative historical sociology, structural functionalism, critical theory and Gramscian neomarxism, structuration theory, Foucaultian post-structuralism, etc.). Therefore, the first task of this theoretical endeavour is to overview the faces-of-power literature in the context of the long-established social scientific traditions in order to trace the intellectual roots of the four faces. A strong case can be made for associating the first face of power with behaviourism, the second – with structural functionalism of Talcott Parsons and structurationism of Anthony Giddens, the third – with critical social theory and Gramscian neomarxism, whereas the fourth face of power is exclusively inspired by the works of Michel Foucault. At the end, a modest “taxonomy” of power is proposed with relative weight of social conflict / social consensus, subjectivity / objectivity of interests, and the source of power serving as axes for differentiation among different conceptions (faces).The second section focuses on the conceptual limits of “power” and its discursive relation to “authority” and “coercion” (meaning “physical force”). Drawing on the theoretical insights of Talcott Parsons, Hannah Arendt and Anthony Giddens, authoritative power is associated with the full institutionalisation and legitimation of relations of autonomy and dependence between a position of authority and its subordinate; therefore, as an ideal type, authoritative power by definition involves voluntary acquiescence and faces virtually no opposition. In contrast, a relation (or rather an act) of coercion involves no active part of the subject (or rather object) over whom it is exercised. Along these lines, a strong argument can be made that physical coercion is not a form of power. It does not involve a minimum amount of dialectic of control associated with power relations. “Authority” and “coercion” are thus seen as conceptual markers, the former corresponding to the maximum of power and the latter – to a complete absence of power, which is replaced by a causal chain of sheer physical force and its consequence in a Newtonian sense.