Max Weber
Weber in 1918
Born	Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (1864-04-21)21 April 1864 Erfurt, Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia
Died	14 June 1920(1920-06-14) (aged 56) Munich, Bavaria, Weimar Republic
Spouse	Marianne Schnitger ​ (m. 1893)​
Education
Alma mater	Heidelberg University University of Strasbourg University of Berlin University of Göttingen
Theses	The History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages, Based on Southern European Documents (1889) Roman Agrarian History and Its Significance for Public and Private Law (1891)
Doctoral advisors	Levin Goldschmidt Rudolf von Gneist August Meitzen
Philosophical work
School	Continental philosophy Antipositivism Liberalism
Institutions	University of Berlin University of Freiburg Heidelberg University University of Vienna LMU Munich
Main interests	History economics sociology law religion
Notable works	"The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy" The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–1905) The Economic Ethics of the World Religions (1915–1921) "Science as a Vocation" (1917) "Politics as a Vocation" (1919) Economy and Society (1921–1922) General Economic History (1923)
Notable ideas	List Bureaucracy Charisma Disenchantment Ethic of ultimate ends Ideal type Inner-worldly asceticism Iron cage Life chances Methodological individualism Monopoly on violence Patrimonialism Political capitalism Protestant work ethic Rationalisation Social action (affectional, traditional, instrumental, and value-rational) Three-component theory of stratification (class, party, and status) Tripartite classification of authority (charismatic, rational-legal, and traditional) Value-freedom Verstehen
Signature

Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (/ˈveɪbər/; German: [ˈveːbɐ] ^ⓘ;^[1] 21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sciences more generally. His ideas continue to influence social theory and research.

Born in Erfurt in 1864, Weber studied law and history in Berlin, Göttingen, and Heidelberg. After earning his doctorate in law in 1889 and habilitation in 1891, he taught in Berlin, Freiburg, and Heidelberg. He married his cousin Marianne Schnitger two years later. In 1897, he had a breakdown after his father died following an argument. Weber ceased teaching and travelled until the early 1900s. He recovered and wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. During the First World War, he initially supported Germany's war effort but became critical of it and supported democratisation. He also gave the lectures "Science as a Vocation" and "Politics as a Vocation". After the war, Weber co-founded the German Democratic Party, unsuccessfully ran for office, and advised the drafting of the Weimar Constitution. Becoming frustrated with politics, he resumed teaching in Vienna and Munich. He died of pneumonia in 1920 at the age of 56, possibly as a result of the post-war Spanish flu pandemic. A book, Economy and Society, was left unfinished.

One of Weber's main intellectual concerns was in understanding the processes of rationalisation and disenchantment. He formulated a thesis arguing that such processes were associated with the rise of capitalism and modernity. Weber also argued that the Protestant work ethic influenced the creation of capitalism in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It was followed by The Economic Ethics of the World Religions, where he examined the religions of China, India, and ancient Judaism. In terms of government, Weber argued that states were defined by their monopoly on violence and categorised social authority into three distinct forms: charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal. He was also a key proponent of methodological antipositivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive rather than purely empiricist methods. Weber made a variety of other contributions to economic sociology, political sociology, and the sociology of religion.

After his death, the rise of Weberian scholarship was slowed by the Weimar Republic's political instability and the rise of Nazi Germany. In the post-war era, organised scholarship began to appear, led by Talcott Parsons. Other American and British scholars were also involved in its development. Over the course of the twentieth century, Weber's reputation grew as translations of his works became widely available and scholars increasingly engaged with his life and ideas. As a result of these works, he began to be regarded as a founding father of sociology, alongside Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim, and one of the central figures in the development of the social sciences more generally.

Maximilian Carl Emil Weber was born on 21 April 1864 in Erfurt, Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia, and his family moved to Charlottenburg in 1869.^[2] He was the oldest of Max Weber Sr. and Helene Fallenstein's eight children.^[3] Over the course of his life, Weber Sr. held posts as a lawyer, civil servant, and parliamentarian for the National Liberal Party in the Prussian Landtag and German Reichstag.^[4] This immersed his home in both politics and academia, as his salon welcomed scholars and public figures such as the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, the jurist Levin Goldschmidt, and the historian Theodor Mommsen. The young Weber and his brother Alfred, who also became a sociologist, spent their formative years in this intellectual atmosphere.^[5] Meanwhile, Fallenstein was partly descended from the French Huguenot Souchay family [de], which had obtained wealth through international commerce and the textile industry.^[6] Over time, Weber was affected by the marital and personality tensions between his father, who enjoyed material pleasures while overlooking religious and philanthropic causes, and his mother, a devout Calvinist and philanthropist.^[7]

Weber entered the Doebbelinsche Privatschule in Charlottenburg in 1870, before attending the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium between 1872 and 1882.^[8] While in class, bored and unimpressed with his teachers, Weber secretly read all forty of Johann Friedrich Cotta's volumes of the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's works.^[9] Before graduating, he read many other classical works, including those by the philosopher Immanuel Kant.^[10] For Christmas in 1877, a thirteen-year-old Weber gifted his parents two historical essays, entitled "About the Course of German History, with Special Reference to the Positions of the Emperor and the Pope" and "About the Roman Imperial Period from Constantine to the Migration Period". Two years later, also during Christmastime, he wrote another historical essay, "Observations on the Ethnic Character, Development, and History of the Indo-European Nations". These three essays were non-derivative contributions to the philosophy of history and resulted from Weber's reading of many sources.^[11]

In 1882, Weber enrolled in Heidelberg University as a law student, later studying at the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and the University of Göttingen.^[12] Weber's university years were dotted with several periods of military service, the longest of which lasted between October 1883 and September 1884. During it, he attended classes that his uncle, the historian Hermann Baumgarten, taught at the University of Strasbourg.^[13] Weber befriended Baumgarten, who influenced Weber's growing liberalism and criticism of Otto von Bismarck's domination of German politics.^[14] Weber was a member of the Burschenschaft Allemannia Heidelberg [de], a Studentenverbindung (student association), and heavily drank beer and engaged in academic fencing during his first few university years.^[15] As a result of the latter, he obtained several duelling scars on the left side of his face.^[16] His mother was displeased by his behaviour and slapped him after he came home when his third semester ended in 1883. However, Weber matured, increasingly supported his mother in family arguments, and grew estranged from his father.^[17]

On 15 May 1886, Weber passed the Referendar examination, a legal training assessment.^[18] He practiced law and worked as a lecturer simultaneously with his studies.^[19] Under the tutelage of Levin Goldschmidt and Rudolf von Gneist, Weber wrote a legal history dissertation titled Development of the Principle of Joint Liability and a Separate Fund of the General Partnership out of the Household Communities and Commercial Associations in Italian Cities in 1889. It was part of a longer work, The History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages, Based on Southern European Documents, which he published later that year.^[20] In the same year, Weber began working on his habilitation, a post-doctoral thesis, with the statistician August Meitzen and completed it two years later. His habilitation, titled Roman Agrarian History and Its Significance for Public and Private Law, focused on Roman surveying and Roman agrarian law's relationship.^[21] Theodor Mommsen was present and debated with him during his defence, later indicating that he wanted Weber to succeed him.^[22] Having thus become a Privatdozent, Weber joined the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin's faculty, lecturing, conducting research, and government consulting.^[23]

From 1887 until her declining mental health caused him to end it five years later, Weber had a semi-engagement with Emmy Baumgarten, the daughter of Hermann Baumgarten.^[24] Afterwards, he began a relationship with his second cousin Marianne Schnitger in 1893 and married her on 20 September of that year in Oerlinghausen.^[25] The marriage gave Weber financial independence, allowing him to leave his parents' household.^[26] They had no children.^[27] Marianne was a feminist activist and an author in her own right.^[28] Academically, between the completion of his dissertation and habilitation, Weber took an interest in contemporary social policy. He joined the Verein für Socialpolitik (Association for Social Policy) in 1888.^[29] The Verein was an organisation of reformist thinkers who were generally members of the historical school of economics.^[30] Weber also involved himself in politics, participating in the founding of the left-leaning Evangelical Social Congress in 1890. It applied a Protestant perspective to the social question debate.^[31] In the same year, the Verein established a research program examining the Ostflucht, which was the western migration of ethnically German agricultural labourers from eastern Germany and the corresponding influx of Polish farm workers into it. Weber was put in charge of the study and wrote part of the final report, generating attention and political controversy.^[32]

From 1893 to 1899, Weber was a member of the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband), an organisation that opposed the influx of Polish workers. How much he supported the Germanisation of Poles and similar German nationalist policies is debated by scholars.^[33] Weber and his wife moved to Freiburg in 1894, where he was appointed professor of economics at the University of Freiburg.^[34] His 1895 inaugural lecture, "The Nation State and Economic Policy", criticised Polish immigration and argued that the Junkers encouraged it to serve their economic interests over those of Germany.^[35] It influenced the politician Friedrich Naumann to create the National-Social Association, which was a Christian socialist and German nationalist political organisation.^[36] Weber was pessimistic regarding its potential success, and it dissolved after winning a single Reichstag seat in the 1903 German federal election.^[37] In 1896, he was appointed to an economics and finance chair at Heidelberg University.^[38] There, Weber and his wife became central to the eponymous Weber Circle, which included Georg Jellinek, Ernst Troeltsch, and Werner Sombart. Younger scholars, such as György Lukács and Robert Michels, also joined it.^[39]

In June 1897, Weber had a severe quarrel with his father over his father's treatment of his mother.^[40] Weber Sr. died two months later while on a trip to Riga, leaving the argument unresolved.^[41] Afterwards, Weber became increasingly prone to depression, nervousness, and insomnia, which made it difficult for him to fulfill his professorial duties.^[42] He sought a teaching exemption, which was granted in 1899. He stayed in the Heilanstalt für Nervenkranke Konstanzer Hof in 1898 and in a different sanatorium in Bad Urach in 1900.^[43] Weber also travelled to Corsica and Italy between 1899 and 1903 to recuperate.^[44] He fully withdrew from teaching in 1903 and did not return to it until 1918.^[45] Weber thoroughly described his ordeal with mental illness in a personal chronology that his widow later destroyed. She potentially feared that the Nazis would discredit his work if his experience with mental illness were widely known.^[46]

After recovering from his illness, Weber became an associate editor of the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (Archive for Social Science and Social Policy) in 1904, alongside his colleagues Edgar Jaffé and Werner Sombart.^[47] He made it one of the most prominent social science journals.^[48] Weber published some of his most seminal works in it, including his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which became his most famous work and influenced his later research on religion's impact on economic systems' development.^[49] Also in 1904, he was invited to participate in the Congress of Arts and Sciences that was part of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition – the World's fair – in St. Louis. He went alongside his wife, Werner Sombart, Ernst Troeltsch, and other German scholars.^[50] Taking advantage of it, the Webers travelled throughout the country for almost three months in a round trip that began and ended in New York City. Different communities were visited, including German immigrant towns and African American communities.^[51] North Carolina was also visited, as some of Weber's Fallenstein family relatives had settled there.^[52] He learned more about America's social, economic, and theological conditions and their relationship with his thesis.^[53] Afterwards, Weber felt unable to resume regular teaching and remained a private scholar, helped by an inheritance in 1907.^[54]

Shortly after returning, Weber's attention shifted to the then-recent Russian Revolution of 1905.^[55] He learned the Russian language in a few months, subscribed to Russian newspapers, and discussed Russian political and social affairs with the Heidelberg Russian émigré community.^[56] He was popular amongst them and twice considered travelling to Russia, but his schedule prevented it.^[57] While he was sceptical of the revolution's ability to succeed, Weber supported the establishment of a Russian liberal democracy.^[58] He wrote two essays on it that were published in the Archiv.^[59] Weber thought that the peasants' desire for land caused the revolution.^[60] He discussed the role of the obshchina, rural peasant communities, in Russian political debates. According to Weber, they were difficult for liberal agrarian reformers to abolish due to their basis in natural law and the rising kulak class self-interestedly manipulating them.^[61] He generally interpreted the Russian Revolution as lacking a clear leader and the result of the peasants' emotional passions, not the Russian intellectuals' goals.^[62]

Else von Richthofen and Mina Tobler, Max Weber's mistresses

In 1909, having become increasingly dissatisfied with the political conservatism and perceived lack of methodological discipline of the Verein, he co-founded the German Sociological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie) and was its first treasurer.^[63] Weber associated it with the Verein and viewed them as not having been competitors.^[64] He unsuccessfully tried to steer the association's direction.^[65] As part of that, Weber tried to make the Archiv its official journal.^[66] He resigned from his position as treasurer in 1912.^[67] His support for value-freedom in the social sciences caused that, as it was a controversial position in the association.^[68] Also in 1909, Weber and his wife befriended a former student of his, Else von Richthofen, and the pianist Mina Tobler [de]. After failing to court Richthofen, Weber began an affair with Tobler in 1911.^[69]

Later, during the spring of 1913, Weber holidayed in the Monte Verità community in Ascona, Switzerland.^[70] While holidaying, he advised Frieda Gross in her custody battle for her children. He opposed Erich Mühsam's involvement because of Mühsam's anarchism. Weber argued that the case needed to be dealt with by bourgeois reformers who were not "derailed".^[71] A year later, also in spring, he again holidayed in Ascona.^[72] The community contained several different then-contemporaneous radical political and lifestyle reform movements, including naturism, free love, and Western esotericism, among others. Weber was critical of the Ascona anarchist and erotic movements, as he viewed their fusion as having been politically absurd.^[73]

After the First World War began in 1914, Weber volunteered for service and was appointed as a reserve officer in charge of organising the Heidelberg army hospitals, a role he fulfilled until the end of 1915.^[74] Over the course of it, his views on the war and the German Empire's expansion changed.^[75] Early on, he strongly supported the German war effort. Later, however, Weber became one of the most prominent critics of both German expansionism and the Kaiser's war policies.^[76] He publicly criticised Germany's potential annexation of Belgium and unrestricted submarine warfare, later supporting calls for constitutional reform, democratisation, and universal suffrage.^[77] The death of his previously derided younger brother Karl, an architect, while fighting near Brest-Litovsk in 1915 made him relate to him.^[78]

He and his wife participated in the 1917 Lauenstein Conferences at Lauenstein Castle [de] in Bavaria.^[79] These conferences were planned by the publisher Eugen Diederichs and brought together intellectuals, including Theodor Heuss, Ernst Toller, and Werner Sombart.^[80] Weber's presence elevated his profile in Germany and dispelled some of the event's romantic atmosphere. He was involved in the planning for the second one, as Diederichs thought that the conferences needed an oppositional figure. Weber argued against the former theologian Max Maurenbrecher's political romanticism and also opposed what he saw as the youth groups and nationalists' excessive rhetoric, instead supporting German democratisation.^[81] For him and the younger participants, the conferences' romanticism could not determine Germany's future.^[82] In November, shortly after the second conference, Weber was invited by the Free Student Youth – a student organisation – to lecture in Munich, resulting in "Science as a Vocation".^[83] In it, he argued that an inner calling and specialisation were necessary for one to become a scholar.^[84] Weber also began a sadomasochistic affair with Else von Richthofen the next year.^[85] Meanwhile, she was simultaneously conducting an affair with his brother, Alfred.^[86] Max Weber's affairs with Richtofen and Mina Tobler lasted until his death in 1920.^[87]

After the war, Weber unsuccessfully ran for a Weimar National Assembly seat in January 1919 for the liberal German Democratic Party, which he had co-founded.^[88] He also advised the National Assembly's drafting of the Weimar Constitution.^[89] While campaigning, Weber critiqued the left and criticised the leftist Spartacus League's leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.^[90] He thought that the German Revolution of 1918–1919 prevented Germany from contesting Poland's claims on its eastern territories.^[91] Opposing the revolution may have prevented Friedrich Ebert, the new president of Germany and a Social Democratic Party politician, from appointing him as a minister or ambassador.^[92] Weber also criticized the Treaty of Versailles, which he believed unjustly assigned war guilt to Germany.^[93] Instead, he believed that many countries were guilty, not just Germany.^[94] Weber argued that Russia was the only great power that desired the war.^[95] Overall, Weber's political efforts were unsuccessful, other than supporting a democratically elected and strong presidency.^[96] On 28 January 1919, after his electoral defeat, Weber delivered a lecture titled "Politics as a Vocation", which discussed politics.^[97] It was prompted by the early Weimar Republic's political turmoil and was requested by the Free Student Youth.^[98] Shortly before joining the Versailles delegation on 13 May 1919, Weber used his connections with the German National People's Party's deputies to meet Erich Ludendorff and spent several hours unsuccessfully convincing him to surrender himself to the Allies.^[99]

Frustrated with politics, Weber resumed teaching, first at the University of Vienna in 1918, then at LMU Munich in 1919.^[100] In Vienna, Weber filled a vacant political economy chair that he had been considered for since October 1917.^[101] While there, he gave a lecture titled "Socialism" on the eponymous subject to a group of Austro-Hungarian Army officers.^[102] He also had a heated debate with Joseph Schumpeter at the Café Landtmann on the usability of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic as a case study for communism.^[103] Later, in Munich, Weber was appointed to Lujo Brentano's social science, economic history, and political economy chair. He accepted it to be closer to his mistress, Else von Richthofen.^[104] Responding to student requests, he gave a lecture series on economic history. The student transcriptions were later edited and published as the General Economic History by Siegmund Hellmann [de] and Melchior Palyi in 1923.^[105] In terms of politics, he opposed the pardoning of the Bavarian Minister-President Kurt Eisner's murderer, Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley. In response, right-wing students disrupted his classes and protested outside his home.^[106] In early 1920, Weber discussed Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West in a seminar, provoking students – who personally knew Spengler – to suggest that he debate Spengler alongside other scholars. They debated for two days in the Munich town hall, but the students felt that the question of how to resolve Germany's post-war issues remained unanswered.^[107]

Lili Schäfer, one of Weber's sisters, committed suicide on 7 April 1920 after the pedagogue Paul Geheeb ended his affair with her.^[108] Weber respected it, as he thought that her suicide was justifiable and that suicide in general could be honourable.^[109] Weber and his wife took in Lili's four children and planned to raise them. He was uncomfortable with his newfound role as a father figure, but thought that it fulfilled Marianne as a woman.^[110] She later formally adopted the children in 1927.^[111] Weber wanted her to stay with them in Heidelberg or move closer to Geheeb's Odenwaldschule (Odenwald School) so that he could be alone in Munich with his mistress, Else von Richthofen. He left the decision to Marianne, but she said that only he could make the decision to leave for himself.^[112] While this was occurring, Weber began to believe that his own life had reached its end.^[113]

On 4 June 1920, Weber's students were informed that he had a cold and needed to cancel classes. By 14 June 1920, the cold had turned into influenza and he died of pneumonia in Munich.^[114] He had likely contracted the Spanish flu during the post-war pandemic and been subjected to insufficient medical care. Else von Richthofen, who was present by his deathbed alongside his wife, thought that he could have survived his illness if he had been given better treatment.^[115] His body was cremated in the Munich Ostfriedhof after a secular ceremony, and his cinerary urn was later buried in the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof [de] in 1921. The funeral service was attended by his students, including Eduard Baumgarten [de] and Karl Loewenstein, and fellow scholars, such as Lujo Brentano.^[116] Weber had not finished writing Economy and Society, his sociological theory magnum opus. His widow, Marianne, helped prepare it for its publication between 1921 and 1922.^[117] She later published a Weber biography in 1926 which became one of the central historical accounts of his life.^[118]

Social action was the central focus of Weber's sociology.^[119] He also considered it an important part of the field's scientific nature.^[120] He divided social action into the four categories of affectional, traditional, instrumental, and value-rational action.^[121] Affectional actions were caused by an actor's emotions.^[122] Traditional actions were based on tradition.^[123] Instrumental actions were calculated attempts to achieve goals.^[124] Value-rational actions were attempts to enact one's values.^[125] His methodology was different from those of Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx in that he primarily focused on individuals and culture.^[126] Whereas Durkheim focused on society, Weber concentrated on individuals and their actions. Meanwhile, compared to Marx's support for the material world's primacy over the world of ideas, Weber valued ideas as motivating individuals' actions.^[127] His perspective on structure and action and macrostructure differed from theirs in that he was open to the idea that social phenomena could have multiple causes and placed importance on social actors' interpretations of their actions.^[126]

In terms of methodology, Weber was primarily concerned with objectivity and subjectivity, distinguishing social action from social behavior, and noting that social action must be understood through individuals' subjective relationships.^[129] According to him, the study of social action through interpretive means or verstehen (to understand) needed to be based upon understanding the subjective meaning and purpose that individuals attached to their actions.^[130] Determining an individual's interpretation of their actions required either empathically or rationally derived evidence.^[131] Weber noted that subjectivity's importance in the social sciences made the creation of fool-proof, universal laws harder than in the natural sciences and that the amount of objective knowledge that social sciences were able to create was limited.^[132] Overall, he supported objective science as a goal worth striving for but noted that it was ultimately unreachable.^[133]

Weber's methodology was developed in the context of wider social scientific methodological debates.^[134] The first of which was the Methodenstreit (method dispute).^[135] In it, he was close to historicism, as he thought that social actions were heavily tied to historical contexts.^[136] He also emphasised the use of comparative historical analysis and was more interested in explaining how an outcome was the result of various historical processes than in predicting those processes' future outcomes.^[137] The second debate that shaped Weber's perspective on methodology was the Werturteilsstreit (value-judgement dispute).^[138] This debate was held between 1909 and 1914 on value-judgements in the social sciences. It originated with a Verein für Socialpolitik debate between the supporters and opponents of the idea that ethics was an important consideration in the field of economics.^[139] Weber's position was that the social sciences should strive to be value-free.^[140] In his view, science had no part in choosing values. With regards to economics, he argued that productivity was not a useful scientific concept, as it could impede the proper evaluation of economic phenomena.^[141]

The principle of methodological individualism, which held that social scientists should seek to understand collectivities solely as the result of individual people's actions, originated with Weber.^[142] The term "methodological individualism" was coined in 1908 by the Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter as a name for Weber's views on explaining social phenomena.^[143] While his research interests placed a strong emphasis on interpreting economic history, Weber's support of methodological individualism broke with the historical school of economics and aligned with the Austrian school of economics' founder, Carl Menger, in the Methodenstreit.^[144] In the first chapter of Economy and Society, Weber argued that only individuals "can be treated as agents in a course of subjectively understandable action".^[142] Despite the term's usage of "individualism", he did not interpret the individual as being the true source for sociological explanations. Instead, while only individuals could engage in intentional action, they were not necessarily separate from the collective group.^[145] Weber thought that methodological individualism had a close proximity to verstehende (interpretive) sociology, as actions could be interpreted subjectively. Similarly, it was also related to ideal types in that it involved discussions of abstract and rational models of human behaviour.^[146]

The ideal type was a central concept in Weber's methodology.^[147] He argued that they were indispensable for the social sciences.^[148] Due to taking of meaning into account, they were unique to the social sciences.^[149] An ideal type was a schematic that represented a social action and considered the role of meaning in it.^[150] It was an exaggeration of an empirical situation through its assumption that the involved individuals were rational, had complete situational knowledge, were completely aware of the situation, were completely aware of their actions, and made no errors.^[151] This was then contrasted with empirical reality, allowing the researcher to better understand it.^[152] However, ideal types were not direct representations of reality and Weber warned against interpreting them as such.^[153] The ideal types' three functions were to formulate terminology, classifications, and hypotheses.^[154] The latter task was the most important one.^[155] He placed no limits on what ideal types could be used to analyse.^[156] Since he thought that rational methodology and science were synonymous, ideal types were constructed rationally.^[157] The term "ideal type" was derived from Georg Jellinek.^[158] Weber outlined it in "The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy" and the first chapter of Economy and Society.^[159]

Weber thought that social scientists needed to avoid making value-judgements. Instead, social scientific research needed to be value-free.^[160] This would give scientists objectivity but must combine with an acknowledgement that their research connected with values in different ways.^[161] As part of his support for value-freedom, Weber opposed both instructors and students promoting their political views in the classroom.^[162] He first articulated it in his scientific philosophy writings, including "The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy" and "Science as a Vocation".^[163] Weber was influenced by Heinrich Rickert's concept of value-relevance.^[164] Rickert used it to relate historical objects to values while maintaining objectivity through explicitly defined conceptual distinctions.^[165] However, Weber disagreed with the idea that a scholar could maintain objectivity while ascribing to a hierarchy of values in the way that Rickert did, however.^[166] His argument regarding value-freedom was connected to his involvement in the Werturteilsstreit.^[139] During it, he argued that the social sciences needed to be value-free.^[167] Meanwhile, he unsuccessfully tried to turn the German Sociological Association into a value-free organisation.^[168]

Rationalisation was a central theme in Weber's scholarship.^[169] This theme was situated in the larger context of the relationship between psychological motivations, cultural values, cultural beliefs, and societal structure.^[170] Weber understood rationalisation as having resulted in increasing knowledge, growing impersonality, and the enhanced control of social and material life.^[171] He was ambivalent towards it. Weber admitted that it was responsible for many advances, particularly freeing humans from traditional, restrictive, and illogical social guidelines. However, he also criticised it for dehumanising individuals and curtailing their freedom, trapping them in the rational and bureaucratic iron cage.^[172] His studies of it began with The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.^[173] In it, he argued that Protestantism's – particularly Calvinism's – redefinition of work and piety's connection caused a shift towards rational attempts to achieve economic gain.^[174] In Protestantism, piety was expressed through one's secular vocation.^[175] The religious principles that influenced capitalism's creation became unnecessary and it became able to propagate itself without them.^[176]

Weber continued his investigation into rationalisation in later works, notably in his studies on bureaucracy and the classification of legitimate authority into three ideal types – rational-legal, traditional, and charismatic – of which rational-legal was the dominant one in modernity.^[178] In these works, Weber described what he saw as society's movement towards rationalisation.^[179] Bureaucratic states justified themselves through their own rationality and were supported by expert knowledge which made them rational.^[180] Rationalisation could also be seen in the economy, with the development of a highly rational capitalism. Capitalism's rationality related to its basis in economic calculation, particularly double-entry bookkeeping, which separated it from alternative forms of economic organisation.^[181] State bureaucracy and capitalism served as the twin pillars of the developing rational society. These changes eliminated the preexisting traditions that relied on the trades.^[177] Weber also saw rationalisation as one of the main factors that set the West apart from the rest of the world.^[182] Furthermore, The Rational and Social Foundations of Music was his application of rationalisation to music.^[183] It was influenced by his affair with the pianist Mina Tobler [de] and a sense that Western music was the only type that had become harmonic, while other cultures' music was more intense and focused on hearing.^[184] Weber argued that music was becoming increasingly rational. In his view, that resulted from new developments in musical instrument construction and simultaneous socio-economic shifts of the different instruments' players.^[185]

The process of disenchantment progressively removed magic as a central part of people's interpretation of the world.^[186] Older explanations of events relied on the belief in supernatural interference in the material world.^[187] According to Weber, religious activity began with material world actions that were given magical meanings and associated with vague spirits.^[188] Over time, this became increasingly systemised and the spirits became gods, resulting in polytheism and organised religion.^[188] Increasing rationality caused Western monotheism to develop, and groups focused on specific gods for political and economic purposes, creating a universal religion.^[189] Protestantism encouraged an increased pursuit of rationality that led to its own devaluation.^[190] It was replaced by modern science, which was considered a valid alternative to religious belief.^[191] However, modern science also ceased to be a source for universal values, as it could not create values.^[192] In its place was a collection of different value systems that could not adequately replace it.^[193] This mirrored the previous state of Western polytheism, but differed from it in that its gods lacked their ancient predecessors' mystical qualities.^[194]

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is Weber's most famous work.^[195] It was his first work on how religions affected economic systems' development.^[196] In the book, he put forward the thesis that the Protestant work ethic, which was derived from the theological ideas of the Reformation, influenced capitalism's development.^[197] Weber looked for elective affinities between the Protestant work ethic and capitalism.^[198] He may have derived "elective affinity" from one of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's works.^[199] Weber argued that the Puritans' religious calling to work caused them to systematically obtain wealth.^[200] They wished to prove that they were predestined to go to Heaven.^[201] Weber used Benjamin Franklin's personal ethic, as described in his "Advice to a Young Tradesman", as an example of the Protestant sects' economic ethic.^[202] Concepts that later became central to his scholarship, including rationalisation and the ideal type, appeared in the text.^[173]

According to Weber, certain types of Protestantism – notably Calvinism – were supportive of the rational pursuit of economic gain and the worldly activities that were dedicated to it, seeing those activities as having been endowed with moral and spiritual significance.^[203] The spirit of capitalism was found in the desire to work hard in a way that pleased the worker and signified their worth and originally had a basis in theology.^[204] In particular, the Protestant work ethic motivated the believers to work hard, be successful in business, and reinvest their profits in further development rather than frivolous pleasures.^[205] Weber thought that self-restraint, hard work, and a belief that wealth could be a sign of salvation were representative of ascetic Protestantism.^[206] Ascetic Protestants practiced inner-worldly asceticism and sought to change the world to better reflect their beliefs.^[207] The notion of a religious calling, when combined with predestination, meant that each individual had to take action to prove their salvation to themselves.^[208] However, the success that these religious principles created ultimately removed them as an influence on modern capitalism through their creation of a worldly perspective. As a result, rationalisation entrapped that system's inheritors in a socio-economic iron cage.^[176]

Weber's work in the field of sociology of religion began with the book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.^[209] It continued with The Economic Ethics of the World Religions book series, which contained The Religion of China, The Religion of India, and Ancient Judaism.^[210] Intended later studies of Christianity, Talmudic Judaism, and Islam were left unwritten.^[211] The books' three main themes were: religious ideas' effect on economic activities, the relationship between social stratification and religious ideas, and the distinguishable characteristics of Western civilisation.^[212] Weber's goal was to explain the Western world and the Eastern world's different developmental paths and the distinctive elements of Western civilisation.^[213] Weber also proposed a socio-evolutionary model of religious change where societies moved from magic to ethical monotheism, with the intermediatory steps of polytheism, pantheism, and monotheism.^[214] According to him, this resulted from growing economic stability, allowing for professionalisation and the evolution of an increasingly sophisticated priesthood.^[215] As societies grew more complex and encompassed different groups, a hierarchy of gods developed. Meanwhile, as their power became more centralised, the concept of a universal God became more popular and desirable.^[216]

In The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, Weber focused on the aspects of Chinese society that differed from those of Western Europe, especially ones that contrasted with Puritanism. As part of that, he questioned why capitalism had not developed in China.^[217] He focused on the issues of Chinese urban development, Chinese patrimonialism and officialdom and Chinese religion and philosophy – primarily Confucianism and Taoism – as the areas in which Chinese significantly differed from European development.^[218] According to Weber, Confucianism and Puritanism were superficially similar, but were actually very different from one another.^[219] Instead, they were mutually exclusive types of rational thought, each attempting to prescribe a way of life based on religious dogma.^[220] Notably, they both valued self-control and restraint and did not oppose wealth accumulation. However, both of those qualities were simply means to different final goals.^[221] Confucianism's goal was "a cultured status position", while Puritanism's goal was to make individuals "tools of God". According to Weber, the Puritans sought rational control of the world and rejected its irrationality while Confucians sought rational acceptance of that state of affairs.^[222] Therefore, he stated that the difference in social attitudes and mentality, shaped by the respective dominant religions, contributed to the development of capitalism in the West and the absence of it in China.^[223]

In The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism, Weber dealt with Indian society's structure and what he interpreted as the orthodox doctrines of Hinduism and the heterodox doctrines of Buddhism and Jainism.^[224] In Weber's view, Hinduism in India, like Confucianism in China, was a barrier for capitalism.^[225] The Indian caste system, which developed in post-Classical India and served as the source for legitimate social interactions, served as a key part of that.^[226] Both Hinduism and the Brahmins' high status upheld the caste system.^[227] The Brahmins used their monopoly on education and theological authority to maintain their position.^[228] Meanwhile, Hinduism created a psychological justification for it through the cycle of reincarnation.^[229] In it, a person's caste position was determined by one's past life actions.^[230] As a result, soul advancement and obeying the predetermined order were more important than seeking material world advancement, including economic advancement.^[231]

Weber ended his research of Indian society and religion by using insights from his previous work on China to discuss the similarities of the Asian belief systems.^[232] He noted that these religions' believers used otherworldly mystical experiences to interpret life's meaning.^[233] The social world was fundamentally divided between the educated elite who followed the guidance of a prophet or wise man and the uneducated masses whose beliefs were centered on magic. In Asia, there were no messianic prophecies to give both educated and uneducated followers meaning in their regular lives.^[234] Weber juxtaposed such Messianic prophecies, notably from the Near East, with the exemplary prophecies found in mainland Asia that focused more on reaching to the educated elites and enlightening them on the proper ways to live one's life, usually with little emphasis on hard work and the material world.^[235] It was those differences that prevented Western countries from following the paths of the earlier Chinese and Indian civilisations. His next work, Ancient Judaism, was an attempt to prove this theory.^[236]

In Ancient Judaism, Weber attempted to explain the factors that resulted in the early differences between Eastern and Western religiosity.^[237] He contrasted the inner-worldly asceticism developed by Western Christianity with the mystical contemplation that developed in India.^[238] Weber noted that some aspects of Christianity sought to conquer and change the world, rather than withdraw from its imperfections.^[239] This fundamental characteristic of Christianity originally stemmed from ancient Jewish prophecy.^[240] Weber classified the Jewish people as having been a pariah people, meaning that they were separated from the society that contained them.^[241] He examined the ancient Jewish people's origins and social structures.^[242] In his view, the Israelites maintained order through a covenant with the war god Yahweh and the practice of warrior asceticism.^[243] Under Solomon, that changed into a more organised and law-based society than the old confederation was.^[244] Religiously, the priests replaced the previous charismatic religious leaders. Weber thought that Elijah was the first prophet to have risen from the shepherds. Elijah promulgated political prophecies and opposed the monarchy.^[245]

Weber used the concept of theodicy in his interpretation of theology and religion throughout his corpus.^[246] This involved both his scholarly and personal interests in the subject. It was central to his conception of humanity, which he interpreted as being connected with finding meaning.^[247] Weber's personal perspective on religion was that he was "unmusical religiously", but "neither antireligious nor irreligious".^[248] Theodicy was a popular subject of study amongst German scholars who sought to determine how a world created by an omnibenevolent and omnipotent being can contain suffering.^[249] As part of this tradition, Weber was careful in his study of the subject.^[250] Rather than interpreting it through a theological or ethical lens, he interpreted it through a social one.^[251] Furthermore, he incorporated Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of ressentiment into his discussion of the topic. However, Weber disagreed with Nietzsche's emotional discussion of ressentiment and his interpretation of it as a Judaism-derived expression of slave morality.^[252] Weber divided theodicy into dualism, the belief that a Manichean divine struggle caused misfortune; karma, the belief that misfortune was karmic; and predestination, the belief that only a chosen few will be saved from damnation.^[253]

Weber defined the importance of societal class within religion by examining the difference between the theodicies of fortune and misfortune and to what class structures they apply.^[254] The theodicy of fortune related to successful people's desire to prove that they deserved it. They were also prone to not being satisfied with what they already had and wished to avoid the notion that they were illegitimate or sinful.^[255] Those who were unsuccessful in life believed in the theodicy of misfortune, believing wealth and happiness would later be divinely granted to those who deserved it.^[256] Another example of how this belief of religious theodicy influenced class was that those of lower economic status tended towards deep religiousness and faith as a way to comfort themselves and provide hope for a more prosperous future, while those of higher economic status preferred the sacraments or actions that proved their right to possess greater wealth.^[257]

Weber defined the state as an entity that had a monopoly on violence. This meant that the state could legitimately use force to preserve itself within a given area.^[258] He also proposed that politics was the sharing of state power and influencing the distribution thereof between states and between groups within a state.^[259] Weber's definition of a politician required that they have passion, judgement, and responsibility.^[260] He divided action into the oppositional gesinnungsethik and verantwortungsethik [de] (the "ethic of ultimate ends" and the "ethic of responsibility").^[261] A verantwortungsethik adherent justified their actions through their consequences. Meanwhile, a gesinnungsethik adherent justified their actions through their ideals.^[262] While Weber thought that an ideal politician possessed both of them, he associated them with different types of people and mindsets.^[263] Combining them required that a politician be passionate about their goals and pragmatic about achieving them.^[264]

In his view, all authority-based relationships could be classified according to his tripartite classification of authority.^[265] Charismatic authority was held by individuals who held power through their charisma, meaning that their power originated from extraordinary personal qualities. It was unstable, as it resisted institutionalisation and relied on the leader's success.^[266] Over time, it was forced to be routinised into more structured forms of authority. The charismatic leader's followers would create an administrative structure.^[267] Traditional authority was based on loyalty to preestablished traditions and those who held authority as a result of those traditions.^[268] For Weber, patriarchalism – the rule by a patriarch over a family – was the most important variety of traditional authority.^[269] Patrimonialism – a closely related concept to patriarchalism – was a type of traditional authority where rulers treated the government and military as extensions of their households.^[270] Rational-legal authority relied on bureaucracy and belief in both the legality of the society's rules and the legitimacy of those who held power as a result of those rules.^[271] Unlike the other types of authority, it developed gradually. That was the result of legal systems ability to exist without charismatic individuals or traditions.^[272] In The City, a portion of Economy and Society on the European city's development in antiquity and the Middle Ages, Weber argued that a unique form of non-legitimate domination arose in medieval European cities that successfully challenged the forms of legitimate domination that had previously prevailed in the medieval world.^[273] These cities were previously under several different entities' jurisdiction that was removed as they became autonomous. That was caused by newer cities being granted privileges and the usurpation of authority in older ones.^[274]

Weber's commentary on societal bureaucratisation is one of the most prominent parts of his work.^[275] According to him, bureaucracy was the most efficient societal organisation method and the most formally rational system. It was necessary for modern society to function and would be difficult to destroy.^[276] Bureaucratic officials felt superior to non-bureaucrats, had a strong sense of duty, and had fixed salaries that disinclined them to pursue monetary acquisition. Bureaucracy was less likely to be found among elected officials.^[277] It was also a requirement for both modern capitalism and modern socialism to exist.^[278] Furthermore, Bureaucracy's impersonal treatment of all people suited capitalism well.^[279] This depersonalisation related to its increased efficiency. Bureaucrats could not openly make arbitrary decisions or base them on personal favours.^[280] As the most efficient and rational way of organising, bureaucratisation was the key part of rational-legal authority. Furthermore, he saw it as the key process in the ongoing rationalisation of Western society.^[281]

Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy was characterised by hierarchical organisation, delineated lines of authority in a fixed area of activity, action taken on the basis of written rules, bureaucratic officials needing expert training, rules being implemented neutrally, and career advancement depending on organisation-judged technical qualifications.^[282] The development of communication and transportation technologies made more efficient administration possible and popularly requested. Meanwhile, the democratisation and rationalisation of culture resulted in demands that the new system treat everyone equally.^[283] In describing bureaucracy's history, Weber discussed multiple civilisations and said that the Egyptian New Kingdom's bureaucracy was the historical model for all later ones.^[284] While arguing that bureaucracy was the most efficient form of organisation and was indispensable for the modern state, Weber was also critical of it. In his view, an inescapable bureaucratisation of society would happen in the future. He also thought that a hypothetical victory of socialism over capitalism would have not prevented that.^[285] Economic and political organisations needed entrepreneurs and politicians in order to counteract bureaucrats. Otherwise, they would be stifled by bureaucracy.^[278]

Weber also formulated a three-component theory of stratification containing the elements of class, status, and party.^[286] Class was based on an economically determined relationship with the market, status (Stand) was based on non-economic qualities such as honour and prestige, and party was based on political affiliations.^[286] This distinction was most clearly described in his essay "The Distribution of Power Within the Gemeinschaft: Classes, Stände, Parties", which was first published in his book Economy and Society.^[287] Status served as one of the central ways of societal ranking. Issues of honour and prestige were important to it.^[288] With regards to class, the theory placed heavy emphasis on class conflict and private property in its definition.^[289] While Weber drew upon Marx's interpretation of class conflict in his definition of class, he did not see it as defining all social relations and stratification.^[290] Political parties were not given as much attention by Weber as the other two components were, as he thought that their actions were not particularly effectual. Their purpose was to seek power to benefit their members materially or ideologically.^[291]

Weber's concept of status emerged from his farm labour and the stock exchange studies, as he found social relationships that were unexplainable through economic class alone. The Junkers had social rules regarding marriage between different social levels and farm labourers had a strong sense of independence, neither of which was economically based.^[292] Weber maintained a sharp distinction between the terms "status" and "class", although non-scholars tend to use them interchangeably in casual use.^[293] Status and its focus on honour emerged from the Gemeinschaft, which denoted the part of society where loyalty originated from. Class emerged from the Gesellschaft, a subdivision of the Gemeinschaft that included rationally driven markets and legal organisations. Parties emerged from a combination of the two.^[294] Weber interpreted life chances, the opportunities to improve one's life, as a definitional aspect of class. They related to the differences in access to opportunities that individuals might have had in their lives.^[295] The relationship between status and class was not straightforward. One of them could lead to the other, and an individual or group could succeed in one but not the other.^[296]

1919 title pages of "Science as a Vocation" and "Politics as a Vocation"

Towards the end of his life, Weber gave two lectures, "Science as a Vocation" and "Politics as a Vocation", at LMU Munich on the subjects of the scientific and political vocations. The Free Student Youth, a left-liberal student organisation, had their spokesperson, Immanuel Birnbaum [de], invite him to give the lectures.^[297] In "Science as a Vocation", he argued that a scholar needed to possess an inner calling. Weber thought that only a particular type of person could be an academic, stating that the path forward in scholarship required the scholar to be methodical in their research and understand that they might not succeed. Specialisation was also an aspect of modern scholarship that a scholar needed to engage in.^[84] Disenchantment and intellectual rationalisation were major aspects of his commentary on the scholar's role in modernity. They resulted in scholarship's value being questioned. Weber argued that scholarship could provide certainty through its starting presumptions, despite its inability to give absolute answers.^[298] Meanwhile, "Politics as a Vocation" commented on the subject of politics.^[97] Weber was responding to the early Weimar Republic's political instability. He argued that politicians had passion, judgement, and responsibility.^[299] There was also a division between conviction and responsibility. While these two concepts were sharply divided, it was possible for single individual – particularly the ideal politician – to possess both of them.^[98] He also divided legitimate authority into the three categories of traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal authority.^[300] Towards the lecture's end, he described politics as "a slow, powerful drilling through hard boards".^[301] Ultimately, Weber thought that the political issues of his day required consistent effort to resolve, rather than the quick solutions that the students preferred.^[302]

Max Weber was a founder of sociology of law and was trained in law and legal history.^[303] According to Weber, law went through four developmental phases: law prophet-derived charismatic legal revelation, Honoratioren [de] making and applying law, religious or secular powers imposing law, and trained legal proffessionals systematicly expanding and administering law.^[304] Law prophets were charismatic authorities who created new laws consciously through their charisma.^[305] Meanwhile, Honoratioren were people who had high enough statuses to be respected in their communities while simultaneously having high enough class positions to be economically able to devote their full attention to politics.^[306] Weber argued that lawmaking as law creation and law-finding as the contextual application of such laws were complimentary. Both were potentially irrational or rational and formal or substantive.^[307] In terms of sociology of law, Weber argued that it was different than jurisprudence in that the former sought to understand the effects that legal rules had on social behaviour, while the latter sought to understand the rules' internal logic.^[308] He also argued that modern law was defined by legal norms' that were divided between prescriptive or prohibitory claims and permissive privileges. Claims made the keeping of promises more certain, and privileges facilitated the creation of new laws.^[309] For Weber, law was a group of conventions that were staff-enforced.^[310] He considered legal systems' development to have been indispensable for modern capitalism's own development.^[311]

Weber primarily considered himself an economist, and all of his professorial appointments were in economics, but his contributions to that field were largely overshadowed by his role as a founder of modern sociology.^[312] He was a founder of economic sociology.^[313] He described capitalism as an economic system where indviduals used property as an object of trade for profit-making enterprises in a market economy and divided it into multiple categories.^[314] Political capitalism was an ancient form of capitalism where the state created opportunities for profit-making, while rational capitalism was a modern Western form of capitalism that was defined by rationality and its orientation towards markets.^[315] As a political economist and economic historian, Weber belonged to the German historical school of economics, represented by academics such as Gustav von Schmoller and Schmoller's student Werner Sombart.^[316] While Weber's research interests were largely in line with this school, his views on methodology and marginal utility significantly diverged from them. Instead, they were closer to those of Carl Menger and the Austrian school of economics, the historical school's traditional rivals.^[317] Unlike other historicists, Weber accepted marginal utility and taught it to his students.^[318] In 1908, Weber published an article, "Marginal Utility Theory and 'The Fundamental Law of Psychophysics'", arguing that marginal utility and economics were not based on psychophysics.^[319] In general, Weber disagreed with the idea that economics relied on another field.^[320] The division caused by the Methodenstreit caused Weber to support a broad interpretation of economics that combined economic theory, economic history, and economic sociology in the form of Sozialökonomik [de] (social economics).^[321]

Weber's magnum opus Economy and Society is an essay collection that he was working on at the time of his death in 1920.^[322] It included a wide range of essays dealing with Weber's views regarding sociology, social philosophy, politics, social stratification, world religion, diplomacy, and other subjects.^[323] The text was largely unfinished, outside of the first three chapters. These chapters were written between 1919 and 1920.^[324] They relate to verstehende sociology, economic sociology, authority, and class and status groups, respectively.^[325] The first chapter is one of the two most frequently consulted portions of the text by Weberian scholars – alongside the third chapter – and moved from a discussion of individuals' social actions to the centrality of the monopoly on violence to the state.^[326] Meanwhile, the second chapter is less discussed, as it represented a type of economic theory that had fallen out of style amongst economists after the 1930s.^[327] It presented an analytical economic history that contained a discussion of the origins of capitalism and argued that the Austrian and historical schools of economics could be methodologically synthesised.^[328] Chapter three focused on Weber's tripartite definition of legitimate authority.^[329] Since the final chapter was unfinished, it was largely a brief set of classifications of classes and Stände (statuses).^[330]

After Weber's death, the final organisation and editing of the book fell to his widow Marianne. She was assisted by the economist Melchior Palyi. The resulting volume was published in four volumes from February 1921 to September 1922 and was titled Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft.^[331] It also included additional texts that were generally written between 1909 and 1914 that his widow found amongst his belongings.^[332] In 1956, the German jurist Johannes Winckelmann [de] edited and organised a revised fourth edition of Economy and Society, later editing a fifth edition in 1976.^[333] Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich edited an English translation of the work in 1968. It was based on a 1964 revised edition of Winckelmann's version of the text.^[334] The Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe [de] editors published Economy and Society in six parts, with the first devoted to the first four chapters thereof. The remaining five parts were organised in chronological order based on when they were written.^[335] In 2019, Keith Tribe published a revised English translation of the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe edition of its first four chapters.^[336]

Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, two of Max Weber's influences

Weber was strongly influenced by German idealism, particularly the neo-Kantianism of the Southwestern School.^[337] Heinrich Rickert and Wilhelm Windelband were significant figures in this school.^[338] He understood Immanuel Kant through moral psychology and philosophical anthropology.^[339] Weber's methodology and ethics were also influenced by him.^[340] In terms of methodology, he used the neo-Kantian conceptual framework to articulate his own concepts.^[341] Weber was also influenced by Kantian ethics in that he ascribed to the categorical imperative and sought non-arbitrary freedom.^[342] However, he considered Kantian ethics to be obsolete in a modern age without religious certainties.^[343] His responses to the questions posed by Kant and neo-Kantianism were pessimistic as a result.^[344]

Weber was responding to Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy's effect on modern thought. His goal in the field of ethics was to find non-arbitrarily defined freedom in what he interpreted as a post-metaphysical age, representing a division between the Kantian and Nietzschean parts of his thought.^[339] After his 1920 debate with Oswald Spengler, Weber said that the world was significantly intellectually influenced by Nietzsche and Marx.^[345] In The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and "Science as a Vocation", Weber negatively described and warned about "die 'letzten Menschen'" ("the 'last men'"), who were Nietzschean "specialists without spirit".^[346] He also used Nietzsche's concept of ressentiment in his discussion of theodicy, but disliked Nietzsche's emotional approach to it and did not interpret it as Judaism-derived slave morality.^[347]

Karl Marx's writings were also a major influence on Weber's works.^[348] While Weber agreed with Marx on social conflict's importance, he did not think that a society would be destroyed if the traditions that upheld it were valued more than it was. Furthermore, he thought that a social conflict could be resolved within the preexisting social system.^[349] Writing in 1932, Karl Löwith contrasted Marx and Weber, arguing that both were interested in Western capitalism's causes and effects, but viewed it through different lenses. Marx interpreted it through alienation, while Weber interpreted it through rationalisation.^[350] Weber also expanded Marx's alienation theory from workers who were alienated from their work to similar situations involving intellectuals and bureaucrats.^[351] Cold War era scholars frequently interpreted Weber as "a bourgeois answer to Marx", but he was instead responding the Wilhelmine bourgeoisie's issues. In that regard, he focused on rationality and irrationality's conflict.^[352]

Alongside Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim, Weber is commonly regarded as one of modern sociology's founders.^[353] He was instrumental in developing an antipositivist, hermeneutic, tradition in the social sciences.^[354] Weber influenced many scholars across the political spectrum.^[355] Left-leaning social theorists – such as Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, György Lukács, and Jürgen Habermas – were influenced by his discussion of modernity and its friction with modernisation.^[356] Furthermore, his analysis of modernity and rationalisation significantly influenced the Frankfurt School's critical theory.^[357] Right-leaning scholars – including Carl Schmitt, Joseph Schumpeter, Leo Strauss, Hans Morgenthau, and Raymond Aron – focused on his discussion of strong democratic leaders, political ethics' relationship with value-freedom and value-relativism, and combating bureaucracy through political action.^[339] The scholars who examined his works philosophically, including Strauss, Hans Henrik Bruun, and Alfred Schütz, traditionally looked at them through the lens of Continental philosophy.^[358]

Weberian scholarship's beginnings were delayed by the disruption of academic life in the Weimar Republic. Hyper-inflation caused Weber's support for parliamentary democracy to be countered by the declining respect that German professors had for it.^[359] Their political alienation caused many of them to become pessimistic and closer to the historical viewpoints espoused by Oswald Spengler in his The Decline of the West.^[360] Furthermore, universities were increasingly under state control and influence, which accelerated after the Nazi Party took power. The previously dominant style of sociology, that of Alfred Vierkandt and Leopold von Wiese, was largely replaced by a sociology that was dominated by Nazis. Hans Freyer and Othmar Spann were representative of that movement, while Werner Sombart began to support collectivism and Nazism.^[361] The Nazi Party's rise marginalised Weber's scholarship in the German academy.^[362] However, some Weberian scholars left Germany, with most of them settling in the United States and the United Kingdom.^[363]

These scholars entered American and British academia when English translations of Weber's writings, such as the General Economic History, were beginning to be published.^[364] Talcott Parsons, an American scholar, was influenced by his readings of Weber and Sombart as a student in 1920s Germany.^[365] Marianne Weber gave him permission to publish a The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism translation in his 1930 essay collection, the Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion.^[366] It was heavily edited by the publisher and was not initially successful.^[367] Nevertheless, it was part of Parsons's effort to create an academic sociology, which resulted in his 1937 book The Structure of Social Action.^[368] In it, Parsons argued that Weber and Durkheim were foundational sociologists.^[369] However, his book was not successful until after the Second World War.^[370] He translated Economy and Society as The Theory of Social and Economic Organization.^[371] Parsons's increasing scholarly prominence increased its influence.^[370] Other translations began to appear, including C. Wright Mills and Hans Gerth's From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology in 1946, which was a collection of excerpts from Weber's writings.^[372] In 1949, Edward Shils edited a translation of Weber's Collected Essays on Methodology, which was published as The Methodology of the Social Sciences.^[373]

As the 1940s ended, Weber's scholarly reputation rose due to scholarly interpretations of it through the lenses of Parsons's structural functionalism and Mills's conflict theory.^[374] Over the course of the following decades, continued translations of Weber's works began to appear, including ones on law, religion, music, and the city. Despite the translations' flaws, it became possible to obtain a largely complete view of Weber's scholarship. That was still impeded by the translations' unorganised publication, which prevented scholars from knowing the texts' connections.^[375] In 1968, a complete translation of Marianne Weber's prepared version of Economy and Society was published.^[376] While From Max Weber first forwarded an interpretation of Weber that was separate from Parson's structural functionalism, a more political and historical interpretation was forwarded by Reinhard Bendix's 1948 Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait, Ralf Dahrendorf's 1957 Class and Conflict in an Industrial Society, and John Rex's 1962 Key Problems in Sociological Theory.^[377] Meanwhile, the 1964 centennial conference on Max Weber was held in Heidelberg.^[378] It featured a controversy over whether Weber's concept of charismatic authority played a role in Nazi Germany's rise.^[379] A year later, Raymond Aron's Main Currents in Sociological Thought gave an alternative to Parson's perspective on the history of sociology and framed Weber, Marx, and Durkheim as the three foundational figures. Anthony Giddens's 1971 Capitalism and Modern Social Theory solidified that interpretation. After the 1970s, more of Weber's less prominent publications were published.^[377] This coincided with the continued writing of critical commentaries on his works and ideas, including the creation of a scholarly journal in 2000 – Max Weber Studies – that is devoted to such scholarship.^[380] Additionally, the Max Weber Foundation was founded in 2002 as the managing body for the German Institutes of the Humanities.^[381] Weber's death centenary in 2020 provoked several scholarly conferences that were held online as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.^[382]

The idea of publishing a collected edition of Weber's complete works was pushed forward by Horst Baier [de] in 1972. A year later, the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe [de], a multi-volume set of all of his writings, began to take shape.^[383] Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Wolfgang Schluchter, Johannes Winckelmann [de], M. Rainer Lepsius, and Horst Baier were the initial editors.^[384] After Mommsen's death in 2004, Gangolf Hübinger [de] succeeded him.^[385] Winckelmann, Lepsius, and Baier also died before its completion.^[386] The writings were organised in a combination of chronological order and by subject, with material that Weber did not intended for publication in purely chronological order.^[387] The final editions of each text were used, aside from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which was included in both its originally published and revised forms.^[388] Mohr Siebeck was selected to publish the volumes.^[389] The project was presented to the academic community in 1981 with the publication of a prospectus that was colloquially referred to as the "green brochure". It outlined the series' three sections: "Writings and Speeches", "Letters", and "Lecture Manuscripts and Lecture Notes".^[390] Four years later, the project entered publication.^[391] It concluded in June 2020 and contains forty-seven volumes, including two index volumes.^[392]