44
examination of individuals’ social
actions, he offered an alternative to
Durkheim’s positivism by pointing
out that the methodology of the
natural sciences is not appropriate
to the study of the social sciences,
and to Marx’s materialist
determinism by stressing the
importance of ideas and culture
over economic considerations.
Although Weber's ideas were
highly influential among his
contemporaries in Germany, such
as Werner Sombart and Georg
Simmel, they were not widely
accepted. He was regarded in
his lifetime as a historian and
economist rather than a sociologist,
and it was not until much later that
his work received the attention it
deserved. Many of his works were
only published posthumously,
and few were translated until
well after his death. Sociologists
at the beginning of the 20th
century felt antipathy toward
Weber's approach because they
were anxious to establish the
credentials of sociology as a science;
his notion of subjective verstehen
and his examination of individual
experience rather than of society
as a whole was seen as lacking the
necessary rigor and objectivity.
And some critics, especially those
steeped in the ideas of Marxian
economic determinism, disputed
Weber’s account of the evolution
of Western capitalism.
Nevertheless, Weber’s ideas
gradually became accepted, as the
influence of Durkheim’s positivism
began to wane. Weber was, for
example, an influence on the
critical theory of the Frankfurt
School, centered around Goethe
University in Frankfurt, Germany.
These thinkers held that traditional
Marxist theory could not fully
account for the path taken by
Western capitalist societies, and
so sought to draw on Weber's anti-
positivist sociological approach and
analysis of rationalization. Escaping
the rise of Nazism, members of the
Frankfurt School took these ideas
to the US, where Weber's insights
were enthusiastically received, and
where his influence was strongest
in the period following World
War II. In particular, American
sociologist Talcott ParsonsMAX WEBER
Franz Kafka, a contemporary of
Weber, wrote stories depicting a
dystopian bureaucracy. His work
engages with Weberian themes such
as dehumanization and anonymity.
attempted to reconcile Weber’s
ideas with the then dominant
positivist tradition in sociology
established by Durkheim, and to
incorporate them into his own
theories. Parsons also did much to
popularize Weber and his ideas
within US sociology, but it was
Charles Wright Mills who, with
Hans Heinrich Gerth, brought the
most important of Weber’s writings
to the attention of the English-
speaking world with their
translation and commentary in- Wright Mills was especially
influenced by Weber’s theory of
the “iron cage” of rationality, and
developed this theme in his own
analysis of social structures, in
which he showed that Weber’s
ideas had more significant
implications than had previously
been thought.
The rational gone global
By the 1960s, Weber had become
mainstream, and his interpretive
approach had all but replaced the
positivism that had dominated
sociology since Durkheim. In the
last decades of the 20th century,
Weber’s emphasis on the social
actions of individuals, and their
relationship to the power exerted
by a rationalized modern society,
provided a framework for
contemporary sociology.
More recently, sociologists
such as British theorist Anthony
Giddens have focused on the
contrast between Durkheim’s
approach to society as a whole,
and Weber’s concentration on the
individual as the unit of study.
Giddens points out that neither
approach is completely right or
wrong, but instead exemplifies one
of two different perspectives—the
macro and micro. Another aspect of
Weber’s work—that of culture and
ideas shaping our social structuresNo one knows who will live
in this cage in the future,
or whether... there will
be a great rebirth of old
ideas and ideals...
Max Weber