Max Weber: Biography Of This German Sociologist And Philosopher
Max Weber was a German philosopher, economist, historian, political scientist and sociologist widely considered one of the founders of empirical sociology.
He is considered one of the great intellectual figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and, among his greatest achievements, is having discovered the cultural conditions that allowed the development of capitalism.
Weber’s thought remains very important today, although it remains controversial. Below we will see his life, thoughts and impact on German politics of the last century through a brief biography of Max Weber in which we will cover all these topics.
Max Weber’s career is characterized by his analysis of the roots of capitalism, a system that was already palpable in his time, in addition to German politics and how the social sciences should carry out their investigative method. The life of this philosopher is that of a bourgeois, like that of many great German thinkers of his time who could afford to philosophize among the comforts of their surroundings. Let’s see how his life developed.
Early years
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber, more popularly known as Max Weber, was born in Erfurt, Germany, on April 21, 1864 within a wealthy bourgeois family. From a very young age he was interested in politics, since he was the son of a prominent jurist and politician of the National Liberal Party in the Bismarck era and a member of the German Parliament.
Max Weber witnessed, in his childhood, the opportunity to meet great intellectual figures of Germany in the second half of the 19th century, invited by his father. Thanks to this He was able to acquire extensive knowledge about how politics worked in the country at a time when Germany was anything but stable.
University education
Max Weber He studied law at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin and Göttingen Despite having enrolled in that career to be able to practice law, as a young man he was very interested in economics, philosophy and, of course, politics, self-taught in these disciplines.
His interest in contemporary social policy grew while he was working on his thesis As a result of this interest he joined the Professional Association of German Economists in 1888, an organization that was among the first to use large-scale statistical studies in economic analysis.
In 1889 Weber obtained his doctorate at the University of Berlin by presenting a thesis in which he spoke about the development of the principle of solidarity in family and commercial businesses in Italian cities.
In 1890 he wrote a work in which he addressed the “Polish question.” At that time the eastern part of Germany was experiencing very important demographic changes, as local field workers went to the cities while free jobs were filled by foreigners, mostly Poles. This work is considered one of the great works of empirical research of the time.
Professional career: teaching and traveling around Europe
In 1893 he married his distant cousin Marianne Schnitger, who years later would become a renowned feminist and writer Marianne was an important figure not only for her literary contributions and in defense of women’s rights, but also for having collected and published not very well-known works by Max Weber after her death.
Between the years 1890 and 1897 Weber’s career was going well, becoming a very influential figure in Germany, until he suffered a serious setback After having obtained the professorship of political economy at the universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg, his father died. Months before, the two had had a strong argument and still had not made peace, as a result of which Max Weber suffered a deep depression.
He managed to recover, undertaking numerous trips around Europe together with his wife Marianne, although without being able to resume intellectual and teaching activity until 1902.
Once he found himself in better spirits, Weber He wrote some essays on what the research method should be like in the historical-social sciences which is why he would be considered one of the founders of sociology.
Final years: World War I and Weimar Republic
At the beginning of the First World War (1914-1918) Max Weber accepted the arguments to justify Germany’s involvement in the conflict He even served as director of the military hospitals in Heidelberg. However, as the conflict developed, Weber ended up opting for a more peaceful stance.
After the war he returned to teaching with a chair in economics , going first to Vienna and then to Munich. While in the latter city he would direct the first university institute of sociology in Germany. It was in those years that he would play a very important role in the history of his country, contributing to the drafting of the new Constitution of Germany, from which the Weimar Republic would be born.
Max Weber died of pneumonia in Munich on June 14, 1920 At that time, she was writing her work Economy and Society which remained unfinished and would be published several years later posthumously.
His thought
Max Weber is one of the great thinkers of recent times. He is considered one of the founders of modern sociology along with Karl Marx, Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim although, ironically, he did not consider himself a sociologist. He saw himself as a historian and believed that sociology and history were two disciplines with convergent knowledge. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that his thoughts had a significant impact on the modern conceptualization we have of sociology.
Weber considered that the social sciences have characteristics that make them different from the natural sciences , so it does not make sense to try to apply the same research method in social studies as in the purest sciences. The social method should not imitate the method of the physical or natural sciences, since individuals with conscience, will and intentions intervene in social affairs.
The first thing that stands out is that they have a different objective, since The social branches do not deal with phenomena governed by a universal law , as could be the physics that is governed by Newton’s law of gravity or Coulomb’s law of electrostatics. The social sciences study how social movements, changes in social vision or migrations develop, processes endowed with an unrepeatable singularity.
Secondly, Weber points out that The fields of study of the social sciences are defined by the will of those who investigate them It is very difficult to free social research from the chains of subjectivity of those who are carrying it out, since they cannot be separated from the principles, values and interests of those who are carrying out the research.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
One of Max Weber’s fundamental works is “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, published as a series of essays between 1904 and 1905, although it would later be compiled in book format. It is thanks to these essays that Weber is considered a kind of “Marx of the bourgeoisie”, since Both he and Karl Marx shared the idea that capitalism was the dominant aspect of the civilization of their time
Even so, there are many differences between Weber and Marx. Unlike Karl Marx, who considered that capitalism had a lot to do with economic structures and class struggle, for Weber he considered that it was the cultural nature that had allowed the rise of this economic system, along with the religious mentality and prevailing ethics of many Protestant nations.
In his opinion, capitalism developed in places where achieving wealth was considered a moral duty This ethical conception is typical of Calvinist Protestantism, it began to be influential in Europe from the 16th century, a time in which the Protestant Reformation took place, causing several countries in northern Europe to stop being Catholic and accept new versions of Christianity.
For Weber, it was Calvinist economic ethics that was behind strong economic and civil development seen in societies where reform had triumphed, such as the Netherlands and England. This was the basis of the modern idea of capitalism, and what had allowed the cultural conditions to exist so that this economic system could prosper.
This ethical stance of economics was incompatible with the traditional mentality of Catholic Christianity during the Middle Ages. Catholics followed the dogma that each individual should earn only what was necessary to survive, since attempting to achieve more wealth than necessary was seen as a sin.
Politically, Weber’s ideology could be considered liberal, democratic and reformist. In the middle of the First World War he was critical of his country’s expansionist objectives and, after the humiliating defeat, the philosopher acquired political influence as a member of the committee of experts representing Germany at the Paris Peace Conference (1918). . He collaborated with Hugo Preuss in drafting the Constitution of the Weimar Republic in 1919 and was a supporter of parliamentarism.
Some time ago he had spoken about his parliamentary and democratic interests In 1890 Max Weber wrote a series of articles titled “Parliament and Government in a Reconstructed Germany.” These articles called for democratic reforms in the Constitution of the German Empire, which dated from 1871. Weber considered that the problems in German politics were due to a serious leadership problem.
After the Weber years, In 1919 he founded the German Democratic Party , with the clear intention of making Germany a country that comes closer to its concept of democracy. He wanted democracy to be a tool to elect strong and charismatic leaders, where demagoguery should impose his desire on the masses. This vision, although well-intentioned, earned him numerous criticisms.
The European left is very critical of the figure of Max Weber based on what he declared about charismatic leaders. For many, Weber is, although he did not do so voluntarily, the one who paved the intellectual ground for Adolf Hitler, a strong and charismatic leader, to seize power, abuse his charisma to impose himself as dictator and commit the terrible war crimes that They were carried out during World War II (1939-1945).
On the other hand, as criticism coming especially from Marxists we have Weber’s firm anti-communism and his insistent demand for an aggressive policy of German imperialism
Furthermore, one of his students, Carl Schmitt, was the conceptualizer of the idea of the “Total State”, something that makes the left even more disillusioned with Weber because, basically, implies that the state takes absolute power in emergency situations This idea would, in fact, be what would make Hitler feel free to apply article 48 of the Weimar Republic, taking full powers.
In Weber’s defense it can be said that, if he had managed to live a little longer, he would hardly have been a supporter of Nazi policies. Weber was liberal and pro-democrat, in addition to being very concerned about anti-Semitism prevailing in his time, prior to Nazism. He would never have agreed with the state corporatism and single-party totalitarianism applied during the Third Reich, which his student Carl Schmitt did.
