Max Weber and the Dispute over Reason and Value: A Study in Philosophy, Ethics, and Politics (International Library of Sociology)

The problem of the nature of values and the relation between values and rationality is one of the defining issues of twentieth-century thought and Max Weber was one of the defining figures in the debate. In this book, Turner and Factor consider the development of the dispute over Max Weber's contribution to this discourse, by showing how Weber's views have been used, revised and adapted in new contexts.The story of the dispute is itself fascinating, for it cuts across the major political and intellectual currents of the twentieth century, from positivism, pragmatism and value-free social science, through the philosophy of Jaspers and Heidegger, to Critical Theory and the revival of Natural Right and Natural Law. As Weber's ideas were imported to Britain and America, they found new formulations and new adherents and critics and became absorbed into different traditions and new issues.This book was first published in 1984. Content: 1. Problems of context and interpretation -- 2. Reason and decision : Weber's core doctrine and value choices -- 3. Weber's political design -- 4. The Weimar era dispute -- 5. Words into action : Jaspers and Heidegger -- 6. Nazism, fascism, and the later dispute -- 7. The emergence of the dispute in England and America -- 8. The issue reframed : positivism and value-free social science -- 9. The later form of the critique. The problem of the nature of values and the relation between values and rationality is one of the defining issues of twentieth-century thought, and Max Weber was one of the defining figures in the debate. This book considers the development of the dispute over Max Weber's contribution to this discourse, by showing how Weber's views have been used. Introduces the selections, which are centred on Max Weber's principal interest, the relationship between capitalism, religion and bureaucracy. This book seeks to correct the misinterpretations of Weber's work which have stressed his classification, rather than his attempts to explain social phenomena on the basis of universal historical trends Stephen P. Turner, Regis A. Factor. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 248-264. Book by Turner, Stephen P., Factor, Regis A.