Sociology as a Science of Reality – Epistemes of the Nation – Sociology of War A “speed presentation” of doctoral and bachelor’s theses on central topics of Max Weber JOIN US on the 17th of JULY at 6pm CET!! The presentation of new research work has already become a tradition in the Weber Scholars Network. … Leer más
Un diálogo con el autor: Max Weber. Nación y Alienación de Esteban Vernik (Event in Spanish) Our next event will be a Book Presentation of Esteban Vernik’s Max Weber. Nación y Alienación and it will be held in Spanish along the author, Prof. Joaquín Abellán, Prof. Patricia Lambruschini, and Lucía Pinto who will moderate the … Leer más
The Patrimonial Assault on the State Weberian Insights into the Current Transformations of Government. We are pleased to invite you to our upcoming discussion on May 15th at 16:00 CEST with the authors of The Assault on the State. How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future (2024), Stephen Hanson and Jeffrey Kopstein,and Tomila Lankina as discussant (others to be confirmed). Current … Leer más
“Spanish Barbarism” Weber and Simmel on Catholicism and on Spanish Colonialism Having grown up in Prussia during the years of the Kulturkampf, Weber initially had no appreciation for Catholicism. Moreover, Weber’s Protestant Ethic (1905) seemed to turn him a defender of the Puritan sects: neither Catholics nor Lutherans had provided the historical force that had contributed decisively … Leer más
Max Weber and the Neoliberalist Threat to Democracy – Moderated by Álvaro Morcillo Laiz 28 Jan – 6pm (CET) In the present situation, increasingly unfettered markets, including markets of ideas, seem to be fueling the drive towards authoritarianism and away from democracy, in any accepted sense of the term. Many believe that the rise of … Leer más
Unexpected (?) affinities. Weber and the founders of Socialisme ou Barbarie – a conversation between Yannis Ktennas (Athens) and Pedro T. Magalhães (Minho), moderated by Victor Strazzeri (São Paulo). 21 May – 6pm (CET) Paradoxically or not, Max Weber’s work has always been a source of inspiration for philosophers who support radical emancipatory projects and defend … Leer más
After the talk: Max Weber and the Culture of Anarchy by Yannis Ktenas Let me start by saying that I feel very happy and honored to be here as a discussant today, for the 25th anniversary of the publishing of Max Weber and the Culture of Anarchy (1999), a unique work edited by Sam Whimster. … Leer más
Max Weber and the Culture of Anarchy is a book that came out of the circumstances of the 1990s. Under Gorbachev, Russia pursued glasnost and released Eastern bloc countries from Soviet hegemony. In 1990 the German Democratic Republic and the Federal German Republic were re-united (Wiedervereinigung). A call went out to academics internationally to come and teach in the universities, East of the Elbe. Over the summer of 1992, I gave a course on modern and postmodern social theory in the Institute of Marxism-Leninism at Leipzig University, my underlying idea being to convey to students the weirdness of the culture of western capitalism.
The decisive question in our discussion can be formulated in a concise manner: Was Max Weber a Democrat? As the historical-systematic approach proposed by Edith indicates, it would be more appropriate to ask how he became a democrat and what form of democracy he favored. It is clear, on the other hand, that the question cannot be answered once and for all. We need to take many nuances into account, but it is precisely for this reason – I believe – that our discussion becomes interesting.
Weber and Kelsen avoided the terms Rechtsstaat and Rule of Law, but they each painstakingly constructed alternative descriptions of the kind of legal order that these terms have been used to describe. Their motives were similar: they sought a demystified and de-ideologized language which respected the fact-value distinction, and the distinction between sociology and jurisprudence. Weber’s category of rational-legal authority was defined by the belief in an impersonal legal order to which officials submit; this was also Kelsen’s concept of the Grundnorm. Parallel to Weber, Kelsen used a strategy of de-ideologization to critique elements of the idea of “the rule of law,” such as the separation of powers. Their redescriptions are intentionally subversive. They show that there is nothing more to the “rule of law,” either in the realm of fact or the realm of legally meaningful norms, than conformity to the law itself.