The Max Weber Dictionary: Key Words and Central Concepts, Second Edition

By Richard Swedberg and Ola Agevall

Max Weber is one of the world's most important social scientists, but he is also one of the most notoriously difficult to understand. This revised, updated, and expanded edition of The Max Weber Dictionary reflects up-to-the-moment threads of inquiry and introduces the most recent translations and references. Additionally, the authors include new entries designed to help researchers use Weber's ideas in their own work; they illuminate how Weber himself thought theorizing should occur and how he went about constructing a theory.

More than an elementary dictionary, however, this work makes a contribution to the general culture and legacy of Weber's work. In addition to entries on broad topics like religion, law, and the West, the completed German definitive edition of Weber's work (Max Weber Gesamtausgabe) necessitated a wealth of new entries and added information on topics like pragmatism and race and racism. Every entry in the dictionary delves into Weber scholarship and acts as a point of departure for discussion and research. As such, this book will be an invaluable resource to general readers, students, and scholars alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanford Social Sciences
• Release date: Sep 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781503600225

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THE

MAX WEBER

DICTIONARY

Key Words and Central Concepts

SECOND EDITION

Richard Swedberg and Ola Agevall

STANFORD SOCIAL SCIENCES

An Imprint of Stanford University Press

Stanford, California

I have an abundance of new ideas.

—Max Weber (1864–1920), spring of 1920

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

How to Use This Dictionary

List of Abbreviations

The Max Weber Dictionary

References

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In putting together this second edition we have again drawn on the insights and knowledge of many of our friends and colleagues. The scholarship on Weber is collective in nature, and a dictionary of this type is heavily dependent on the scholarship of others. Our thanks go to all of the following friends and colleagues who have answered our questions, supported, and/or inspired us: Christopher Adair-Toteff, Martin Albrow, Heine Andersen, Patrik Aspers, Filippo Barbera, Margareta Bertilsson, Hinnerk Bruhns, Hans Henrik Bruun, Charles Camic, Bruce Carruthers, Joshua Derman, Frank Dobbin, Nicolás Eilbaum, Sven Eliaeson, Kjell Engelbrekt, Laura Ford, Peter Ghosh, Jean-Pierre Grossein, Edith Hanke, Daniel Kinderman, Carsten Klingemann, Klaus Lichtblau, Andrea Maurer, Heino Nau, Neil Gross, Daniel Huebner, Joachim Radkau, Wendelin Reich, Ole Riis, Lambros Roumbanis, Lawrence Scaff, Ralph Schroeder, Alan Sica, Philippe Steiner, George Steinmetz, Keith Tribe, Stephen Turner, Lars Udehn, Hannah C. Waight, Sam Whimster, and Hans Zetterberg.

We are also grateful to our families and to the many skilled professionals at Stanford University Press who have helped this second edition to become a reality. A special thank you goes to Peter Dreyer, Jenny Gavacs, Mariana Raykov, and Kate Wahl.

Ithaca, Växjö and Stockholm, December 2015

HOW TO USE THIS DICTIONARY

The immediate purpose of this dictionary is not only to make the ideas of Max Weber better known and more easily available to English-speaking readers. It is also our hope that it may inspire our readers to make more use of Weber’s insights in their own research. It is not only useful to know what Weber has said on some specific topic and to get to know his work better. It is also imperative to learn how to theorize with the help of Weber, that is, to learn how to use ideas, concepts, and social mechanisms in studying and explaining social reality.¹

For this last purpose—to help our readers to use Weber for a bit of creative theory construction of their own—we have added a number of new entries to the second edition of this dictionary on the theme of theorizing. In this way we also hope to open up a new avenue of research on Weber, and one that is more practical in nature than much of the existing literature, which often has exegesis as its main purpose. The emphasis in these new entries is on how Weber thought that theorizing should be carried out, and also on how he himself went about developing and constructing his own theories. These entries typically discuss tools for theory construction and how to capture the process of social life with their help. They include, for example, such entries as the following: analogy, configuration, definition (of concepts), heuristics, imagination and creativity, metaphors, process, processual, theorizing, and Weber, Max—Style of Work. We have also added to and/or rewritten many old entries with theorizing in mind, such as comparisons, cultural significance (for cultural problems of the time), "Economy and Society, ideal type, concepts, functionalism, meaning, orientation to others, quote marks and italics in Weber’s texts, rules, social mechanisms, types and typologies, uniformities and value-relevance."

If you look at Economy and Society from the perspective of theorizing, we also suggest, it loses some of its mystery. Weber contradicts himself at times in this work; and one reason for this is that it does not constitute a book but a series of manuscripts that Weber produced as he was trying to work out what he wanted to say.

It should be emphasized that the entries in the dictionary have not been written in an attempt to provide the reader with definitive answers to what Weber means by a certain word, concept, or phrase. For a number of reasons this is not possible. The meaning of a specific word or concept depends on the text in which it can be found. Each text is also part of a social and historical context—as well as of Weber’s evolving work and his life. Finally, readers are themselves part of another context and have usually some specific purpose in mind when they look up a specific word or concept.

What we have instead tried to do, is to provide our readers with statements and definitions that are as clear as possible, and also to supply references to relevant secondary literature. If Weber has himself provided a definition or a definition-like statement somewhere in his work, we have tried to include it.

Why a second edition of The Max Weber Dictionary? We have already mentioned the need to develop a new attitude to Weber’s work, one that is more concerned with theorizing. But there is also the fact that more than a decade has passed since the publication of the first edition of this dictionary (in 2005), and during this period many new and interesting studies of Weber’s work have appeared, as well as some new important translations.² Quite a few of these, it should be emphasized, can be found in Max Weber Studies (2000– ), which has continued to be the major place of publication for first-rate studies of Weber and his work.

We now, for example, know quite a bit more about Max Weber’s trip to the United States in 1904, primarily thanks to Lawrence Scaff’s Max Weber in America (2011). Also, when the first edition of the dictionary was put together, only one biography of Max Weber existed, whereas today there are several. Of these new biographies, only one has so far been translated into English: Joachim Radkau’s Max Weber: A Biography (2005; translated in abbreviated form in 2009). This book contains much new material on Weber, not least on his emotional and sexual life.

A few years ago all of Weber’s methodological writings were also retranslated in a meticulous and exemplary manner in a volume edited by Hans Henrik Bruun and Sam Whimster, Collected Methodological Writings (2012), which supersedes Essays in the Methodology of the Social Science. We think that modern readers should use Collected Methodological Writings, and the new edition of the dictionary reflects this standpoint.

But most important of all, the German effort to publish a definitive edition of Weber’s work, the Max Weber–Gesamtausgabe (MWG), has progressed very quickly during the past few years and is today nearly complete. Not only does this mean that we now have definitive editions of all of Weber’s works in their original German; each volume typically also contains a lengthy and well documented introduction. Weber’s letters and lecture notes are also annotated and documented in an exemplary manner in the Gesamtausgabe.

All of this new material has made it imperative for us not only to introduce many new references and facts but also to include many new entries. This new edition contains, for example, new entries for adaptation, pragmatism, Du Bois, W. E. B. (1868–1963), and many more. There is also a very long new entry for "Collected Works (Max Weber–Gesamtausgabe)."

Similarly, we have in some cases found it necessary to rewrite the entries in the first edition. This has, for example, been done with the entries for elective affinities, psychophysics, and race and racism (replacing the old entry for race). The second edition is as a result about 20 percent larger than the first edition.

A typical entry in the dictionary begins with a short summary of what a concept means in Weber’s work. This is followed by Weber’s definition (if one exists), some explication, and a few references to secondary literature. In each entry the concept or key term is given in English, followed by the German equivalent in parentheses. In choosing definitions from Weber’s work priority has been given to his definitions in chapter 1 of Economy and Society, Basic Sociological Terms. Weber made a huge effort toward the end of his life to develop a new kind of sociology—interpretive sociology—and we have decided to prioritize this effort in the dictionary and make it its focus. He was also very interested in making (what we today call) Economy and Society into a textbook, that is, a manual of sorts for how to do research in sociology; and we have tried to follow him in this ambition as well.

Our identities as sociologists have no doubt played a role in this emphasis. Ideally, we would have liked to design the dictionary so as to enable professional economists, political scientists, and legal scholars also to find precisely what they are looking for in Weber’s work. We have made a huge effort in this direction, but again, we are sociologists by profession and are most knowledgeable in this type of science.

When Weber’s main works are referred to in the text, abbreviations are used. Economy and Society, for example, is cited as ES, and The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as PE. A full list of abbreviations can be found at the beginning of the dictionary below.

We have tried to use the standard translations of Weber’s works into English, since these are the most easily available and also the ones that contain formulations with which many readers are likely to be familiar. In some cases, however, the existing translations are of poor quality and more recent and better translations have had to be used.

After the definition in an entry, there is typically a sentence or two with material that adds to the understanding of the definition or of how Weber used the concept. In choosing secondary literature, we have in the great majority of cases given preference to references in English. We use references in German only if there is no adequate or equivalent text in English. Since the dictionary is primarily aimed at English-speaking readers, it has seemed natural to concentrate on the secondary literature in that language. A Weber dictionary in German would no doubt look different, both in terms of entries and in terms of the secondary literature referred to.

As far as we know, there is no Max Weber dictionary in German. However, the very useful Max Weber–Handbuch (2014) edited by Hans-Peter Müller and Steffen Sigmund contains two huge sections on central concepts in Weber and his major writings, as well as a section with topics that are relevant today and related to Weber. We highly recommend it to those of our readers who know German.

In choosing the secondary literature in our dictionary, we have tried to be selective and not to overload the entries. This means that we have drawn heavily on work by well-known experts on Weber, from Alexander von Schelting, Alfred Schutz, Talcott Parsons, and Raymond Aron earlier to Hans Henrik Bruun, Edith Hanke, Dirk Käsler, Klaus Lichtblau, Wolfgang Mommsen, Joachim Radkau, Gunther Roth, Lawrence Scaff, Wolfgang Schluchter, Keith Tribe, and Sam Whimster today. The secondary literature is often referred to in abbreviated form in the text of the entries. For the full details of some item, the reader is referred to the reference list at the end of the dictionary.

Besides entries for concepts that are typically associated with Weber’s name (such as charisma and domination), we have also included entries on topics that Weber interpreted and recast in an innovative manner, and that the reader may therefore be interested in knowing more about (such as capitalism and salvation). It is this type of entry that we have designated as key words in the subtitle to this dictionary.

Entries have also been added in some cases for terms such as lytric and autocephalous in Weber’s work simply because the average reader may find them useful. The reader may also wonder what Weber thought of norms and institutions, two terms that are often used in today’s sociology; and entries have therefore been added for these. Since it is our guess that some readers may expect this dictionary to include entries for Weber’s life as well as his main works, we have included a limited number of such entries—as well as a few others that we hope readers may find useful (such as neo-Kantianism and Marxism). In a few cases we have also given in to our own fascination with details; and the reader who, for example, is interested to know more about Weber’s dog Murx can find a reference in the entry for animals.

As with all thinkers, Weber is finally what his readers make of him. If he is used well, in concrete research as well as in theoretical analyses, this second edition of the dictionary will soon be outdated; and that is what we are hoping for. If not, it will retain its accuracy—and gather dust on some library shelf.

Notes

1. One reason for taking this stance is that both editors of this dictionary are actively engaged in furthering the project of how to theorize among sociologists and social scientists, as opposed to teaching theory in the old-fashioned manner by simply referring students to the major works and ideas of Marx, Weber, and so on. See, e.g., Richard Swedberg, The Art of Social Theory (Princeton University Press, 2014), (ed.), Theorizing in Social Science (Stanford University Press, 2014), and How to Use the Ideal Type in Concrete Research (2014); and Ola Agevall, Thinking about Configurations: Max Weber and Modern Social Science, Etica & Politica/Ethics & Politics 7, 2 (2005), http://www2.units.it/etica/2005_2/AGEVALL.pdf (accessed February 20, 2016), and Social Closure: On Metaphors, Professions, and a Boa Constrictor, in Andreas Liljegren and Mike Saks (eds.), Professions and Metaphors: Understanding Professions in Society (London: Routledge, forthcoming).

2. For a review of the first edition, see Hans Henrik Bruun, "Review of The Max Weber Dictionary," Max Weber Studies 7, 1 (2007): 127–32.

ABBREVIATIONS

The abbreviations below are used for works by Max Weber frequently cited in this book: AJ thus refers, e.g., to Weber, Max ([1921] 1952, Ancient Judaism, and ES to Weber [1922] 1978, Economy and Society, in the References, where full bibliographical details are supplied.

A

Abriß der universalen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Outline of Universal Social and Economic History) See General Economic History

accounting See calculation, capital accounting

acquisitive drive or instinct (Erwerbstrieb) Weber was very critical of contemporary use of this concept to explain the emergence of capitalism, on grounds that one cannot deduce economic institutions (let alone a whole economic system) from a psychological concept (cf. CMW, 123–24; MSS, 88–89). The concept of acquisitive drive is wholly imprecise and better not used at all, Weber says (ES, 1190–91).

See also capitalism

action (Handeln) The concept of action plays a central role in Weber’s interpretive sociology. According to his definition of it in the first paragraph of Economy and Society, chap. 1, sociology . . . is a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences (4; cf. CMW, 274; Weber [1913] 1981, 152).

Action is defined as behavior that is invested with meaning by the actor. It may be internal or external; the actor may do something, avoid doing something, or have something done to him or her. Action is social if it is oriented to other actors or to an order. If the element of meaning is absent, it is simply behavior. This includes reactive behavior; and traditional action may come close to it.

According to Talcott Parsons, who made the first translation of chapter 1 of Economy and Society into English, "Verhalten [behavior] is the broader term referring to any behavior of human individuals . . . [Handeln] refers to the concrete phenomenon of human behavior only in so far as it is capable of ‘understanding’, in Weber’s technical sense, in terms of subjective categories (Parsons in Weber 1947, 89). Social action is usually seen as the main category in Weber’s sociology, but order" (Ordnung) is also extremely important in it. According to a happy formulation by Stefan Breuer, Weber’s sociology is both a sociology of action and a sociology of order (Breuer 2001a, 125).

In his 1913 essay Über einige Kategorien der verstehenden Soziologie (On Some Categories of Interpretive Sociology), Weber uses the German term Gemeinschaftshandeln (trans. as communal action in CMW, 484) for social action, rather than soziales Handeln, as in Economy and Society, chap. 1.

See also behavior, interpretive sociology, meaning, order, orientation to others, social action, sociology, traditionalism

actual regularities See uniformities

adaptation (Anpassung) This concept is not among the key sociological concepts in Economy and Society, chap. 1, but it is often used by Weber in his work, typically together with its paired concept of selection (see s.v.). One of the studies that Weber was interested in having conducted refers in its title to both of these terms, Selection and Adaptation (Choice and Course of Occupation) for the Workers of Major Industrial Enterprises (Weber [1908] 1980).

In his analysis of Confucianism, Weber discusses its adaptation to the world (Weltanpassung; RC, 152). According to Claus Offe, rules of selection for life chances and access to power lead [in Weber’s work] to ‘adaptation’, that is, to formative effects which result from the efforts of actors to conform to the dominant rules of selection and to achieve or maintain their life chances (Offe 2005, 54).

See Martin Albrow and Zhang Xiaoying, Weber and the Concept of Adaptation, The Case of Confucian Ethics (2014).

adequacy on the level of meaning (Sinnadäquanz) See causality

adequate causality (Kausaladäquanz) See causality

administration (Verwaltung) One of the great themes in Weber’s sociology is that of administration, that is, organizations and their staffs, including bureaucracy.

In his general (interpretive) sociology as outlined in Economy and Society, chap. 1, Weber discusses organizations, including what he terms administrative organizations, i.e., organizations exclusively oriented to the administrative order, that is, to the order that regulates the actions of the staff, or administrative cooperation (Verwaltungsverband) (51–52).

Weber notes that what constitutes a staff has changed over history, from a few individuals assembled ad hoc to the modern bureaucratic staff. The main source of information on administrative staffs in Weber’s work can be found in his writings on bureaucracy and domination (see esp. ES, 212–301, but also ES, 941–1211; EES, 99–108; GM, 295–300). If an organization has an administrative staff, it rests to some extent on domination (ES, 54).

The different types of staff that have existed throughout history have typically differed in experience, formal training, how they are paid, and what they are paid with. According to Weber, there has been always a continuous, latent struggle between chiefs and their staffs. The capacity of a chief to control his or her staff depends partly on whether it is paid in kind, with a salary, through a fief, and so on.

For Weber on public administration in the United States, see, e.g., Claus Offe, Reflections on America: Tocqueville, Weber and Adorno in the United States (2005), 58–60. For Weber’s relationship to the administrative historian Otto Hintze, see Jürgen Kocka, Otto Hintze and Max Weber: Attempts at a Comparison (1987).

See also bureaucracy, domination, means of administration, organization or association, organization theory or organizational sociology

administrative means See means of administration

advantage (Chance) The German term Chance is used by Weber with two meanings, as advantage or opportunity and as probability. For the former, see the entry for opportunity; and for the latter, probability.

adventurers’ capitalism (Abenteurerkapitalismus) This type of capitalism has existed throughout history, according to Weber. It is typically irrational and speculative in nature; and it often aims at exploiting opportunities opened up by political forces. Adventurers’ capitalism is usually immoral as well as traditionalistic in nature, and in many ways the opposite of the methodical, ethical, revolutionary type of modern rational capitalism on which The Protestant Ethic focuses (e.g., PE, 20, 58, 69, 76; cf., e.g., GEH, 289, 350).

Weber also notes that many of the types of capitalism that exist in the West today, especially financial capitalism, bear the mark of adventurers’ capitalism (e.g., PE, 20). In terms of the typology of capitalism introduced in Economy and Society, chap. 2 (rational, political, and what may be termed commercial-traditional capitalism), adventurers’ capitalism is most closely related to political capitalism. What Weber calls robber capitalism (Raubkapitalismus) is also related to political capitalism and adventurers’ capitalism (e.g., PW, 89, GPS, 322).

Georg Simmel’s 1911 essay Das Abenteuer (The Adventure) inspired the term adventurers’ capitalism (PED, 119).

See also capitalism, economic superman, political capitalism

affectual action (social action that is affektuell) This is one of the four major types of social action in Weber’s general (interpretive) sociology, together with instrumentally rational action, traditional action, and value-rational action. It is a type of action that is determined by the actor’s emotions.

Affectual action is determined by the actor’s specific affects and feeling states (ES, 25). Weber adds that action is affectual if it satisfies a need for revenge, sensual gratification, devotion, contemplative bliss, or for working off emotional tensions (irrespective of the level of sublimation) (ibid.).

Like value-rational action, affectual action is carried out for its own sake, rather than for some result. Affectual action can have its origin in an uncontrolled reaction, and it thereby comes close to lacking the element of meaning (and hence to qualifying as action in Weber’s sense; cf. CMW, 274; Weber [1913] 1981, 152). It may also consist of a controlled release of emotion. Weber often groups together emotional factors with irrationality and error (e.g., ES, 6, 9).

The mother who loses control of herself and slaps her child because of bad behavior and the soccer player who loses his temper and hits another player exemplify affectual action (Aron 1970, 221).

An increasing amount of attention—and mainly critical—has recently been directed at Weber’s concept of affectual action and his view of emotions more generally. See, e.g., J. M. Barbalet, "Beruf, Rationality and Emotion in Max Weber’s Sociology" (2000), and id., Weber, Passion and Profits (2008).

See also body, emotions, social action

affinities See elective affinities

agency and structure See methodological individualism, social structure

Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations (Agrarverhältnisse im Altertum, trans. 1976) This book-length study originally appeared as an article in 1909 in Johannes Conrad’s Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften (for earlier and considerably shorter versions, see Weber 1897, 1898). Its main focus is on the social and economic structure of countries in antiquity, including Greece and Rome, as well as Egypt, Israel and Mesopotamia. Weber also addresses the extent to which the categories of modern economic analysis are applicable to precapitalist conditions.

The English edition of this work also contains Weber’s important essay The Social Causes of the Decline of Ancient Civilization (1896; see also Weber [1896] 1950, 1999).

According to Marianne Weber, Agrarian Sociology can be characterized as a sort of sociology of antiquity—a historical analysis and conceptual penetration of all important structural forms of the social life of classical antiquity (Marianne Weber [1926] 1988, 329). The word sociology does not appear in the original title in German, but Weber may well have defined himself primarily as a sociologist at the time when he wrote this work.

For a general discussion of Weber’s study, see, e.g., Arnaldo Momigliano, The Instruments of Decline (1977), and R. I. Frank, Translator’s Introduction, 7–33 in The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations. For the reception of this work during Weber’s lifetime, see, e.g., Dirk Käsler, Max Weber (1988), 199–200.

The definitive German texts of Weber’s writings on the subject are reprinted, with a valuable introduction, in MWG I/6 (2006).

Agrarverhältnisse im Altertum See Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations

alienation See depersonalization

Alltag See everyday life

America See United States

Amt See office

Amtscharisma (charisma of office) See charisma

analogy Weber was very interested in the role of analogies in social science and sometimes commented on their use by various scholars. He also traced the history of the analogy, arguing that the origin of analogical thinking is to be found in magic (ES, 407). Analogies have also for a long time been used in legal thought, according to Weber. The latter use inspired the idea of syllogism, and in this way helped to introduce formal reasoning into philosophy. Weber mainly writes about the analogy in his methodological writings, his sociology of religion, and his sociology of law (e.g., 17, 787, 976).

Memory is involved in analogy making; and Weber’s phenomenal memory clearly helped him construct structural similarities across time and social behavior. So presumably did his habit of taking notes on what he had read, a habit he had picked up already as a teenager (Marianne Weber [1926] 1988, 46). For a well-known analogy, as used by Weber in his own work, see the entry for elective affinities. For Weber’s critique of Simmel’s use of analogies, see CMW, 419.

For a discussion of Weber’s use of analogies as an alternative to historical laws, see Reinhard Bendix and Guenther Roth, Scholarship and Partisanship (1971), 253–57. Weber’s own use of analogy [in this context] was twofold, illustrative, helping the reader visualize a phenomenon by referring to something with which he was familiar, and typological, drawing on similar phenomena for the sake of formulating typologies (256).

See also animals, metaphors, theorizing, types and typologies

Ancient Judaism (Das antike Judentum; trans. 1952) This study by Weber is part of his huge project Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen (Economic Ethics of the World Religions), the German original of which first appeared in 1917–20. The English translation by Hans Gerth and Don Martindale (Weber [1921] 1952) is based on the text in vol. 3 of Weber’s Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie. The definitive German edition can be found in MWG I/21 (2005), along with a valuable introduction.

The historical importance for modern Western culture of ancient Judaism, especially its rational nature, is the basic question that Weber attempts to address in this book, which is divided into the following sections, the background of ancient Judaism (pt. 1); the covenant and confederacy (pt. 2); priesthood, cult, and ethics (pt. 3); the establishment of the Jewish pariah people (pt. 4); and the Pharisees (pt. 5–suppl.).

For a summary of Ancient Judaism, see, e.g., Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (1960), 200–56, and Dirk Käsler, Max Weber (1988), 127–36. For its early reception, see Käsler, Max Weber, 206. For discussion, see, e.g., S. N. Eisenstadt, "The Format of Jewish History: Some Reflections on Weber’s Ancient Judaism (1982); Harvey Sacks, Max Weber’s Ancient Judaism (1999); John Love, Max Weber’s Ancient Judaism (2000); and Wolfgang Schluchter, The Approach of Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion as Exemplified in His Study of Ancient Judaism" (2004).

See also antisemitism, Economic Ethics of the World Religions, Orientalism, pariah capitalism, pariah people, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Religion of China, Religion of India

animals In his explanatory comment to his definition of sociology in the first paragraph of Economy and Society, chap. 1, Weber discusses the extent to which animal behavior is understandable to us; the different types of social organization found among animals; and whether our understanding of human social action can be improved by studies of animals. Weber’s general conclusion is that analogies between animals and humans can be suggestive, but not more (ES, 15–17).

On Weber and his dog Murx, see Joachim Radkau, Max Weber: Die Leidenschaft des Denkens (2005), 99–100.

Anpassung See adaptation

Anstalt This term has several meanings in Weber’s work, as compulsory organization or association and institution in his general (interpretive) sociology (ES, 52; EW, 354), and as the legal concept of institution in his sociology of law (e.g., ES, 714–15).

See also compulsory organization

Anstaltsgnade (institutional grace) See salvation

anthropology It is possible to speak of Weber’s relationship to anthropology in two senses, his view of what is today called anthropology, and his view of what is called philosophical anthropology, namely, the nature of human beings and human nature. This entry only deals with the latter view; for Weber’s view of anthropology in the modern sense of the word, see the entry for ethnography.

Weber does not explicitly propose a view of human nature, but his opinion may nonetheless be deduced from various writings. He appears, e.g., to have regarded the capacity to assign values and meaning to things, as well as the capacity to orient oneself to other people and to understand them, as part of human nature. There are also the metaphysical needs of the human mind, that is, the existential needs to understand the world and assign a meaning to it (ES, 499).

Occasionally, Weber refers explicitly to human nature, as in his Freiburg inaugural lecture of 1895, "we do not want to breed well-being in people, but rather those characteristics which we think of as constituting the human greatness and nobility of our nature (Natur)" (PW, 15; GPS, 13). He takes a more sociological approach elsewhere in his work when he argues that "if one wishes to evaluate any ordering (of whatever kind) of societal relationships, one must in the last resort, without exception, also examine it with respect to the type of human being that it gives the best chances of becoming dominant, by way of external selection or internal selection (of motives)" (CMW, 320–21; cf. MSS, 27).

Weber also notes, that among the most fundamental and universal components of human behavior are sexual love, economic interest, and the social drives toward power and prestige (ES, 601). Other passages of this type may be found in his work.

Talcott Parsons notes in one of his comments on Weber’s sociology of religion that Weber postulates a basic ‘drive’ toward meaning (Parsons 1963, xlvii). For an attempt to reconstruct Weber’s philosophical anthropology, see, e.g., Wilhelm Hennis, Max Weber’s Science of Man (2000). For Weber and Eduard Meyer’s view of anthropology, see Friedrich Tenbruck, Max Weber and Eduard Meyer (1987).

See also body

antike Judentum, Das See Ancient Judaism

Antikritiken This term refers to Weber’s articles published during 1907–10 in response to some of the critics of The Protestant Ethic (1904–5). For translations of these articles, both the critiques of Weber and his answers to them, see PED. For Weber’s answers, including his rejoinder to Werner Sombart and Lujo Brentano, see Weber [1904–5] 2002a, 221–355. For the original German texts, see, e.g., Johannes Winckelmann (ed.), Die Protestantische Ethik II, Kritiken und Antikritiken (1978). The definitive German versions of Weber’s replies to his critics can be found in MWG I/9 (2014).

antisemitism See Nazism and Weber’s work, race and racism; and see also pariah capitalism, pariah people

Antrieb See psychological or religious premium

appropriation (Appropriation) To appropriate something means essentially to exclude others from it and monopolize it. From a sociological viewpoint, appropriation is a form of closed social relationship. It plays a key role in Weber’s general (interpretive) sociology as well as in his economic sociology.

Appropriation is discussed in connection with the section on open and closed social relationships in Weber’s general (interpretive) sociology in Economy and Society, chap. 1. There Weber describes appropriation as ways in which it is possible for a closed social relationship to guarantee its monopolized advantages to the parties (ES, 44).

Weber reserves the term right (Recht) for situations where (1) opportunities have become monopolized on a permanent basis through a closed social relationship, and (2) they are more or less alienable (ES, 44). To own something, to sell something, and to inherit something all presuppose different forms of rights in this sense.

Economy and Society, chap. 2, in which Weber’s economic sociology is to be found, contains elaborate typologies of different forms of appropriation (125–38, 144–50; see also GEH, 26–50). Status, finally, involves monopolistic appropriation of privileged modes of acquisition (ES, 306).

See also means of administration, means of production, means of war, open and closed social relationships, opportunity, property

Arbeitsverfassung See employment regime

Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik Weber was one of the editors of this journal from 1904 to his death in 1920. Thanks to Weber, as well as to editors such as Werner Sombart and Joseph Schumpeter, the Archiv soon became the leading social science journal in Germany.

Many of Weber’s own studies appeared in this journal, including the original two articles that now constitute The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

The tasks of the Archiv are spelled out in Weber’s essay on objectivity of 1904 (CMW, 100–38; cf. MSS, 49–112; EW, 359–404). Its prime task is described as follows, "the scientific investigation of the general cultural significance of the social-economic structure of human communal life and its historical forms of organization" (EW, 370; emphasis in the original).

For an introduction to the Archiv, as well as an index to the articles that appeared in it before its demise in 1933, see Regis Factor, Guide to the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik Group 1904–1933 (1988). See also Peter Ghosh, "Max Weber, Werner Sombart and the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft: The Authorship of the ‘Geleitwort’ [Foreword]" (2010).

See also Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (German Sociological Association)

army See means of war

art See Author’s Introduction, Klinger, sociology of art

ascetic Protestantism (asketischer Protestantismus) According to Weber, some types of Protestantism have an important ascetic component; and it was to capture this quality that he coined the term ascetic Protestantism. These include Calvinism, Pietism, Methodism, and the Baptist sects, all of which played a key role in the formation and spread of the modern capitalist spirit from the sixteenth century onwards (see the chapter The Religious Foundations of Worldly Asceticism in PE, 95–154).

What made this type of religion so congenial to rational capitalism, Weber famously argues in The Protestant Ethic, were the following traits, the role that it attributed to work as a calling (Beruf); its positive attitude to wealth as a sign of God’s benevolence; and its ascetic and activist approach, not only to the economy but to life in general.

Some additional factors are also important. For example, Protestants, unlike Catholics, could not go to confession but were directly responsible to God for their sins. The Catholic Church also relied much more heavily on priests to mediate between the religious layperson and God, something that made this type of Christianity less independent and more authoritarian than ascetic Protestantism.

That the ascetic Protestants were often gathered together in sects also meant that their religious ideas had more of an impact than they would have had in a church. This argument is especially elaborated upon in The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism (GM, 302–22).

In an often cited letter to Adolf von Harnack of February 5, 1906, Weber notes that our nation has never in any way experienced the school of hard asceticism. . . . This is the source of all that I find contemptible in it (as in myself) (Mommsen 1984, 94; MWG II/5, 32–33).

See, e.g., Wolfgang Schluchter, The Role of the Reformation in the Transition to Modernity, 139–74, in The Rise of Western Rationalism (1981); and Ernst Troeltsch, Protestantism and Progress (1912). For the debate over Weber’s argument about the link between ascetic Protestantism and the spirit of modern capitalism, see Weber thesis. MWG I/9 (2014) is the definitive German edition of Weber’s writings on ascetic Protestantism and capitalism.

See also asceticism, Calvinism, Catholicism, Christianity, Protestantism, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Puritanism, sect, Weber thesis

asceticism (Askese) Weber devotes much attention in his sociology of religion to asceticism and mysticism as contrasting ways of reaching salvation (e.g., GM, 324–26; ES, 544–51). He also singles out asceticism in The Protestant Ethic as the main social mechanism by means of which religious behavior influenced economic behavior.

Asceticism can be defined as abstention and restraint, carried out in a systematic manner. According to Weber, the ascetic, sees himself or herself as an instrument for the will of God, whereas the mystic sees himself or herself as a vessel. Asceticism in the area of religion may also spread to other areas of society, including the economy—and the way that this happened in the West, via the religious concept of vocation (Beruf), constitutes the main theme of The Protestant Ethic. In Weber’s colorful formulation, Christian asceticism . . . now strode into the market-place of life, slammed the door of the monastery behind it, and undertook to penetrate [the] daily routine of life (PE, 154; cf. 181).

One may also conceptualize asceticism, Weber notes, as a rational method of living (RI, 220). Asceticism can be inner-worldly (inner-ßweltliche Askese) or other-worldly (außerweltliche Askese). The former means that the believer uses ascetic means, and also that he or she aims to change the world according to his or her beliefs. In other-worldly asceticism the believer also uses ascetic means, but does not want to change the world. Calvinism is an example of inner-worldly asceticism and monasticism of other-worldly asceticism.

There is an affinity between asceticism and discipline—a topic to which Weber paid much attention. He also emphasized the relationship between asceticism and work, in the form of industria (e.g., PE, 196–98).

According to Weber, Indian asceticism was the most rationally developed in the world (RI, 148–49). Yoga is a well-known example of Indian asceticism (RI, 163–65). In his sociology of religion Weber also discusses monasticism, which he characterizes as a form of monastic asceticism (ES, 1 166–73). Monastic asceticism can be of two kinds, individuals can use it to seek their own salvation, and hierocratic organizations can use it to train their monks.

Ascetic Protestantism, according to Weber’s famous thesis in The Protestant Ethic, played a key role in forming and spreading the spirit of modern rational capitalism. It helped to make people work harder, save what they earned (ascetic saving compulsion) and re-invest the profit (e.g., PED, 67, 103–4). See especially in this context the chapter The Religious Foundations of Worldly Asceticism in The Protestant Ethic (PE, 95–154). For a discussion of the role of asceticism in Protestantism, as well as in the argument in The Protestant Ethic, see Weber’s reply to one of his critics in PED, 62–66.

The translation by Talcott Parsons of innerweltliche Askese in The Protestant Ethic as worldly asceticism has been rejected by later translators of this work, who prefer inner-worldly asceticism (Gordon Wells, Issues of Language and Translation in Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic Writings [2001], 35). For the role of religious asceticism in Weber’s work as well as in medieval Christianity, see Lutz Kaelber, Schools of Asceticism (1988), and Christopher Adair-Toteff, Fundamental Concepts in Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion (2015a), chap. 4.

See also ascetic discipline, mysticism, predestination, Protestantism, Weber thesis

association See organization or association

associational action (Gesellschaftshandeln) The term Gesellschaftshandeln is used in Weber’s 1913 essay On Some Categories of Interpretive Sociology, but it was later dropped and partly replaced by the concept of instrumentally rational action. In the first translation of the essay (Weber [1913] 1981), with which sociological readers have long been familiar, the term was translated into English as associational action, thus preserving continuity with the English translation of Economy and Society, where derivatives of Gesellschaft are typically rendered as association.

Alternative translations of Gesellschaftshandeln are societal action (Orihara 2003, 141) and rationally regulated action (Roth and Wittich, in Weber [1922] 1978; ES, 1375). The concept occurs, very sparingly, in the older parts of ES (MWG I/22, 1: 79, 96; 3: 221,237; 4: 146, 208). In the few cases where some other English term is used in the translation of these passages, the German original is given in brackets. See, e.g., ES, 340, 635, 987.

Societal action is the term used in the preferred translation today (CMW, 273–301). In On Some Categories, societal/associational action is defined as follows, We shall use the term . . . to designate communal action when, and to the extent that, [the communal action] is (1) oriented, in terms of its meaning, according to expectations based on [instituted] orders (2) whose institution" has taken place in a purely purposively rational manner with a view to action expected on the part of the societized persons as a consequence [of the institution of those orders], and when (3) the meaning-related orientation is subjectively purposively rational (CMW, 282–83, cf. Weber [1913] 1981, 160).

See also instrumentally rational action, On Some Categories of Interpretive Sociology

associative relationship See communal and associative relationships

attitude The concept of attitudes (Attitude) is not among the key concepts in Weber’s theoretical sociology in Economy and Society, chap. 1, but it does figure in some of his writings. For a discussion of the relationship between the notion of meaning and that of people’s attitudes, see, e.g., the section on The Study of Attitudes, 190–92, in Lazarsfeld and Oberschall, Max Weber and Empirical Research (1965).

See also habitus

außeralltäglich See charisma, everyday life

außerweltliche Askese (other-worldly asceticism) See asceticism

authority See domination

Author’s Introduction (Vorbemerkung) Talcott Parsons (PE, 13–31) gave this title to the prefatory introduction to vol. 1 of Weber’s three-volume Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion; GAR, 1: 1–16). It should not be confused with the introduction (Einleitung) to the study Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen (Economic Ethics of the World Religions), generally known in English as The Social Psychology of World Religions (GM, 267–301; see also a different translation in EW [55–80] entitled Introduction to the Economic Ethics of the World Religions).

The Author’s Introduction is very important, mainly for its statement about the growth of rationality in the West. In the context of his discussion of rationalism and universal history, Weber touches, among other things, on the growth of rationalism in art, science, architecture, and capitalism He also adds, not without ambiguity, that the growth of Western rationality is part of a "development having universal significance and value" (PE, 13).

Weber’s "Vorbemerkung" was written in the fall of 1919 and first published in 1920. Talcott Parsons made the first translation of this text and placed it at the outset of his translation of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, inadvertently giving the reader the impression that it was an integral part of this study (PE, 13–31). Two recent translations of the Vorbemerkung exist, both under the title Prefatory Remarks, one by Peter Baehr and Gordon Wells, and one by Stephen Kalberg (see Weber [1904–5] 2002a, 356–72; [1920] 2002b). The definitive German edition is forthcoming in MWG I/18. See also, e.g., Benjamin Nelson, Max Weber’s ‘Author’s Introduction’ (1920): A Master Clue to His Main Aims (1974).

See also Economic Ethics of the World Religions, Einleitung, rationalization, universal history

autocephalous (autokephal) If an organization appoints its own leadership, it is autocephalous; if outsiders do so, it is heterocephalous. [A]utocephaly means that the chief and his staff are selected according to the autonomous order of the organization itself, not as in the case of heterocephaly, that they are appointed by outsiders, Weber explains in Economy and Society (50). The essence of autocephaly, in other words, is independence of certain outside forces, and the opposite is called heterocephaly.

See also leader and leadership, organization or association

axiology See values

B

Basic Sociological Terms (soziologische Grundbegriffe) Basic Sociological Terms is the title of Economy and Society, chap. 1, which contains the main body of Weber’s general (interpretive) sociology and what he viewed as the main concepts in sociology (3–62). Some of the best-known of these are, social action, legitimate order, law, open and closed social relationships, power, domination, and the state.

This chapter of Economy and Society was originally translated by Talcott Parsons, but there is also a more recent translation by Keith Tribe (Basic Sociological Concepts, EW, 311–58). The definitive German text of Economy and Society, chap. 1, can be found in MWG I/23. An early version of some of the material in it can be found in Weber’s 1913 essay On Some Categories of Interpretive Sociology, which is available in two translations, CMW, 273–301, and Weber ([1913] 1981).

For a discussion of Weber’s concepts in Economy and Society, chap. 1, see Klaus Lichtblau (ed.), Max Webers ‘Grundbegriffe’ (2006), and Max Weber’s ‘Sociology’ as Seen Against the History of His Work (2015). See also Hinnerk Bruhns, Max Weber’s ‘Basic Concepts’ in the Context of His Studies in Economic History (2006), and Richard Swedberg, "Verstehende Wirtschaftssoziologie? On the Relationship between Max Weber’s ‘Basic Sociological Terms’ and His Economic Sociology" (2006).

See also Kategorienlehre

Battle of the Methods (Methodenstreit) For a few decades after the 1880s, economists in German-speaking Europe were involved in a heated academic dispute triggered by an exchange between the Austrian economist Carl Menger and Gustav Schmoller, the leader of the German Historical School of Economics. The key issue was whether economics should be primarily analytical and abstract in nature (Menger) or empirical and historical (Schmoller).

The debate ended with a clear victory for Menger, and the historical-empirical approach of Schmoller and others was excluded from the science of economics and recast as economic history. Versions of the Battle of the Methods also took place in many other countries, including England, Sweden, and the United States, where the analytical school won a resounding victory too.

In Weber’s view, both schools of thought had something essential to contribute; and he deplored the fact that economics had split into two sciences (CMW, 108; cf. MSS, 63). He both referred to the excellent views of Menger, and complimented Schmoller for having kept alive the historical method in economics at the time of the most barren economic rationalism (Swedberg 1998, 190).

For discussions of the Battle of the Methods, see, e.g., Keith Tribe, Strategies of Economic Order (1995), 66–94, Ola Agevall, A Science of Unique Events (1999), 58–69, and H. H. Bruun, Science, Values and Politics in Max Weber’s Methodology (2007), 111–15.

See also economics, Historical School of Economics, value-freedom (on the Battle of Value Judgments, or Werturteilsstreit)

Battle of Value Judgments (Werturteilsstreit) See value-freedom

Baumgarten family Several members of the Baumgarten family had an important impact on Weber as a young man. His aunt Ida Baumgarten (née Fallenstein; 1837–99), Weber’s mother’s sister, influenced him through her intense religious interest, and her husband Hermann (1825–93) did so through his advocacy of liberalism. Weber discussed theology with their son Otto (1858–1934), and in his twenties he had a romantic interest in their daughter Emmy (1865–1946). Eduard Baumgarten (1898–1982), whose father was a cousin of Max Weber’s, later edited a study titled Max Weber: Werk und Person (1964). See, e.g., Marianne Weber, Max Weber ([1926] 1988), and Joachim Radkau, Max Weber: A Biography (2012). On Weber’s

Reviews for The Max Weber Dictionary

[Allie Tichenor · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an excellent reference work for English-speaking readers tackling the works of Max Weber in English or German. In addition to providing clear and concise explanations of Weber's central concepts (with German equivalents), it also includes: a brief bio of Weber and of influential persons from Weber's life, a descriptions of each of his major works along with a list of those available in English translation, a brief history of the reception of Weber's work in the United States and Germany, a history and discussion of controversies around translation, and an annotated bibliography of secondary works by topic for readers wishing to explore a particular topic in more depth. Although I have finished this book, I know that I will be referencing it regularly as I tackle in English and German Weber's opus.