Max Weber Quotes on Nature
Max Weber was a German sociologist, jurist, and political economist, one of the founders of modern social science. This page collects quotes attributed to Max Weber on the topic of nature, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.”
Science as a Vocation -
Attributed to Max Weber:
“An iron cage of bureaucratic rationality.”
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“Max Weber, The Rejection of the World and Theodicy , 1916.”
Mysticism intends a state of "possession," not action, and the individual is not a tool but a "vessel" of the divine. Action in the world must thus appear as endangering the absolutely irrational and other-worldly religious state. Active asceticism operates within the world; rationally active asceticism, in mastering the world, seeks to tame what is creatural and wicked through work in a worldly " -
“Max Weber, The Nature of Social Action, 1922”
Sociology is the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and the effects which it produces. By "action" in this definition is meant the human behaviour when and to the extent that the agent or agents see it as subjectively meaningful [...] the meaning to which we refer may be either (a) the mean -
“Only on the assumption of belief in the validity of values is the attempt to espouse value-judgments meaningful. However, to judge the validity of such values is a matter of faith .”
Max Weber (1949/2011), Methodology of Social Sciences, Edward E. Shils & Henry A. Finch (transl. & ed.). p. 55