Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber (21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist whose ideas influenced social theory, social research, and the entire discipline of sociology. Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founding creators of sociology. Weber was a key proponent of methodological antipositivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive (rather than purely empiricist) means, based on understanding the purpose and meaning that individuals attach to their own actions. Weber's main intellectual concern was understanding the processes of rationalisation, secularisation, and "disenchantment" that he associated with the rise of capitalism and modernity, and which he saw as the result of a new way of thinking about the world.
Literature
- translations
- The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, 1951
- Basic Concepts in Sociology, 1962
- Sociologia religiei. Tipuri de organizări comunitare religioase, trans. Claudiu Baciu, Bucureşti: Editura Teora, 1998. (in Romanian)
- about Weber
- Marianne Weber, Max Weber: A Biography, edited and translated by Harry Zohn, New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 1988.
- Joachim Radkau, Max Weber, Munich & Vienna: Carl Hanser Verlag, 2005. (in German)
- Max Weber. A Biography, trans. Patrick Camiller, Polity Press, 2009. (in English)
