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.
Works
- Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. Series of essays, 1904-1905.
- The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons, 1930. (English)
- L'ethique protestante et l'esprit du capitalisme, Paris: Librairie Plon, 1964, PDF. (French)
- Den protestantiska etiken och kapitalismens, Argos, 1992, PDF. (Swedish)
- Etica protestantă şi spiritul capitalismului, trans. Ihor Lemnij, Bucharest: Humanitas, 1993; 2003, IA. (Romanian)
- A ética protestante e o espírito do capitalismo , Companhia das Letras, 2007, PDF. (Portuguese)
- Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Religionssoziologie [Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion], 1920- 1921.
- The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, 1951; Free Press, 1959, PDF. (English)
- Basic Concepts in Sociology, 1962. (English)
- Bibliography
Literature
- Marianne Weber, Max Weber: A Biography, ed. & trans. Harry Zohn, New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 1988. (English)
- Joachim Radkau, Max Weber, Munich and Vienna: Carl Hanser, 2005. (German)
- Max Weber: A Biography, trans. Patrick Camiller, Polity Press, 2009. (English)
