A short biography of Max Weber, who left his mark on sociology and can be considered one of its founding fathers.
Short biography of Max Weber
Max Weber was born in 1864. He was a German citizen and came from the German upper middle class. His father was a magistrate and had a political career.
Weber became a professor of law at the University of Berlin. He taught economics at the University of Freiburg. He stopped his career because of his illness: he was neurasthenic.
In 1903 Max Weber gave up his teaching position. In 1909 he founded the German Sociological Association.
He obtained a chair in Vienna, where he gave a course onEconomy and Society.
In 1919 he obtained a chair of sociology in Munich.
Weber died in 1920 of the Spanish flu.
Publications of Max Weber
After this short biography of Max Weber, the list of his main writing.
Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904) – Max WeberHinduism
and Buddhism (1913) – Max WeberConfucianism
and Taoism (1916) – Max
WeberAncient Judaism (1917) – Max
WeberScience, Profession and Vocation (1919) – Max WeberThe
Profession and Vocation of the Politician (1919) – Max WeberEconomy
and Society (1922, posthumous) – Max Weber
Quotes from Max Weber
To complete this short biography of Max Weber and the list of his publications, here are some quotes that have had a strong posterity.
→ Studying the city with Max Weber
Capitalist act: ‘an act based on the expectation of gain through the exploitation of exchange opportunities: on (formally) peaceful chances of profit’
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904) – Max Weber
’ the overwhelmingly Protestant character of the owners of capital and of the entrepreneurs, as well as of the qualified upper strata of the labor force “
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904) – Max Weber
” The work of a trade exercised without respite was presented as the most convincing means of access to this self-confidence. Work, and work alone, was supposed to dispel religious doubt and give the certainty of a state of grace” (among Protestants
) – Max Weber.
The “disenchantment of the world” as “elimination of magic as a technique of salvation”.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904) – Max Weber
“Bureaucracy. The most rational means known for exercising imperative control over human beings. “
Economy and Society (1922, posthumous) – Max Weber
The state is ‘a political enterprise of an institutional character when and insofar as its administrative leadership successfully claims, in the enforcement of regulations, the monopoly of legitimate physical coercion’, this ‘within a determinable geographical territory’
Economy and Society (1922, posthumous) – Max Weber
” We call sociology a science which proposes to understand by interpretation of social activity and thereby causally explain its course and effects. “
Economy and Society (1922, posthumous) – Max Weber
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