286-909: Maximilian Carl Emil Weber ( / ˈ v eɪ b ər / ; German: [maks ˈveːbɐ] ; 21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist , historian, jurist , and political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sciences more generally. His ideas continue to influence social theory and research . Born in Erfurt in 1864, Weber studied law and history in Berlin , Göttingen , and Heidelberg . After earning his doctorate in law in 1889 and habilitation in 1891, he taught in Berlin, Freiburg , and Heidelberg. He married his cousin Marianne Schnitger two years later. In 1897, he had
572-507: A Protestant perspective to the political debate regarding the social question . In the same year, the Verein established a research program to examine the Ostflucht , which was the western migration of ethnically German agricultural labourers from eastern Germany and the corresponding influx of Polish farm workers into it. Weber was put in charge of the study and wrote a large part of
858-495: A biography of her late husband in 1926 which became one of the central historical accounts of his life. Weber's sociology treated social action as its central focus. He also interpreted it as having been an important part of the field's scientific nature. He divided social action into the four categories of affectional , traditional , instrumental, and value-rational action . In his methodology, he distinguished himself from Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx in that his primary focus
1144-505: A book which is often seen as his best treatment of the concept of historical materialism , The German Ideology . In this work, Marx broke with Ludwig Feuerbach , Bruno Bauer , Max Stirner and the rest of the Young Hegelians, while he also broke with Karl Grün and other "true socialists" whose philosophies were still based in part on " idealism ". In German Ideology , Marx and Engels finally completed their philosophy, which
1430-533: A breakdown after his father died following an argument. Weber ceased teaching and travelled until the early 1900s. He recovered and wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . During the First World War , he initially supported Germany's war effort but became critical of it and supported democratisation. He also gave the lectures " Science as a Vocation " and " Politics as a Vocation ". After
1716-491: A child known as Herschel, was the first in the line to receive a secular education. He became a lawyer with a comfortably upper middle class income and the family owned a number of Moselle vineyards, in addition to his income as an attorney. Prior to his son's birth and after the abrogation of Jewish emancipation in the Rhineland , Herschel converted from Judaism to join the state Evangelical Church of Prussia , taking on
2002-525: A cold and needed to cancel classes. By 14 June 1920, the cold had turned into influenza and he died of pneumonia in Munich. He had likely contracted the Spanish flu during the post-war pandemic and been subjected to insufficient medical care. Else von Richthofen, who was present by his deathbed alongside his wife, thought that he could have survived his illness if he had been given better treatment. His body
2288-581: A combination of their basis in natural law and the rising kulak class manipulating them for their own gain. His general interpretation of the Russian Revolution was that it lacked a clear leader and was not based on the Russian intellectuals' goals. Instead, it was the result of the peasants' emotional passions. In 1909, having become increasingly dissatisfied with the political conservatism and perceived lack of methodological discipline of
2574-445: A crisis that will end in its destruction, in the return of modern society to a higher form of the most archaic type – collective production and appropriation". He added that "the vitality of primitive communities was incomparably greater than that of Semitic, Greek, Roman, etc. societies, and, a fortiori, that of modern capitalist societies". Before he died, Marx asked Engels to write up these ideas, which were published in 1884 under
2860-693: A criticism of the philosophical ideas of Marx's former friend, Bruno Bauer . This work was published in 1845 as The Holy Family . Although critical of Bauer, Marx was increasingly influenced by the ideas of the Young Hegelians Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach , but eventually Marx and Engels abandoned Feuerbachian materialism as well. During the time that he lived at 38 Rue Vaneau in Paris (from October 1843 until January 1845), Marx engaged in an intensive study of political economy ( Adam Smith , David Ricardo , James Mill , etc. ) ,
3146-542: A defence of the Commune. Given the repeated failures and frustrations of workers' revolutions and movements, Marx also sought to understand and provide a critique suitable for the capitalist mode of production , and hence spent a great deal of time in the reading room of the British Museum studying. By 1857, Marx had accumulated over 800 pages of notes and short essays on capital, landed property , wage labour,
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#17327650241513432-424: A diminished income for the family. Marx had been emotionally close to his father and treasured his memory after his death. By 1837, Marx was writing both fiction and non-fiction, having completed a short novel, Scorpion and Felix ; a drama, Oulanem ; as well as a number of love poems dedicated to his wife. None of this early work was published during his lifetime. The love poems were published posthumously in
3718-638: A distinctive way of thinking, the rational calculation which he associated with the Protestant Ethic (more or less what Marx and Engels speak of in terms of those 'icy waves of egotistical calculation'). Together the works of these great classical sociologists suggest what Giddens has recently described as 'a multidimensional view of institutions of modernity' and which emphasises not only capitalism and industrialism as key institutions of modernity, but also 'surveillance' (meaning 'control of information and social supervision') and 'military power' (control of
4004-500: A founder of sociology as the word gained wider meaning. For Isaiah Berlin , even though Marx did not consider himself to be a sociologist, he may be regarded as the "true father" of modern sociology, "in so far as anyone can claim the title." To have given clear and unified answers in familiar empirical terms to those theoretical questions which most occupied men's minds at the time, and to have deduced from them clear practical directives without creating obviously artificial links between
4290-570: A group of radical thinkers known as the Young Hegelians in 1837. They gathered around Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer , with Marx developing a particularly close friendship with Adolf Rutenberg . Like Marx, the Young Hegelians were critical of Hegel's metaphysical assumptions but adopted his dialectical method to criticise established society, politics and religion from a left-wing perspective. Marx's father died in May 1838, resulting in
4576-899: A handbill entitled the Demands of the Communist Party in Germany , in which he argued for only four of the ten points of the Communist Manifesto , believing that in Germany at that time the bourgeoisie must overthrow the feudal monarchy and aristocracy before the proletariat could overthrow the bourgeoisie. On 1 June, Marx started the publication of a daily newspaper, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung , which he helped to finance through his recent inheritance from his father. Designed to put forward news from across Europe with his own Marxist interpretation of events,
4862-610: A house or flat, apparently to make it harder for the authorities to track him down. While in Paris, he used that of "Monsieur Ramboz", whilst in London, he signed off his letters as "A. Williams". His friends referred to him as "Moor", owing to his dark complexion and black curly hair, while he encouraged his children to call him "Old Nick" and "Charley". He also bestowed nicknames and pseudonyms on his friends and family, referring to Friedrich Engels as "General", his housekeeper Helene as "Lenchen" or "Nym", while one of his daughters, Jennychen,
5148-412: A journal entitled Archiv des Atheismus ( Atheistic Archives ), but it never came to fruition. In July, Marx and Bauer took a trip to Bonn from Berlin. There they scandalised their class by getting drunk, laughing in church and galloping through the streets on donkeys. Marx was considering an academic career, but this path was barred by the government's growing opposition to classical liberalism and
5434-675: A law student, later studying at the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and the University of Göttingen . He practiced law and worked as a lecturer simultaneously with his studies. In 1886, Weber passed the Referendar examination, which was comparable to the bar association examination in the British and U.S. legal systems. Throughout the late 1880s, he continued to study law and history. Under
5720-683: A lecture titled " Politics as a Vocation ", which commented on the subject of politics. It was prompted by the early Weimar Republic 's political turmoil and was requested by the Free Student Youth. Shortly before he left to join the delegation in Versailles on 13 May 1919, Weber used his connections with the German National People's Party 's deputies to meet with Erich Ludendorff . He spent several hours unsuccessfully trying to convince Ludendorff to surrender himself to
6006-410: A major contribution to the theoretical concept of structural functionalism . By carefully examining suicide statistics in different police districts, he attempted to demonstrate that Catholic communities have a lower suicide rate than that of Protestants, something he attributed to social (as opposed to individual or psychological ) causes. He developed the notion of objective social facts to delineate
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#17327650241516292-440: A neo-Kantian inquiry into the limits of perception, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?' The deepest problems of modern life flow from the attempt of the individual to maintain the independence and individuality of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, against the weight of the historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life. The antagonism represents
6578-461: A new system known as the socialist mode of production . For Marx, class antagonisms under capitalism—owing in part to its instability and crisis -prone nature—would eventuate the working class's development of class consciousness , leading to their conquest of political power and eventually the establishment of a classless , communist society constituted by a free association of producers . Marx actively pressed for its implementation, arguing that
6864-604: A new, radical left-wing Parisian newspaper, the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher ( German-French Annals ), then being set up by the German activist Arnold Ruge to bring together German and French radicals. Therefore Marx and his wife moved to Paris in October 1843. Initially living with Ruge and his wife communally at 23 Rue Vaneau , they found the living conditions difficult, so moved out following
7150-978: A newspaper themselves, he and Engels turned to international journalism. At one stage they were being published by six newspapers from England, the United States, Prussia , Austria, and South Africa. Marx's principal earnings came from his work as European correspondent, from 1852 to 1862, for the New-York Daily Tribune , and from also producing articles for more "bourgeois" newspapers. Marx had his articles translated from German by Wilhelm Pieper [ de ] , until his proficiency in English had become adequate. The New-York Daily Tribune had been founded in April 1841 by Horace Greeley . Its editorial board contained progressive bourgeois journalists and publishers, among them George Ripley and
7436-405: A notable biologist , Spencer coined the term survival of the fittest . While Marxian ideas defined one strand of sociology, Spencer was a critic of socialism, as well as a strong advocate for a laissez-faire style of government. His ideas were closely observed by conservative political circles, especially in the United States and England. The first formal Department of Sociology in the world
7722-652: A personal chronology that his widow later destroyed. Its destruction was possibly caused by Marianne's fear that his work would have been discredited by the Nazis if his experience with mental illness were widely known. After recovering from his illness, Weber accepted a position as an associate editor of the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik ( Archive for Social Science and Social Policy ) in 1904, alongside his colleagues Edgar Jaffé and Werner Sombart. It facilitated his reintroduction to academia and became one of
8008-584: A politician, he associated them with different types of people and mindsets. These different types of people and mindsets reflected the pacifists and those who wanted to reverse Germany's defeat in the First World War, respectively. Sociology 1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias Sociology
8294-443: A possible character beyond positivist data-collection or grand, deterministic systems of structural law. Relatively isolated from the sociological academy throughout his lifetime, Simmel presented idiosyncratic analyses of modernity more reminiscent of the phenomenological and existential writers than of Comte or Durkheim, paying particular concern to the forms of, and possibilities for, social individuality. His sociology engaged in
8580-465: A preview of his three-volume Das Kapital (English title: Capital: Critique of Political Economy ), which he intended to publish at a later date. In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy , Marx began to critically examine axioms and categories of economic thinking. The work was enthusiastically received, and the edition sold out quickly. The successful sales of A Contribution to
8866-518: A previously vacant chair in political economy that he had been in consideration for since October 1917. Later, in Munich , he was appointed to Lujo Brentano 's chair in social science, economic history, and political economy. He accepted the appointment in order to be closer to his mistress, Else von Richthofen. Responding to student requests, he gave a series of lectures on economic history. The student transcriptions of it were later edited and published as
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9152-604: A professor. His condition forced him seek an exemption from his teaching obligations, which he was granted in 1899. He spent time in the Heilanstalt für Nervenkranke Konstanzer Hof in 1898 and in a different sanatorium in Bad Urach in 1900. Weber also travelled to Corsica and Italy between 1899 and 1903 in order to alleviate his illness. He fully withdrew from teaching in 1903 and did not return to it until 1918. Weber thoroughly described his ordeal with mental illness in
9438-432: A relationship and semi-engagement with Emmy Baumgarten, the daughter of Hermann Baumgarten. Afterwards, he began a relationship with his distant cousin Marianne Schnitger in 1893 and married her on 20 September of that year. The marriage gave Weber financial independence, allowing him to leave his parents' household. They had no children. Marianne was a feminist activist and an author in her own right. Academically, between
9724-937: A request from the Prussian king, the French government shut down Vorwärts! , with the interior minister, François Guizot , expelling Marx from France. Unable either to stay in France or to move to Germany, Marx decided to emigrate to Brussels in Belgium in February 1845. However, to stay in Belgium he had to pledge not to publish anything on the subject of contemporary politics. In Brussels, Marx associated with other exiled socialists from across Europe, including Moses Hess , Karl Heinzen and Joseph Weydemeyer . In April 1845, Engels moved from Barmen in Germany to Brussels to join Marx and
10010-651: A resolutely subjective perspective. Max Weber argued that sociology may be loosely described as a science as it is able to identify causal relationships of human " social action "—especially among " ideal types ", or hypothetical simplifications of complex social phenomena. As a non-positivist, however, Weber sought relationships that are not as "historical, invariant, or generalisable" as those pursued by natural scientists. Fellow German sociologist, Ferdinand Tönnies , theorised on two crucial abstract concepts with his work on " gemeinschaft and gesellschaft " ( lit. ' community' and 'society ' ). Tönnies marked
10296-526: A result of its creation of a worldly perspective. As a result, the inheritors of that system were entrapped in a socioeconomic iron cage. Weber's work in the field of sociology of religion began with the book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . It continued with the book series The Economic Ethics of the World Religions , which contained The Religion of China , The Religion of India , and Ancient Judaism . However, his work
10582-543: A result, advancement of the soul and obeying the predetermined order were more important than seeking advancement in the material world, including economic advancement. Weber ended his research of society and religion in India by bringing in insights from his previous work on China to discuss the similarities of the Asian belief systems. He noted that these religions' believers used otherworldly mystical experiences to interpret
10868-410: A revolution and change society. This was the intent of the new book that Marx was planning, but to get the manuscript past the government censors he called the book The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) and offered it as a response to the "petty-bourgeois philosophy" of the French anarchist socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon as expressed in his book The Philosophy of Poverty (1840). These books laid
11154-403: A revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. Symbolic interaction —often associated with interactionism , phenomenology , dramaturgy , interpretivism —is a sociological approach that places emphasis on subjective meanings and the empirical unfolding of social processes, generally accessed through micro-analysis. This tradition emerged in
11440-587: A rival newspaper, the New York Sun , at which he was editor-in-chief. In April 1857, Dana invited Marx to contribute articles, mainly on military history, to the New American Cyclopedia , an idea of George Ripley, Dana's friend and literary editor of the Tribune . In all, 67 Marx-Engels articles were published, of which 51 were written by Engels, although Marx did some research for them in
11726-595: A scholar. Weber also began a sadomasochistic affair with Else von Richthofen the next year. Meanwhile, she was simultaneously conducting an affair with his brother, Alfred . Max Weber's affairs with Richtofen and Mina Tobler lasted until his death in 1920. After the war ended, Weber unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Weimar National Assembly in January 1919 as a member of the liberal German Democratic Party , which he had co-founded. He also advised
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12012-457: A seminar that contained a discussion of Oswald Spengler 's The Decline of the West . Weber respected him and privately described him as having been "a very brilliant and scholarly dilettante". That seminar provoked some of his students, who knew Spengler personally, to suggest that he debate Spengler alongside other scholars. They met in the Munich town hall and debated for two days. The audience
12298-409: A sharp line between the realm of concepts and the reality of social action: the first must be treated axiomatically and in a deductive way ("pure sociology"), whereas the second empirically and inductively ("applied sociology"). [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
12584-473: A sign of salvation were representative of ascetic Protestantism. Ascetic Protestants practiced inner-worldly asceticism and sought to change the world to better reflect their beliefs. The notion of a religious calling, when combined with predestination , meant that each individual had to take action to prove their salvation to themselves. However, the success that these religious principles created ultimately removed them as an influence on modern capitalism as
12870-558: A social whole. The German philosopher Hegel criticised traditional empiricist epistemology, which he rejected as uncritical, and determinism, which he viewed as overly mechanistic. Karl Marx 's methodology borrowed from Hegelian dialecticism but also a rejection of positivism in favour of critical analysis, seeking to supplement the empirical acquisition of "facts" with the elimination of illusions. He maintained that appearances need to be critiqued rather than simply documented. Early hermeneuticians such as Wilhelm Dilthey pioneered
13156-606: A ten-room property near the Porta Nigra . His wife, Henriette Pressburg, was a Dutch Jew from a prosperous business family that later founded the company Philips Electronics . Her sister Sophie Pressburg (1797–1854) married Lion Philips (1794–1866) and was the grandmother of both Gerard and Anton Philips and great-grandmother to Frits Philips . Lion Philips was a wealthy Dutch tobacco manufacturer and industrialist, upon whom Karl and Jenny Marx would later often come to rely for loans while they were exiled in London. Little
13442-421: A theological or ethical lens, he interpreted it through a social one. Furthermore, he incorporated Friedrich Nietzsche 's concept of Ressentiment into his discussion of the topic. However, Weber disagreed with Nietzsche's emotional discussion of the topic and his interpretation of it as having been a Jewish-derived expression of slave morality . Weber divided theodicy into three main types: Weber defined
13728-528: A theoretical empiricism . The extent of antipositivist criticism has also diverged, with many rejecting the scientific method and others only seeking to amend it to reflect 20th-century developments in the philosophy of science. However, positivism (broadly understood as a scientific approach to the study of society) remains dominant in contemporary sociology, especially in the United States. Loïc Wacquant distinguishes three major strains of positivism: Durkheimian , Logical, and Instrumental. None of these are
14014-409: A time to join the socialist movement, the way a person must be persuaded to adopt any different belief, Marx knew that people would tend, on most occasions, to act in accordance with their own economic interests, thus appealing to an entire class (the working class in this case) with a broad appeal to the class's best material interest would be the best way to mobilise the broad mass of that class to make
14300-480: A transfer to the more serious and academic University of Berlin . Spending summer and autumn 1836 in Trier, Marx became more serious about his studies and his life. He became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen , an educated member of the petty nobility who had known Marx since childhood. As she had broken off her engagement with a young aristocrat to be with Marx, their relationship was socially controversial owing to
14586-426: A unique empirical object for the science of sociology to study. Through such studies he posited that sociology would be able to determine whether any given society is healthy or pathological, and seek social reform to negate organic breakdown, or " social anomie ". Sociology quickly evolved as an academic response to the perceived challenges of modernity , such as industrialization, urbanization, secularization , and
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#173276502415114872-467: A value-free organisation. Ultimately, that prompted his resignation from it. Rationalisation was a central theme in Weber's scholarship. This theme was situated in the larger context of the relationship between psychological motivations, cultural values, cultural beliefs, and the structure of the society. Weber understood rationalisation as having resulted in increasing knowledge, growing impersonality, and
15158-760: A variety of different fields. Since its inception, sociological epistemology, methods, and frames of inquiry, have significantly expanded and diverged. Durkheim, Marx, and the German theorist Max Weber are typically cited as the three principal architects of sociology. Herbert Spencer , William Graham Sumner , Lester F. Ward , W. E. B. Du Bois , Vilfredo Pareto , Alexis de Tocqueville , Werner Sombart , Thorstein Veblen , Ferdinand Tönnies , Georg Simmel , Jane Addams and Karl Mannheim are often included on academic curricula as founding theorists. Curricula also may include Charlotte Perkins Gilman , Marianne Weber , Harriet Martineau , and Friedrich Engels as founders of
15444-487: A variety of other contributions to economic sociology , political sociology , and the sociology of religion . After his death, the rise of Weberian scholarship was slowed by the Weimar Republic 's political instability and the rise of Nazi Germany . In the post-war era, organised scholarship began to appear, led by Talcott Parsons . Other American and British scholars were also involved in its development. Over
15730-457: A way of life based on religious dogma. Notably, they both valued self-control and restraint and did not oppose accumulation of wealth. However, both of those qualities were simply means to different final goals. Confucianism's goal was "a cultured status position", while Puritanism's goal was to create individuals who were "tools of God". According to Weber, the Puritans sought rational control of
16016-547: A way to combine the two, believing that "without philosophy nothing could be accomplished". Marx became interested in the recently deceased German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , whose ideas were then widely debated among European philosophical circles. During a convalescence in Stralau, he joined the Doctor's Club ( Doktorklub ), a student group which discussed Hegelian ideas, and through them became involved with
16302-630: A working-class revolution. After a long struggle that threatened to ruin the Communist League, Marx's opinion prevailed and eventually, the Willich/Schapper group left the Communist League. Meanwhile, Marx also became heavily involved with the socialist German Workers' Educational Society. The Society held their meetings in Great Windmill Street , Soho , central London's entertainment district. This organisation
16588-413: Is a schematic that represents a social action and considers the role of meaning in it. By its nature, it was an exaggeration of an empirical situation through its assumption that the involved individuals were rational, had complete situational knowledge, were completely aware of the situation, were completely aware of their actions, and made no errors. This was then contrasted with empirical reality, allowing
16874-523: Is also in this tradition that the radical-empirical approach of ethnomethodology emerges from the work of Harold Garfinkel . Utilitarianism is often referred to as exchange theory or rational choice theory in the context of sociology. This tradition tends to privilege the agency of individual rational actors and assumes that within interactions individuals always seek to maximize their own self-interest. As argued by Josh Whitford , rational actors are assumed to have four basic elements: Exchange theory
17160-820: Is an established tradition within sociological theory. Lastly, as argued by Raewyn Connell , a tradition that is often forgotten is that of Social Darwinism , which applies the logic of Darwinian biological evolution to people and societies. This tradition often aligns with classical functionalism, and was once the dominant theoretical stance in American sociology, from c. 1881 – c. 1915 , associated with several founders of sociology, primarily Herbert Spencer , Lester F. Ward , and William Graham Sumner . Contemporary sociological theory retains traces of each of these traditions and they are by no means mutually exclusive. A broad historical paradigm in both sociology and anthropology , functionalism addresses
17446-431: Is but a consequence of this rationalism. The term has long since ceased to carry this meaning; there are no fewer than twelve distinct epistemologies that are referred to as positivism. Many of these approaches do not self-identify as "positivist", some because they themselves arose in opposition to older forms of positivism, and some because the label has over time become a pejorative term by being mistakenly linked with
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#173276502415117732-420: Is connected with the division of labor) and his achievements which make him unique and indispensable but which at the same time make him so much the more dependent on the complementary activity of others; Nietzsche may have seen the relentless struggle of the individual as the prerequisite for his full development, while socialism found the same thing in the suppression of all competition – but in each of these
18018-602: Is known of Marx's childhood. The third of nine children, he became the eldest son when his brother Moritz died in 1819. Marx and his surviving siblings, Sophie, Hermann, Henriette, Louise, Emilie, and Caroline, were baptised into the Lutheran Church on 28 August 1824, and their mother in November 1825. Marx was privately educated by his father until 1830 when he entered Trier High School ( Gymnasium zu Trier [ de ] ), whose headmaster, Hugo Wyttenbach ,
18304-622: Is more or less synonymous with quantitative research , and so only resembles older positivism in practice. Since it carries no explicit philosophical commitment, its practitioners may not belong to any particular school of thought. Modern sociology of this type is often credited to Paul Lazarsfeld , who pioneered large-scale survey studies and developed statistical techniques for analysing them. This approach lends itself to what Robert K. Merton called middle-range theory : abstract statements that generalize from segregated hypotheses and empirical regularities rather than starting with an abstract idea of
18590-423: Is specifically attributed to the work of George C. Homans , Peter Blau and Richard Emerson. Organizational sociologists James G. March and Herbert A. Simon noted that an individual's rationality is bounded by the context or organizational setting. The utilitarian perspective in sociology was, most notably, revitalized in the late 20th century by the work of former ASA president James Coleman . Following
18876-466: Is the history of class struggles". It goes on to examine the antagonisms that Marx claimed were arising in the clashes of interest between the bourgeoisie (the wealthy capitalist class) and the proletariat (the industrial working class). Proceeding on from this, the Manifesto presents the argument for why the Communist League, as opposed to other socialist and liberal political parties and groups at
19162-741: Is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society , human social behavior , patterns of social relationships , social interaction , and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. Regarded as a part of both the social sciences and humanities , sociology uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change . Sociological subject matter ranges from micro-level analyses of individual interaction and agency to macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure . Applied sociological research may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whereas theoretical approaches may focus on
19448-418: Is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning. Both Weber and Georg Simmel pioneered the " Verstehen " (or 'interpretative') method in social science; a systematic process by which an outside observer attempts to relate to a particular cultural group, or indigenous people, on their own terms and from their own point of view. Through the work of Simmel, in particular, sociology acquired
19734-492: The Methodenstreit . In the first chapter of Economy and Society , he argued that only individuals "can be treated as agents in a course of subjectively understandable action". Despite the term's usage of "individualism", Weber did not interpret the individual as being the true source for sociological explanations. Instead, while only individuals could engage in intentional action, they were not necessarily separate from
20020-597: The Verein , he co-founded the German Sociological Association ( Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie ) and served as its first treasurer. Weber associated the society with the Verein and viewed the two organisations as not having been competitors. He unsuccessfully tried to steer the direction of the association. As part of that, Weber tried to make the Archiv its official journal. He resigned from his position as treasurer in 1912. That
20306-571: The General Economic History by Siegmund Hellmann [ de ] and Melchior Palyi [ de ] in 1923. In terms of politics, he opposed the pardoning of the Bavarian Minister-President Kurt Eisner 's murderer, Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley . In response to that, right-wing students disrupted his classes and protested in front of his home. In early 1920, Weber gave
20592-547: The Allies . This debate also shifted to other subjects, such as who was culpable for Germany's defeat in the war. Weber thought that the German high command had failed, while Ludendorff regarded Weber as a democrat who was partially responsible for the revolution. Weber tried to disabuse him of that notion by expressing support for a democratic system with a strong executive. Since he held Ludendorff responsible for Germany's defeat in
20878-751: The British Museum . By the late 1850s, American popular interest in European affairs waned and Marx's articles turned to topics such as the "slavery crisis" and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 in the "War Between the States". Between December 1851 and March 1852, Marx worked on his theoretical work about the French Revolution of 1848 , titled The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon . In this he explored concepts in historical materialism , class struggle , dictatorship of
21164-562: The Chicago School of the 1920s and 1930s, which, prior to World War II, "had been the center of sociological research and graduate study." The approach focuses on creating a framework for building a theory that sees society as the product of the everyday interactions of individuals. Society is nothing more than the shared reality that people construct as they interact with one another. This approach sees people interacting in countless settings using symbolic communications to accomplish
21450-603: The Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 1 . Marx soon abandoned fiction for other pursuits, including the study of both English and Italian, art history and the translation of Latin classics. He began co-operating with Bruno Bauer on editing Hegel's Philosophy of Religion in 1840. Marx was also engaged in writing his doctoral thesis, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature , which he completed in 1841. It
21736-568: The Communist League , and in 1848 they wrote The Communist Manifesto , which expresses Marx's ideas and lays out a programme for revolution. Marx was expelled from Belgium and Germany, and in 1849 moved to London, where he wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) and Das Kapital . From 1864, Marx was involved in the International Workingmen's Association (First International), in which he fought
22022-466: The Domesday Book in 1086, while ancient philosophers such as Confucius wrote about the importance of social roles. Medieval Arabic writings encompass a rich tradition that unveils early insights into the field of sociology. Some sources consider Ibn Khaldun , a 14th-century Muslim scholar from Tunisia , to have been the father of sociology, although there is no reference to his work in
22308-543: The Frankfurt School of critical theory ) was founded in 1923. International co-operation in sociology began in 1893, when René Worms founded the Institut International de Sociologie , an institution later eclipsed by the much larger International Sociological Association (ISA), founded in 1949. The overarching methodological principle of positivism is to conduct sociology in broadly
22594-705: The Kingdom of Prussia , Marx studied at the universities of Bonn , Berlin , and Jena , and received a doctorate in philosophy from the latter in 1841. A Young Hegelian , he was influenced by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , and both critiqued and developed Hegel's ideas in works such as The German Ideology (written 1846) and the Grundrisse (written 1857–1858). While in Paris in 1844, Marx wrote his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and met Engels, who became his closest friend and collaborator. After moving to Brussels in 1845, they were active in
22880-485: The Manuscripts had been influenced by some inconsistent ideas of Ludwig Feuerbach. Accordingly, Marx recognised the need to break with Feuerbach's philosophy in favour of historical materialism, thus a year later (in April 1845) after moving from Paris to Brussels, Marx wrote his eleven " Theses on Feuerbach ". The "Theses on Feuerbach" are best known for Thesis 11, which states that "philosophers have only interpreted
23166-555: The National-Social Association , which was a Christian socialist and nationalist political organisation. Weber was pessimistic regarding the association's ability to succeed, and it dissolved after winning a single seat in the Reichstag during the 1903 German federal election . In 1896, he accepted an appointment to a chair in economics and finance at Heidelberg University . There, Weber and his wife became
23452-559: The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China . Theoretical variants such as Leninism , Marxism–Leninism , Trotskyism , and Maoism have been developed. Marx's work in economics has had a strong influence on modern heterodox theories of labour and capital , and he is often cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science . Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818 to Heinrich Marx and Henriette Pressburg . He
23738-490: The Tribune discharged all its correspondents in Europe except Marx and B. Taylor, and reduced Marx to a weekly article. Between September and November 1860, only five were published. After a six-month interval, Marx resumed contributions from September 1861 until March 1862, when Dana wrote to inform him that there was no longer space in the Tribune for reports from London, due to American domestic affairs. In 1868, Dana set up
24024-407: 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 meaning actually intended either by an individual agent on a particular historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a given set of cases, or (b)
24310-479: The institution of medicine ; economy ; military ; punishment and systems of control ; the Internet ; sociology of education ; social capital ; and the role of social activity in the development of scientific knowledge . The range of social scientific methods has also expanded, as social researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The linguistic and cultural turns of
24596-444: The social structure —referred to as " social organization " by the classical theorists—with respect to the whole as well as the necessary function of the whole's constituent elements. A common analogy (popularized by Herbert Spencer ) is to regard norms and institutions as 'organs' that work towards the proper functioning of the entire 'body' of society. The perspective was implicit in the original sociological positivism of Comte but
24882-730: The textile industry . Over time, Weber was affected by the marital and personality tensions between his father, who enjoyed material pleasures while overlooking religious and philanthropic causes, and his mother, a devout Calvinist and philanthropist. Weber entered the Doebbelinsche Privatschule in Charlottenburg in 1870, before attending the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium between 1872 and 1882. While in class, bored and unimpressed with his teachers, Weber secretly read all forty volumes by
25168-625: The ASA in 1905. The sociological canon of classics with Durkheim and Max Weber at the top owes its existence in part to Talcott Parsons , who is largely credited with introducing both to American audiences. Parsons consolidated the sociological tradition and set the agenda for American sociology at the point of its fastest disciplinary growth. Sociology in the United States was less historically influenced by Marxism than its European counterpart, and to this day broadly remains more statistical in its approach. The first sociology department established in
25454-544: The Chief Public Prosecutor, committing a press misdemeanor and inciting armed rebellion through tax boycotting, although each time he was acquitted. Meanwhile, the democratic parliament in Prussia collapsed and the king, Frederick William IV , introduced a new cabinet of his reactionary supporters, who implemented counterrevolutionary measures to expunge left-wing and other revolutionary elements from
25740-602: The Collected Works' thirty-fourth volume consists of the surviving fragments of the Economic Manuscripts of 1863–1864 , which represented a third draft for Das Kapital , and a large portion of which is included as an appendix to the Penguin edition of Das Kapital , volume I. A German-language abridged edition of Theories of Surplus Value was published in 1905 and in 1910. This abridged edition
26026-618: The Confederacy. Marx strongly disagreed with this new political position and in 1863 was forced to withdraw as a writer for the Tribune . In 1864, Marx became involved in the International Workingmen's Association (also known as the First International), to whose General Council he was elected at its inception in 1864. In that organisation, Marx was involved in the struggle against the anarchist wing centred on Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876). Although Marx won this contest,
26312-889: The Congress of Arts and Sciences that was held in connection with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis alongside his wife, Werner Sombart, Ernst Troeltsch, and other German scholars. Taking advantage of the fair, the Webers embarked on a trip that began and ended in New York City and lasted for almost three months. They travelled throughout the country, from New England to the Deep South . Different communities were visited, including German immigrant towns and African American communities. North Carolina
26598-501: The Critique of Political Economy stimulated Marx in the early 1860s to finish work on the three large volumes that would compose his major life's work – Das Kapital and the Theories of Surplus Value , which discussed and critiqued the theoreticians of political economy, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo . Theories of Surplus Value is often referred to as the fourth volume of Das Kapital and constitutes one of
26884-938: The Emperor and the Pope" and "About the Roman Imperial Period from Constantine to the Migration Period". Two years later, also during Christmastime, he wrote another historical essay, "Observations on the Ethnic Character, Development, and History of the Indo-European Nations". These three essays were non-derivative contributions to the philosophy of history and were derived from Weber's reading of "numerous sources". In 1882, Weber enrolled in Heidelberg University as
27170-497: The French socialists (especially Claude Henri St. Simon and Charles Fourier ) and the history of France. The study of, and critique, of political economy is a project that Marx would pursue for the rest of his life and would result in his major economic work—the three-volume series called Das Kapital . Marxism is based in large part on three influences: Hegel's dialectics, French utopian socialism and British political economy. Together with his earlier study of Hegel's dialectics,
27456-601: The German forename Heinrich over the Yiddish Herschel. Largely non-religious, Heinrich was a man of the Enlightenment , interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Voltaire . A classical liberal , he took part in agitation for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, which was then an absolute monarchy . In 1815, Heinrich Marx began working as an attorney and in 1819 moved his family to
27742-482: The Gotha Programme opposed the tendency of his followers Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel to compromise with the state socialist ideas of Ferdinand Lassalle in the interests of a united socialist party. This work is also notable for another famous Marx quote: " From each according to his ability, to each according to his need ". In a letter to Vera Zasulich dated 8 March 1881, Marx contemplated
28028-471: The Harvard department." As Parsons began to dominate general theory, his work primarily referenced European sociology—almost entirely omitting citations of both the American tradition of sociocultural-evolution as well as pragmatism. In addition to Parsons' revision of the sociological canon (which included Marshall, Pareto, Weber and Durkheim), the lack of theoretical challenges from other departments nurtured
28314-469: The Jewish Question ", the latter introducing his belief that the proletariat were a revolutionary force and marking his embrace of communism. Only one issue was published, but it was relatively successful, largely owing to the inclusion of Heinrich Heine 's satirical odes on King Ludwig of Bavaria , leading the German states to ban it and seize imported copies (Ruge nevertheless refused to fund
28600-519: The Jewish people as having been a pariah people, which meant that they were separated from the society that contained them. He examined the ancient Jewish people's origins and social structures. In his view, the Israelites maintained order through a covenant with the war god Yahweh and the practice of warrior asceticism. Under Solomon , that changed into a more organised and law-based society than
28886-623: The Middle Ages, Based on Southern European Documents , which he published in the same year. Two years later, Weber worked with the statistician August Meitzen to complete his habilitation , a post-doctoral thesis, titled Roman Agrarian History and Its Significance for Public and Private Law . Having thus become a Privatdozent , Weber joined the faculty of the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, lecturing, conducting research, and consulting for
29172-551: The Mittelstrasse. During the first term, Marx attended lectures of Eduard Gans (who represented the progressive Hegelian standpoint, elaborated on rational development in history by emphasising particularly its libertarian aspects, and the importance of social question) and of Karl von Savigny (who represented the Historical School of Law ). Although studying law, he was fascinated by philosophy and looked for
29458-618: The National Assembly in its drafting of the Weimar Constitution . While he was campaigning for his party, Weber critiqued the left and complained about Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg who led the leftist Spartacus League . He regarded the German Revolution of 1918–1919 as having been responsible for Germany's inability to fight against Poland 's claims on its eastern territories. His opposition to
29744-562: The Puritans' religious calling to work caused them to systematically obtain wealth. They wished to prove that they were members of the elect who were destined to go to Heaven. Weber used Benjamin Franklin 's personal ethic, as described in his " Advice to a Young Tradesman ", as an example of the Protestant sects' economic ethic. Both rationalisation and the ideal type , concepts that later became central to his scholarship, appeared in
30030-545: The Sociological Method (1895). For Durkheim, sociology could be described as the "science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning." Durkheim's monograph Suicide (1897) is considered a seminal work in statistical analysis by contemporary sociologists. Suicide is a case study of variations in suicide rates among Catholic and Protestant populations, and served to distinguish sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy. It also marked
30316-541: The Spirit of Capitalism is Weber's most famous work. It was his first work on how religions affected economic systems' development. In the book, he put forward the thesis that the Protestant work ethic , which was derived from the theological ideas of the Reformation , influenced the development of capitalism. Weber was looking for elective affinities between the Protestant work ethic and capitalism. He argued that
30602-571: The Trier Tavern Club drinking society ( German : Landsmannschaft der Treveraner ) where many ideas were discussed and at one point he served as the club's co-president. Additionally, Marx was involved in certain disputes, some of which became serious: in August 1836 he took part in a duel with a member of the university's Borussian Korps . Although his grades in the first term were good, they soon deteriorated, leading his father to force
30888-607: The United Kingdom was at the London School of Economics and Political Science (home of the British Journal of Sociology ) in 1904. Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and Edvard Westermarck became the lecturers in the discipline at the University of London in 1907. Harriet Martineau , an English translator of Comte, has been cited as the first female sociologist. In 1909, the German Sociological Association
31174-429: The Young Hegelians. Marx moved to Cologne in 1842, where he became a journalist, writing for the radical newspaper Rheinische Zeitung ( Rhineland News ), expressing his early views on socialism and his developing interest in economics. Marx criticised right-wing European governments as well as figures in the liberal and socialist movements, whom he thought ineffective or counter-productive. The newspaper attracted
31460-530: The age of 16, Marx travelled to the University of Bonn wishing to study philosophy and literature, but his father insisted on law as a more practical field. Due to a condition referred to as a "weak chest", Marx was excused from military duty when he turned 18. While at the University at Bonn, Marx joined the Poets' Club, a group containing political radicals that were monitored by the police. Marx also joined
31746-599: The attention of the Prussian government censors , who checked every issue for seditious material before printing, which Marx lamented: "Our newspaper has to be presented to the police to be sniffed at, and if the police nose smells anything un-Christian or un-Prussian, the newspaper is not allowed to appear". After the Rheinische Zeitung published an article strongly criticising the Russian monarchy, Tsar Nicholas I requested it be banned and Prussia's government complied in 1843. In 1843, Marx became co-editor of
32032-418: The basic form of society would increase in complexity and those forms of social organization that promoted solidarity would eventually overcome social disorganization. As Giddens states: Functionalist thought, from Comte onwards, has looked particularly towards biology as the science providing the closest and most compatible model for social science. Biology has been taken to provide a guide to conceptualizing
32318-628: The belief in supernatural interference in the material world. Due to disenchantment, this gave way to rational and scientific explanations for events. According to the Sociology of Religion religious activity began with actions in the material world that people associated with vague spirits and gave magical meanings to. Over time, these magical beliefs became increasingly systemised and the spirits became gods that were represented by symbols. This increasing theological systemisation resulted in polytheism and organised religion . Increasing rationality caused
32604-457: The birth of their daughter Jenny in 1844. Although intended to attract writers from both France and the German states, the Jahrbücher was dominated by the latter and the only non-German writer was the exiled Russian anarchist collectivist Mikhail Bakunin . Marx contributed two essays to the paper, " Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right " and " On
32890-496: The calling quickly gave to the modern entrepreneur a fabulously clear conscience – and also industrious workers; he gave to his employees as the wages of their ascetic devotion to the calling and of co-operation in his ruthless exploitation of them through capitalism the prospect of eternal salvation. —Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , 1905. The Protestant Ethic and
33176-542: The case needed to be dealt with by bourgeois reformers who were not "derailed". A year later, also in spring, he again holidayed in Ascona. The community contained several different expressions of the then-contemporaneous radical political and lifestyle reform movements. They included naturism , free love , and Western esotericism , among others. Weber was critical of the anarchist and erotic movements in Ascona, as he viewed their fusion as having been politically absurd. After
33462-501: The case, as that is determined by those value ideas in the light of which we look at "culture" in each individual case. —Max Weber in "The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy", 1904. In terms of methodology, Weber was primarily concerned with the question of objectivity and subjectivity , distinguishing social action from social behavior and noting that social action must be understood through
33748-472: The central figures in the eponymous Weber Circle , which included Georg Jellinek , Ernst Troeltsch , and Werner Sombart . Younger scholars, such as György Lukács and Robert Michels , also joined it. In 1897, Weber had a severe quarrel with his father. Weber Sr. died two months later, leaving the argument unresolved. Afterwards, Weber became increasingly prone to depression, nervousness, and insomnia , which made it difficult for him to fulfill his duties as
34034-483: The children in Heidelberg or move closer to Geheeb's Odenwaldschule ("Odenwald School") so that he could be alone in Munich with his mistress, Else von Richthofen . He left the decision to Marianne, but she said that only he could make the decision to leave for himself. While this was occurring, Weber began to believe that own life had reached its end. On 4 June 1920, Weber's students were informed that he had
34320-421: The choosing of values. With regards to economics, he argued that productivity was not a useful scientific concept, as it could impede the proper evaluation of economic phenomena. The principle of methodological individualism, which holds that social scientists should seek to understand collectivities solely as the result of individual people's actions, can be traced to Weber. The term "methodological individualism"
34606-674: The citizenry. Still, Marx was always drawn back to his studies where he sought "to understand the inner workings of capitalism". An outline of "Marxism" had definitely formed in the mind of Karl Marx by late 1844. Indeed, many features of the Marxist view of the world had been worked out in great detail, but Marx needed to write down all of the details of his world view to further clarify the new critique of political economy in his own mind. Accordingly, Marx wrote The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts . These manuscripts covered numerous topics, detailing Marx's concept of alienated labour . By
34892-577: The city for the rest of his life. The headquarters of the Communist League also moved to London. However, in the winter of 1849–1850, a split within the ranks of the Communist League occurred when a faction within it led by August Willich and Karl Schapper began agitating for an immediate uprising. Willich and Schapper believed that once the Communist League had initiated the uprising, the entire working class from across Europe would rise "spontaneously" to join it, thus creating revolution across Europe. Marx and Engels protested that such an unplanned uprising on
35178-483: The classification of legitimate authority into three ideal types – rational-legal , traditional , and charismatic – of which rational-legal was the dominant one in the modern world. In these works, Weber described what he saw as society's movement towards rationalisation. Bureaucratic states justified themselves through their own rationality and were supported by expert knowledge which made them rational. Rationalisation could also be seen in
35464-428: The classroom. He first articulated it in his writings on scientific philosophy, including "The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy" and "Science as a Vocation". Weber was influenced by Heinrich Rickert 's concept of value-relevance. Rickert used it to relate historical objects to values while maintaining objectivity through explicitly defined conceptual distinctions. However, Weber disagreed with
35750-500: The collective group. He interpreted methodological individualism as having had close proximity to verstehende ("interpretive") sociology, as actions could be interpreted subjectively. Similarly, it was also related to ideal types in that it involved discussions of abstract and rational models of human behaviour. The ideal type was a central concept in Weber's methodology. He interpreted them as having been indispensable for it. Due their taking of meaning into account, they are unique to
36036-510: The completion of his dissertation and habilitation, Weber took an interest in contemporary social policy . He joined the Verein für Socialpolitik ("Association for Social Policy") in 1888. The Verein was an organisation of reformist thinkers who were generally members of the historical school of economics . He also involved himself in politics, participating in the founding of the left-leaning Evangelical Social Congress in 1890. It applied
36322-463: The conflict between the ruling classes (known as the bourgeoisie ) that control the means of production and the working classes (known as the proletariat ) that enable these means by selling their labour power in return for wages. Employing his historical materialist approach, Marx predicted that capitalism produced internal tensions like previous socioeconomic systems and that these tensions would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by
36608-483: The context of wider debates about social scientific methodology. The first of which was the Methodenstreit ("method dispute"). His position in it was close to historicism , as he thought that social actions were heavily tied to particular historical contexts. Furthermore, analysing social actions required an understanding of the relevant individuals' subjective motivations. Therefore, his methodology emphasised
36894-641: The country. Consequently, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung was soon suppressed, and Marx was ordered to leave the country on 16 May 1849. Marx returned to Paris, which was then under the grip of both a reactionary counterrevolution and a cholera epidemic, and was soon expelled by the city authorities, who considered him a political threat. With his wife Jenny expecting their fourth child and with Marx not able to move back to Germany or Belgium, in August 1849 he sought refuge in London. Marx moved to London in early June 1849 and would remain based in
37180-414: The course of the twentieth century, Weber's reputation rose due to the publication of translations of his works and scholarly interpretations of his life and works. As a result of these works, he began to be regarded as a founding father of sociology, alongside Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim , and one of the central figures in the development of the social sciences more generally. Maximilian Carl Emil Weber
37466-413: The creation of capitalism became unnecessary and it became able to propagate itself without them. What Weber depicted was not only the secularisation of Western culture , but also and especially the development of modern societies from the viewpoint of rationalisation. The new structures of society were marked by the differentiation of the two functionally intermeshing systems that had taken shape around
37752-416: The decline of theories of sociocultural evolution in the United States, the interactionist thought of the Chicago School dominated American sociology. As Anselm Strauss describes, "we didn't think symbolic interaction was a perspective in sociology; we thought it was sociology." Moreover, philosophical and psychological pragmatism grounded this tradition. After World War II, mainstream sociology shifted to
38038-402: The deleterious influences which are assailing it [the rural commune] from all sides". Given the elimination of these pernicious influences, Marx allowed that "normal conditions of spontaneous development" of the rural commune could exist. However, in the same letter to Vera Zasulich he points out that "at the core of the capitalist system ... lies the complete separation of the producer from
38324-411: The detail of Comte's philosophy, he retained and refined its method, maintaining that the social sciences are a logical continuation of the natural ones into the realm of human activity, and insisting that they may retain the same objectivity, rationalism, and approach to causality. Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his Rules of
38610-399: The development of Western monotheism, which resulted in groups focusing on specific gods for political and economic purposes, creating a universal religion. According to Weber, Protestantism encouraged an increased pursuit of rationality that led to the devaluing of itself. In turn, this devaluation led to nihilism through its destruction of unifying values. The development of the concept of
38896-418: The development of their theory of economics and historical progression. After the "failures" of 1848, the revolutionary impetus appeared spent and not to be renewed without an economic recession. Contention arose between Marx and his fellow communists, whom he denounced as "adventurists". Marx deemed it fanciful to propose that "will power" could be sufficient to create the revolutionary conditions when in reality
39182-461: The differences between their religious and class origins, but Marx befriended her father Ludwig von Westphalen (a liberal aristocrat) and later dedicated his doctoral thesis to him. Seven years after their engagement, on 19 June 1843, they married in a Protestant church in Kreuznach . In October 1836, Marx arrived in Berlin, matriculating in the university's faculty of law and renting a room in
39468-595: The different developmental paths of the cultures of the Western world and the Eastern world , without making value-judgements, unlike the contemporaneous social Darwinists . Weber simply wanted to explain the distinctive elements of Western civilisation. Weber also proposed a socio-evolutionary model of religious change where societies moved from magic to ethical monotheism , with the intermediatory steps of polytheism , pantheism , and monotheism . According to him, this
39754-503: The distinction between natural and social science (' Geisteswissenschaft '). Various neo-Kantian philosophers, phenomenologists and human scientists further theorized how the analysis of the social world differs to that of the natural world due to the irreducibly complex aspects of human society, culture, and being . In the Italian context of development of social sciences and of sociology in particular, there are oppositions to
40040-406: The early period in London, Marx committed himself almost exclusively to his studies, such that his family endured extreme poverty. His main source of income was Engels, whose own source was his wealthy industrialist father. In Prussia as editor of his own newspaper, and contributor to others ideologically aligned, Marx could reach his audience, the working classes. In London, without finances to run
40326-435: The economic component was the necessary requisite. The recession in the United States' economy in 1852 gave Marx and Engels grounds for optimism for revolutionary activity, yet this economy was seen as too immature for a capitalist revolution. Open territories on America's western frontier dissipated the forces of social unrest. Moreover, any economic crisis arising in the United States would not lead to revolutionary contagion of
40612-428: The economy, with the development of a highly rational and calculating capitalism. Capitalism's rationality related to its basis in calculation, which separated it from alternative forms of economic organisation. State bureaucracy and capitalism served as the twin pillars of the developing rational society. These changes eliminated the preexisting traditions that relied on the trades. Weber also saw rationalisation as one of
40898-476: The effects of which led to his being exempted from Prussian military service. In later life whilst working on Das Kapital (which he never completed), Marx suffered from a trio of afflictions. A liver ailment, probably hereditary, was aggravated by overwork, a bad diet, and lack of sleep. Inflammation of the eyes was induced by too much work at night. A third affliction, eruption of carbuncles or boils, "was probably brought on by general physical debility to which
41184-442: The efforts and will power of a handful of men. They are instead brought about through a scientific analysis of economic conditions of society and by moving toward revolution through different stages of social development. In the present stage of development ( circa 1850), following the defeat of the uprisings across Europe in 1848 he felt that the Communist League should encourage the working class to unite with progressive elements of
41470-437: The enhanced control of social and material life. He was ambivalent towards rationalisation. Weber admitted that it was responsible for many advances, particularly freeing humans from traditional, restrictive, and illogical social guidelines. However, he also criticised it for dehumanising individuals as "cogs in the machine" and curtailing their freedom, trapping them in the iron cage of rationality and bureaucracy. His studies of
41756-458: The establishment of a liberal democracy in Russia. He wrote two essays on it that were published in the Archiv . Weber interpreted the revolution as having been the result of the peasants' desire for land. He discussed the role of the obshchina , rural peasant communities, in Russian political debates. According to Weber, they were difficult for liberal agrarian reformers to abolish due to
42042-402: The event's romantic atmosphere. After he spoke at the first one, he became involved in the planning for the second one, as Diederichs thought that the conferences needed someone who could serve as an oppositional figure. In this capacity, he argued against the political romanticism that Max Maurenbrecher , a former theologian, espoused. Weber also opposed what he saw as the excessive rhetoric of
42328-481: The exemplary prophecies found in mainland Asia that focused more on reaching to the educated elites and enlightening them on the proper ways to live one's life, usually with little emphasis on hard work and the material world. It was those differences that prevented Western countries from following the paths of the earlier Chinese and Indian civilisations. His next work, Ancient Judaism , was an attempt to prove this theory. In Ancient Judaism , Weber attempted to explain
42614-479: The factors that resulted in the early differences between Eastern and Western religiosity . He contrasted the innerworldly asceticism developed by Western Christianity with the mystical contemplation that developed in India. Weber noted that some aspects of Christianity sought to conquer and change the world, rather than withdraw from its imperfections. This fundamental characteristic of Christianity originally stemmed from ancient Jewish prophecy . Weber classified
42900-408: The feminist tradition in sociology. Each key figure is associated with a particular theoretical perspective and orientation. Marx and Engels associated the emergence of modern society above all with the development of capitalism; for Durkheim it was connected in particular with industrialization and the new social division of labor which this brought about; for Weber it had to do with the emergence of
43186-613: The final report, which generated considerable attention and controversy, marking the beginning of his renown as a social scientist. From 1893 to 1899, Weber was a member of the Pan-German League ( Alldeutscher Verband ), an organisation that campaigned against the influx of Polish workers. The degree of his support for the Germanisation of Poles and similar nationalist policies continues to be debated by scholars. Weber and his wife moved to Freiburg in 1894, where he
43472-409: The first comprehensive treatises on the history of economic thought . In 1867, the first volume of Das Kapital was published, a work which critically analysed capital. Das Kapital proposes an explanation of the "laws of motion" of the mode of production from its origins to its future by describing the dynamics of the accumulation of capital, with topics such as the growth of wage labour ,
43758-492: The first foundation of the discipline, sustained by speculative philosophy in accordance with the antiscientific tendencies matured by critique of positivism and evolutionism, so a tradition Progressist struggles to establish itself. At the turn of the 20th century, the first generation of German sociologists formally introduced methodological anti-positivism , proposing that research should concentrate on human cultural norms , values , symbols , and social processes viewed from
44044-410: The first sociology textbook: An introduction to the study of society . George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley , who had met at the University of Michigan in 1891 (along with John Dewey ), moved to Chicago in 1894. Their influence gave rise to social psychology and the symbolic interactionism of the modern Chicago School . The American Journal of Sociology was founded in 1895, followed by
44330-578: The foundation for Marx and Engels's most famous work, a political pamphlet that has since come to be commonly known as The Communist Manifesto . While residing in Brussels in 1846, Marx continued his association with the secret radical organisation League of the Just . As noted above, Marx thought the League to be just the sort of radical organisation that was needed to spur the working class of Europe toward
44616-403: The foundation of the discipline itself. Social analysis has origins in the common stock of universal, global knowledge and philosophy, having been carried out from as far back as the time of old comic poetry which features social and political criticism, and ancient Greek philosophers Socrates , Plato , and Aristotle . For instance, the origin of the survey can be traced back to at least
44902-540: The government. Weber's years as a university student were dotted with several periods of military service, the longest of which lasted between October 1883 and September 1884. During this time, he was in Strasbourg and attended classes at the University of Strasbourg that his uncle, the historian Hermann Baumgarten , taught. Weber befriended Baumgarten and he influenced Weber's growing liberalism and criticism of Otto von Bismarck 's domination of German politics. He
45188-566: The growing cadre of members of the League of the Just now seeking home in Brussels. Later, Mary Burns , Engels' long-time companion, left Manchester, England to join Engels in Brussels. In mid-July 1845, Marx and Engels left Brussels for England to visit the leaders of the Chartists , a working-class movement in Britain. This was Marx's first trip to England and Engels was an ideal guide for
45474-567: The human mind would, "objectively" speaking, be less law-like, but for the following two reasons: (1) knowledge of social laws does not constitute knowledge of social reality, but is only one of the various tools that our intellect needs for that [latter] purpose; (2) knowledge of cultural occurrences is only conceivable if it takes as its point of departure the significance that the reality of life, with its always individual character, has for us in certain particular respects. No law can reveal to us in what sense and in what respects this will be
45760-413: The idea that a scholar could maintain objectivity while ascribing to a hierarchy of values in the way that Rickert did, however. His argument regarding value-freedom was connected to his involvement in the Werturteilsstreit . As part of it, he argued in favour of the idea that the social sciences needed to be value-free. During it, he unsuccessfully tried to turn the German Sociological Association into
46046-428: The importance of societal class within religion by examining the difference between the theodicies of fortune and misfortune and to what class structures they apply. The theodicy of fortune related to the desire of those who were successful to prove that they deserved it. They were also prone to not being satisfied with what they already had and wished to avoid the notion that they were illegitimate or sinful. Those without
46332-411: The importance of subjectivity in the social sciences made the creation of fool-proof, universal laws much more difficult than in the natural sciences and that the amount of objective knowledge that social sciences were able to create was limited. Overall, he supported objective science as a goal worth striving for but noted that it was ultimately an unreachable goal. Weber's methodology was developed in
46618-420: The inequality between particular groups. The following quotes from Durkheim and Marx epitomize the political, as well as theoretical, disparities, between functionalist and conflict thought respectively: To aim for a civilization beyond that made possible by the nexus of the surrounding environment will result in unloosing sickness into the very society we live in. Collective activity cannot be encouraged beyond
46904-430: The influence of anarchists led by Mikhail Bakunin . In his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx wrote on revolution, the state and the transition to communism. He died stateless in 1883 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery . Marx's critiques of history, society and political economy hold that human societies develop through class conflict . In the capitalist mode of production , this manifests itself in
47190-509: The issues of Chinese urban development, Chinese patrimonialism and officialdom and Chinese religion and philosophy – primarily Confucianism and Taoism – as the areas in which Chinese development significantly differed from the European route. According to Weber, Confucianism and Puritanism were superficially similar, but were actually largely different from one another. Instead, they were mutually exclusive types of rational thought , each attempting to prescribe
47476-409: The journalist Charles Dana , who was editor-in-chief. Dana, a fourierist and an abolitionist , was Marx's contact. The Tribune was a vehicle for Marx to reach a transatlantic public, such as for his "hidden warfare" against Henry Charles Carey . The journal had wide working-class appeal from its foundation; at two cents, it was inexpensive; and, with about 50,000 copies per issue, its circulation
47762-438: The later decades of the nineteenth century. To say this is certainly not to claim that French sociologists such as Durkheim were devoted disciples of the high priest of positivism. But by insisting on the irreducibility of each of his basic sciences to the particular science of sciences which it presupposed in the hierarchy and by emphasizing the nature of sociology as the scientific study of social phenomena Comte put sociology on
48048-432: The latter spanning volumes 30–34 of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels . Specifically, Theories of Surplus Value runs from the latter part of the Collected Works' thirtieth volume through the end of their thirty-second volume; meanwhile, the larger Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863 run from the start of the Collected Works' thirtieth volume through the first half of their thirty-fourth volume. The latter half of
48334-453: The less complex sciences , attacking the laissez-faire sociology of Herbert Spencer and Sumner. Ward's 1,200-page book was used as core material in many early American sociology courses. In 1890, the oldest continuing American course in the modern tradition began at the University of Kansas , lectured by Frank W. Blackmar . The Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago was established in 1892 by Albion Small , who also published
48620-434: The main factors that set the West apart from the rest of the world. He also applied rationalisation to music in his The Rational and Social Foundations of Music . In writing it, he was influenced by his affair with the pianist Mina Tobler [ de ] and a sense that Western music was the only type that had become harmonic, while other cultures' music was more intense and focused on hearing. Weber argued that music
48906-401: The map. To be sure, [its] beginnings can be traced back well beyond Montesquieu , for example, and to Condorcet , not to speak of Saint-Simon , Comte's immediate predecessor. But Comte's clear recognition of sociology as a particular science, with a character of its own, justified Durkheim in regarding him as the father or founder of this science, even though Durkheim did not accept the idea of
49192-454: The mass movement that would bring about a working-class revolution. However, to organise the working class into a mass movement the League had to cease its "secret" or "underground" orientation and operate in the open as a political party. Members of the League eventually became persuaded in this regard. Accordingly, in June 1847 the League was reorganised by its membership into a new open "above ground" political society that appealed directly to
49478-419: The meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the 'meaning' to be thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, and any kind of prior discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim
49764-410: The meaning of life. The social world was fundamentally divided between the educated elite who followed the guidance of a prophet or wise man and the uneducated masses whose beliefs are centered on magic. In Asia, there were no messianic prophecies to give both educated and uneducated followers meaning in their regular lives. Weber juxtaposed such Messianic prophecies, notably from the Near East , with
50050-425: The means of production". In one of the drafts of this letter, Marx reveals his growing passion for anthropology, motivated by his belief that future communism would be a return on a higher level to the communism of our prehistoric past. He wrote that "the historical trend of our age is the fatal crisis which capitalist production has undergone in the European and American countries where it has reached its highest peak,
50336-403: The means of violence in the context of the industrialisation of war). The first college course entitled "Sociology" was taught in the United States at Yale in 1875 by William Graham Sumner . In 1883, Lester F. Ward , who later became the first president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), published Dynamic Sociology—Or Applied social science as based upon statical sociology and
50622-785: The mid-20th century, especially, have led to increasingly interpretative , hermeneutic , and philosophical approaches towards the analysis of society. Conversely, the turn of the 21st century has seen the rise of new analytically , mathematically , and computationally rigorous techniques, such as agent-based modelling and social network analysis. Social research has influence throughout various industries and sectors of life, such as among politicians, policy makers , and legislators; educators ; planners ; administrators ; developers ; business magnates and managers; social workers; non-governmental organizations; and non-profit organizations, as well as individuals interested in resolving social issues in general. Sociological reasoning predates
50908-474: The most modern form of the conflict which primitive man must carry on with nature for his bodily existence. The eighteenth century may have called for liberation from all the ties which grew up historically in politics, in religion, in morality, and in economics to permit the original natural virtue of man, which is equal in everyone, to develop without inhibition; the nineteenth century may have sought to promote, in addition to man's freedom, his individuality (which
51194-403: The most prominent social science journals as a result of his efforts. Weber published some of his most seminal works in this journal, including his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , which became his most famous work and laid the foundations for his later research on the impact of religion on the development of economic systems. Also in 1904, he was invited to participate in
51480-441: The newspaper featured Marx as a primary writer and the dominant editorial influence. Despite contributions by fellow members of the Communist League, according to Friedrich Engels it remained "a simple dictatorship by Marx". Whilst editor of the paper, Marx and the other revolutionary socialists were regularly harassed by the police and Marx was brought to trial on several occasions, facing various allegations including insulting
51766-424: The notion of objective sui generis "social facts" to serve as unique empirical objects for the science of sociology to study. The variety of positivism that remains dominant today is termed instrumental positivism . This approach eschews epistemological and metaphysical concerns (such as the nature of social facts) in favour of methodological clarity, replicability , reliability and validity . This positivism
52052-422: The old confederation was. Religiously, the priests replaced the previous charismatic religious leaders. Weber thought that Elijah was the first prophet to have risen from the shepherds. Elijah promulgated political prophecies and opposed the monarchy . Weber used the concept of theodicy in his interpretation of theology and religion throughout his corpus. This involved both his scholarly and personal interests in
52338-406: The older economies of individual European nations, which were closed systems bounded by their national borders. When the so-called Panic of 1857 in the United States spread globally, it broke all economic theory models, and was the first truly global economic crisis. Marx continued to write articles for the New York Daily Tribune as long as he was sure that the Tribune ' s editorial policy
52624-416: The oppositional gesinnungsethik and verantwortungsethik [ de ] (the "ethic of ultimate ends" and the "ethic of responsibility"). An adherent of the verantwortungsethik justified their actions based on their consequences. Meanwhile, an adherent of the gesinnungsethik justified their actions based on their ideals. While Weber thought that both of them would ideally be present in
52910-675: The organisational cores of the capitalist enterprise and the bureaucratic state apparatus. Weber understood this process as the institutionalisation of purposive-rational economic and administrative action. To the degree that everyday life was affected by this cultural and societal rationalisation, traditional forms of life – which in the early modern period were differentiated primarily according to one's trade – were dissolved. — Jürgen Habermas in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures , 1990. Weber continued his investigation into this matter in later works, notably in his studies on bureaucracy and on
53196-403: The origin of modern capitalism was in the religious ideas of the Reformation. According to him, certain types of Protestantism – notably Calvinism – were supportive of the rational pursuit of economic gain and the worldly activities that were dedicated to it, seeing those activities as having been endowed with moral and spiritual significance. The spirit of capitalism
53482-399: The outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Weber volunteered for service and was appointed as a reserve officer in charge of organising the army hospitals in Heidelberg, a role he fulfilled until the end of 1915. His views on the war and the expansion of the German Empire changed over the course of the conflict. Early on, he supported the German war effort , with some hesitation, viewing
53768-411: The part of the Communist League was "adventuristic" and would be suicide for the Communist League. Such an uprising as that recommended by the Schapper/Willich group would easily be crushed by the police and the armed forces of the reactionary governments of Europe. Marx maintained that this would spell doom for the Communist League itself, arguing that changes in society are not achieved overnight through
54054-470: The pedagogue Paul Geheeb ended his affair with her. Weber thought positively of it, as he thought that her suicide was justified and that suicide in general could be an honourable act. Weber and his wife took in Lili's four children and planned to raise them. He was uncomfortable with his newfound role as a father figure, but he thought that Marianne was fulfilled as a woman by this event. She later formally adopted them in 1928. Weber wished for her to stay with
54340-410: The philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey , the jurist Levin Goldschmidt , and the historian Theodor Mommsen . The young Weber and his brother Alfred , who also became a sociologist, passed their formative years in this intellectual atmosphere. Meanwhile, Fallenstein was partly descended from the French Huguenot Souchay family [ de ] , which had obtained wealth through international commerce and
54626-427: The pianist Mina Tobler [ de ] . After a failed attempt to court Richthofen, Weber began an affair with Tobler in 1911. Later, during the spring of 1913, Weber holidayed in the Monte Verità community in Ascona , Switzerland . While holidaying, he was advising Frieda Gross in her custody battle for her children. He opposed Erich Mühsam 's involvement because Mühsam was an anarchist . Weber argued that
54912-427: The point set by the condition of the social organism without undermining health. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in
55198-464: The possibility of Russia's bypassing the capitalist stage of development and building communism on the basis of the common ownership of land characteristic of the village mir . While admitting that Russia's rural "commune is the fulcrum of social regeneration in Russia", Marx also warned that in order for the mir to operate as a means for moving straight to the socialist stage without a preceding capitalist stage it "would first be necessary to eliminate
55484-470: The printing of 3,000 copies of the book in the Russian language, which was published on 27 March 1872. By the autumn of 1871, the entire first edition of the German-language edition of Das Kapital had been sold out and a second edition was published. Volumes II and III of Das Kapital remained mere manuscripts upon which Marx continued to work for the rest of his life. Both volumes were published by Engels after Marx's death. Volume II of Das Kapital
55770-448: The process of rationalization . The field predominated in continental Europe , with British anthropology and statistics generally following on a separate trajectory. By the turn of the 20th century, however, many theorists were active in the English-speaking world . Few early sociologists were confined strictly to the subject, interacting also with economics, jurisprudence , psychology and philosophy, with theories being appropriated in
56056-400: The progression of human understanding, after conjectural theological and metaphysical phases. In observing the circular dependence of theory and observation in science, and having classified the sciences, Comte may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Comte gave a powerful impetus to the development of sociology, an impetus that bore fruit in
56342-438: The proletariat , and victory of the proletariat over the bourgeois state. The 1850s and 1860s may be said to mark a philosophical boundary distinguishing the young Marx 's Hegelian idealism and the more mature Marx 's scientific ideology associated with structural Marxism . However, not all scholars accept this distinction. For Marx and Engels, their experience of the Revolutions of 1848 to 1849 were formative in
56628-536: The publication of further issues and his friendship with Marx broke down). After the paper's collapse, Marx began writing for the only uncensored German-language radical newspaper left, Vorwärts! ( Forward! ). Based in Paris, the paper was connected to the League of the Just , a utopian socialist secret society of workers and artisans. Marx attended some of their meetings but did not join. In Vorwärts! , Marx refined his views on socialism based upon Hegelian and Feuerbachian ideas of dialectical materialism , at
56914-447: The religions of China , India , and ancient Judaism . In terms of government, Weber argued that states were defined by their monopoly on violence and categorised social authority into three distinct forms : charismatic , traditional , and rational-legal . He was also a key proponent of methodological antipositivism , arguing for the study of social action through interpretive rather than purely empiricist methods. Weber made
57200-770: The researcher to better understand it. However, ideal types are not direct representations of reality and Weber warned against interpreting them as such. He placed no limits on what could be analysed through the use of ideal types. Since, for him, rational methodology and science were synonymous with one another, ideal types were constructed rationally. Weber believed that social scientists needed to avoid making value-judgements. Instead, he wanted social scientific research to be value-free. This would give them objectivity, but it needed to be combined with an acknowledgement that their research connected with values in different ways. As part of his support for value-freedom, Weber opposed both instructors and students promoting their political views in
57486-427: The revolution may have prevented Friedrich Ebert , the new president of Germany and a member of the Social Democratic Party , from appointing him as a minister or ambassador. Weber was also critical of the Treaty of Versailles , which he believed unjustly assigned war guilt to Germany . Instead, he believed that many countries were guilty of starting it, not just Germany. In making this case, Weber argued that Russia
57772-470: The rise of the Parsonian structural-functionalist movement, which reached its crescendo in the 1950s, but by the 1960s was in rapid decline. By the 1980s, most functionalist perspectives in Europe had broadly been replaced by conflict -oriented approaches, and to many in the discipline, functionalism was considered "as dead as a dodo:" According to Giddens : Karl Marx Karl Marx ( German: [kaʁl ˈmaʁks] ; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883)
58058-401: The rising bourgeoisie to defeat the feudal aristocracy on issues involving demands for governmental reforms, such as a constitutional republic with freely elected assemblies and universal (male) suffrage. In other words, the working class must join with bourgeois and democratic forces to bring about the successful conclusion of the bourgeois revolution before stressing the working-class agenda and
58344-469: The sacraments or actions that proved their right to possess greater wealth. In political sociology , one of Weber's most influential contributions is his lecture " Politics as a Vocation ", in which he defined the state as an entity that was " based on the legitimate use of force ". Accordingly, Weber proposed that politics is the sharing of state power between various groups, whereas political leaders were those who wielded this power. He divided action into
58630-462: The same as that set forth by Comte, who was unique in advocating such a rigid (and perhaps optimistic) version. While Émile Durkheim rejected much of the detail of Comte's philosophy, he retained and refined its method. Durkheim maintained that the social sciences are a logical continuation of the natural ones into the realm of human activity, and insisted that they should retain the same objectivity, rationalism, and approach to causality. He developed
58916-937: The same fundamental motive was at work, namely the resistance of the individual to being leveled, swallowed up in the social-technological mechanism. The contemporary discipline of sociology is theoretically multi-paradigmatic in line with the contentions of classical social theory. Randall Collins ' well-cited survey of sociological theory retroactively labels various theorists as belonging to four theoretical traditions: Functionalism, Conflict, Symbolic Interactionism, and Utilitarianism. Accordingly, modern sociological theory predominantly descends from functionalist (Durkheim) and conflict (Marx and Weber) approaches to social structure, as well as from symbolic-interactionist approaches to social interaction, such as micro-level structural ( Simmel ) and pragmatist ( Mead , Cooley ) perspectives. Utilitarianism (also known as rational choice or social exchange), although often associated with economics,
59202-449: The same manner as natural science . An emphasis on empiricism and the scientific method is sought to provide a tested foundation for sociological research based on the assumption that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only arrive by positive affirmation through scientific methodology. Our main goal is to extend scientific rationalism to human conduct.... What has been called our positivism
59488-468: The same time criticising liberals and other socialists operating in Europe. On 28 August 1844, Marx met the German socialist Friedrich Engels at the Café de la Régence , beginning a lifelong friendship. Engels showed Marx his recently published The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 , convincing Marx that the working class would be the agent and instrument of the final revolution in history. Soon, Marx and Engels were collaborating on
59774-404: The scientific understanding of social life. Writing shortly after the malaise of the French Revolution , he proposed that social ills could be remedied through sociological positivism , an epistemological approach outlined in the Course in Positive Philosophy (1830–1842), later included in A General View of Positivism (1848). Comte believed a positivist stage would mark the final era in
60060-414: The social sciences. It originated with a debate in the Verein für Socialpolitik between the supporters of the idea that ethics was an important consideration in the field of economics and those who opposed it. Weber's position was that the social sciences should strive to be value-free . In his view, scholars and students needed to avoid promoting political values in the classroom. Science had no part in
60346-438: The social sciences. The term "ideal type" was derived from Georg Jellinek 's use of it. Weber outlined it in " The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy " and the first chapter of Economy and Society . The ideal types' three functions are the formulation of terminology, classifications, and hypotheses. The latter task was of the greatest importance of the three. In terms of their construction, an ideal type
60632-467: The source for legitimate social interactions, served as a key part of that. Both Hinduism and the Brahmins ' high status upheld the caste system. The Brahmins used their monopoly on education and theological authority to maintain their position, while Hinduism created a psychological justification for it in the form of the cycle of reincarnation . A person's position in the caste order was thought to have been determined by one's actions in their past life. As
60918-426: The spring of 1845, his continued study of political economy, capital and capitalism had led Marx to the belief that the new critique of political economy he was espousing—that of scientific socialism —needed to be built on the base of a thoroughly developed materialistic view of the world. The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 had been written between April and August 1844, but soon Marx recognised that
61204-400: The state, and foreign trade, and the world market, though this work did not appear in print until 1939, under the title Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie (English: Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy ). In 1859, Marx published A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy , his first serious critique of political economy. This work was intended merely as
61490-433: The structure and the function of social systems and to analyzing processes of evolution via mechanisms of adaptation. Functionalism strongly emphasizes the pre-eminence of the social world over its individual parts (i.e. its constituent actors, human subjects). Functionalist theories emphasize "cohesive systems" and are often contrasted with "conflict theories", which critique the overarching socio-political system or emphasize
61776-452: The structure of Indian society, with the orthodox doctrines of Hinduism and the heterodox doctrines of Buddhism , with modifications brought by the influence of popular religiosity and finally with the impact of religious beliefs on the secular ethic of Indian society. In Weber's view, Hinduism in India, like Confucianism in China, was a barrier for capitalism. The Indian caste system , which developed in post-Classical India and served as
62062-443: The studying that Marx did during this time in Paris meant that all major components of "Marxism" were in place by the autumn of 1844. Marx was constantly being pulled away from his critique of political economy—not only by the usual daily demands of the time, but additionally by editing a radical newspaper and later by organising and directing the efforts of a political party during years of potentially revolutionary popular uprisings of
62348-441: The subject began with The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . In it, he argued that Protestantism 's – particularly Calvinism 's – redefinition of the connection between work and piety caused a shift towards rational efforts that were aimed at achieving economic gain. In Protestantism, piety towards God was expressed through one's secular vocation. The religious principles that influenced
62634-413: The subject. It was central to his conception of humanity, which he interpreted as having been connected with finding meaning. Theodicy was a popular subject of study amongst German scholars who sought to determine how a world created by an omnibenevolent and omnipotent being can contain suffering. As part of this tradition, Weber was careful in his study of the subject. Rather than interpreting it through
62920-414: The subjective relationships between individuals. According to him, the study of social action through interpretive means or verstehen ("to understand") needed to be based upon understanding the subjective meaning and purpose that individuals attached to their actions. Determining an individual's interpretation of their actions required either empathically or rationally derived evidence. Weber noted that
63206-402: The survey-research of Paul Lazarsfeld at Columbia University and the general theorizing of Pitirim Sorokin , followed by Talcott Parsons at Harvard University . Ultimately, "the failure of the Chicago, Columbia, and Wisconsin [sociology] departments to produce a significant number of graduate students interested in and committed to general theory in the years 1936–45 was to the advantage of
63492-487: The tasks at hand. Therefore, society is a complex, ever-changing mosaic of subjective meanings. Some critics of this approach argue that it only looks at what is happening in a particular social situation, and disregards the effects that culture, race or gender (i.e. social-historical structures) may have in that situation. Some important sociologists associated with this approach include Max Weber , George Herbert Mead , Erving Goffman , George Homans , and Peter Blau . It
63778-450: The then-recent Russian Revolution of 1905 . He learned the Russian language in a few months, subscribed to Russian newspapers, and discussed Russian political and social affairs with the Russian émigré community in Heidelberg . He was personally popular in that community and twice entertained the idea of a trip to Russia . His schedule prevented it, however. While he was sceptical of the revolution's ability to succeed, Weber supported
64064-414: The thesis. Rationalisation caused the West to be trapped in the stahlhartes Gehäuse ("iron cage" or "steel-hard casing") that was the modern capitalist economic order. Meanwhile, ideal types were representative figures, or case studies, that represented concepts. Christian religious devotion was historically accompanied by the rejection of mundane affairs, including economic pursuit. Weber argued that
64350-413: The three states and criticized Comte's approach to sociology. Both Comte and Karl Marx set out to develop scientifically justified systems in the wake of European industrialization and secularization , informed by various key movements in the philosophies of history and science . Marx rejected Comtean positivism but in attempting to develop a "science of society" nevertheless came to be recognized as
64636-402: The time, was truly acting in the interests of the proletariat to overthrow capitalist society and to replace it with socialism. Later that year, Europe experienced a series of protests, rebellions, and often violent upheavals that became known as the Revolutions of 1848 . In France, a revolution led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the French Second Republic . Marx
64922-587: The title The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State . Marx and von Westphalen had seven children together, but partly owing to the poor conditions in which they lived whilst in London, only three survived to adulthood. Their children were: Jenny Caroline (m. Longuet; 1844–1883); Jenny Laura (m. Lafargue; 1845–1911); Edgar (1847–1855); Henry Edward Guy ("Guido"; 1849–1850); Jenny Eveline Frances ("Franziska"; 1851–1852); Jenny Julia Eleanor (1855–1898) and one more who died before being named (July 1857). According to his son-in-law, Paul Lafargue , Marx
65208-479: The transfer of the seat of the General Council from London to New York in 1872, which Marx supported, led to the decline of the International. The most important political event during the existence of the International was the Paris Commune of 1871 when the citizens of Paris rebelled against their government and held the city for two months. In response to the bloody suppression of this rebellion, Marx wrote one of his most famous pamphlets, " The Civil War in France ",
65494-449: The transformation of the workplace, capital accumulation , competition, the banking system, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and land-rents, as well as how waged labour continually reproduce the rule of capital. Marx proposes that the driving force of capital is in the exploitation of labour , whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value . Demand for a Russian language edition of Das Kapital soon led to
65780-527: The trip. Engels had already spent two years living in Manchester from November 1842 to August 1844. Not only did Engels already know the English language, but he had also developed a close relationship with many Chartist leaders. Indeed, Engels was serving as a reporter for many Chartist and socialist English newspapers. Marx used the trip as an opportunity to examine the economic resources available for study in various libraries in London and Manchester. In collaboration with Engels, Marx also set about writing
66066-403: The tutelage of Levin Goldschmidt and Rudolf von Gneist , Weber earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a dissertation on legal history titled Development of the Principle of Joint Liability and a Separate Fund of the General Partnership out of the Household Communities and Commercial Associations in Italian Cities . It was a part of a longer work, On the History of Commercial Partnerships in
66352-419: The two, was the principal achievement of Marx's theory. The sociological treatment of historical and moral problems, which Comte and after him, Spencer and Taine , had discussed and mapped, became a precise and concrete study only when the attack of militant Marxism made its conclusions a burning issue, and so made the search for evidence more zealous and the attention to method more intense. Herbert Spencer
66638-550: The understanding of social processes and phenomenological method. Traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification , social class , social mobility , religion , secularization , law , sexuality , gender , and deviance . Recent studies have added socio-technical aspects of the digital divide as a new focus. As all spheres of human activity are affected by the interplay between social structure and individual agency , sociology has gradually expanded its focus to other subjects and institutions, such as health and
66924-429: The use of comparative historical analysis . As such, he was more interested in explaining how a certain outcome was the result of various historical processes than in predicting those processes' outcome in the future. The second debate that shaped Weber's perspective on methodology was the Werturteilsstreit ("value-judgement dispute"). This debate was held between 1909 and 1914 on the subject of value-judgements in
67210-424: The war and having sent many young Germans to die on the battlefield, Weber thought that he should surrender himself and become a political martyr. However, Ludendorff was not willing to do so and instead wanted to live off of his pension. Frustrated with politics, Weber resumed teaching, first at the University of Vienna in 1918, then at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1919. In Vienna , Weber filled
67496-450: The war as having been necessary to fulfill Germany's duty as a leading state power. In time, however, Weber became one of the most prominent critics of both German expansionism and the Kaiser's war policies . He publicly criticised Germany's potential annexation of Belgium and unrestricted submarine warfare , later supporting calls for constitutional reform, democratisation, and universal suffrage . His younger brother Karl, an architect,
67782-431: The war, Weber co-founded the German Democratic Party , unsuccessfully ran for office, and advised the drafting of the Weimar Constitution . Becoming frustrated with politics, he resumed teaching in Vienna and Munich . He died of pneumonia in 1920 at the age of 56, possibly as a result of the post-war Spanish flu pandemic. A book, Economy and Society , was left unfinished. One of Weber's main intellectual concerns
68068-400: The work ethic believed in the theodicy of misfortune, believing wealth and happiness were granted in the afterlife. Another example of how this belief of religious theodicy influenced class was that those of lower economic status tended towards deep religiousness and faith as a way to comfort themselves and provide hope for a more prosperous future, while those of higher economic status preferred
68354-520: The working class should carry out organised proletarian revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic emancipation . Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures of the modern era , and his work has been both lauded and criticised . Marxism has exerted major influence on socialist thought and political movements, and during the 20th century revolutionary governments identifying as Marxist took power in many countries and established socialist states including
68640-453: The working classes. This new open political society was called the Communist League. Both Marx and Engels participated in drawing up the programme and organisational principles of the new Communist League . In late 1847, Marx and Engels began writing what was to become their most famous work – a programme of action for the Communist League . Written jointly by Marx and Engels from December 1847 to January 1848, The Communist Manifesto
68926-419: The world and rejected its irrationality while Confucians sought rational acceptance of that state of affairs. Therefore, he stated that it was the difference in social attitudes and mentality, shaped by the respective dominant religions, that contributed to the development of capitalism in the West and the absence of it in China. In The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism , Weber dealt with
69212-473: The world in various ways, the point is to change it". This work contains Marx's criticism of materialism (for being contemplative), idealism (for reducing practice to theory), and, overall, philosophy (for putting abstract reality above the physical world). It thus introduced the first glimpse at Marx's historical materialism , an argument that the world is changed not by ideas but by actual, physical, material activity and practice. In 1845, after receiving
69498-412: The writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . Goethe later exerted an important influence on his thought and methodology. Before entering university, he read many other classical works, including those by the philosopher Immanuel Kant . For Christmas in 1877, a thirteen-year-old Weber gifted his parents two historical essays, entitled "About the Course of German History, with Special Reference to the Positions of
69784-497: The writings of European contributors to modern sociology. Khaldun's Muqaddimah was considered to be amongst the first works to advance social-scientific reasoning on social cohesion and social conflict . The word sociology derives part of its name from the Latin word socius ('companion' or 'fellowship' ). The suffix -logy ('the study of') comes from that of the Greek -λογία , derived from λόγος ( lógos , 'word' or 'knowledge'). The term sociology
70070-500: The youth groups and nationalists at Lauenstein, instead supporting German democratisation. For Weber and the younger participants, the conferences' romantic intent was irrelevant to the determination of Germany's future. In November, shortly after the second conference, Weber was invited by the Free Student Youth, a student organisation, to give a lecture in Munich, resulting in " Science as a Vocation ". In it, he argued that an inner calling and specialisation were necessary for one to become
70356-621: Was a German-born philosopher , political theorist, economist , historian, sociologist , journalist, and revolutionary socialist . His best-known works are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto (with Friedrich Engels ) and his three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1894); the latter employs his critical approach of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism , in the culmination of his intellectual endeavours. Marx's ideas and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism , have had enormous influence on modern intellectual, economic and political history. Born in Trier in
70642-470: Was a friend of his father. By employing many liberal humanists as teachers, Wyttenbach incurred the anger of the local conservative government. Subsequently, police raided the school in 1832 and discovered that literature espousing political liberalism was being distributed among the students. Considering the distribution of such material a seditious act, the authorities instituted reforms and replaced several staff during Marx's attendance. In October 1835 at
70928-526: Was a loving father. In 1962, there were allegations that Marx fathered a son, Freddy, out of wedlock by his housekeeper, Helene Demuth , but the claim is disputed for lack of documented evidence. Helene Demuth was also largely entrusted as a confidante. In her obituary, penned by Friedrich Engels , her role is revealed as: "Marx took counsel of Helena Demuth, not only in difficult and intricate party matters, but even in respect of his economical writings". Marx frequently used pseudonyms, often when renting
71214-679: Was a member of the Burschenschaft Allemannia Heidelberg [ de ] , a Studentenverbindung ("student association"), and heavily drank beer and engaged in academic fencing during his first few years in university. As a result of the latter, he obtained several duelling scars on the left side of his face. His mother was displeased by his behaviour and slapped him after he came home when his third semester ended in 1883. However, Weber matured, increasingly supported his mother in family arguments, and grew estranged from his father. From 1887 until her declining mental health caused him to break off their relationship five years later, Weber had
71500-415: Was also racked by an internal struggle between its members, some of whom followed Marx while others followed the Schapper/Willich faction. The issues in this internal split were the same issues raised in the internal split within the Communist League, but Marx lost the fight with the Schapper/Willich faction within the German Workers' Educational Society and on 17 September 1850 resigned from the Society. In
71786-410: Was also visited, as some of Weber's relatives in the Fallenstein family had settled there. Weber used the trip to learn more about America's social, economic, and theological conditions and how they related to his thesis. Afterwards, he felt that he was unable to resume regular teaching and remained a private scholar, helped by an inheritance in 1907. Shortly after returning, Weber's attention shifted to
72072-412: Was appointed professor of economics at the University of Freiburg . During his tenure there, in 1895, he gave a provocative lecture titled "The Nation State and Economic Policy". In it, he criticised Polish immigration and argued that the Junkers were encouraging Slavic immigration to serve their economic interests over those of the German nation. It influenced the politician Friedrich Naumann to create
72358-399: Was based solely on materialism as the sole motor force in history. German Ideology is written in a humorously satirical form, but even this satirical form did not save the work from censorship. Like so many other early writings of his, German Ideology would not be published in Marx's lifetime and was published only in 1932. After completing German Ideology , Marx turned to a work that
72644-453: Was becoming increasingly rational. In his view, that resulted from new developments in musical instrument construction and simultaneous socio-economic shifts of the different instruments' players. The process of disenchantment caused the world to become more explained and less mystical, moving from polytheistic religions to monotheistic ones and finally to the Godless science of modernity . Older explanations of why events occurred relied on
72930-420: Was born at Brückengasse 664 in Trier , an ancient city then part of the Kingdom of Prussia 's Province of the Lower Rhine . Marx's family was originally non-religious Jewish but had converted formally to Christianity before his birth. His maternal grandfather was a Dutch rabbi , while his paternal line had supplied Trier's rabbis since 1723, a role taken by his grandfather Meier Halevi Marx. His father, as
73216-517: Was born on 21 April 1864 in Erfurt , Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia, but his family moved to Berlin in 1869. He was the oldest of Max Weber Sr. and Helene Fallenstein's eight children. Over the course of his life, Weber Sr. held posts as a lawyer, civil servant, and parliamentarian for the National Liberal Party in the Prussian Landtag and German Reichstag . His involvement in public life immersed his home in both politics and academia, as his salon welcomed scholars and public figures such as
73502-415: Was caused by his support for value-freedom in the social sciences, as that was a controversial position in the association. Weber – alongside Simmel, Sombart, and Tönnies – placed an abbreviated form of it into the association's statutes, prompting criticism from its other members. In the same year, Weber and his wife befriended a former student of his, Else von Richthofen , and
73788-402: Was coined in 1908 by the Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter as a way of referring to Weber's views on how to explain social phenomena. While his research interests placed a strong emphasis on interpreting economic history , Weber's support of methodological individualism represented a break with the historical school and an agreement with the Austrian school's founder, Carl Menger, in
74074-576: Was cremated in the Munich Ostfriedhof after a secular ceremony, and the urn that contained his ashes was later buried in the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof [ de ] in 1921. The funeral service was attended by his students, including Eduard Baumgarten [ de ] and Karl Loewenstein , and fellow scholars, such as Lujo Brentano. At the time of his death, Weber had not finished writing Economy and Society , his magnum opus on sociological theory. His widow, Marianne, helped prepare it for its publication in 1922. She later published
74360-466: Was described as "a daring and original piece of work in which Marx set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom of philosophy". The essay was controversial, particularly among the conservative professors at the University of Berlin. Marx decided instead to submit his thesis to the more liberal University of Jena , whose faculty awarded him his Ph.D. in April 1841. As Marx and Bauer were both atheists , in March 1841 they began plans for
74646-435: Was established in 1892 by Albion Small —from the invitation of William Rainey Harper —at the University of Chicago . The American Journal of Sociology was founded shortly thereafter in 1895 by Small as well. The institutionalization of sociology as an academic discipline, however, was chiefly led by Émile Durkheim , who developed positivism as a foundation for practical social research . While Durkheim rejected much of
74932-491: Was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès in an unpublished manuscript . Sociology was later defined independently by French philosopher of science Auguste Comte (1798–1857) in 1838 as a new way of looking at society. Comte had earlier used the term social physics , but it had been subsequently appropriated by others, most notably the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet . Comte endeavored to unify history, psychology, and economics through
75218-425: Was first published on 21 February 1848. The Communist Manifesto laid out the beliefs of the new Communist League. No longer a secret society, the Communist League wanted to make aims and intentions clear to the general public rather than hiding its beliefs as the League of the Just had been doing. The opening lines of the pamphlet set forth the principal basis of Marxism: "The history of all hitherto existing society
75504-423: Was forced to flee back to France, where with a new republican government in power he believed that he would be safe. Temporarily settling down in Paris, Marx transferred the Communist League executive headquarters to the city and also set up a German Workers' Club with various German socialists living there. Hoping to see the revolution spread to Germany, in 1848 Marx moved back to Cologne where he began issuing
75790-404: Was found in the desire to work hard in a way that pleased the worker and signified their worth and originally had a basis in theology. In particular, the Protestant work ethic motivated the believers to work hard, be successful in business, and reinvest their profits in further development rather than frivolous pleasures. Weber thought that self-restraint, hard work, and a belief that wealth could be
76076-411: Was founded by Ferdinand Tönnies , Max Weber, and Georg Simmel , among others. Weber established the first department in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1919, having presented an influential new antipositivist sociology. In 1920, Florian Znaniecki set up the first department in Poland . The Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt (later to become
76362-438: Was in understanding the processes of rationalisation , secularisation , and disenchantment . He formulated a thesis arguing that such processes were associated with the rise of capitalism and modernity. Weber also argued that the Protestant work ethic influenced the creation of capitalism in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . It was followed by The Economic Ethics of the World Religions , where he examined
76648-400: Was intended to clarify his own position regarding "the theory and tactics" of a truly "revolutionary proletarian movement" operating from the standpoint of a truly "scientific materialist" philosophy. This work was intended to draw a distinction between the utopian socialists and Marx's own scientific socialist philosophy. Whereas the utopians believed that people must be persuaded one person at
76934-549: Was killed near Brest-Litovsk in 1915 while fighting in the war. Weber had previously viewed him negatively but his death made him feel more connected to him. He and his wife also participated in the 1917 Lauenstein Conferences that were held at Lauenstein Castle [ de ] in Bavaria . These conferences were planned by the publisher Eugen Diederichs and brought together intellectuals, including Theodor Heuss , Ernst Toller , and Werner Sombart. Weber's presence elevated his profile in Germany and served to dispel some of
77220-422: Was left incomplete as a result of his sudden death in 1920, which prevented him from following Ancient Judaism with studies of early Christianity and Islam. The three main themes within the books were: religious ideas' effect on economic activities, the relationship between social stratification and religious ideas, and the distinguishable characteristics of Western civilisation . His goal was to find reasons for
77506-590: Was never afterward free, exacerbated by an unsuitable lifestyle. The attacks often came with headaches, eye inflammation, neuralgia in the head, and rheumatic pains. A serious nervous disorder appeared in 1877 and protracted insomnia was a consequence, which Marx fought with narcotics. The illness was aggravated by excessive nocturnal work and faulty diet. Marx was fond of highly seasoned dishes, smoked fish, caviare, pickled cucumbers, "none of which are good for liver patients", but he also liked wine and liqueurs and smoked an enormous amount "and since he had no money, it
77792-399: Was on individuals and culture. Whereas Durkheim focused on society, Weber concentrated on the individual and their actions. Meanwhile, compared to Marx's support for the primacy of the material world over the world of ideas, Weber valued ideas as motivating individuals' actions. He had a different perspective from the two of them regarding structure and action and macrostructure in that he
78078-478: Was one of the most popular and influential 19th-century sociologists. It is estimated that he sold one million books in his lifetime, far more than any other sociologist at the time. So strong was his influence that many other 19th-century thinkers, including Émile Durkheim , defined their ideas in relation to his. Durkheim's Division of Labour in Society is to a large extent an extended debate with Spencer from whose sociology Durkheim borrowed extensively. Also
78364-502: Was open to the idea that social phenomena could have several different causes and placed importance on social actors ' interpretations of their actions. The result of what has been said so far is that an "objective" treatment of cultural occurrences, in the sense that the ideal aim of scientific work would be to reduce the empirical [reality] to "laws", is absurd. Not because – as it has often been claimed – the course of cultural processes or, say, processes in
78650-403: Was prepared and published by Engels in July 1893 under the name Capital II: The Process of Circulation of Capital . Volume III of Das Kapital was published a year later in October 1894 under the name Capital III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole . Theories of Surplus Value derived from the sprawling Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863 , a second draft for Das Kapital ,
78936-460: Was primarily young Germans with different political perspectives, including communists . While neither of them were able to convince the other of their points, Weber was more cautious and careful in his arguments against Spengler than the other debaters were. Afterwards, the students did not feel that the question of how to resolve Germany's post-war issues had been answered. Lili Schäfer, one of Weber's sisters, committed suicide on 7 April 1920 after
79222-520: Was referred to as "Qui Qui, Emperor of China " and another, Laura, was known as " Kakadou " or "the Hottentot ". Marx drank heavily after joining the Trier Tavern Club drinking society in the 1830s, and continued to do so until his death. Marx was afflicted by poor health, what he himself described as "the wretchedness of existence", and various authors have sought to describe and explain it. His biographer Werner Blumenberg attributed it to liver and gall problems which Marx had in 1849 and from which he
79508-416: Was sometimes too mistrustful and unjust even to them. His verdicts, not only about enemies but even about friends, were sometimes so harsh that even less sensitive people would take offence ... There must have been few whom he did not criticize like this ... not even Engels was an exception. According to Princeton historian Jerrold Seigel , in his late teens, Marx may have had pneumonia or pleurisy,
79794-440: Was still progressive. However, the departure of Charles Dana from the paper in late 1861 and the resultant change in the editorial board brought about a new editorial policy. No longer was the Tribune to be a strong abolitionist paper dedicated to a complete Union victory. The new editorial board supported an immediate peace between the Union and the Confederacy in the Civil War in the United States with slavery left intact in
80080-449: Was supportive of such activity and having recently received a substantial inheritance from his father (withheld by his uncle Lionel Philips since his father's death in 1838) of either 6,000 or 5,000 francs he allegedly used a third of it to arm Belgian workers who were planning revolutionary action. Although the veracity of these allegations is disputed, the Belgian Ministry of Justice accused Marx of it, subsequently arresting him and he
80366-428: Was the only great power that actually desired the war. He also regarded Germany as not having been culpable for its invasion of Belgium , viewing Belgian neutrality as having obscured an alliance with France . Overall, Weber's political efforts were largely unsuccessful, with the exception of his support for a democratically elected and strong presidency. On 28 January 1919, after his electoral defeat, Weber delivered
80652-664: Was the result of growing economic stability, which allowed for professionalisation and the evolution of an increasingly sophisticated priesthood. As societies grew more complex and encompassed different groups, a hierarchy of gods developed. Meanwhile, as their power became more centralised, the concept of a universal God became more popular and desirable. In The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism , Weber focused on those aspects of Chinese society that were different from those of Western Europe, especially those aspects that contrasted with Puritanism . As part of that, he questioned why capitalism had not developed in China. He focused on
80938-489: Was the widest in the United States. Its editorial ethos was progressive and its anti-slavery stance reflected Greeley's. Marx's first article for the paper, on the British parliamentary elections, was published on 21 August 1852. On 21 March 1857, Dana informed Marx that due to the economic recession only one article a week would be paid for, published or not; the others would be paid for only if published. Marx had sent his articles on Tuesdays and Fridays, but, that October,
81224-448: Was theorized in full by Durkheim, again with respect to observable, structural laws. Functionalism also has an anthropological basis in the work of theorists such as Marcel Mauss , Bronisław Malinowski , and Radcliffe-Brown . It is in the latter's specific usage that the prefix "structural" emerged. Classical functionalist theory is generally united by its tendency towards biological analogy and notions of social evolutionism , in that
81510-485: Was translated into English and published in 1951 in London, but the complete unabridged edition of Theories of Surplus Value was published as the "fourth volume" of Das Kapital in 1963 and 1971 in Moscow. During the last decade of his life, Marx's health declined, and he became incapable of the sustained effort that had characterised his previous work. He did manage to comment substantially on contemporary politics, particularly in Germany and Russia. His Critique of
81796-586: Was usually bad-quality cigars". From 1863, Marx complained a lot about boils: "These are very frequent with liver patients and may be due to the same causes". The abscesses were so bad that Marx could neither sit nor work upright. According to Blumenberg, Marx's irritability is often found in liver patients: The illness emphasised certain traits in his character. He argued cuttingly, his biting satire did not shrink at insults, and his expressions could be rude and cruel. Though in general Marx had blind faith in his closest friends, nevertheless he himself complained that he
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