Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait

by Reinhard Bendix, Guenther Roth (Introduction)

The purpose of this book is to make Weber's sociological work more accessible and more thematically coherent than it is either in the original or in translation. This volume is used as an introduction to the study of orignal Weber texts and gives the reader a systematic presentation of Weber's sociological studies.  

Genres: Sociology, History, Philosophy, Biography, Politics, Social Science

578 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

Reviews

[M&A Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

ماکس وبر صاحب نظر معروف آلمانی در زمینه های سیاست، حقوق، فلسفه، اقتصاد، جامعه شناسی و... دارای نظریات قابل تاملی است.
کتاب «سیمای فکری ماکس وبر» نوشته‌ی«راینهارد بندیکس» کتابی بسیار خوش خوان و قابل فهم بود. از مسایل قابل توجه در این کتاب بحث انواع اقتدار(authority)بود که وبر آن را سه نوع می‌داند:
۱.اقتدار سنتی: که باتوجه به اسمش اقتداری می‌باشد که مبتنی بر مقدس دانستن سنت ها و اعتقادات است.
۲. اقتدار کاریزماتیک: اقتداری است که مبتنی بر ویژگی‌ خاصی است که نه مبتنی بر قانون است نه سنت بلکه ویژگی است که برای مردم جاذبه دارد. از نظر وبر جامعه‌ای که اقتدار کاریزماتیک دارد کنش‌هایش بیشتر عاطفی است و این اقتدار موقتی است.
۳.اقتدار قانونی: بر مبنای قواعدی است که مردم پذیرفته‌اند.
بحث عقلانی شدن جهان با استفاده از علم در زندگی، مسائلی که در ارتباط با ادیان در هند و چین و دین یهودیت مطرح شده بود و همچنین مباحث مرتبط با جامعه‌شناسی حقوق و پاسخ به این که چرا در سیاست حقوق‌دانان افراد موفق‌تری هستند به نظرم بسیار جالب بود. هرچند نباید توجه وبر به جامعه‌‌ی آلمان
و نقش اخلاق پروتستانی را نادیده گرفت.

[Breno Coelho · Rating 5 out of 5]

A satisfactory overview of Weber's intelectual pursuits. Recommended for everyone with a intrest in Weber and sociology in general. Beware of a certain conservative "vibe" though.

[Fin Quinlan · Rating 2 out of 5]

So immensely boring. I have not read many author 'introduction' texts before (other than a cursory google) but after earlier this year reading one about Ludwig Wittgenstein I was fascinated. It was easly to read, scanned well, gave a great introduction to his thoughs and philosophy and made you want to read and explore more. THIS DOES NOT DO THIS!

This is awfully written from the first chapter (although it does get better later on) and so immensely boring it has threatened to put me of Weber for life. I was aware of Weber and had read his work on the protestant work ethic ect and expected this to be a look into his life, influences and other works but it was not. It felt like a Sparknotes article that missed the memo about being brief.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to give a shout out to Henri Edward Dongieux who authored the Amazon.com guide to "get to know Weber and Habermas". I want to give my stand disclaimer: I am not a sociologist or a student of sociology, just a general reader with an interest in the history of ideas.
Funny story about this book: I bought Weber's theory of social and economic organization (with the foreword by Talcott Parsons). I don't know what I was thinking there. I read about thirty pages of Parsons introduction to Theory and was like, "forget this."

So then the next day I'm surfing around Amazon trying to figure out how I'm going to figure out Weber and I see the above mentioned list. Well, Henri was right: this book is THE place to start if you're looking to access the ideas of Weber.

One further digression before I actually review the book itself: Weber is hard to access for a couple of reasons: First, all his stuff has been translated from the German. This is compounded by the fact that Weber, despite his highly rigorous thought, was kind of making up terminology as he went and also by the fact that German has tons of words that don't translate well into English.
Second, Weber kind of died before he finished pulling together the various strands of his grand theory together, leaving his work uncomplete.


The book is divided into three Parts. Part One is called "German Society and The Protestant Ethic". Part Two is "Society, Religion, and Secular Ethic: A Comparitive Study of Civilisations" and Part Three is "Domination, Organization, and Legitimacy: Max Weber's Political Sociology". Before Part One, Bendix includes an introduction and a chapter on Weber's "Career and Personal Orientation". That first chapter is most illuminating and serves to ground Weber in place and time.

The first part of the book is divided into two chapters. The first chapter talks about his very interesting early studies of eastern german agarian society and the various german stock exchanges. Bendix refers to these two early studies over and over through out the book. The second chapter of the first part of the book discusses Weber's most popular and well known ideas about the protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Having laid out the touchstones of Weber's work, Bendix moves into part two, which concern Weber's studies of world religion.

Part two deals exclusively with Weber's interest in world religion. Bendix devotes a chapter each to his studies of China, India and Palestine. Bendix notes that it is obvious that Weber's main interest was in the roots of the west that he found in Palestine and so the chapters on China and India are of limited use (except as a guide to what Weber THOUGHT about China and Indian religion. Bendix concludes part two with a chapter summarizing Weber's "sociology of religion".

Part three has a similar structure to part two. Bendix runs off a couple of chapters on charsmatic domination and traditional domination as a means to explicate Weber's theories of "Legal Domination" which represent, perhaps, Weber's main achievment. Again, Bendix points out that Weber's interest in chasmatic domination and traditional domination are really only "foils" for his overriding interest in "legal domination", in the same way that his studies of India and China are foils for his interest in the society of ancient Palestine.

In part three, Bendix also includes a couple of chapters that tie the book together and link the three parts, as well as a further attempt to ground Weber in the thought of his day.