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Maximilian Karl Emil "Max" Weber (German: [ˈmaks ˈveːbɐ]; 21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, socialresearch, and the discipline of sociology itself.[1] Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as one of the three founding architects of sociology.[2][3][4]
Weber was a keyproponent of methodological antipositivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive (rather than purely empiricist) means, based on understanding the purpose and meaning that individualsattach to their own actions. Weber's main intellectual concern was understanding the processes of rationalisation, secularization, and "disenchantment" that he associated with the rise of capitalismand modernity[5] and which he saw as the result of a new way of thinking about the world.[6] Weber is perhaps best known for his thesis combining economic sociology and the sociology of religion,elaborated in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he proposed that ascetic Protestantism was one of the major "elective affinities" associated with the rise in theWestern world of market-driven capitalism and the rational-legal nation-state. Against Marx's "historical materialism," Weber emphasised the importance of cultural influences embedded in religion as ameans for understanding the genesis of capitalism.[7] The Protestant Ethic formed the earliest part in Weber's broader investigations into world religion: he would go on to examine the religions ofChina, the religions of India and ancient Judaism, with particular regard to the apparent non-development of capitalism in the corresponding societies, as well as to their differing forms of socialstratification.[a]
In another major work, Politics as a Vocation, Weber defined the state as an entity which successfully claims a "monopoly on the legitimate use of violence". He was also the first to...