Science, Values and Politics in Max Weber's Methodology by Hans Henrik Bruun

Author:Hans Henrik Bruun [Bruun, Hans Henrik]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781138266872
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2016-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

The origin of the values; the concept of culture

As we did in the account of Rickert’s argument, we can now ask where the scholar is to seek the values to which he relates historical phenomena. The fundamental reason for this question is of course the need for a justification of the value chosen. As we have seen, the demand for such a justification was urgent in Rickert’s case, since the question of the origin of the values was identical with that of their validity, and consequently of the objectivity of the results of historical science.

In Weber’s case, this problem of objectivity and validity is best approached by asking whether the scientific material has a decisive influence on the selection of values.

The answer to this question was already foreshadowed in the discussion of Weber’s attack on objectivism and intuitionism. Obviously, a scholar whose basic premise is that history only has the meaning with which we provide it will find it difficult to accept a view according to which this intrinsically “meaningless” subject-matter has any material influence on the formation of historical concepts. Weber’s work contains a profusion of positive statements to this effect. Thus, he writes in Objectivity: “Again and again, the notion crops up that such perspectives can be ‘derived from the material by itself’; but this is due to a naïve self-deception on the part of the academic specialist …”184 Indeed, as Weber points out, this “naïve” view contains a logical circularity, since it assumes the historical object to be formed – that is, defined – by means of values which are to be taken from the object itself.185

But even though these passages conclusively show that the values cannot initially be found in the historical subject-matter, Weber might still possibly accept the idea of a subsequent control, in the sense that the material, although not invested with a “value initiative”, might, by virtue of its content, prevent certain value relations from being carried out. As mentioned above, this may even be the most accurate rendering of Rickert’s thought. However, Weber explicitly rejects even this moderate version (whose logical structure is admittedly just as circular as that of the extreme one): for instance, he states in Objectivity that it is legitimate to classify an institution as “economic” – i.e., mainly interesting to the scholar in its economic aspect – even where its origin and function give no evidence of deliberate attempts to orientate it according to an economic point of view.186 And in Knies II, Weber is quite explicit:

… [value interpretation] does not mean … interpreting what those who historically participated in the production of the “valued” object subjectively “felt” from their point of view (if the value interpretation has intrinsic value, that kind of [“historical”] knowledge can only serve as a possible aid to improving our “understanding” of the value). Instead, it means interpreting the values that “we” “can” – or possibly: “should” – find in the object.187

Thus, the practical valuations found on the object level may at most

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