Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy.
Amsterdam 1994 Dissertation University of Amsterdam. Chapter 1. Max Weber's universalist
sociology of bureaucracy: the contradiction between public rationalism and private masculinism
14
separation of public and private life is conceptualized as a norm; to produce objective
science, social scientists should deny personal values in their scientific work, as far as this is
humanly possible.
24
In Weber's time German bourgeois social theory was dominated by a new interpretation of
Kant's philosophical separation of a rational and a moral sphere; this interpretation
emphasized the difference in character of the natural and the cultural sciences and the
ensuing necessity of formulating a special methodology for the latter ones. Weber shared
the neo-Kantian view on the 'irrationality of history'
25
; history, according to him, could not be
interpreted as 'evolution', 'progress',
26
or a succession of 'stages of development'; he
repeatedly warned against the latter view, referring in particular to marxism.
27
On the other
hand he disagreed with the conclusion drawn by the other neo-Kantians that the formulation
of social laws is impossible because of the uniqueness of human experience, which can only
be described by way of 'Einfühlung' - as it were artistically; he viewed the ideas of the
'historical school' of economics, which postulated the existence of an unique 'Volksgeist'
from which all cultural phenomena 'emanated' and which was therefore not accessible to
rational analysis, as a ridiculous superstition.
28
Therefore he had to find a middle way
between the reification of collectivities by historical materialism on the one hand and the
irrationality of idealism on the other:
29
to find a method of his own, on which a rational,
objective social science could be based.
The most important building stones for Weber's method are the concepts of 'the individual',
'adequate causation' and 'chance'.
'The acting individual' is the starting point of Weber's sociology. The object of social science
is 'social action' ('Soziales Handlen') of individuals: action 'insofar as its subjective meaning
takes account of the *conduct of others and is thereby oriented in its course'
30
. Weber does
not ask the question whether the abstract 'individual', whose action orientations are studied
by sociology, has always existed. He defends his methodological individualism only on
sphere, at its heart the life of the family and the moral inspiration of women.'
24
See Marianne Weber (1950), p. 731, (1974), p. 678: 'One day, when Weber was asked what his scholarship
meant to him, he replied: "I want to see how much I can stand." What did he mean by that ? Perhaps that he
regarded it as his task to endure the a n t i n o m i e s of existence and, further, to exert to the utmost his freedom
from illusions and yet to keep his ideals inviolate and preserve his ability to devote himself to them.'
25
See for instance MSS p. 78, GAzW p. 177 ('chaos'), p. 81 resp. p. 180 ('the meaningless infinity of the world
process'; see on different interpretations of what Weber meant by this 'irrationality' Weiß (1981) p. 37. He himself
refers to 'the implications of the fundamental ideas of modern epistemology which ultimately derives from Kant;
namely, that concepts are primarily analytical instruments for the intellectual mastery of empirical data and can
be only that', MSS p. 106, GAzW p. 208.
26
See for instance MSS p. 27 ff., GAzW p. 518 ff.
27
According to him the use of ideal-types of developments, 'though of great heuristic value', involves a risk of
identifying ideal-type and reality, see MSS p. 101, GAzW p. 203. See on the conceptualization of 'development'
MSS p. 102, GAzW p. 204; on the influence of 'naturalistic monism' MSS p. 86/7, GAzW p. 186/7; on 'marxian
"laws" and developmental constructs' MSS p. 103, GAzW p. 204/5. See for an excellent summary of the Marx-
Weber discussion before Marx was treated as a dead horse, Mommsen (1974) Ch. I.
28
GAzW p. 1 ff. (9/10); cf. also ES p. 754, WuG p. 442.
29
See Albrow (1990), p. 107.
30
ES p. 4, WG p. 1. I have followed the translation of 'Verhalten' by 'conduct' - instead of 'behavior' - given by the
Rheinstein group (Ch. VIII of ES).
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