Max Weber Never Was Mainstream—But Who Made Him a Classic of Sociology?

From Max Weber to Public Sociology

Growing up in a political as well as an intellectual environment, Max Weber not only sought to comprehend the world but also to change it. Arguably, he took Karl Marx’s 11th. Thesis on Feuerbach that “philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it,” far more seriously than its author. Marx, after all, did not reflect, in any systematic fashion...

Max Weber and Jürgen Habermas: The Sociology and Philosophy of Law During Crises of the State

The classical theories of sociology, that is, of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, were both m

The classical theories of sociology, that is, of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, were both monumental and flawed. Their main weakness lies in the weaknesses inherent in sociology: it is vague, unscientific, and reductive. [Hmmmm. Would you want to shout this out in Social Science? on what grounds do you make such charges?] However, although their analyses of religion built from this flawed social...

Max Weber Programme

Authors like Francis Fukuyama or Robert Putnam claim that modern societies suffer from a decline of trust. On the other hand political scientists like Margaret Levi or Susan Stokes and sociologists like Karen Cook contend that as nice as trust might be, we can easily do without it. Especially in political life, distrust, vigilance and scepticism seem to be healthier and more fruitful than trust...

Was It a Classic Gamma - Ray Burst ?

The March 5th, 1979 gamma-ray transient has long been thought to be fundamentally di erent from the classic gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). It had recurrences, pulsations, and a soft spectral component unlike classic GRBs. With the exception of the soft component reported from the Konus experiment, the unusual characteristics of March 5th were detectable primarily because it was extremely bright. Comp...