Richard Swedberg, Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology | Richard Swedberg (éd.), Max Weber, Essays in Economic Sociology

Richard Swedberg

The topic of hope is currently not very much studied in the social sciences; and this means that the emerging discussion of economy and hope, in sociology and elsewhere, may still benefit from a general discussion of hope. This paper points to some useful reflections on hope that can be found in the religious and philosophical literature. It also attempts to summarize what the social sciences h...

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...

The Economic Sociology of Capitalism Weber and Schumpeter

This article points to a distinct puzzle in the analyses of capitalism that can be found in the works of Weber and Schumpeter, and gives a new introduction to their analysis of capitalism. Both Weber and Schumpeter wrote voluminously on capitalism, as testified to by such giant works as Economy and Society (Weber, 1978c [1922]) and Business Cycles (Schumpeter, 1939). One can also discern a dist...

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...