Science as a calling and as a profession: The wider setting in Weber’s scholarly endeavor

•The background to ‘Science as a Vocation’ in Max Weber’s own work.•Weber’s rare yet highly perceptive statements on the origins of modern science•What made Weber so outstanding a scholar In his 1917 lecture for Munich students (most often entitled in English translation “Science as a Vocation”), Ma...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Endeavour (New series) 2024-03, Vol.48 (1), p.100914-100914, Article 100914
Main Author: Cohen, H. Floris
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Causality
European ‘Sonderweg’
Humans
Male
Max Weber
Occupations
Rationality
Religion
Rise of modern science
Rise of tonal harmony
Translational Science, Biomedical
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Summary:•The background to ‘Science as a Vocation’ in Max Weber’s own work.•Weber’s rare yet highly perceptive statements on the origins of modern science•What made Weber so outstanding a scholar In his 1917 lecture for Munich students (most often entitled in English translation “Science as a Vocation”), Max Weber addressed numerous issues: not only how “profession” and “calling” are related in science and scholarship, but also Entzauberung (“disenchantment”); rationality and its limits; ultimate values; and the field of tension between science and religion. The present essay locates these themes in Weber’s oeuvre from 1911 onward, and analyses how they resonate and culminate in Weber’s address in 1917. It is in 1911 that he decided to engage with the problem that was to stand central in his thinking until his death in 1920: the nature and causes of certain specific turns in the course of European history which, so he argued, have proven to be of “universal significance.” Special attention is given in the present essay to how Weber dealt in this connection with the rise of modern science and the rise of modern tonal harmony. A concluding section explains what, over a century later, makes reading Weber still so rewarding an experience.
ISSN:0160-9327
1873-1929
DOI:10.1016/j.endeavour.2024.100914