Max Weber

From Geography

Max Weber (1864 – 1920) was a German jurist, historian, political economist and best known as one of the leading scholars and founders of modern sociology. At the age of eighteen (1882) he enrolled in the University of Heidelberg as a law student. In 1884 Weber moved to Berlin where he also followed courses in economics and medieval history. In Berlin he earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a doctoral dissertation on legal history. Two years later he completed his Habilitationschrift and became qualified as German professor with a study on the agricultural history of Rome (Radkau, 2009). In his career Max Weber dealt with a wide range of subjects, both theoretical and methodological. This made him a role model for many other social scientists.

Max Weber defined sociology as a science that wants to understand and causally explain social action. This understanding is called verstehen and contents the understanding of human behavior by empathize or interpret their meaning (Swedberg, 2005). Max Weber’s Verstehen emphasizes the importance he ascribed to the concept of meaningful individual action in his theory of society (Campbell, 1981).

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References

- Campbell, T. (1981). Seven Theories of Human Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

- Radkau, J. (2009). Max Weber: A Biography. Cambridge: Polity Press.

- Swedberg, R. (2005). The Max Weber Dictionary. Standford: Standford University Press.

Inge Schoenmakers & Lotte Brouwer