Max Weber, 1864-1920

1
Max Weber, 1864-1920
2
(No Transcript)
3

• I. Life
• II. contribution
• III. Circumstances of these lectures
• Before and after the end of World War I
• Before Science as a Vocation (What can I know?)
• German meaning of Wissenschaft
• After Politics as a Vocation (What can I do?)
• The idea of vocation

4
Germans students in Berlin on the way to enlist
5
Big Bertha a German 42cm howitzer of the type
used to crush the Belgian fortresses in 1914.
6
Science as a Vocation

• 1. What are the conditions of science as a
  vocation in the material sense of the term What
  are the professional prospects of university
  students?
• GENERAL What does science mean to its devoted
  disciples?
• 2. What does the specialist hope to accomplish by
  his works, which are bound to be superceded?
• 3. What is the practical meaning of progress
  which science and technology have generated?

7

• 4. Does progress have any meaning besides the
  purely practical and technical?
• GENERAL What is the value of science in the
  total life of human kind?
• 5.What is the menaing of science after illusions
  are dispersed?
• 6. Is there such a thing as science free from
  presuppositions?
• 7. Has the contribution of science no meaning at
  all for a person who does not care to know about
  the facts and thinks only of the practical and
  technical?

8

• 8. What does science contribute positively to
  ones personal life?
• 9. What of the warring gods and who are they?
• 10. What stance should one take to
  religion/theology and its claim to be a science
• GENERAL what of the demands of the day?

9
Isaiah 2111-12

• One calleth to me out of Seir, Watchaman, what
  of the night? What of the night? The watchman
  said, Even if the morning cometh, it is still
  night if ye inquire already, ye will come again
  and inquire once more.
• Man ruft zu mir aus Seïr Wächter, ist die Nacht
  bald hin? Wächter, ist die Nacht bald hin?Der
  Wächter aber sprach Wenn auch der Morgen kommt,
  so wird es doch Nacht bleiben. Wenn ihr fragen
  wollt, so kommt wieder und fragt.

10
Germans, Battle of Verdun
German cemetery
11
DULCE ET DECORUM ESTWilfred Owen, 1917

• Bent double, like old beggars under
  sacks,  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we
  cursed through sludge,  Till on the haunting
  flares we turned our backs  And towards our
  distant rest began to trudge.  Men marched
  asleep. Many had lost their boots  But limped
  on, blood-shod. All went lame all blind  Drunk
  with fatigue deaf even to the hoots  Of tired,
  outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
• Gas!  Gas! Quick, boys!   An ecstasy of
  fumbling,  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in
  time  But someone still was yelling out and
  stumbling,  And flound'ring like a man in fire
  or lime . . .  Dim, through the misty panes and
  thick green light,  As under a green sea, I saw
  him drowning.  In all my dreams, before my
  helpless sight,  He plunges at me, guttering,
   choking, drowning. 
• If in some smothering dreams you too could
  pace  Behind the wagon that we flung him
  in,  And watch the white eyes writhing in his
  face,  His hanging face, like a devil's sick of
  sin  If you could hear, at every jolt, the
  blood  Come gargling from the froth-corrupted
  lungs,  Obscene as cancer, bitter as the
  cud  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent
  tongues,  My friend, you would not tell with
  such high zest  To children ardent for some
  desperate glory,  The old Lie Dulce et Decorum
  est  Pro patria mori.

12
Politics as a Vocation

• I. circumstances
• II. stance to the audience
• III. What do we mean by politics?
• What is a state
• When and why do the ruled obey the rulers
• Custom
• Charisma
• Rational legal
• How do the ruling powers aassert their own
  domination
• Legitimacy
• Ruling apparatus

13

• What does the full time politician look like
• Lives for
• Lives off
• Development of need for organization
• Bureaucracy
• Officials vs leaders
• Different form of responsibility
• Dangers of journalism

14

• What is the effect of the parliamentary system
• UK
• USA how are leaders selected
• What is the effect of parties on the spoils
  system
• Tendency towards plebiscitarianism
• What is the boss
• Development of professionalism
• What can one achieve with Parliament in Germany?
• What is the fate of professional politicians in
  Germany
• Bismarck and consequences

15

• What are the inner pleasure and personal
  qualification sof a political careeer
• Power
• What qualities should one have to exercise this
• What is the ethical location of poltiics in out
  life?
• Danger from the way
• What is the true relation of politics and ethics

16

• What principles govern the conduct of our life
• Nature of absolutist ethics if they are to amount
  to anything
• Ethics of conviction and ehtics of responsibliity
• Satanic powers
• Lutheran stance
• What will become of us spiritually in the present
  age?

17

• SONNET 102
• My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in
  seeming
• I love not less, though less the show appear
• That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming
• The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
• Our love was new and then but in the spring
• When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
• As Philomel in summer's front doth sing
• And stops her pipe in growth of riper days
• Not that the summer is less pleasant now
• Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
• But that wild music burthens every bough
• And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
• Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue,
• Because I would not dull you with my song.