Max Weber's 'Central Question'

Abstract

Virtually all interpretation of the work of Max Weber rests on the identification of a ‘central interest’ which runs through his works and in terms of which they must be read. In recent years the most frequently-named candidate has been ‘the development of western rationalism’. Like all other candidates however, this notion depends for its credibility on the introduction of an outside hypothesis and the manipulation of well-known passages as evidential support. Here it is accepted that such a ‘central interest’ exists, but it is argued that we must begin by ascertaining what Weber conceived it to be. Primarily through an analysis of the two versions of the Protestant Ethicand Weber's responses to criticism of the original essays, it is demonstrated that this ‘central interest’ is an anthropological one, the ‘development of mankind’, which informs his ‘methodological writings’ as much as his empirical sociology.