Sociology
Ebrahim Towfigh
Abstract
This article aimed at examining the position of what is often described as Max Weber’s most important work “Economy and Society” in his thought. According to a Parsonian and totalizing reading of Weber, there is a break between an early Weber (a Weber focusing on methodological ...
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This article aimed at examining the position of what is often described as Max Weber’s most important work “Economy and Society” in his thought. According to a Parsonian and totalizing reading of Weber, there is a break between an early Weber (a Weber focusing on methodological reflections on conceptualizing “Historical individual” and “The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism”) and a late Weber (a Weber focusing on “Economy and Society” and “Interpretative Sociology”); this break is based on a transition from historical individuality to sociology as an abstract, typological and universalizing science. In this text, I want to demonstrate that this transition is not a break but a tension-fraught continuity and that Weber’s thought (both early and late Weber) focuses on the different historical-individual formations of “modern capitalism” and “iron cage”. To do so, I will first review the history and structure of “Economy and Society”. Then, the before-mentioned transition will be examined. Then I will deal with the unavoidable tension in Weber’s thought in order to outline a critical and productive dialogue with him.
