1st Edition
Max Weber, Rationality and Modernity
This book brings together leading figures in history, sociology, political science, feminism and critical theory to interpret, evaluate, criticize and update Weber's legacy. In a collection of specially commissioned pieces and translated articles the Weberian scholarship recognizes Max Weber as the figure central to contemporary debates on the need for societal rationality, the limits of reason and the place of culture and conduct in the supposedly post-religious age.
In Part 1, Wolfgang Mommsen, Wilhelm Hennis, Guenther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter provide a full and varied account of the theme of rationalization in the world civilizations. In Part 2 Pierre Bourdieu and Barry Hindess critically examine Weber's social action model, and Johannes Weiss and Martin Albrow address the putative 'crisis' of Western rationality. In Part 3 Jeffrey Alexander, Ralph Schroeder, Bryan Turner, Roslyn Bologh and Sam Whimster scrutinize Weber's understanding of modernity with its characteristic plurality of 'gods and demons'; they focus on its implications for individuality and personality, the body and sexuality, feminism and aesthetic modernism. Part 4 turns to politics, law and the state in the contemporary world: Colin Gordon on liberalism, Luciano Cavalli on charismatic politics, Stephen Turner and Regis Factor on decisionism and power and Scott Lash on modernism, substantice rationality and law.
This book was first published in 1987.
Introduction Part One: The Processes of Rationalization 1. Personal Conduct and Societal Change 2. Personality and Life Orders: Max Weber's Theme 3. Rationalization in Max Weber's Developmental History 4. Weber's Sociology of Rationalism and Typology of Religious Rejections of the World Part Two: Rationalization and the Limits of Rational Action 5. Legitimation and Structured Interests in Weber's Sociology of Religion 6. Rationality and the Characterization of Modern Society 7. On the Irreversability of Western Rationalization and Max Weber's Alleged Fatalism 8. The Application of the Weberian Concept of Rationalization to Contemporary Conditions Part Three: Problems of Modernity 9. The Dialectic of Individuation and Domination: Weber's Rationalization Theory and Beyond 10. Nietzsche and Weber: Two 'Prophets' of the Modern World 11. The Rationalization of the Body: Reflections on Modernity and Discipline 12. Max Weber on Erotic Love: A Feminist Inquiry 13. The Secular Ethic and the Culture of Modernism Part Four: Reason and Political Order 14. The Soul of the Citizen: Max Weber and Michel Foucault on Rationality of Government 15. Charisma and Twentieth-Century Politics 16. Decisionism and Politics: Weber as Constitutional Theorist 17. Modernity or Modernism? Weber and Contemporary Social Theory
Biography
Sam Whimster, Scott Lash