Top 10 surprising facts about Max Weber


 

Maximilian Karl Emil Weber was a German sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economist regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society.

He is best known for his thesis combining economic sociology and the sociology of religion, elaborated in his book “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” in which he proposed that ascetic Protestantism was one of the major “elective affinities” associated with the rise in the Western World of market-driven capitalism and the rational-legal nation-state.

Below, we discuss the top 10 surprising fact about Max Weber,

1. Weber’s troubled childhood

Max Weber and his brothers, 1879 – Wikipedia

Weber was born on 21 April 1864 in Erfurt, Province of Saxony, Prussia to Max Weber Sr. and his wife Helene Fallenstein.

Max Weber was greatly affected by the marital and personality tensions between his father, “a man who enjoyed earthly pleasures” while overlooking religious and philanthropic causes, and his mother, a devout Calvinist “who sought to lead an ascetic life” and held moral absolutist ideas.

In addition, his father also adopted a traditionally authoritarian manner at home and demanded absolute obedience from wife and children.

It is thought that this bleak home environment, marked by conflicts between Weber’s parents, contributed to the inner agonies that haunted Weber in his adult life.

2. The upside of having a father involved in politics

Wilhelm Dilthey, 1983 – Wikipedia

Despite the many shortcomings of his father, Weber Sr.’s involvement in public life gave his children the opportunity to grow up in an intellectually stimulating atmosphere.

Max Weber’s intellectual interests developed at an early age, as his father’s salon welcomed scholars and public figures like philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey and jurist Levin Goldschmidt.

This environment greatly intellectually stimulated Max because for Christmas in 1877, he gifted his parents two historical essays, entitled “About the Course of German history, with Special Reference to the Positions of the Emperor and the Pope”, and “About the Roman Imperial Period from Constantine to the Migration Period”.

It is important to note that he was only thirteen at this time.

3. Troublesome student

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1828 – Wikipeida

Weber received an excellent secondary education in languages, history, and the classics. However, he was bored and unimpressed by his teachers who, in turn, resented what they perceived as a disrespectful attitude.

In the process, Weber secretly read all forty volumes by writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and it has been argued that this was an important influence on his thought and methodology.

Before joining university, he would read many other classical works, including those by philosopher Immanuel Kant.

4. Followed in his father’s footsteps

The main building of the University of Heidelberg, built in 1905 – Wikipedia

Just like his father, Weber Jr. joined the University of Heidelberg in 1882 as a law student. His studies were interrupted by military service, after which he resumed his studies at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin (today’s Humboldt University of Berlin) and then the University of Göttingen.

In 1886, Weber passed the examination for Referendar, comparable to the bar association examination in the British and U.S. legal systems. Throughout the late 1880s, Weber continued his study of law and history.

Later on in 1889 he obtained his doctorate in law. His thesis was on legal history, covering commercial law in the Middle Ages.

5. Is it fair to call him “Mama’s boy”

Max Weber Sr. and his wife Helene – Wikipedia

Despite the tense environment created by his parents’ conflicting interests, Weber spent most of his formative academic years in his childhood home.

After his release from the military, Weber was asked by his father to finish his studies at the University of Berlin so that he could live at home while pursuing scholarship in legal and economic history. From then on, Weber left the family home only for one semester of study at Göttingen in 1885.

It was not until the autumn of 1893 that Weber moved out of his parent’s house, he was 29 at this time, to marry his distant cousin Marianne Schnitger.

The marriage granted long-awaited financial independence to Weber, allowing him to finally leave his parents’ household.

6. Weber’s stand on World War I

World War I mobilization in German, 1 August 1914 – Wikipedia

At the outbreak of World War I, Weber, aged 50, volunteered for service and was appointed as a reserve officer in charge of organizing the army hospitals in Heidelberg, a role he fulfilled until the end of 1915.

At this time, he supported nationalist rhetoric and the war effort, though with some hesitation, viewing the war as a necessity to fulfill German duty as a leading state power.

In time, however, Weber’s views on the war and the expansion of the German Empire changed, and he became one of the most prominent critics of German expansionism and of the Kaiser’s war policies.

7. Weber and politics

Max Weber at a political gathering, 1917 – Wikipedia

In 1912, Weber tried to organize a left-wing political party to combine social-democrats and liberals. This attempt was unsuccessful, in part because many liberals feared social-democratic revolutionary ideals.

Weber would also run, though unsuccessfully, for a parliamentary seat, as a member of the liberal German Democratic Party, which he had co-founded.

In January 1919, after Weber and his party were defeated for election, Weber delivered one of his greatest academic lectures, “Politics as a Vocation” About the nature of politicians, he concluded that, “in nine out of ten cases they are windbags puffed up with hot air about themselves. They are not in touch with reality, and they do not feel the burden they need to shoulder; they just intoxicate themselves with romantic sensations.”

8. What sets Weber apart?

Photograph of Marx taken by John Mayall in 1875 – Wikipedia

Weber is recognized as one of the fathers of sociology, along with Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, and Émile Durkheim.

However, Weber distinguished himself from Durkheim, Marx, and other classical figures, in that (a) his primary focus would be on individuals and culture; and (b) unlike theorists such as Comte and Durkheim, he did not (consciously) attempt to create any specific set of rules governing sociology or the social sciences in general.

Sociology, for Max Weber, is “a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects”.

9. Weber’s mental illness

Max Weber – Wikimedia Commons

Weber grew estranged from his father, as many a time during family arguments he would side with his mother.

In 1897, Weber Sr. died two months after a severe quarrel with his son that was never resolved. After this, Weber became increasingly prone to depression, nervousness and insomnia, making it difficult for him to fulfill his duties as a professor. He spent the summer and autumn of 1900 in a sanatorium.

Weber’s ordeal with mental illness was carefully described in a personal chronology that was destroyed by his wife. This chronicle was supposedly destroyed because Marianne feared that Weber’s work would be discredited by the Nazis if his experience with mental illness were widely known.

10. His wife made sure we never forgot Max Weber

Max Weber and his wife Marianne, 1894 – Wikipedia

On 14 June 1920, Max Weber contracted the Spanish flu and died of pneumonia in Munich.

His wife, Marianne Schnitger, later edited his collected works and write a biography on him. Her biography of him is an important source for understanding Weber’s life.

Planning a trip to Paris ? Get ready !


These are Amazon’s best-selling travel products that you may need for coming to Paris.

Bookstore

  1. The best travel book : Rick Steves – Paris 2023 – Learn more here
  2. Fodor’s Paris 2024 – Learn more here

Travel Gear

  1. Venture Pal Lightweight Backpack – Learn more here
  2. Samsonite Winfield 2 28″ Luggage – Learn more here
  3. Swig Savvy’s Stainless Steel Insulated Water Bottle – Learn more here

Check Amazon’s best-seller list for the most popular travel accessories. We sometimes read this list just to find out what new travel products people are buying.