Beruf, rationality and emotion in Max Weber's sociology

Abstract

The concept of Beruf, variously translated as ‘calling’ or ‘vocation’, refers to the pracdce of systematic self-control in pursuing constant goals or purposes, which Weber, in The Protestant Etbic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), found in both Calvinist religious practice and capitalistic entrepreneurship and labour. But the term is not confined to these applications; it is also central in Science as a Vocation (1917) and Politics as a Vocation (1919). The general significance of the idea of Berufis that it accounts for the mechanisms required to realize in action the quality of rationality, another of Weber's characteristic terms. The connection between rational activity and calling is constant in Weber's discussion. In his early statement of the argument, however, practices of Beruf achieve rationality through the suppression of emotion. In his later discussion, Beruf is achieved through and expresses passion and emotions.