Max Weber and 21st-Century Modern

Abstract

In a rather complicated manner, Max Weber’s writings contain general theoretical reflections that are now incorporated in the canon of sociological theory, in the analyses of social change in the form of historical and comparative sociology, and in reflections on political events, all in the guise of the diagnosis and critique of his own historical age. This article attempts to draw conclusions from the tensions between these aspects in Weber’s work by trying to discover how such a sophisticated combination of cognitive goals is possible today, and what limits it encounters. What the “light of great cultural problems” falls upon, what elements of the past determine the present, and what events are particularly important for understanding of a certain age are questions whose answers must regularly be sought anew. The author relies on the concept of “modernity”, or rather, on the field of interpretation arising around this term. He assumes that the given field is wide enough to better understand our present condition by means of this term. In the meantime, the author believes that for this understanding to be successful, present-day modernity must be appropriately positioned in this field theoretically, historically, and as the diagnosis of our age.