Kaesler: Weber - Kaube: Weber

Book Review of: Dirk Kaesler, Max Weber. Preusse, Denker, MuttersohnMünchen: C. H. Beck 2014Hardcover, 1007 pp.ISBN 978-3-406-66075-7Price: € 38 Jürgen Kaube, Max Weber. Ein Leben zwischen den EpochenBerlin: Rowohlt 2014Hardcover, 496 pp.ISBN: 978-3-87134-575-3Price: € 26,9

Kaesler: Weber - Kaube: Weber

Book Review of: Dirk Kaesler, Max Weber. Preusse, Denker, MuttersohnMünchen: C. H. Beck 2014Hardcover, 1007 pp.ISBN 978-3-406-66075-7Price: € 38 Jürgen Kaube, Max Weber. Ein Leben zwischen den EpochenBerlin: Rowohlt 2014Hardcover, 496 pp.ISBN: 978-3-87134-575-3Price: € 26,9

En klassiker - død eller levende?

Hans Henrik Bruun: A Classic – Dead or Alive? What Use is Max Weber today? This article, based on the author’s Inaugural Lecture, discusses two related questions. The first question is how to deal with the great classics of sociology. And the second is to what extent Max Weber – arguably the greatest sociological classic of them all – is still relevant today. As for the study of sociological classics, it is important to keep the original context of their ideas firmly in mind, in order to avoid the dangers of misunderstanding, misattribution and banalization. The analysis of the place in contemporary sociology of Weber’s core methodological concepts of value freedom, objectivity and the ideal type, as well as his Protestantism thesis, concludes that, to a significant extent, they have now fallen prey to one or more of these dangers. On the other hand, Weber’s ideas continue to fascinate because of the exceptional lack of closure of his thought, and, more generally, because his approach reflects, with paradigmatic clarity, the tension between intentionality and necessity inherent in social action. Moreover, Weber’s insistence that scholars be passionate in their pursuit of and respect for truth, however uncomfortable the results of their endeavours, remains a durable ethical legacy to the discipline of sociology

Plant Neighbour Identity Matters to Belowground Interactions under Controlled Conditions

Background: Root competition is an almost ubiquitous feature of plant communities with profound effects on their structure and composition. Far beyond the traditional view that plants interact mainly through resource depletion (exploitation competition), roots are known to be able to interact with their environment using a large variety of mechanisms that may inhibit or enhance access of other roots to the resource or affect plant growth (contest interactions). However, an extensive analysis on how these contest root interactions may affect species interaction abilities is almost lacking. Methodology/Principal Findings: In a common garden experiment with ten perennial plant species we forced pairs of plants of the same or different species to overlap their roots and analyzed how belowground contest interactions affected plant performance, biomass allocation patterns, and competitive abilities under abundant resource supply. Our results showed that net interaction outcome ranged from negative to positive, affecting total plant mass and allocation patterns. A species could be a strong competitor against one species, weaker against another one, and even facilitator to a third species. This leads to sets of species where competitive hierarchies may be clear but also to groups where such rankings are not, suggesting that intransitive root interactions may be crucial for species coexistence. Conclusions/Significance: The outcome of belowground contest interactions is strongly dependent on neighbours