Muñoz, Braulio

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 Swarthmore CollegeWorks   Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Works   7-1-1989  Review Of "Max Weber: Essays In Reconstruction" By W. Hennis And Translated By K. Tribe  Braulio Muñoz Swarthmore College, bmunoz1@swarthmore.edu   Let us know how access to this work benefits you.  Follow this and additional works at: http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-soc-anth   Part of the Sociology Commons   Recommended Citation Braulio Muñoz. (1989). "Review Of "Max Weber: Essays In Reconstruction" By W. Hennis And Translated By K. Tribe". American Journal Of Sociology. Volume 95, Issue 1. 262-263. http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-soc-anth/43  This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Swarthmore College Libraries. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction. by Wilhelm Hennis; Keith TribeReview by: Braulio MunozAmerican Journal of Sociology, Vol. 95, No. 1 (Jul., 1989), pp. 262-263Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2780453 .Accessed: 19/11/2014 15:53 .Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspJSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. .The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toAmerican Journal of Sociology.http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Wed, 19 Nov 2014 15:53:39 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsThis content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Wed, 19 Nov 2014 15:53:39 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsMax Weber: Essays in Reconstruction. By Wilhelm Hennis. Translated by Keith Tribe. London: Allen & Unwin, 1988. Pp. 254. $39.95. American Journal of Sociology Braulio Munoz Swarthmore College Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction consists of five separate essays related by a central question: How is Max Weber to be read today? The volume shows the strengths and weaknesses of most collections of essays published as a book. On the one hand, the kinds of issues Wilhelm Hennis addresses and the style of his writing-the Nietzschean turns of phrase, the sense of play, the pregnant statements given full reign-fit rather nicely within the confined parameters of the essay form. On the other, the narrative often moves in cryptic circles, relying heavily on the reader's erudite knowledge of 19th-century social philosophy in general and social theory in particular. Consequently, the essays appear to be aimed at a small circle of academics whose main business is to be subtle about matters concerning Weberian scholarship. And yet Hennis argues that there are fundamental reasons why the proper understanding of Max Weber's life and work should be important to all those concerned with modern social theory and research. The proper understanding of Weber's lifetime work, he argues, would have the effect of making us "aware of the questions that we no longer pose, and thereby provide an impulse for the posing of new questions" (p. 104). To appreciate Hennis's effort, it is necessary to follow the thrust of some of his specific claims. Because of space constraints, I shall note only three such claims. One of the most controversial claims Hennis wishes to make is that sociologists have smothered Weber's vision by appropriating him as the founder of sociology. From Reinhard Bendix to Talcott Parsons, sociolo-gists have presented Weber as the founder of a science that tries to shake free from grounding values and from the great Western conversation concerning the "good life" and the "good society." Rather than being a man preoccupied with founding sociology, Hennis argues, Max Weber was at home with the moral science of Karl Knies (economics) or with the moral teachings of Nietzsche. Insofar as Weber approached the study of society scientifically, he should be seen as a political theorist in the tradi-tion of Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Tocqueville. In his rush to rescue Weber from the clutches of sociologists, Hennis does not ask himself why Weber would be seen as the founder of sociol-ogy. Surely, sociologists have claimed other founding fathers. Nonethe-less, Hennis has made an important point. Many sociologists today do pretend to see their work as taking place within the "objective" parame-ters of science. It is a sad commentary on the state of sociology that its initial grounding values-given in the work of Weber to be sure, but also in those of Marx, Durkheim, and Freud-are no longer seen as constitu-tive of its practice. 262 This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Wed, 19 Nov 2014 15:53:39 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsThe Causes of Progress: Culture, Authority and Change. By Emmanuel Todd. Translated by Richard Boulind. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Pp. xv+217. $34.95. Harvey J. Graff University of Texas at Dallas The Causes of Progress is a bold little book. Its author, Emmanuel Todd, declares that it is "one step on the way towards a new interpretation of historical change," in its emphasis on the role of "stable anthropological factors" in the "modernization process" (p. xiii). For Todd, it is family structures that, in their influence on ideology and now on cultural devel-263 A second point Hennis is intent on making is that, contrary to the claims of such scholars as Friedrich Tembruck and Reinhard Bendix, Weber's central question was never "What is the meaning of rationality?" Rather, Weber's guiding question was connected with the development of humanity (M enschentum), with "the fate of man as man" (p. 46). To appreciate properly the "inner sense" of Weber's work, argues Hennis, one has to be prepared to reconstruct Weber's vision from the scattered available pieces; one has to be prepared to grasp Weber's unconscious motivations (p. 65). Above all, one must avoid the artificial division, so current today, between the young and the old Weber. Weber's youthful report on the Polish peasants, for example, must be seen as deeply con-nected with his late work on the "life spheres," where the disenchantment of the Western world is displayed with courage and daring. Hennis shows a disciplined command of the materials at hand to make his case. His training as a lawyer (he betrays a sense of pride in noting that Weber, too, was trained in the law) serves him well. But there is an important and unexplored contradiction in this reading of Weber's work. How could Weber be fundamentally concerned with the fate of human-kind while holding on to the nation as the only pole on which modern man could center his nihilistic existence? Finally, Hennis claims that contrary to much recent talk, even by such subtle critics as Leo Strauss and Robert Eden, Weber cannot be consid-ered either an old or a modern liberal. Weber never believed in the liberal theory of progress; he never held on to the liberal idea that an increasing harmony of individual interests will eventually produce happiness; he never believed that mechanisms of checks and balances will preserve, much less produce, freedom. At most, argues Hennis, Weber might be seen as holding forth a "liberal voluntarism" (p. 186), where the Nietz-schean contempt for those last men who invented happiness would be kept at the level of consciousness. More than anything else, he argues, Weber's work must be seen as exemplifying the "logic of judgement," that knack for gathering disparate facts into a vision even, or precisely, when the facts point to a reality that is falling apart. Book Reviews 

Review Of  Max Weber: Essays In Reconstruction  By W. Hennis And Translated By K. Tribe

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Review Of Max Weber: Essays In Reconstruction By W. Hennis And Translated By K. Tribe

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