The Rise of Western Rationalism: Max Weber's Developmental History [Paperback]

Wolfgang Schluchter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 7, 1985

Western rationalism-nature, of course, and genesis-was Max Weber's dominant historical interest. It was the grand theme of his two world historical studies, Economy and Society and The Economic Ethics of the World Religions. His studies of the relationships among economy, polity, law, and religion are lasting scholarly achievements. In this book Wolfgang Schluchter presents the most systematic analysis and elaboration ever attempted of Weber's sociology as a developmental history of the West.

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Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (November 7, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520054644
• ISBN-13: 978-0520054646
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,680,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars scholarly moral analysis, December 10, 2011

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Rise of Western Rationalism: Max Weber's Developmental History (Paperback)

This is the worst possible time to be writing a review. It is cold and dark. I have not finished reading the book, and the part of this book with the most to say about Martin Luther Stonehood, Chapter VI, The Role of the Reformation in the Transition to Modernity, is at the end of the book. Before I forget, though, something about Kant was typical of those who think about morality by checking the past intellectual tools for rules mules instead of worrying about the future:

for in Kant the formalism of reason
reaches its apex. This leads to the
"cool matter-of factness" of an ethic,
which not only coordinates morality
and legality "reasonably," but also
settles the conflict between duties in
a reasonable way. According to Kant,
legislation must not contradict the
inner moral law nor is it possible
that two contradictory rules . . . (p.55).

The common cosmic pogo stick experience of everything hopping back and forth between schismatic extremes become undercurrents in Wolfgang Schluchter's book, The Rise of Western Rationalism/Max Weber's Developmental History (1979, 1981, 1985), as it describes:

But in Weber's view this undercurrent became a main current at the latest with the rise of socialism. (p. 55).

Schluchter likes Weber because:

He is also interested
in the conditions under
which an integrated
moral personality
comes into being
and under what conditions
this leads to world mastery. (p. 62).

Robert Bellah is quoted for saying of Kant:

". . . by indicating that it is
not so much a question of
two worlds as it is of as many
worlds as there are modes of
apprehending them, he placed
the whole religious problem
in a new light." (p. 62).

. . . with Kant the basis of
evaluation becomes reflexive,
even though he retains the
monologic quality of the ethic
of Protestantism. This is the reason
for the revolutionary role of the
Kantian ethic, making it a precursor
of a dialogical ethic of responsibility. (p. 64).

Some of the basic building blocks like kinship and religion considered by Weber as providing stability for certain individuals or an in-group were already suspect when the Apostle Paul wrote:

In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free.

Times of prolonged warfare contributed to the trial of Socrates in Athens and the punishment of hemlock. Corruption of youth is easy to imagine when society begins to hate its old men enough to get rid of those who are famous for engaging in discussions like a song by Bob Dylan:

She talks to all the servants
about man and god and law.
Everybody says she's the brains
behind Pa. ("Maggie's Farm").

The electronic flow of music, ideas, and financial transactions can fill private lives with enough activity that only irony is likely to be produced by literary life. Weber suspected some reasons for the decline of household importance in Western modernity:

Today the individual
"can no longer regard
the household as the bearer
of those objective cultural
values in whose service he
places himself, and the decrease
in the size of the household is not due
to any increase of `subjectivism,' understood
as a `stage' of social psychological
development, but to the objective conditions." (p. 76).

The kind of anarchy in which "household and patriarchal authority remain stable" (p. 76) is not what I would show in a video review if I were to use this book like a cosmic pogo stick bouncing around in the shambles that decorate my walls until I came to a poem I wrote that starts with:

Who could be so highly pissed . . .?