© F. Enke Verlag Stuttgart Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jg. 3, Heft 3, Juni 1974, S. 3 1 2 -3 2 0
Max Weber and the Sociology of Science: A Case Reopened*
Friedrich H. Tenbruck
Universität Tübingen, Seminar für Soziologie
Max Weber und die Wissenschaftssoziologie: Zur Wiederaufnahme der Diskussion*
In h alt: Für die Entwicklung der Soziologie der Wissenschaft sind die Arbeiten R.K. MERTONS grundlegend gewesen. Das gilt auch für seine frühe Untersuchung über Science, Technology and Society in Seventeeth-Century England, die er als die Ausführung eines Programms vorlegte, welches MAX WEBER am Ende der Protestanti
schen Ethik entwickelt hatte. Obschon MERTONS Untersuchung eine bleibende Leistung darstellt, entspricht sie nicht den Absichten MAX WEBERS. Dieser hat die Problematik der Entstehung der modernen Wissenschaft duchaus anders gesehen und später auch wesentliche Ansätze für eine recht andere Soziologie der Wissenschaft skizziert. Das ist bisher u.a. wegen der verbreiteten Annahme übersehen worden, WEBER habe sein ursprüngliches Programm aufgegeben. Wie sich bei genauer Lektüre herausstellt, ist das Gegenteil richtig, womit das Werk MAX WEBERS in ein anderes Licht rückt.
WEBERS Ansatz schließt der Soziologie der Wissenschaft eine ganze Dimension auf, die bisher übersehen worden ist, für ein Verständnis der geschichtlichen Entwicklung der Wissenschaft und ihrer heutigen Problematik jedoch unentbehrlich ist. Im Rahmen dieses Artikels war es nicht möglich, WEBERS Konzept und dessen Implikationen auszubreiten, so daß ich vorläufig auf die summarische Darstellung in meinem Aufsatz “ ‘Science as a Vocation’
- Revisited” verweisen muß, der in Standorte im Zeitstrom. Festschrift für Arnold Gehlen, hersg. von E. FORST
HOFF und R. HÖRSTEL, Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt 1974, erschienen ist. Auch die Konsequenzen für die WEBER-Forschung konnte ich hier nur andeuten. Ich werde auf beide zurückkommen.
A b stra ct: The works o f ROBERT K. MERTON have formed the basis for the development o f the sociology o f science. This is also true for his early research on Science, Technology and Society in Seventeeth Century Eng
land, which he presented as the com pletion o f a program, that MAX WEBER had developed at the end o f The Protestant Ethic. Although MERTON’s research is an enduring accomplishment, it does not correspond to the intentions o f MAX WEBER. WEBER saw the problematic o f the foundation o f modern science quite differently and later sketched out the essential beginnings for a different sociology o f science. This fact has been overlooked until now because, at least in part, o f the widespread assumption that WEBER had abandoned his original pro
gram. However, with a closer examination o f the literuature this assumption proves to be the exact opposite o f the truth, thus placing WEBER’s work in a different light.
WEBER’s beginning opened a new dimension in the sociology o f science which is essential for an understanding o f the historical development o f science and its present problematic. Unfortunately, within the confines o f this article it is not possible to expand upon WEBER’s concept and its implications; for a general elaboration o f these points I must refer the reader to may article “ ‘Science as a Vocation’ -- Revisited” which appeared in Standorte im Zeitstrom, Festschrift für ARNOLD GEHLEN, edited by E. FORSTHOFF and R. HÖRSTEL, Athenäum Ver
lag, Frankfurt 1974. I will return to this topic and its consequences for WEBER research at a later date.
As anyone familiar with the field knows, the sociology of science traces its ancestry back to
MAX WEBER, among other forerunners and stimulators. MAX WEBER owes this customary tribute almost exclusively to R.K. MERTON’s
now classic study on Science, Technology and Society in 1 7th century England, which, as
BERNARD BARBER put it, “follows up WEBER’s
lead” 1. Of this we now have the vivid remi
niscence of MERTON in the new preface to the re-edition of 1970 where he writes: “In the course of reading the letters, diaries, memoires and papers of seventeenth century men of
* This article has been written in English by sugges
tion o f the editors o f this journal.
1 BARBER (1970: 56).
science, the author slowly noted the frequent religious commitments of scientists in this time, and even more, what seemed to be their Puritan orientation. Only then, and almost as though he had not been put through his paces during the course of gradulate study, was he belatedly put in mind of that intellectual tra
dition, established by MAX WEBER, TROELTSCH, TAWNEY and others, which centered on the interaction between the Protestant ethic and the emergence of modern capitalism. Swiftly making amends for this temporary amnesia, the author turned to a line-by-line reading of WEBER’s
work to see whether he has anything at all to say about the relation of Puritanism to science and technology. Of course, he had. It turns out that WEBER concluded his classic essay by describing one of the ‘next tasks’ as that of
F. H. Tenbruck: Max Weber and the Sociology of Science: A Case Reopened 313 searching out ‘the significance of ascetic ratio
nalism, which has only been touched in the foregoing sketch, for a variety of cultural and social developments,’ among them ‘the develop
ment of philosophical and scientific empiricism . .. technical development and .. . spiritual ideas’. Once identified, WEBER’s recommenda
tion became a mandate”2.
Did MERTON carry out the mandate? Can his dissertation serve us, as it were, as a substitute for “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Science” which in 1905 MAX WEBER had been contemplating to write as a sequel to The Pro
testant Ethic and the Spirit o f Capitalism?
The question has never been raised, and once it is, it seems likely to remain a moot point forever considering that WEBER abandoned the task which he had set for himself in behalf of the comparative study of world religions3.
Both certainly are agreed that the Protestant ethic, again in BARBER’s words, “was an especially favorable version of Christian attitu
des toward the world for the development of science”4. Yet such a wide fold leaves ample room for marked differences, and I must readily confess to serious doubts in this respect.
MERTON’s dissertation was, and will remain a brilliant study into the configuration of spiritual and material motivations which gave rise to science in 17th century England. What regards the spiritual theme, he had stated it quite strong
ly. “In various ways, then, the general religious ideas were translated into concrete policy. This was no more intellectual exercise. Puritanism transfused ascetic vigor into activities which, in their own right, could not as yet achieve self- sufficiency” 5. And he carried it out with great insight and deft dexterity. There is nothing in his book which could not have been written by
2 MERTON (1970: XVII).
3 WEBER (1958: 284 [n. 119]/1947: 205 [Anm. l].
- For references to The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit o f Capitalism I have used TALCOTT PAR
SONS’ translation (WEBER 1958). All references to this English edition are followed by entries in
dicating the corresponding page o f the German text in WEBER (1947).
4 BARBER (1970: 57).
5 MERTON (1970: 86).
WEBER himself. And yet there is something mis
sing which one might expect WEBER to have added.
This difference is firstly a matter of dimension.
MERTON carried out a historical study. For him, Puritanism had briefly played its role as a tem
porary prop for a science which had rapidly gained self-sufficiency, and so the books on Pu
ritanism and science could be closed because whatever the problems inherent in that relation may have been, they did not extend into the age of institutionalized science. Of course, a mind of MERTON’s calibre could readly recognize a general lesson for a systematic sociology of science in a historical case: for its social legit
imacy science remained dependent on favorable cultural norms. This made him aware that
“changing social circumstances invited differing strategy and tactics for maintaining legitimacy and enlisting support”6 and so he sought to identify these problems under changing social circumstances: in the thirties the totali
tarian threat to science, in the sixties “the changing visible social consequences of science”
and “the pressing claims for the social utility of science”7. However, he could not see how these problems of modern institutionalized science could bear a resemblance to the situa
tion in the 17th century or could have their roots in that fusion of spiritual and material values which occurred under the reign of Puri
tanism. MERTON’s dissertation is, then, a study in the historical sociology of science. Its rele
vance for our own situation could only be mediate: from a historical case might be derived general theorems for a systematic sociology of science which could perhaps be reapplied to advantage for an understanding of our quite different situation.
WEBER’s entire oeuvre may also rightly be con
sidered one extended historical study. Yet no one will grasp it, or any part thereof, who has not come to see the point in BENDIX’s able remark: “ WEBER was preoccupied throughout his career with the development of rationalism in Western civilisation. His lifetime study of this development revealed not only the complexity
6 MERTON (1970: XXII).
7 MERTON (1970: XXII).
314 Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jg. 3, Heft 3, Juni 1974, S. 3 1 2 -3 2 0 of its antecedents, but the precariousness of its
achievements”8. Puritanism for WEBER was a matter of the past, and without a doubt quite dead. Yet it mattered terribly for our present
to see that it was so although it had once trans
fused its lifeblood into the rise of capitalism by imparting an inner meaning to a type of econo
mic behavior, and generally to a specific kind of disciplined conduct which could not have been legitimated on strictly economic or purely rational grounds.
To see the predicament of our age, one had to realize that the spirit of ascetic Protestantism had once shaped and animated the budding ra
tional structures of our modern world, to flee from them as they grew into the organized machinery of modern life. WEBER showed us the Puritan who “wanted to work in a calling”
in order to make us realize that now “we are forced to do so”9. And to realize this mattered very much since it saved us from facilely accept
ing our rational institutions as a matter of course.
To understand our own time, one had to pierce the given reality and its immediacy; one had to probe beyond the manifest rationales of our institutions; one had to grasp the “disenchant
ment” of the world in which we live. And all this could be best brought out against the back
drop of the inner meaning which Puritanism had lent to early capitalism. It is against this back
drop that we can come to see the machinery in which, and by which, we live for what it seems to be, an “iron cage” as WEBER keeps remind
ing us. And this reminder leaves (and is meant to leave) us in doubt about the future of man and the heritage of our civilisation.
This being the point to which every work of
WEBER conduces in the end, why should he have deviated from it in an account of the role of ascetic Protestantism for the rise of science?
Why should he not have surprised us with a si
mile of an “iron cage of science” ? Why should
“The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Science”, as it were, not have amazed us by demonstrating why and how Puritans were driven onto the path of science from an inner compulsion and were searching for knowledge with which to
8 BENDIX (1960: 33).
9 WEBER (1958: 181/1947: 203).
answer those questions which arose from their uncertainty and predicament? Why should he not have shown us that science had had deeper layers of motivation and meaning than we can bring to it in a scientific civilization where science becomes a matter of course and routine?
Why should he not have made us apprehensive of a science which through its institutionalized stability and triumph must grind on regardless of what intrinsic meanings and values are invol
ved in the search for knowledge? But MERTON’s
study is wholly devoid of any such considerations and entertains no second thought about the in
stitutionalization of science. Puritanism was for him a fleeting prop which helped science gain early self-sufficiency, and this self-sufficiency of science presents no problems whereas for WEBER
the self-sufficiency which capitalism eventually gained through its institutionalization presented the very predicament of our modern situation, and thus the secret object of his study.
The difference in dimension asserts itself in the details. MERTON offers an exquisite exposition of the general importance of Puritan religion, but concerning science, his specific arguments tend to cast Puritanism in a merely supporta- tive and legitimizing role. Above all, his thesis typifies the general lesson which he derived from it: science depends for its social legitima
tion on favorable cultural norms. For a brief spell Puritanism provided positive sanctions for science firstly by making utility a legitimate purpose, and secondly by considering the study of nature as a way for the glorification of God.
MERTON stresses utility throughout and even where he speaks of the glorification of God, he hardly seems to reach down into that depth where WEBER had made us see the Puritan as bking driven into ascetic rationalism and metho
dical conduct.
At least he does not show us how science could rise out of that depth. Being fully able, of course, to look into that depth, he fails to recognize its significance for the rise of science. When he sets forth the problem of certitudo salutis, he talks of the Puritan’s anxiety concerning his spiritual grace and of the impossiblilty of continuing the routine of daily life in the face of such uncertain
ty 10, he speaks of ascetic compulsion for which 10 MERTON (1970: 62).
F. H. Tenbruck: Max Weber and the Sociology of Science: A Case Reopened 315 compromise with the world had become into
lerable11. But he treats of this as an isolated com
plex, rather, and never truly links it up with the rise of science. Where he succeeds in recreating for us the WEBERian image of the Puritan who finds in methodical and rational conduct relief from the despair of his total isolation and inner uncertainty vis-a-vis CALVlN’s God, he has lost sight of science. When the Puritans began so persistently to search for knowledge, they were displaying another kind of that active interest in the world which was so characteristic of their religion, rather than seeking in scientific know
ledge answers to questions arising from their inner uncertainty. And the only specific rela
tionship binding the quest for rational know
ledge to the Puritan religion, viz the theme of the glorification of God, neither refers to the inner predicament of the Puritan, nor is it spe
cific to science.
MERTON takes the religious ideas and proclama
tions of his actors serious, indeed, and he is fully capable of pointing out the inner anxiety of the Puritan, but as men of science they all remain rather serene and contented persons who could well have accepted the rationale of science on its own grounds. For MERTON, the bridge leading from the inner despair of the Puritan to science is supported by the pillars of utili
tarian motives and the compulsion to conquer the world. Thus, the peculiar flavor of WEBER’s
thesis with its continuous emphasis on asceticism and calling is missing once MERTON goes beyond the exposition of Puritanism and probes into its significance for the rise of science. What there remains is but the stress on hard labor, worldly success, and the glorification of God, the latter very soon to be superseded by utili
tarian considerations, too. Although MERTON
has given an excellent exposition of the predi
cament of the Puritan as WEBER had developed it, it remains of little consequence for the ex
planation of the rise of science inasmuch as
WEBER’s perspective has become subordinate to the general idea of “support by favorable cultur
al norms”. Man’s anxiety is part of the Puritan syndrome, but it does not directly and specific
ally enter into the rise of science.
11 MERTON (1970: 99).
And here we come to the bottom of it. The essential argument of WEBER was not that ca
pitalism drew support from Puritanism nor that the latter legitimated wordly behaviours which had been frowned upon by medieval religion.
The rational discipline of life from which capi
talism sprang was not just helped along by re
ligious sanctions, it was rather created by them.
Its rationalism was not merely supported by irrational elements, it was irrational in itself because incessant work, discipline, and dedica
tion with no regard to tangible gratifications cannot be logically derived from any ends which naturally come to men. The continuing allure of The Protestant Ethic lies in this very discovery which comes to every new generation as an eye- opener. The spirit of a “rational” conduct of life, and thus of capitalism, was born from an
“irrational” dedication to one’s calling reflecting an inner uncertainty and anxiety of man.
Although knowing all this, MERTON hardly drew inspiration from it for his account of the role which Puritanism played for the rise of science.
Aware of the substantive role which Puritanism played in forging that methodical discipline from which capitalism eventually grew, he did not duplicate it in his study of the rise of science. In this regard, Puritanism has shrunk to a merely supportive and external element, a “sanctioning power” 12.
In sum: in MERTON’s study the relation between Protestantism and science is rather distant when compared with what WEBER described as the transfiguration of Puritanism into capitalism, and where WEBER focussed on the “irrational”
core of capitalim, MERTON seems content to accept the self-legitimation of science as fully convincing. Given requisite preconditions, the rise of science does not strike him as something extraordinary, it is most natural thing to expect, rather. And so throughout the study he stressed that religion played a very brief and merely supportive role for science. No wonder then that in his new preface he complains of the lively attention which his exposition of religious support had gained when he had actually wanted to stress the material-technological motivations whic& latingly gave rise to science.
12 MERTON (1970: 104).
316 Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jg. 3, Heft 3, Juni 1974, S. 3 1 2 -3 2 0 When MERTON occasionally comes close to that
account of the relation between Puritanism and science which, as we suspect, WEBER would have offered us after the fashion, pattern, and sub
stance of The Protestant Ethic, he can almost be observed to dismiss such possibility hastily.
There is a ready aversion running through his entire thesis of admitting or recognizing any dimension of science but the cognitive and uti
litarian. What regards the intrinsic value of knowledge, science is purely a cognitive venture, and what is involved in the quest for knowledge can best be rendered by the reiterative statement
“knowledge is knowledge is knowledge” . He therefore anxiously rejects SPRANGER’s idea that
“values from other zones . . . become religious when they are related to the final meaning of life, and consequently they embody a religious emphasis over and above their original accent” . Gravely he points out a warning: “This statement, however, should not be generalized for it applies only when religion is clearly a preeminent social value” 13.
It is in the same vein that MERTON suddenly veers off when approaching points from which he could have looked into the land of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit o f Science. There is a beautiful and deep section in the fifth chapter of MERTON’s
dissertation entitled “Community o f Tacit As
sumptions in Science and Puritanism” where MER
TON, drawing on WHITEHEAD and others, shows us that Puritanism and science shared an implicit fundamental assumption that the world was an intelligible order. But when it comes to the ques
tions of why the Puritans wanted to ask scienti
fic questions and sought for scientific answers,
MERTON readily steers back into the utilitarian explanation14. Again, on rare occasions MERTON
recognizes in the scientific study of nature an attempt to understand God’s works, yet he fails to notice the potential significance of this fact.
On the contrary, when talking about this search for a non-manifest order which God had hidden in the cosmos, MERTON hastens to point out that this search was nothing but a glorification of God15.
13 MERTON (1970: 75).
14 MERTON (1970: 108f. et passim).
15 MERTON (1970: 88).
It seems, then, that MERTON studied the relation between Puritanism and science with a certain idea of science in his mind. Apart from conside
rations of utility, science appears as a purely cog
nitive venture. Pointing out a requisite norm of science, MERTON correctly states: “Once science was established with a degree of functional auto
nomy, the doctrine of basic scientific knowledge as a value in its own right became an integral part of the creed of scientists”16. However, he does not go on to point out that the belief in the in
trinsic value of knowledge as knowledge may be predicated on further assumptions about mean
ings which knowledge has beyond its purely cog
nitive and objective content. Although noting that religion had enabled Puritans to invest scientific pursuits “with all manner of values”17,
MERTON narrowed them down to the praise of God, the virtue of methodical work, practical interest in the world, and the like. True, the search for knowledge had temporarily benefited from such implications as religion had bestowed upon it. It had never been a quest for meaning, though. The cognitive and objective content of knowledge was for MERTON the ultimate and
specific aim and objective in the pursuit of know
ledge. He could hardly have made sense of the idea that science had once been a search for God, or still could be a quest for meaning.
The point of all this, of course, is not to raise doubts about MERTON’s findings. Puritanism most certainly contributed to the rapid rise of modern science by virtue of its emphasis on utili
ty, practical interest in the world, vigour of metho
dical effort, and glorification of God. The ques
tion is wether WEBER would have been content with such an account. Arguing from the central idea and logic of The Protestant Ethic — and on suspicion, as it were — I have suggested that
WEBER had been contemplating a very different account of the rise of science where religion would have played a truly essential, rather than a merely supportive role. MERTON’s book sent the sociology of science off in the direction of structural studies; WEBER’s account would have given it a different impetus and approach.
There are tangible proofs to bear out these con-
16 MERTON (1970: XXIII).
17 MERTON (1970: 91).
F. H. Tenbruck: Max Weber and the Sociology o f Science: A Case Reopened 317 tentions. To begin with, there is a more substan
tive lead than MERTON got hold of to be found in The Protestant Ethic where WEBER expressly refutes the idea that science could have grown solely from material-technological considerations and interests, and where he continues thus: “On the development of the sciences in the direction of mathematically rationalized exact investiga
tion . . . Windelband rightly denies that mo
dern science can be understood as the product of material and technical interests” 18 *. This rich remark could have directed MERTON’s efforts in
to an entirely different approach. It suggests at once the gulf which separates the search for ra
tionally certified and uncontroversial knowledge from all considerations of practical utility. Pier
cing through the routine of our modern assump
tions about science, it makes at once clear what an extraordinary and amazing, what an unnatu
ral venture the quest for basic knowledge had originally been. As much as capitalism could only develop from a methodical discipline of conduct far in excess of what economic consi
derations might suggest, as much science could only grow from an intellectual determination far in excess of anything that considerations of practical utility could suggest. Centuries of assiduous efforts and individual determination had gone into the search for such basic know
ledge before it could begin to pay off. No practi
cal considerations could have engendered or sus
tained this singular intellectual effort. We have learnt to expect practical rewards from basic re
search. This was a lesson of the 19th century, how
ever, which we must not project back into the past. We usually believe that science is a natural, though late fruit of man’s concern with prac
tical matters or — worse still - a late outcome of his natural will to know. By refuting the utilitarian explanation of the rise of modern science, WEBER implies that science is a unique and almost unnatural phenomenon. He makes us realize all of a sudden that practical interest and natural curiosity could not lead men onto the path of basic science where generalized, ab
stract and mathematical knowledge takes them away from practical considerations and tangible realities.
18 WEBER (1958: 249 [n. 145] / 1947: 141f. [Anm.
5]).
That MERTON overlooked this lead in The Pro
testant Ethic was not merely an accident. His faith in the intrinsic value of knowledge as knowledge being firm, he accepted the ideology which science had fashioned for itself: know
ledge is an end in itself, somehow mistaking a norm of science for reality. It is for the same reason that all the other sociologists of science also overlooked the significant lead of WEBER
while extolling his Protestant Ethic as a germane concept for a sociology of science. The profes
sion struggled to discover all the extrinsic forces which could exert an influence on science, i.e.
the mundane interests, the cultural norms, the powers of decision, the technological and struc
tural conditions. It explored to the fullest, and beyond to the minutest, the institution of scien
ce as a structural-functional system. But it accep
ted the doctrine of the intrinsic value of scien
tific knowledge at face value and classified it as a functional requisite of science which posed in itself no further problems. Unable to realize how truly extraordinary and quite problemati
cal this doctrine is, the sociology of science remained unresponsive to the historical and systematic questions which this doctrine ought to have provoked. It therefore could never con
ceive of an approach to the sociology of science which pierced through the transparency of this doctrine and began looking for ulterior meanings
involved in, and urging on the quest for know
ledge. Confined by the ideology of science, the sociology of science could not follow, nor even notice WEBER’s lead. It simply could not recog
nize it. Thus, I believe, it did not merely over
look a problem, it rather missed the essential and substantive dimension of a sociology of science which .MAX WEBER had opened up for us more than fifty years ago.
Nor is this all. Although expressing regret that
WEBER had abandoned the task which MERTON
then accepted as a mandate, the sociologists of science overlooked not just the more substan
tive lead, they even failed to notice that WEBER
had after all returned to his task and did, after all, carry out what he obviously considered to be the most important part of the mandate. To
ward the end of his life he sketched out a so
ciology of science, or what he at least conside
red to be an essential dimension of it, which in breadth and depth far surpasses the scope of anything which has come to pass among us for a
318 Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jg. 3, Heft 3, Juni 1974, S. 3 1 2 -3 2 0 sociology of science. It may well have gone be
yond what he had had in mind originally when he had promised, and then abandoned, a study of the role which Protestantism had played for the rise of science. Yet any attentive reader of the sketch will immediately sense its continuity with The Protestant Ethic. In fact, the continuity is heralded by the very title of the essay in which this sketch is to be found: Science as a Vocation (or better perhaps: Science as a Calling)19. I do not want to go into the substance of the matter here and for proof must refer the reader to MAX WEBER’s essay, and for further arguments to my publications on this question20. Suffice it to state here that whoever focusses his mind on the relevant passages of the essay will feel closer to the spirit of WEBER’s thesis than he could anywhere in MERTON’s study. There cannot be the slightest doubt that Science as a Vocation is the authentic offspring of The Protestant Ethic inasmuch as that essay shows us the genuine Puritan of The Protestant Ethic who found in his religion not only cultural norms favorable to some wordly occupations but also motive forces which drove him to seek God in and through rational knowledge. The Protestant Ethic had shown us what an extraordinary venture capita
lism had been in the beginning, and what an
“irrational” element had given, among others, rise to an economic conduct of life which could not have sprung from strictly economic rationa
les, Science as a Vocation shows us what an extraordinary venture the pursuit of rational knowledge, and mathematical knowledge at that, had originally been.
The substantive logic of his oeuvre, then, declar
es Science as a Vocation to be the legitimate continuation of The Protestant Ethic, and thus it turns out that MAX WEBER made true his ori
ginal promise, after all, or at least in part. Now, a scrupulous mind may conceivably feel qualms in accepting the verdict of interpretative logic when it runs against WEBER’s explicit renuncia-
19 As T. PARSONS and R. BENDIX have emphasized correctly, there is no satisfactory translation for the German term ‘B eruf. (F. BENDIX (1960: 73 [n-D
tion of his earlier program. Referring to this al
leged renunciation to be found in the last foot
note which WEBER added when re-editing The Protestant Ethic late in life, many scholars have therefore repeated: “But WEBER did not pursue this line of inquiry further. Instead . . .” 21.
May we then dismiss WEBER’s explicit statement and accept it for a fact, on the strength of sub
stantive understanding, that WEBER first openly renounced his original program, yet afterwards quietly returned to it? I, for one, feel that the strength of the argument and the imperatives of substantive understanding leave us no choice in the matter.
There is consolation, however, for the most scrupulous scholar. For it turns out, most si
gnificantly again, that over the generations the commentators and experts clearly misread WE
BER’s remark. May the footnote now speak for itself: “Instead of following up with an immedia
te continuation in terms of the above program, I have, partly for fortuitous reasons, especially the appearance of TROELTSCH’s Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen, which disposed of many things I should have had to investigate in a way in which I, not being a theologian, could not have done it; but partly also in order to correct the isolation of this study and to place it in relation to the whole of cul
tural development, determined at that time, first, to write down some comparative studies of the general historical relationship of religion and society”22. In this English version of the footnote I have reinstated the temporal clause
“at that time” {seinerzeit) which T. PARSONS
had omitted from his translation, thereby ob
scuring the chronological order in the statement, and its exact meaning.
To sum it up for the sake of WEBERian studies:
When late in life MAX WEBER prepared for print the first volume of his Collected Essays in the Sociology o f Religion he wrote a preface {Vor
bemerkung, which in the English edition is known as ‘Author’s Introduction’) to bind together his earlier essays o n The Protestant Ethic and his subsequent studies on World Religions, all pre
viously published in the Archiv für Sozialmssen-
20 I refer the reader to my 1974 article. For a general 21 MERTON (1970).
background see also TENBRUCK (1972a) and further,
TENBRUCK (1972b). 22 See above, note 3.
F. H. Tenbruck: Max Weber and the Sociology of Science: A Case Reopened 319
schaft und Sozialpolitik. For this purpose he corrected, or otherwise slightly changed the essays, sometimes adding new sections to them.
If WEBER, therefore, truly had abandoned his earlier program he could easily have omitted it from the text and the very fact that he did not do so is an indication that he still stood by his program. Leaving it in, however, created a start
ling situation for readers who now found The Protestant Ethic winding up with a program for the further study of Protestantism and occiden
tal rationalization processes while actually con
tinuing with studies on world religions. To re
pair this seeming incongruity, then, MAX WE
BER, looking back at this point in his life (1919/
20) on his work in the sociology of religion, tells us, in a last note which he appends to The Protestant Ethic, that upon completion of his Protestant Ethic he had not, “at that time”
(1905) “immediately” followed up on his origi
nal program and had seen fit, for a number of reasons, “first” to test out his ideas in the lar
ger context of comparative studies on the other world religions. He tells us plainly in so many words that the meanwhile completed and pu
blished comparative essays on The Economic Ethic o f World Religions were an intermezzo from which he had every intention to return to the original program, i.e. follow through with his intention of a comprehensive study of the development of rationalism in Western civiliza
tion to which he could now bring the insights gained through the study of world religions. He did, in fact, indicate that he had abandoned that part of his early program which TROELTSCH
had tackled in the meantime, and being wise to his original program by many years he must also have had in mind certain shifts in emphasis.
But in toto his note is a plain and uncontrover- sial declaration of his lasting intention to carry out his original program which never was aban
doned, only temporarily postponed. Far from contradicting the substantive logic, the note corroborates it.
From all this can but result the question: where is the continuation to be found inWEBER’s oeuvre?
Surely, there must be indicative traces and poin
ters immersed in his writings, which can serve us as clues and conjectures in an attempt to size up the contours and directions of the definitive work which WEBER, with just one or two years left before his sudden death, never came to write
Yet are there not more substantial and compact passages from his very late work, in which MAX WEBER at least sketched out one or another part of his contemplated authoritative work? More specifically, did not MAX WEBER leave us with an outline for a sociology of science which can be readily recognized as an authentic continua
tion of The Protestant Ethic? And how did mo
dern science originate if, as WEBER tells us, it cannot be understood as the product of material and technical interests? And what verdict about the present situation of science would WEBER
have derived from his account of the origins of modern science? These questions do not merely concern the exegesis of MAX WEBER; they are, I think, of the utmost importance for a sociology of science. And therefore we have to turn to Science as a Vocation as the one authentic con
tinuation of his “program”. When we begin to read this essay seriously we discover that MAX WEBER had opened up a new, essential and fasci
nating dimension for a sociology of science.
Considering our ideas about the nature and growth of science, we cannot easily make sense of WEBER’s essay which goes beyond the con
fines of our universe of discourse, ordinary or professional. Thus, the essay has been read by some as a weak restatement of the axiom of value-neutrality, or has been regarded by others as his political testament.
The essay is an intricate piece of work which calls for an interpretation. I cannot now attempt to reconstruct and interpret it, though, let alone develop its far reaching implications for a history and sociology of science. Suffice it then to indi
cate what is characteristic in WEBER’s essay, which, as must be borne in mind, uses the term science in its inclusive meaning to comprise the humani
ties and the social sciences as well as the natural sciences.
He concentrates on a point which is protected, as it were, by a constitutive norm of science.
The pursuit of science presupposes a norm which declares knowledge to be something worthwile in its own right, i.e. to have an intrinsic value apart from utilitarian or instrumental considera
tions. A scientist must be so imbued with this norm that he is individually motivated (and other
wise socially encouraged) to search for knowledge with no other justification than its being know
320 Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jg. 3, Heft 3, Juni 1974, S. 3 1 2 -3 2 0 ledge. He may, if he is familiar with the philoso
phy of science, realize that the norm cannot be established by scientific proof. Methodologically speaking, it is a non-rational belief in the value of knowledge. In fact, most scientists are usu
ally content to take the norm for granted. If questioned about it, they refer to the utility of
science or have recourse to more or less equi
valent values such as “intellectual curiosity”,
“rationality” and the like, which are woven into our cultural tradition.
What is a norm for the practicing scientist be
comes a problem for a sociology of science, though. How does this norm operate? How effective is it in the face of potentially deviant personal interests of scientists and social pressu
res? In what manner and to what extent can the norm be maintained? These are crucial questions with which the sociology of science has been concerned. THOMAS KUHN has recent
ly added a new angle to these problems by sug
gesting that normal science does follow para
digms, rather than pursue knowledge directly, thus disturbing the normative self-image of scientists.
MAX WEBER approaches the problem differently.
Believing that the norm itself bears closer inspec
tion, he is not concerned with conditions or for
ces which could favor or threaten this norm.
When he points out the meta-scientific character of the norm, he is not merely offering a metho
dological statement. Never content with genera
lities, he asks what the norm historically meant to different epochs. He argues that intellectual curiosity, utilitarian considerations or social conditions cannot explain why some men in antiquity, in the Renaissance, in the 17th cen
tury began to search for rational knowledge. No combination of such motivations could have en
gendered the requisite determination. To per
severe in so strange a venture; to seek for strict
ly logical, rational, mathematical knowledge; to abide by its consequences; to consider rational explanation a fit key to reality ; all this pre
supposes a belief that the world is an intelli
gible and, what is more, a meaningful order.
Men like PLATO, LIONARDO, or SWAMMERDAM
were not searching for what we nowadays call knowledge. Their quest was sustained by the conviction that they would ultimately discover the order and meaning of the physical and
moral world. “In the last analysis” the rise of modern science was a quest for Truth writ large, a search for a meaningful cosmos and for the certainty of uncontroversial rules to tell us how we ought to act and to live. “In the last analysis” and originally, science was not a purely cognitive venture, and the belief in the intrinsic value of rational knowledge was predicated on assumptions and expectations about its ulterior meanings.
The significance of WEBER’s amazing analysis does not lie in his account of the origins of science, modern or ancient, though. It is the implications that matter. One is spelt out succinctly by MAX WEBER who uses the histo
rical account for the purpose of throwing into relief a fundamental predicament of modern science, and of a scientific civilization, at that.
Far from establishing science securely, the insti
tutionalization of science has led into another sort of ‘iron cage’. The very success of science has led to disenchantment of the world. The original expectations have been buried, the original enthusiasm has been spent. It has be
come quite obvious that science cannot provide meaning or guidance. The attraction of science has come to rest on expectations of material progress which cannot last. At any rate, they cannot serve as an adequate substi
tute for the belief in the intrinsic value of know
ledge. In a way, the legitimacy of science is threatened from within because it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe in the intrinsic value of knowledge and to mobilize that requi
site enthusiasm which has sustained the pro
gress of knowledge over the centuries. When it becomes obvious that science cannot satisfy man’s need for meaning, it is likely that men will turn away from, or even against science.
When we use WEBER’s analysis as a guide for the history of modern science, another impli
cation of great importance comes to the light which WEBER did not develop in his essay. T he
history of the sciences, to include the humanities and the social sciences, all of a sudden reveals a logic and unity of its own once we approach it with WEBER’s ideas in mind. In my article on Science as a Vocation I have tried to show what a new picture of three centuries of modern
sciences emerges once we have become alert to the clues which WEBER has provided. If we
F. H. Tenbruck: Max Weber and the Sociology of Science: A Case Reopened 321 want to understand the situation of contempo
rary science, I believe, we have to study it in this larger historical perspective.
Bibliography
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