Modernity And Politics In The Work Of Max Weber

In the last decade an increasing amount of AngloAmerican scholarship has beendevoted to the centrality of politics within Max Webers work. There has been aradic... » 

In the last decade an increasing amount of AngloAmerican scholarship has beendevoted to the centrality of politics within Max Webers work. There has been aradical shift away from the Parsonian view that Weber was a mainstreamsociologist. While sympathetic to these approaches Charles Turner argues thatnone of them have adequately dealt with Webers concept of the political. Inparticular Turner argues that in order to demonstrate the importance ofWebers politics other scholars have read him as neoAristotelian playing downthe role of neoKantian value philosophy. Turner argues that while Webers workcertainly bears comparison with themes specific to the neoAristoteliancritique of modernity an appreciation of the analytical centrality of politicsis quite consistent with his appeal to the neoKantian philosophy of his ownday. The key to this is an understanding of what Weber means by the tragedy ofculture.One of the most distinctive features of Modernity and Politics in the Work ofMax Weber is that it encourages Weber specialists to situate themselves in awider range of debates about modernity. «