Believing — evaluating — knowing

logic and legitimation in Max Weber's study of law

Günter Dux

pp. 43-74

in: Günter Dux, Thomas Luckmann (eds), Contributions to the sociology of knowledge / contributions to the sociology of religion, Wiesbaden, Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1976

Abstract

Max Weber's study of law would long have been forgotten were it nothing more than the eclectic treatment of a few main problems, as is to be found in his Sociology of Law in "Wirtschaft and Gesellschaf" (Economy and Society).¹ The distinctions between public and private, subjective and objective law, to mention but a few of the topics, do not exceed anything, which was not already prevalent in the juridical legal theory of Weber's day. Moreover the very core of his sociology of law — the description of the development of law as a rationalizing process — suffers from the lack of historicity of Weber's conceptual framework to such an extent, that it is difficult to make the embodied insight profitable for the consciousness of today. If Weber's study of law is still of interest, then for the same reasons that his treatment of other diverse scientific fields — especially his methodology or his political sociology — still command an audience. Weber knew, as no other sociological thinker of his day, how to expose effectively the logical premises of his thinking in the different fields he treated. He intentionally formed the objects of his study in accordance with the premises of his logic. It is exactly this, the consumate reflection of his thinking, which has assured him attention, even in posterity.

Cited authors

Weber Max