Editing Max Weber (section)

==Inspirations==
{{multiple image
| total_width = 350
| direction = horizontal
| alt footer = Bust-length portraits of Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx
| footer = Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, two of Max Weber's influences
| image1 = Immanuel Kant - Gemaelde 1.jpg
| image2 = Marx old.jpg
}}

Weber was strongly influenced by [[German idealism]], particularly by [[neo-Kantianism]]. He was exposed to it by [[Heinrich Rickert]], who was his professorial colleague at the [[University of Freiburg]].{{sfnm|1a1=Kim|1y=2022|2a1=Barker|2y=1980|2pp=224–225|3a1=Eliaeson|3y=1990|3pp=17–18}} The neo-Kantian belief that reality was essentially chaotic and incomprehensible, with all rational order deriving from the way the human mind focused its attention on certain aspects of reality and organised the resulting perceptions was particularly important to Weber's scholarship.{{sfnm|1a1=Kim|1y=2022|2a1=Barker|2y=1980|2pp=241–242}} His opinions regarding social scientific methodology showed parallels with the work of contemporary neo-Kantian philosopher and sociologist [[Georg Simmel]].{{sfn|Frisby|2002|p=46}} Weber was also influenced by [[Kantian ethics]] more generally, but he came to think of it as being obsolete in a modern age that lacked religious certainties.{{sfnm|1a1=Kim|1y=2022|2a1=Turner|2y=2011|2pp=85–86|3a1=Albrow|3y=1990|3pp=47–50}} His interpretation of Kant and neo-Kantianism was pessimistic as a result.{{sfnm|1a1=Kim|1y=2022|2a1=Barker|2y=1980|2pp=224–225}}

Weber was responding to [[Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche|Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy]]'s effect on modern thought. His goal in the field of ethics was to find non-arbitrarily defined freedom in what he interpreted as having been a post-metaphysical age. That represented a division between the parts of his thought that represented Kantianism and Nietzscheanism.{{sfn|Kim|2022}} After his debate with Oswald Spengler in 1920, Weber said that the world was significantly intellectually influenced by Nietzsche and Marx.{{sfnm|1a1=Weber|1y=1964|1pp=554–555|2a1=Turner|2y=2011|2p=77|3a1=Radkau|3y=2009|3p=167}} In ''The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'' and "Science as a Vocation", Weber negatively described "{{lang|de|die 'letzten Menschen'}}" ("the 'last men'"), who were Nietzschean "specialists without spirit" who he warned about in both texts.{{sfnm|1a1=Turner|1y=2011|1p=77|2a1=Kent|2y=1983|2pp=301–302|3a1=Tribe|3y=2018|3p=134}} Similarly, he also used Nietzsche's concept of {{lang|fr|ressentiment}} in his discussion of theodicy, but he interpreted it differently. Weber disliked Nietzsche's emotional approach to the subject and did not interpret it as having been a type of [[Master–slave morality|slave morality]] that was derived from Judaism.{{sfn|Adair-Toteff|2013|pp=99–102}}

While a student in [[Charlottenburg]], Weber read all forty volumes by [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]], who later exerted an influence over his methodology and concepts.{{sfnm|1a1=Kaesler|1y=1988|1p=2|2a1=McKinnon|2y=2010|2pp=110–112|3a1=Kent|3y=1983|3pp=297–303}} For him, Goethe was one of the seminal figures in German history.{{sfnm|1a1=Kent|1y=1983|1pp=301–304|2a1=McKinnon|2y=2010|2pp=110–112}} In his writings, including ''The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'', Weber quoted Goethe on several occasions.{{sfnm|1a1=McKinnon|1y=2010|1pp=110–112|2a1=Kent|2y=1983|2pp=297–303}} His usage of "elective affinity" in his writings may have been derived from Goethe, as [[Elective Affinities|one of Goethe's works]] used it as its title.{{sfnm|1a1=McKinnon|1y=2010|1pp=110–111|2a1=Kent|2y=1983|2p=308}} Weber was also influenced by Goethe's usage of the Greek {{lang|grc|[[daimon]]}} ("fate"). That concept influenced Weber's perspective that one's fate was inevitable and that one was able to use experience to create intellectual passion.{{sfnm|1a1=Scaff|1y=1989|1pp=68|2a1=Albrow|2y=1990|2p=70|3a1=Sahni|3y=2001|3p=424}} He thought that Goethe, his [[Faust]], and Nietzsche's [[Thus Spoke Zarathustra|Zarathustra]] were figures that represented the {{Lang|de|[[Übermensch]]}} and expressed the quality of human action by ceaselessly striving for knowledge.{{sfnm|1a1=Kent|1y=1983|1pp=301–304|2a1=Sahni|2y=2001|2pp=423–424}}

Another major influence in Weber's life was the writings of [[Karl Marx]] and socialist thought in academia and active politics.{{sfnm|1a1=Turner|1y=2011|1p=77|2a1=Radkau|2y=2009|2p=167}} While Weber agreed with Marx on the importance of [[social conflict]], he did not think that it would destroy a society if the traditions that upheld it were valued more than it was. Furthermore, he thought that a social conflict would have been resolvable within the preexisting [[social system]].{{sfn|Mayer|1975|pp=710–711}} Writing in 1932, [[Karl Löwith]] contrasted the work of Marx and Weber, arguing that both were interested in the causes and effects of Western [[capitalism]], but they viewed it through different lenses. Marx viewed capitalism through the lens of [[Marx's theory of alienation|alienation]], while Weber used the concept of [[Rationalization (sociology)|rationalisation]] to interpret it.{{sfn|Löwith|Turner|1993|p=34}} Weber also expanded Marx's interpretation of alienation from the specific idea of the worker who was alienated from his work to similar situations that involved intellectuals and bureaucrats.{{sfn|Albrow|1990|p=108}} Scholars during the [[Cold War]] frequently interpreted Weber as having been "a bourgeois answer to Marx", but he was instead responding to the issues that were relevant to the [[bourgeoisie]] in [[Wilhelminism|Wilhelmine Germany]]. In that regard, he focused on the conflict between rationality and irrationality.{{sfnm|1a1=Albrow|1y=1990|1pp=106–109|2a1=Honigsheim|2y=2017|2pp=187–188|3a1=Löwith|3a2=Turner|3y=1993|3pp=34–35, 62}}