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(2015) Fundamental concepts in Max Weber's sociology of religion, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Max Weber was many things: a lawyer, an economist, a political thinker, and a sociologist. One of the few things that he was not was a philosopher. Although he had studied philosophy, he had little use for the German tendency toward idealistic speculation. However, he did share with Kant and the Neo-Kantians—his successors from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—a recognition of the importance that concepts play in thinking. This is evident throughout all of Weber's thinking, but may be especially true with respect to his sociology of religion. There, he employs a number of concepts—concepts that are so important that it is probably correct to regard them as being fundamental to his efforts to develop a sociology of religion. This is true throughout his writings on the sociology of religion, but a good indication of the importance that he placed on conceptual analysis is found first in the 1904/1905 edition of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In a footnote in the first section of the second part, he wrote about Jacob Burckhardt's importance for showing the development of the concept of the individual. While Weber praises him for this analysis, he notes that it has been partially revised.
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Full citation:
Adair-Toteff, C. (2015). Introduction, in Fundamental concepts in Max Weber's sociology of religion, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 3-8.
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