20246526 sprinzak weber s thesis as an historical explanation

8/8/2019 20246526 Sprinzak Weber s Thesis as an Historical Explanation

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WEBER'S THESIS AS AN HISTORICAL EXPLANATION

E H U D S P R I N Z A KThe social sciences seem increasingly doubtful that logical positivism canhelp them become history-free. This has contributed to rediscovery of thehistorical dimensions of social life,l and perhaps explains why many method-ologists and philosophers of science are hard pressed for a proper formulationof the logic of historical e~planation.~he difficulty with many formulationspresented so far is that they are more logical than historical and may sometimesprovide little help to a proper historical analysis. This happens not because ofan inherent deficiency in the nature of philosophy or the philosophy of science,but because of the inherent gap that exists between the requirements of thelogic of explanation and the capacity of the social sciences to follow theserequirements without becoming either trivial or too general.

Previous ly publ ished in History and T h e o r y : G a b r i e l K o l k o , " M a x W e b e r o nAmerica ," 1 (1961), 243-260; O t t o B. v a n der S p r en k e l , " M ax W e b e r o n C h i na ,"3 (1964), 348-370; R ex A . L u cas , "A Specif icat ion of t h e W eb er Thes is : P ly-m o u t h C o l o n y ," 10 (1971), 3 18-346. I n t h e n e x t vo l um e : D a v i d G o d d a r d , " W e be ran d th e Ob ject iv i ty of Social Science."

1. Social theory was, of course, never separated from history, but even the most"scientific" branches of it seem to be intensively interested in history today. Theseinterests have to do mainly with the attempts to apply methods and theories developedapart from the historical context to solve historical questions in an unconventional way.S far as psychology is concerned, they can be detected in Erik Erikson's alreadyclassical study of Luther and in his recent research on Gandhi- Young Man Luther(New York, 1962) and Gandhi's Truth (New York, 1969) -in which historical docu.ments are manipulated to support psychological theory. Sociology seems also interestedin the subject, an interest tha t is indicated by v ol un ~e s ike Sociology and History,Theory and Research, ed. Werner J. Cahnman and Alvin Boskoff (New York, 1964);Sociology and History: Methods, ed. S. M . Lipset and R. Hofstadter (New York, 1968) .Political scientists may benefit in this respect from the studies of Lee Benson, such as"Research Problems in American Historiography" in Common Frontiers of tlze SocialSciences, ed. M . Komarovsky (Glencoe, Ill., 1 9 5 7 ) .2. Basic contributions in this respect are Carl G. Hempel's "The Function of GeneralLaws in History," reprinted in Readings in PIzilosophical Analysis, ed. H . Feigl and W.Sellars (Ne w York, 194 9), 459-471, and E. Nagel, T he Structure of Science (New York,1965) , ch. 15 . But many further thoughts in this direction may be found in E. H. Carr ,What Is History? (London, 1962); I . Berlin, Historical Inevitability (London, 1954); K .


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It therefore seems that in order to comprehend the complexities of historicalexplanation, a concrete historical problem must be examined. There is nolack of historical problems that require explanation, but sometimes it is hardto translate them into the language of explanation. For it is only when conflict-ing interpretations exist that the theoretical problem of explanation presentsitself as a substantial and relevant issue. A classic example of such a state ofaffairs is the well-known historical debate regarding Weber's analysis of theProtestant origins of the spirit of modern capital ism.The debate has notonly centered on Weber's thesis itself; it has also, though indirectly, broughtinto question the ability of the social sciences to contribute to the settlement ofmajor historical questions.

Like other pathbreaking theories, Weber's major contention is more quotedthan really known4 Thus, within the social sciences, his reputation is estab-lished to such a degree that the thesis regarding the close affinity betweenProtestantism and capitalism is held without much questioning. Within history,as a distinctive discipline, the Weber analysis has been subjected to recurringattacks; and though often alluded to, it is generally held to be untenable. Butneither the approval nor the disapproval rests on a clear vision of what Webermeant.

The purpose of this essay is to contribute to the understanding of the realissue involved by projecting the Protestantism-capitalism thesis as an explana-tory problem, and to clarify the Weber thesis. I believe such an analysis maybe helpful in solving major problems posed by social and political history tothe social scientist. For in a climate of unprecedented growth of disciplinaryand sub-disciplinary specialization, empirical reality often seems to be dissolvedby the social sciences to such an extent that the data compiled and analyzedby them fail to add up to concrete historical events that we all experience inour simple and unsophisticated life. Weber's approach, partly because of itsrelatively early formulation and partly because of his profound understandingof the meaning of reality as well as its interpretation, may help social scientiststo regain control of their own productions.

Following a presentation of the conventional version of Weber's thesis, thefour major arguments that have been raised against it will be presented. Aclose examination of Weber's conception of the logic of historical explanationwill ensue. In view of that analysis an effort will be made to reconstruct thereal Protestantism-capitalism thesis and to show that most of the substantialarguments made against it have been anticipated by Weber and invalidated


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296 EHUD SPRINZAKby his cautious remarks. Weber's contribution to a modern conception of anhistorical explanation, illustrated by recent validating research, will then beshown.

There are many popular versions of "what Weber really meant" in his essays,some of which were published under the title The Protestant Ethic and theSpirit of Capitalisrn.They vary not only according to the peculiar taste of theauthor, but also according to the author's school or discipline. What is commonto most of them is the assertion that, in his thesis, Weber sought to relatecausally modern capitalism to certain ideas of early Protestantism, particularlyto the ascetic Protestantism of Calvinist origins. Most of the writing on thesubject stresses, consequently, Weber's insistence on the spiritual nature of thethesis, namely the derivation of certain economic behavior from religious ideasand not from economic factors.6 It is said that in his study Weber tried to provethat the spirit of modern capitalism was created after the Reformation and asa result of it. The version of the thesis most commonly referred to is thatcapitalism is based on an ethos the core of which is the obligation to makemore wealth in a more rational way, not for the sake of mundane enjoymentbut for the sake of wealth production in itself. This spirit-which, Weberargued, has appeared only in the modern West-was introduced by thereligious doctrines of Luther and Calvin and their followers. Luther, accordingto Weber, denied the inherent Catholic dichotomy between the secular sphereof life and the religious one. He introduced the concept of the "calling"(Beruf) in reference to the secular duties of the believer, thus sacralizing thatrealm of life that Catholic doctrine had considered inferior. Everything thatthe believer engaged in thus was invested with religious meaning.

Calvin is said by Weber to have gone a step further. He developed thedoctrine of predestination. Following the notion that God was a free supremebeing unlimited in space or time, this doctrine asserted that everything in theworld, including the fate of human beings, was predetermined. Nothing couldbe done by man to change this predestined course according to which graceand salvation were extended to very few. What was left for the believers,anxious to know their fate in the afterworld, was to determine whether theywere chosen by the grace of God or doomed to eternal damnation. Such


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WEBER'S THESIS AS AN HISTORICAL EXPLANATION 297proof could not be gained through intermediary bodies or institutions (likethe traditional church), but could be acquired by success in one's calling inthe present world. Thus, extending Luther's conception of calling to meansecular business and economic activity, Calvin and his followers are said tohave given a religious meaning to success in business. In the course of history,this religious sanction, with all its moral limitations, disappeared, but leftbehind the spirit of capitalism.

Whether this version of Weber's argument is a true explication of what hesaid is a question that should be left open for quite some time. For what is ofgreater importance now is that this is the thesis for which he was - and to agreat extent still is -held responsible. In this respect, the arguments that havebeen made in an attempt to discredit him entirely were directed against partof this thesis and its supporting evidence. Though every critic has his individualvariations of argument, it appears useful to refer not to single contenders butto common themes. I shall therefore refer to four contentions that summarizethe anti-Weberian arguments: the mislocated capitalism, the misinterpretedProtestantisnz, the misunderstood Catholicism, and the misplaced causality.It appears that under these headings most of the points raised against Webercould fairly be subsumed.Mislocated Capitalism. The simplest argument that has been voiced against theWeber thesis is that it mislocated the rise of modern capitalism. According tothis contention, the appearance of what Weber called the "spirit of capitalism"must have been correlated positively with the rise of modern capitalism as aneconomic and social system. Moreover, it must have come after the ProtestantReformation. If it could therefore be shown that modern capitalism came intobeing before the Reformation, it could be argued that the spirit of capitalismthat Weber portrayed out of studies of religious texts either existed before theReformation or was a creation of his self-developed imagination. This argu-ment has been raised with some strength by R. H. Tawney and with strongerconnotations by Robertson, Hyma, and particularly by Fanfani.? By showingthat parts of Europe (particularly Italy and Flanders) had already developedcapitalist systems in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Weber7s criticsbelieve that they have discredited his thesis.8Misinterpreted Protestantisnz. Since a major portion of Weber's thesis hadto do with his understanding of the conceptual development of Protestantism,it is of little surprise that much pain has been taken by his critics to prove that

7. Cf. R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise o f Capitalism (London, 1929), 319-320; H.


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298 EHUD SPRINZAKhe misinterpreted the development of Protestantism. It was argued that Lutherin his translation of th e Bible did no t change the me aning of the Latin termvocatiog ( the German B e r z ~ f ) ;hat Weber did not study the original writingsof Calvin and his supporters on the continent; and that a selective readingof eighteenth-century Protestant writers has led him to a distorted picture ofsixteenth-century Calvinism, which was originally very communal and anti-capitalistic in its orientation.1 The major point made by the misinterpretedProtestarztisnz School is that Protestantism and capitalism have had unrelatedlines of development and that Weber's alleged "inherent" correlation betweenthem did not have a real basis.llMisunderstood Catlzolicism. To support the "misinterpreted Protestantism,"the approach of "misunderstood Catholicism" has further raised some pointsof centrality. Weber was charged with not studying in depth the economicdoctrines of late medieval Catholi~ism,~"he Pauline doctrine,13 and with notconducting a comparative study of C atholicism a nd Protes tantism , the onlymethod that could validate his co ntention em pirically.14 Con sequently, W eberwas accused of ignoring the strong "capitalist" elements within the Catholicdoctrines of the time an d of misrepresenting th e crucial fac t tha t the veryemergence of the Protestant movement was a religious reaction from withinthe Church to a general process of secularization a nd acquisitiveness tha t tookplace under the lax Roman pontificate.Misplaced Causality. It is not necessary to exh aust all the points raised againstWeber to realize that they culminate in a general indictment that the Weberthesis relied on a "misplaced casuality." According to this charge, Weber triedto establish a one-directional and unicausal relationship between Protestantismand capitalism. But once one of his contentions about modern capitalism,ascetic Protestantism, Catholicism or a combination of them is shattered, thewhole causal chain is broken. If capitalism existed before the Reformation,if Protestantism was anticapitalistic, and if Catholicism was not different fromProtestantism in its economic doctrines, then the whole thesis falls apart.Major parts could still hold, but to no avail. R. H. Tawney, who was nottotally hostile to Weber, thought that it was possible to demonstrate certaininfluences exerted by Protestantism on modern capitalism but argued thathistorical causation could work in two directions and a possibility ofProtestantism being influenced by capitalism should have also been taken into

9. Robertson, 2-3,25-32.10. Hyma, 455-456, 466, 482-488; Robertson, 14-15; Tawney, 112-113; W. Sombart,The Quir~tesserzceof Capi fa l i s in (London, 1951), Ch. XIX. Winthrop S. Hudson, "Pur-


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consideration.15 For more critical historiai~s han Tawney, Weber's causalone-sided analysis appeared alien to the "historical method" itself and becamethe basic factor that jeopardized the thesis as a whole.lG

It is not until one immerses oneself in the contrasting arguments and in thehistorical data that are brought to support them that one realizes that the priorproblem of validating or invalidating the thesis is theoretical, and must beresolved before the evidence can be introduced. Unless questions pertaining tothe meaning of causality and establishment of a proper conceptual frameworkare solved, or at least formulated, no decision as to the validity of the thesiscan be reached. Such questions are hardly raised by Weber's critics; or, if theyare, it is done superficially and casually. However, even a quick look atWeber's study reveals repeated references to these problems. Of particularinterest is Weber's concluding remark of the Protestant Ethic.Here we have only attempted to trace the fact and the direction of its ["Pro-testantism's"] influence to their ["elements of modern culture"] motives, in onethough a very important point. But it would also further be necessary to investigatehow Protestant Asceticism was in turn influenced into development and its char-acter by the totality of social conditions, especially economic. The modern man isin general, even with the best will, unable to give religious ideas a significance forculture and national character which they deserve. But it is, of course, not my aimto substitute for a one-sided materialistic, and equally one-sided spiritualistic causalinterpretation of culture and history. Each is equally possible, but each, if it doesnot serve as the preparation, but as the conclusion of a n investigation, accomplishesequally little in the interest of historical truth.17

Such an argument and many others make it clear that, unlike most of hiscritics, Weber was conscientiously engaged in the logical structure of hisargument and that only by tracing his methodological explicit rules could a keyto his thesis be suggested. Since Weber clarified the major issues in his earlymethodological works, an examination of his logic is now in order.

If we probe Weber's empirical studies of culture as well as his method-ological ones, it appears that they are based on two major notions or axioms.The first one is that empirical reality is composed of infinite facts and factors.The second is that every historical event is only one set of alternatives thathappened to occur but did not have to. As to the first contention, Weber,


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300 EHUD SPRINZAKfollowing Rickert,ls insists that by definition any reality must be understoodas having an infinite number of manifestations, be it even a single event thatcomes under consideration. Any conception and understanding of such realitymust therefore be based on selection.The absolute infinitude of this multiplicity is seen to remain undiminished evenwhen our attention is focused on a single "object," for instance a concrete act ofexchange. . . .All the analysis of infinite reality, which the finite human mind canconduct, rests on the tacit assumption that only a finite portion of this realityconstitutes the object of scientific investigation and that only it is "important" inthe sense of being worthy of being.19The critical point in Weber's argument seems to be that it is not a matter ofwhether we are consciously engaged in the process of explanation or un-consciously speak the language of explanatory common sense. The veryprocess of human analysis is a limited one, finite, while its object, "reality," isinfinite, in the sense that it is open to observation from different angles andpotentially infinite interests. Now, if a selection is to be made, what distin-guishes science from mere observation is that certain criteria for that selectionare to be decided consciously and in advance. Weber cannot and does notreject the possibility that an experienced historian, even though not fullyaware of the logic of explanation, might do better than a bunch of method-ologists. That fact, however, does not make much difference, since a goodscience must be able to formulate the logic of proof as well as its formalprocedures.

Much has been said about Weber's belief in the intuition of the historian orthe social scientist, and the insight by which he conceives his original hypoth-eses. Indeed, Weber paid a high tribute to the so-called "empathy" of thehistorical school, and was ready to accept the importance of the artistic presen-tation of the study as But as a matter of principle, he insisted that aclear-cut analytical distinction be made between the psychological process bywhich the historian arrives at his thesis, as well as the artistic form in whichhe presents it, and the procedures for its confirmation. Once the thesis has beenpresented, it is its logical structure that decides whether it is to be acceptedas true. According to this conception, the structure of the argument as wellas its empirical support could and should be extrapolated from the manuscriptin order to be tested.21 Mathematical equations no less than the brilliantexpositions of Ranke were a result of intuition:They all arise in the intuitive flashes of imagination as hypotheses which are thenverified vis-d-vis the facts, i.e. their validity is tested in procedures involving the


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use of already available empirical knowledge and they are "formulated" in alogical correct way. . . . We are here concerned only with the logical categoryunder which the hypothesis is to be demonstrated as vaIid in case of doubt ordispute for it is that which determines its logical structure.22If the first assumption emphasizes selectivity as basic to the understanding

of reality and logically justifiable selectivity as the one that science should lookfor, the second has to do with the indeterminateness inherent in empiricalreality. Had everything that happens in the world been predetermined inadvance by a powerful supreme being, then instead of an inquiry into empiricalreality, the study of history would have had to do with finding the logical key,which would in turn inferentially lead to every occurrence. But if historicalevents are not predetermined but are rather the alternatives that happened tooccur, then the historian's question becomes not only what happened but alsowhat did not happen and ~ h y . ~ 3

The absence of certain actions or events, no less than the presence ofothers, is important in understanding what happened. What did not happenmay have made possible the event that did happen.The judgment that, if a single historical fact is conceived of as absent from ormodified in a complex of historical events in a way which could be different incertain historically important respects, seems to be of considerable value forthe determination of the "historical significance" of those facts.24

Taking off from these two basic contentions, Weber goes to his analysis ofthe question of causality. His argument is simple and important. If, on the onehand, empirical reality- as any "whole" by definition-is composed of aninfinite number of facts or facets and if , on the other hand, it might have beendifferent, then, in order to understand it beyond the level of the non-questioning acceptance, two further logical operations must be made. First,we have to pick from the vast number of events that happened those that aremore relevant than others for our un der ~t an di ng .~ ~econd, we have to accountfor those relevant events in a genetic sense, so as to explain why this set ofevents and not others took place. This may seem an easy job to do; and Weberis, of course, the first to admit that historians have been doing it all along.Yet he insists that when carried out unconsciously, this operation may havemisleading effects. It may lead people to believe causality inheres in the


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302 EHUD SPRINZAKnature of history, whereas it remains, in effect, in the mind of the historianwho asks questions about history.

As to the first operation, Weber argues that unconsciously or not, historianstend to pick up their events and their questions about these events accordingto their conception of world history. This means that they make these choicesnot in a direct relationship to the events that happened in the past but ratherto those that happen in their time that make certain events of the past appearrelevant.3G Commenting on Eduard Meyer's reference to the Battle ofMarathon, Weber argues that what makes the battle relevant is not the factor time that it was fought, but that it appears to be a crucial moment in thehistory of the Western civilization. Had it been lost it might have changedthe whole history of the West." This criterion of relevance Weber fullyjustifies, and it is therefore not surprising that the fist sentence of T h eProtestant Ethic reads:A product of modern European civilization studying any problem of universalhistory is bound to ask himself to what combination of circumstances the factshould be attributed that in western civilization and in western civilization only,cultural phenomena have appeared which . . . lie in a line of development havinguniversal significance and val~e.~S

The Protestant Ethic interested Weber not merely because he decided todevelop the new discipline of the sociology of religion but because it seemedto him to provide a partial key to what he considered an important concretephenomenon, the creation of modern capitalist culture. It subsequently becameimportant in view of world history.

Wow the idea that the Battle of Masathon and the Protestant Ethic arechosen for study because of their importance to world history may be assumedto be correct. So long as no one questions it, there is no problem. Everyresearch or inquiry is established, like an iceberg, on an unspecified numberof unseen foundation^.^^ But what happens if this assumption is challenged?What happens if we want to prove this assumption, i.e., that the event underconsideration was in fact crucial for the development of modern culture?This is, according to Weber, the core question that the social scientist and thehistorian must be ready to face. In order to answer this question-the mostimportant in his causal analysis-Weber suggests making a distinctionbetween two types of knowledge, the "nomological" and the "ontological."Nornological knowledge is that knowledge which involves knowing the laws

26. Ibid., 70.


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according to which people behave under certain circumstanccs. Ontologicalknowledge nleans those concrete events that we know for surc to have hap-pencd (events like the Battle of Marathon, the existence of religious move-ments like Protestantisin or the cultural phenomenon of capitalism). Withthese two distinguishable typcs of knowledge it becomes, according to Weber,possible to make the decisive step and to establish the causal chain. If weknow th e laws under which certain phenom ena o ccur, we have the m echanismthat may, to use modern language, process our data or events. The ontologicalknowledge- the knowledge of certain events which are not questionable -may therefore be considered as an input; and since we already have theoutput, we are pretty safe in our causal analysis. We can also infer what couldhave happened had the Battle of Marathon been lost, since by the sarnclogical proccdures we may also process a different set of data-the tentativeloss of Marathon- and get, of course, different results. Weber sums up hisargument in this way:The "knowledge" on which such a judgment of the "significance" of the Battle ofMarathon rests is in the light of all that a e havc said hitherto, on the one hand,knowledge of certain "facts" ["ontological knowledge"], belonging to the "his-torical situation" and ascertainable on the basis of certain sources, and on the other-as we have already seen -knowledge of certain known empirical rulcs, pdrtic-ularly thosc relating to the ways in which human beings are prone to react undergiven situation ["nornological knowledge"]. . . . When this has been donc, then, wecan render a positive judgment that the joint action of thosc facts . . . "could"bring about the effect which is asserted to be "objectively possible." This can onlymean, in other words, that if we "conceived" the effects a? having acl~ially ccurredunder the modified conditions we ivouM then recognize those facts, thus modified,to be "adequate causes."30

Students who have busied themselves with looking at Weber's ideal typevas his major con tributio n to the theory of exp lanatio n may b e a littlc surprisedby his closeness to some modern, widely accepted, theories of causal explana-tion. These thcories insist on the need of "postdiction" (prcdiction maderetrospectively), namely, that events that happencd should not bc taken forgranted as necessary in view of some metaphysical genetic deternlinism or afunctional one, but rather should be proved to have happencd out of severalother probable alternatives, du e to several well-specified conditions." We shalllater have an opportunity to comment on the ideal type, but a closcr view ofWeber's conception of probability seems now in order. Being fully aware ofthe possibility that certain causes could be affirmed in a stronger way thanothers, Weber wrote:


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304 EHUD SPRINZAKprinciples which applied in the analysis of the "calculus of probability." . . . Onethen asks, how the entire complex of all those conditions with the addition ofwhich those isolatedly conceived components were "calculated" to bring about the"possible" effect standing in relation to the complex of all those conditions the ad-dition of which could not have "foreseeably" led to the effect.32Now, what is asserted here by Weber, if read carefully, is that the idea of thelogical relationship applied by the calculus of probability is relevant to thecausal analysis. It is indeed disappointing to read further that "one naturallycannot in any way arrive by this operation at an estimate of the relationshipbetween these two possibilities which will be in any sense numerical," but thereason for that is not that the human sciences do not yield themselves tothe scientific methods of the natural ones.The [numerical estimate] would be attainable only in the sphere of "absolutechance" . . . i.e. in cases where . . . given a very large number of cases, certainsimple and unambiguous conditions remain absolutely the same. We can expressnumerically the degree of this "favorable chance" of this "objective possibility,"by sufficiently frequent repetition of the toss.33So what we are clearly faced with is a technical difficulty viewed by a socialscientist who is involved in questions of analyzing major historical events, wheninformation in the form of interviews or attitude samples-such as was usedby him when studying contemporary problems of Germany-seemed at thattime unavailable. This of course becomes obvious with his closing remarks:Despite the familiar and fully justified notice which warns against the transferenceof the principles of calculus of probabilities into other domains, it is clear thatthe latter case of favorable chance or an "objective probability" determined fromgeneral empirical propositions, or from empirical frequencies has its analogies inthe sphere of concrete causality including the historical.The alleged conflict that has been recently suggested by Lazarsfeld andOberschall to have existed within Weber's empirical studies in contemporaryGerman society and his "non-empirical" historical studies, and their subse-quent psychological explanation of seems, according to what had beenmentioned above, a creation of their own minds. Weber might have, as theyshowed, some reservations as to the role of psychology within his social re-search, but it had little relation to either the notion of empirical research or toits application in the probability theory. Like Nagel fifty years later, he wasfully aware of the permanent gap between the logic of scientific inquiry and thestate of the present knowledge as well as its needs.35

32. Weber, Methodology, 181-182.


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So far I have tried to clarify what appears to me Weber's major contributionto the theory of explanation, his conception of causality. It has been donethrough a logical derivation of his causal analysis from his philosophicalargument about the infinite nature of empirical reality. Any reference to thenotion of ideal type has been carefully avoided because it appears to pertainnot so much to the theory of explanation as to the important question of "whatwe are about to explain." A clarification of this issue must now be a t tem~ted.~"

It is obvious that the concept of ideal type can be derived by two simplelogical steps from Weber's basic contention that empisical reality is infinite.The first one has already been presented. Since empirical reality or history isinfinite, any discussion of meaningful events in it becomes possible onlythrough a selection of events that seem relevant to the historical consciousnessof the person involved. By the same token, a selection is made also betweenevents that should be explained and events that form the explaining conditions.This is, as we remember, an artificial operation made on empirical realityin order to account for it causally, and this is what Weber has in mind whenspeaking about the "decomposition" of the given. ("This means that we sodec jmpose the 'given' into 'components' that every one of them is fitted intoan 'empirical ~ule'.")~TNow, in the case of single events, like the Battle ofMarathon, there is no need to go further. It is pretty well defined in ourconsciousness in terms of time, place, and significance. But if we trace acultural phenomenon like capitalism, Judaism, or liberalism, a definable con-ception becomes more difficult. Not only are time and place hard to determine,but so are a variety of other facets, institutional and attitudinal. Since we wantto keep it as a cultural unit, and to be able to operate the causal analysis-though this time on a large scale-a further "decomposition" of the "given"is called f0r.38 This second decomposition gives birth to the ideal type. Thebest and most concise account of the conception has been given by Weberhimself.An ideal type is formed by a one-sided accentuation of one or more points of viewand by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present andoccasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged accordingto those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct. Inmust not be forgotten that every individual causal complex, even the apparently 'simple' can be infinitely subdivided and analyzed. The point at which we halt in this process is determined only by our causal interests of the time." Weber, Metl~odology,178. For a


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306 EHUD SPRINZAKits conceptual purity this mental construct cannot be found empirically anywhere inreality. It is a utopia. Historical research faces the task of determ ining in eachindividual case, the extent to which this ideal construct appro xin~a tes o or divergesfrom reality. . . .

This procedure can be indispensable for heuristic as well as expository purposes.The ideal typical concept will help to develop our skill in imputation in research.It is no "hypothesis" but it offers guidance to the construction of hypotheses. It isnot a description of reality but it aims to give unambiguous means of expressionto such a description.89W ithout further interpretation of wh at is m ad e clear by W eber, it is wo rth

mentioning tha t the majo r fe atu re of the ideal type is that it is an aux iliaryconstruc t that helps o ne to orien t oneself to the pro posed research. Its explicitbuilding is therefore a desirable procedure that may, or may not, be useful forbuilding a hypothesis (and not a proof). It is not an operational concept butarz orientatiorzal one. It is needed as a preliminary stage for a study of large-scale an d com plex p h e n o m e n ~ n . ~ ~

It is sometimes argued against Weber that objective typology could not beobtained unless some verifiable operations (based on some sort of measure-ment) have been made. Weber's answer, one of the most delicate argumentsever ma de in th e history of the social sciences, requires som e length for fullpresentation. But its core is as simple as it is persuasive. No science could everstart withou t som e non-scientific decisions as t o its orientation . T h e scientificproblem is not how to pick up its orienting questions or concepts, ideal types,symbols, or whatever one likes to call them, but how to operate with them ina justifiable way. The choice of conceptions is a cultural business and maybe different for different peop le in different times o r locations. T h e way o neoperates with them and, particularly, proves one's arguments is, however,metahistorical and metacultural. It is made according to logical rules whichare deducible and may be tested by everyone who knows logic.The choice of the object of investigation and the extent or depth to which thisinvestigation attempts to penetrate into the infinite causal web, are determined bythe evaluative ideas which dominate the investigator and his age. In the methodof investigation, the guiding "point of view" is of great importance for the construc-tion of the conceptual scheme which will be used in the investigation. In the modeof their use, however, the investigator is obviously bound by the norms of ourthought just as much here as elsewhere. For scientific truth is precisely what isvalid for all those who seek the truth.41

This, I suggest, is why the notion of ideal type is not an important part ofthe explanatory scheme set u p by Weber. W hile this scheme has to d o with th e


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WEBER'S THESIS AS AN HISTORICAL EXPLANATION 307procedure of constructing the ideal type has to do with the question of howorienting concepts are picked up and the problem formed. The important pointabout the latter is not that ideal types are being formed- they have beenformed all along-it is the question of how to form them in a relevant waythat counts. In fact, Weber had well in mind the possibility of building orient-ing concepts in a statistical way. Those which he named "simple class con-cepts," were said by him to be "a matter of the simple classification of eventswhich appear in reality as mass phenomena." These were not ideal types. Thelatter were to denote historical phenomena. The difference between them wasclearly marked:The greater the event to which we conceptualize complicated historical patternswith respect to those components in which their specific cultural significaizce iscontained, the greater the extent to which the concept . . . will be ideal typical incharacter. The goal of ideal typical concept-construction is always to make explicitnot the class or average character but rather the unique individual character ofcultural phenomena.42

Here, I think, lies Weber's decisive answer to the abstract empirical ap-proach in the name of which he is sometimes attacked. The essence of scienceis not its methods but its logic of inquiry. This logic of inquiry may help inmaking a good argument. But it is helpless insofar as the relevance of thephenomenon under consideration is concerned. What makes an orientatioilalframework relevant are not the methods by which it is picked up but thephenomena it tries to embrace. Cultural broad phenomena are historical. Beinghistorical is not merely to be an aggregate of certain historical data, but mainlyto have a unifying system of symbols that can be decided by one's under-standing of history, which is a philosophical, metascientific question of mean-ing. By the same token, Weber argues that though nomological knowledgewas important for the process of proof of one's argument, it was by no meansthe purpose of the cultural sciences-as distinguished from natural sciences-to provide laws. The argument deserves particular notice.An "objective" analysis of cultural events, which proceeds according to the thesisthat the ideal of science is the reduction of empirical reality t o "laws," is meaningless.It is not meaningless, as is often maintained, because cultural or psychic events forinstance are "objectively" less governed by laws. It is meaningless for a number ofother reasons. Firstly, because the knowledge of social laws is not knowledge of socialreality but is rather one of the various aids used by our minds for attaining this end;secondly, because knowledge of cultural events is inconceivable except on a basisof the significance which the concrete constellations of reality have for us incertain individual concrete situations. In which sense and in which situations this


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308 EHUD SPRINZAKa finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment onwhich human beings confer meaning and significance.43

Weber's argument about the uniqueness of historical events and conse-quently the distinction between the natural and cultural sciences should beread with care. It is not a contention that the logic of inquiry of them is dif-ferent. As we saw, Weber denied this idea. It also does not come out of theproposition that the "given" (empirical reality) of both is different. Both areinfinite by their nature. The difference is a result of the fact that concreteevents or phenomena which are treated by the cultural sciences are differentbecause they have an historical connotation which is necessarily cultural-value-laden, while the natural phenomena are devoid of that sense. The raison&&re of the natural sciences is the attempt to grasp regularities that occurrepeatedly with no reference to historically meaningful e~ents.~4oth scienceshave common ground in their logic of inquiry since the causal understandingwhich is common to both requires the discovery of laws. But while this knowl-edge is the end of the natural sciences, the end of the cultural ones is to comeback with this knowledge to the concrete events. The great danger for thecultural sciences is that, in view of the need of nornological knowledge, itwill be forgotten for what it is sought and that we shall get good laws thatare irrelevant to what is happening in the world. Since reality is infinite so isthe number of possible laws. This distinction, I suggest, is of major impor-tance. The fact that Weber was not read with care may explain the situationin which so many studies in social science may be skillfully performed but be,at the same time, devoid of relevance to the real world. It may help to explainthe so-called new scientific "sub-cultures" that are created within certaindisciplines and help to sustain so much intellectual whistling in the dark andto alienate social science from social life. This is exactly what Weber triedto prevent by coining the notion of ideal type as an orientational concept, aconcept that by keeping a grasp on the concrete historical phenomenon wouldlead the search of knowledge toward that which is meaningful. The un-fortunate fact that somehow it became involved with his logic of explanationled to some damaging effects.

Weber's ideas regarding the ideal type may help to explain another pillarof his theory of the historical understanding, his conception of one-sidedexplanation in history. As was already shown, Weber, concluding the Protes-tant Ethic, mentioned that what he has tried to do was to trace the directionin which Protestantism has influenced the development of capitalism, namelyto lay the grounds for a study of the influence of ideas on economic behavior.


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WBBER'S THESIS AS AN HISTORICAL EXPL ANA TION 309But it is, of course, not my aim to substitute for a one-sided materialistic, anequally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and history. Eachis equally possible, but each, if it does not serve as the preparation, but as theconclusion of an investigation, accomplishes equally little in the interest of his-torical truth.45

As is the case with abstract "scientism," so, too, in the case of one-sided"disciplinarism," historical and cultural phenomena cannot be reduced toand replaced by the partial views that intend to explain them. The materialisticas well as the spiritualistic conceptions of history are just one-sided tools ofinterpretation. As such, they serve as the preparation for the investigation,not as its conclusion, which is the causal complete explanation. In this spirit,he warned in the Methodology against the general tendency to see in newscientific disciplines new "Weltanschauungen" as well, each capable of re-placing all the others by its breadth and explanatory capacity. Each of these(including functionalism!), he maintained, could provide a good one-sidedideal type and instead of trying to replace concrete history- by eliminating"every historical event which is not explicable" as "scientFfically insignificantaccident"46- should add up to the knowledge of concrete reality. In retro-spect and to sum up, we may perhaps maintain with Weber:The type of social science in which we are interested is an empirical science ofconcrete reality. Our aim is the understanding of the characteristic uniqueness ofthe reality in which we move.47

So far the attempt has been made to demonstrate how Weber conceived thedesirable relationships between the domain of scientific inquiry and the domainof culture within which this inquiry was to become meaningful. But a word ofcaution must be added. Weber did not clarify many of the specific details ofthese relationships. He did not make clear the relationship that must existbetween the logic of inquiry and the use of reliable methods for collection ofinformation. He did not develop an explicit procedure of operationalism.The distinction that has been suggested to exist between orientational con-ceptions and operational ones was obtained only by inferential interpretationof what he said explicitly,- a way that, to some degree, is always arbitrary.These gaps and others that may hardly be satisfactory to the modern socialscientist reveal themselves in his historically rich studies, and little benefitmay be gained by concealing them. Since Weber, however, would be the first


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310 EHUD SPRINZAKthem the logical sharpness of the theory of explanation as well as its methods,he should hardly be blamed for all that he could not foresee or foretell. Butwithin the limits of his orientational approach, his empirical studies of historyremain as relevant as his theory of explanation.Since Weber's explicit methodology has not been developed apart from hisempirical studies but in a close relation with them, it is not diflicult to discoverwithin it the roots of the arguments that have been presented formerly inabstract fashion. As most of his students noted, his initial focus was, andremained, his interest in modern Western rationalism. This historical phe-nomenon and its concrete manifestations-the most important being themodern legal system, modern bureaucracy, and modern capitalism-occupiedWeber all his life. Deeply influenced by Marx, who tried to do the same thing(though leaning heavily toward capitalism as the key factor), Weber, how-ever, became fully aware of the one-sidedness of this approach and its selectiveinterpretation. As Bendix has shown, Weber's first methodological confronta-tion with the materialist interpretation of history took place in his early studiesof farm labor in Eastern Germany and the stock exchange. It was within thescope of these studies that he first developed the concept of status group asdistinguished from class group. What he discovered was that the formationand existence of social groups could not be explained according to economicobjective experiences only, but had to be traced back to at least one morecategory, the shared beliefs and ideas of the group regarding honor andsocial position.4s

Conceiving ideas, then, as a possible source of group formation, it wasnatural for him to turn to the historical institution of religion, the most ob-vious example of a concrete phenomenon whose origins could be dealt within terms of ideas. Since he was aware of the remarks made by generations ofobservers regarding the affinity between economic success and ascetic Prot-estants -remarks that seemed to him fully confirmed by studies done by oneof his s tudents4hnd by other contemporary observations-Weber soonthought of the possibility of a new causal explanation of modern capitalism,namely what he referred to as the "spiritual" interpretation. Convinced, as healways was, that Marxism never succeeded in deriving the colzterzt of religiousideas from economic situations, but equally convinced that once groups havebeen formed their existence had to do with economic experiences, Weber wasswift to conclude that the conzplex relationships o f ideas am ?ecoizonlic intereststhat could have led to th e fornzatiorz of nzoderrz capitalisnz had to be di f-ferentiated. Only such factorial differentiation into mutually exclusive vari-


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WE B E R 'S TIJESTS AS AN HISTORICAL EXPLANATION 31 1satisfactory causal analysis of the modern phenomenon. It was about that timethat he arrived theoretically at the formulation of his theory of causality aswell as that of the historical ideal type. The first, as we saw, was to help him inthe search for the right types of knowledge in view of which valid argumentswere to be made. The second, as we also saw, was to help him orient thatsearch so that the end he had in mind-the analysis of the concrete culturalphenomenon of modern capitalism-would not be lost. It was indeed here,in the formulation of strict methodology, that Weber transcended Marx as ascholar. Without losing Marx's ingenious vision of history, he could now avoidwhat Whitehead called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness made by theformer. But Weber did not intend to eliminate the Marxian contribution. Onthe contrary, he was fully aware of its fruitfulness, provided it was properlylimited. The task that he assigned to himself was to work out his complemen-tary approach.

According to the original causal scheme, a proof could be gained if it werepossible to provide evidence that, in view of certain laws of social behavior(nomological knowledge) and certain events (ontological knowledge), otherevents or phenomena did not just happen, but had to happen (postdiction).But since Weber renounced from the beginning the claim for unicausal analy-sis, he never did try to prove that capitalism had to be the result of asceticProtestantism. Instead, he tried to advance the hypothesis that ascetic Prot-estantism had to contribute much to the creation of modern capitalism. Sucha proposition, it should be stressed again, m ~ ~ s te by definition an accentuatedone-sided argument, excluding political, ecoaomic, legal, and other importantfactors in order to demonstrate the relevance of the spiritual factor. But howwas he to accomplish that job, gigantic as it was? Had he immersed himself inthe infinite mountain of facts, he would have lost sight of the forest wander-ing somewhere around in the bushes. The only possibility was to work, likeMarx, within the framework of powerful ideal types and hypothetical plausiblearguments, but this time to nzake lzis liinitatiorzs explic it. It was this convictionthat led Weber, through the use of Franklin's dairy, to his most famous idealtype, the spirit of capitalism.

Weber, like Marx and Sombart before, never argued that capitalism as adistinctive phenomenon came into being only in the modern era. For he waswell aware that certain modes of capitalist activity had always been in existenceand could be traced back to some human basic traits such as pcrsonal greedand a desire to accumulate wealth and to enjoy what it could buy. The questionthat he, like his predecessors, faced was, however, to explain the process


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312 EHUD SPRINZAKera. It has contributed to the understanding of the breakdown of the feudal-closed society and the growth of urban centers, a process that has createdfree labor and that, when coupled with the new technological breakthroughsand with the discovery of the rich overseas territories, has produced favor-able conditions for a capitalist economy on a large scale. But Sombart, andparticularly Weber, argued that these transformations, as important as theymight be, could not explain the typical capitalist mentality that emerged as adominant characteristic of the bourgeoisie as the class sustaining the newactivity. For a mentality of devoted and morally purposive hard work, wealth-producing for the sake of economic aggrandizement and perpetual reinvestmentcould not be explained as a natural outcome of either traditional greedy capi-talism or of new economic developments, reflected, as vulgar Marxism wouldmaintain, in the minds of the pe0ple.~0The traditional dominant orientationtoward work, according to Weber, has been characterized by the attempt bythe very many to maintain constant standards of living, or by the very few toaccumulate in order to spend luxuriously. Thus, he showed how diEcult itwas in a traditional social atmosphere to stimulate in a time of need a moti-vation toward higher productivity by higher pay and piece rate system. Forinstead of aspiring to earn more, traditional workers tended to maintain thesame standard of living. If that meant to work harder but for a shorter time,they did exactly that, bothering very little about the possibility of earningmore by maintaining the previous work schedule.51 On the whole, then, Weberargued that modern capitalism could be said to involve a spirit of capitalism,an ideal typical set of orientations, that gave to the capitalist activity moralpurpose and that could be contrasted with that of traditionalism. That idealtype, in order to be explained, had first to be made clearer. Weber did thisby using Franklin's dairy.Remember, that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labour,and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpenceduring his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he hasreally spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides.Remember, that credit is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it isdue, he gives me the interest, or so much as I can make of it during that time.This amounts to a considerable sum where a man has good and large credit, andmakes good use of it.Remember, that money is of the prolific, generating nature. Money can begetmoney, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six,turned again it is seven and threepence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds.The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits risequicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding-sow, destroys all her offspring to the


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313EBER'S THESIS AS AN HISTORICAL EXPLANATIONthousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might haveproduced, even scores of pounds.

Weber7s use of the term spirit of capitalisin should be underlined; for byusing this term he made explicit his intention to exclude all the other directeconomic and social factors that could be held responsible for the growth ofcapitalist mentality. His major theoretical problem became, consequently, tofind out what was the historical mechanism through which traditionalismas a dominant feature gave way to the spirit of capitalism. Weber noticedthat ever since the seventeenth century and in different modes it becamecommon to associate Protestantism with capitalist growth and entrepreneurialactivity. Many sets of data, composed both of authoritative historical observa-tions and of contemporary studies, indicated the same fact. But rather thansolving the historical enigma, they helped to complicate it. For the Protestantteaching, as Weber clearly saw, could in almost no sense be associated witha direct promotion of modern capitalism. It came out strongly against themoral laxity of the Catholic church of the time, and attacking its mundanecharacter, it took clearly an ascetic moral direction. Thus Weber mentioned:It is not to be understood that we expect to find any of the founders or representa-tives of these religious movements considering the promotion of what we havecalled the spirit of capitalism as in any sense the end of his life-work. We cannotwell maintain that the pursuit of worldly goods, conceived as an end in itself wasto any of them of positive ethical value. Once and for all it must be rememberedthat programs of ethical reform never were of the centre of interest for any of thereligious reformers. . . . They were not the founders of societies for ethical culturenor the proponents of humanitarian projects for social reform and cultural ideals.The salvation of the soul and that alone was the centre of their life and work.62

We can see now that the major theoretical problem for Weber became notto prove that Protestantism, in contrast to Catholicism, was expressly orientedtoward capitalism, but to pick up those clues in an avowedly religious anti-materialistic and anti-capitalistic teaching that could eventually and in an un-intentional way help to generate and sustain capitalist behavior.53 Catholi-cism, as Weber maintained, never objected in principle to hard work and tosystematic ascetic behavior. But for it and in contrast to Calvinism "the con-crete intentio of the single act determined its value. And the single good orbad action was credited to the doer determining his temporal and eternal

52. Zbid.,89-90.53. Aware of the subtleties of his argument as well as of future criticism, Weber notedcautiously: "We shall thus have to admit that the cultural consequences of the Reforma-


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314 EHUD SPRINZAKfate."54 For Calvinism, however, it was the whole systematic behavior thatcounted.The God of Calvinism demanded of his believers not single good works, but a lifeof good works combined into a unified system. There was no place for the veryhuman Catholic cycle of sin, repentance, atonement, release, followed by re-newed sin.55The Calvinist self-strife involved a profound commitment to strenuous lifein which, due to the elimination of the mediatory function of the church-in-strumental in Catholicism to attain atonement-one was psychologicallyleft alone to face his destiny. Such elimination of the traditional magical func-tions and performances of the Church, coupled with the psychological isolationthat was one of its by-products, produced a style of life which was highlyindividualistic (in a psychological, not social manner) and highly rational.Thus, Weber describes Sebastian Frank as striking "the central characteristicof this type of religion when he saw the significance of the Reformation inthe fact that now every Christian had to be a monk all his life."" And asHudson has maintained, this type of behavior, when applied to all the be-lievers, created a dominant character who was bound to consunze less and toproduce more. Such a personality, Weber argued, was therefore not acquisitiveby nature but was eventually bound to develop an ethos, the ethos ofcapitalism, which combined at once a strong earthly activity with profoundmoral commitment to modest and productive life. Franklin's diary becamein this respect not what the Protestant apostles aspired to but what was pro-duced by their gospel in the process of time.

In view of what was said above, it appears justified to argue that Weber'spurpose in his study was to sort out those ideational elements in the Protestantteachings- particularly the Calvinist- that contributed to the emergenceof ascetic self-disciplines and highly rational behavior as a dominant factorin the Western modern culture. Such an hypothesis had to be done mainly interms of ideal types on the one hand and to be demonstrated by empiricalillustrations on the other. Only in this way could a general line of argument bedrawn along which some more systematic work could be initiated. And as wasmentioned above, it was in no respect Weber's intention to present his ap-proach as the exclusive way to the explanation of the emergence of capitalism.Nor was he, owing to the very methodological nature of his argument, in aposition to say how much the spiritual factors contributed to the rise ofcapitalism or whether they were a necessary condition or not.We have no intention whatever of maintaining such a foolish and doctrinaire thesis


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WEBER'S THESIS AS AN HISTORICAL EXPLANATION 315effectsof the Reformation, or even that capitalism as an economic system is a crea-tion of the Reformation. In itself, the fact that certain important forms of capital-istic business organization are known to be considerably older than the Reformationis a sufficient refutation of such a claim. On the contrary, we only wish to ascertainwhether and to what extent religious forces have taken part in the qualitative for-mation and the quantitative expansion of that spirit over the

In view of what was argued so far, it becomes obvious that most of the argu-ments raised against Weber missed their target, for they fought a straw man.Weber did not mislocate capitalism. Not only was he aware of the existence of"important forms of capitalistic business organization (that) are known to beconsiderably older than the Reformation"" but also even regarding post-Reformation capitalism he was ready to talk only in terms of Protestantcontributions. Weber did not nzisplace causality either. Having in mind not animpressionistic conception of causal analysis but a systematic one, he wasfully aware of his one-sidedness and ideal typical approach. But rather thannaively believing, as the historians did, that such shortcomings could beavoided by talking the language of gradations, he had sought to do that openlyas a preliminary operation without concealing the apparent difficulties. Re-garding the anti-Weberian arguments of misinterpreted Protestantisnz andmisunderstood Catholicism, the task that Weber assigned to himself was notthe one that his critics believed he misperformed, of analyzing the official in-tentional doctrines of early Protestantism, but a more subtle one. It was, ks t ,to suggest what persovlality chnracter the teaching of ascetic Protestantism wasbound to develop; and, second, to find clues in early Protestant teaching thatcould hint at eventual development of justification for capitalism. As for thefirst, by far the most important argument in the Weberian thesis, he has pro-vided sufficient evidence for the contribution of ascetic Protestantism to "asystematic rational ordering of the moral life as a whole"5g and had arguedconvincingly that such behavior- once it was dominant-could be heldresponsible for economic prosperity. The existence of this rational, unmagical,and orderly behavior has long been recognized by Weberians and anti-Weberians alike. As for the second, a more debatable question, Weber'sarguments regarding the "clues" to capitalism and awareness of economictheory on behalf of the reformers were never refuted by his critics. What theydid was to present other conceivable versions that, through a different selectionof quotations, played down Weber's theme and emphasized other aspects that


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316 EHUD SPRINZAKhe did not. Since Weber's intention was not to provide an official interpreta-tion of the Protestant teaching on an intentional level, such interpretations,as valuable as they might be, could hardly harm his point.

What becomes, thus, the characteristic feature of the historians' historicalapproach is not only a lack of sufficient awareness of the methodologicalquestions of historical explanation but also an avoidance of the major theoreti-cal problem of Weber's study, the question of how ideas could be shown to beinfluential in social life in a significant way. That such problems concernedWeber, not only as a special case of historical explanation but as a matterof social theory, could well be realized from the first chapter of The Prates?tant Ethic entitled "Religious Affiliation and Social Stratification." There heclearly approached the issue in a sociological way, using, as a comparativesociologist, empirical data obtained from various sources without payinggreat attention to either time or place. The historians may perhaps be said tohave been aware of the problem, but by equating social behavior with officialdoctrine (or, at least, by deriving evidence regarding the one from the other),they have jeopardized the ability of history as a discipline to grasp the realimpact of ideas not on a handful of intellectuals but on mass behavior on alarge scale. Weber's contribution to the study of social history was in thisrespect to avoid two common types of historical reductionism, the idealist-reducing history to the history of ideas- and the materialist-reducinghistory to non-behavioral elements, economic and technological factors.

But the even greater damage of the historians' approach has been the factthat in the heat of the argument, Weber's major weakness has not beenreally challenged. Far beyond the importance of the textual interpretations orthe selections of the most fitting illustrations for one's arguments, it remainsa fact that Weber did not specify the psychological mechanisms throughwhich ideas could be said and empirically demonstrated to have changed be-havior. What he did so brilliantly was to bring an ideal typical argument tothe growth of the spirit of capitalism without providing a measure to determinesuch growth independently of the growth of capitalism. Even regarding theassessment of the second, he did not go beyond some plausible ideas butvague operations. Thus he had failed many under-cautious students whohastened to examine the thesis by testing the first by the second. For it neveroccurred to them that such a test could have been legitimate only if a positivecorrelation between the growth of capitalism and the growth of the spirit ofcapitalism had first been established- and that it was not.For such a task to be accomplished, some major difficulties like excluding


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WEBER'S THESIS AS AN HISTORICAL EXPLANATION 317the whole thesis became, for those who did not understand it on both sides,a matter of contrary examples; and Weber's dclicate argument was subjectedover and again to arbitrary interpretations and vulgar refutations. Judgingfrom most of what was written on and around the thesis, it can justifiably beargued that for more than half a century, the real theoretical problem re-garding it remained concealed. For once the argument has been made byWeber in the subtle way that it was, the question stopped being one of properinterpretations or illustration and became one of operationability and test-ability.60

Only recently has the great potential of Weber's thesis been recognized anda proper operational and testable formulation of this theory devised. For be-havioral psychology has discovered that his great achievement was that hedifferentiated the theoretical equation of the growth of capitalism to threefactors standing in a consequential line: influencing ideas (Protestantism) +orientations and motivations toward certain types of life ( a combination ofrational systematic behavior and a strong sense of ethical calling in one'slife) + social action (entrepreneurial and productive behavior) leading toeconomic growth. Such differentiation could well fit the basic stimulus+motivation+ action model according to which the three variables could bejustifiably separated and measured for the sake of potential correlation estab-lishment. Moreover, for some years, behavioral psychology has sought toformulate in its own terms a psychological theory of economic growth.Especially under Parsons' impact, it has arrived at the same conclusion thatWeber reached: that there was some room to explain economic growth bynon-economic variables and that it was possible to do that not in terms of thedirect impact of a potential capitalist ideology or a sheer interest theory but bya set of orientations that could be called achievement. David McClelland, theleader of this effort, has noticed that the argument that could sustain all thathas been provided by Weber.61 For Weber defined the new capitalist characteras a man who "gets nothing out of his wealth for himself, except the irrationalsense of having done his job It was exactly in this way that the achieve-ment motive has been understood by the psychologists. The diEculty thatbecame apparent was, however, how to pull all the strings together into atestable theory that would relate the achievement motive to economic success

60. An exception to the somewhat nontestable arguments raised by Weber is the usethat he made of the data analyzed by Offenbacher, a student of his. Offenbacher relatedattendance of "modern language" schools as contrasted with "classical language" oneswith religion, and found a significant Protestant preference for the first category. (See


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318 EHUD SPRINZAKand both to religious affiliation. It could easily be shown that, in general,Protestant countries scored higher than Catholic ones in economic develop-r n e ~ ~ t . ~ ~ut such a demonstration could hardly be considered satisfactory interms of psychological theory, the central interest of both Weber and Mc-Clelland. A pioneering study by Winterbottom of the achievement motivein children opened the way to such a theory, for it showed that mothers ofchildren who scored high on McClelland's scale (of n Achievement) tendedto implant in their children very early in their life a sense of strong indepen-dence, hard work, competitiveness, and achievement.G4 Further tests of theimpact of the mother's religion on such behavior have confirmed that Protes-tant mothers differed significantly from Catholic ones in their early insistenceon independence and achievement. Thus-despite some theoretical dacult iesregarding the tests that cannot be specified here- these findings providedinitial support and clarification to Weber's argument. For the root of theachievement need detected in Protestants and Calvinists could be said to havecentered in the family and early practices taught and implanted by the parentsand particularly the mothers. Imaginative tests to examine the need for achieve-ment through the study of fantasy in literary forms were further devised and inthis way it became possible to approach the historical question in a moresystematic way than before. The major hypothesis of McClelland's AchievingSociety was not limited to Weber's argument only, for he tried to develop ageneral psychological theory of economic growth, sustained by the achievementmotive which was itself stimulated by various factors, not only the religiousone. But it lent itself to the examination of Weber's contention in that it madeit possible to measure n Achievement independently of Protestant teaching insuch a way that literary forms of Protestant origins could be matched withsimilar forms emerging from other religions. In the same way it becamepossible to examine periods of religious upheavals with an eye to entrepre-neurial effort and economic growth. An attempt of this nature has been madeby some of McClelland's associates regarding the British economy between1600 and 1800. Though facing some difficultpractical problems regarding theliterary samples (one way of approach was to match Anglican sermons withsermons delivered by Non-conformists), Bradburn and Berlew showed thata rise in n Achievement in the sixteenth century preceded the first wave ofeconomic growth in the seventeenth century and that a fall in n Achievementin the years 1650-1700 preceded the economic stagnation of the earlyeighteenth ~entury.~5 decisive rise in n Achievement beginning around themiddle of the eighteenth century preceded the economic growth of the industrial


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WEBER'S THESIS AS AN HISTORICAL EXPLANATION 319ment level were accompanied by strong popular Protestant movements withinthe church, and the falls in the n Achievement corresponded to a time whenProtestantism in England was not very active but was becoming respectable.

In a study conducted by Hagen of the origins of the entrepreneurial in-novators of the industrial revolution, it was found that out of six to eightpercent of the British population belonging to Non-conformist Protestantgroups (Methodists, Quakers, Unitarians) came more than one-third of theknown innovators of the time. It should be noted that an establishment of a posi-tive correlation is not a causal analysis, and McClelland did well to mention thatsuch examination in itself could not prove whether it was Protestantism that wasresponsible in this case for the high ~z Achievement within certain influentialgroups, or whether it was their need for achievement that induced them to be-come Protestants. But insofar as a proof of such historical occurrence could beobtained at all, McClelland's team has shown that there were grounds for such acontention. For in a classic study of two similar Mexican villages that werefortunately discovered to have been converted at the same time to Catholicismand Protestantism respectively, it was demonstrated that residents of theProtestant village scored much higher on the n Achievement scale and that thevillage as a whole was more prosperous than the other.'jK

There is little doubt that, despite the high degree of sophistication, skill,and imagination of McClelland's project, it still leaves many questions un-answered, and it does not exhaust the subject. But what is perhaps of greaterimportance-at least regarding the controversy on the origins of capitalism-is that it brought the Weber thesis up to date, in the sense of improving onit according to the present capabilities of organized knowledge. As such it hascontributed not only to the reinvigoration of the old thesis itself but also to thecreation of an outstanding example of llistorical explanation and its com-plexities. Weber's profound scholarship had uniquely brought together a studyof concrete historical problems with fruitful reasoning as to how such a studycould satisfy the requirements of an understanding of history. Weber's con-tribution in this respect has been that he freed historical and social analysisfrom some of the greatest competing fetishes of modern social theory-idealism, reductionist materialism, and abstract scientism-without losingthe positive contributions of these approaches to a healthy modern socialscience. For the old idealist approach, according to which social. history couldbe conceived in terms of ideas developed by authoritative observers andphilosophers, had led to the materialist critique according to which historywas not moved by abstract ideas but by somewhat extra-behavioral factors


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320 EHUD SPRINZAKhaving. And both were criticized by positivist scientism which maintained thatmeaningful knowledge could not be obtained by either, but had to do with theapplication of certain reliable methods of gathering information. Weberdid not accept totally any of these: but rather than rejecting them all, hesought to modify them. As for the first, he showed that the problem was notto demonstrate a direct link between ideas and consequent intentional action,but between ideas and patterns of social behavior interrelated in an uninten-tional way. Regarding the second, materialism, he showed that under certaincircumstances it became an important contribution to any historical ex-planation, but that it could not replace all the others and has to be conceivedas a limited explanation. As for scientism, following the neo-Kantian philos-ophy, Weber argued that scientific method was conditioned neither by thesubject matter of the research nor by the methods of its operations but by thebasic fact that understanding meant human operation of a choice of meaningfulvariables in an infinite reality and its ordering in a causal relationship accordingto certain demonstrable rules. Thus he could argue that science gets itsmeanings for our understanding not from the logic of argument that it develops(though it gets its validity from it) but from cultural orientation of the milieuin which it acts- a milieu that could conceivably differ from generation togeneration. Carefully applying these postulates, Weber has tried to work outthe line of argument that could open the way to a systematic non-materialistexplanation of the rise of modern capitalism. McClelland, fully aware ofWeber's delicate specifications, followed his direction and demonstrated howa proper use of modern techniques could transfer an argument of great culturalinterest into a useful theoretical framework. Such a framework made it possibleto go beyond the traditional way of proof by illustration or by authoritativequotation so that the theory could be empirically testable.Hebrew University of Jerusalem


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You have printed the following article:

Weber's Thesis as an Historical Explanation

Ehud Sprinzak

History and Theory, Vol. 11, No. 3. (1972), pp. 294-320.

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[Footnotes]

10 Puritanism and the Spirit of Capitalism

Winthrop S. Hudson

Church History, Vol. 18, No. 1. (Mar., 1949), pp. 3-17.

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34Max Weber and Empirical Social Research

Paul F. Lazarsfeld; Anthony R. Oberschall

American Sociological Review, Vol. 30, No. 2. (Apr., 1965), pp. 185-199.

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