Types of Rationality in Max Weber's Thought, by Stephen Kalberg

Rationality has been regarded as virtually the central theme of Max Weber's works. Commentators who have addressed this theme have generally limited its multifaceted character. This article presents an inventory of the meanings Weber intended by "rationality" and "rationalization" in Economy and Society and the Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion. Four types of rationality are identified and compared with one another...

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Foundations for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History⁽¹⁾

Rationality has been regarded as virtually the central theme of Max Weber's works. Commentators who have addressed this theme have generally limited its multifaceted character. This article presents an inventory of the meanings Weber intended by "rationality" and "rationalization" in Economy and Society and the Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion. Four types of rationality are identified and compared with one another:

practical, theoretical, substantive, and formal. Only "ethical substantive rationality" gives rise to methodical ways of life. All four types [of rationality] manifest themselves in multiple processes of rationalization; these processes are coordinated at all levels of societal and civilizational process. [Weber's] view is that long-term processes of rationalization are rooted in values rather than in interests. The predominance of the realization of practical, theoretical, and formal rationality in modern Western societies entails enormous consequences for the type of person susceptible to living in these societies.

Although "rationality" and its various manifestations in historical processes of rationalization have generally been considered a major, and perhaps the only major, theme in the collected works of Max Weber, few commentators have seriously examined this theme or related the various types of rationality to one another. The efforts of Schluchter⁽²⁾ and Weiss⁽³⁾ share a common flaw. Both have mentioned "meanings" and "dimensions" of rationality that cannot be coherently traced in the numerous discussions of "rationality" and rationalization processes in Economy and Society and the Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion. Moreover, their definitions are not compatible with the various historical-sociological analyses Weber provides regarding the paths of rationalization processes in different civilizations. Donald Levine's recent discussion (1979) of Weber's conception of "rationality" has avoided these problems because it has remained largely faithful to Weber's (use of) terminology; however, he does not provide a comprehensive discussion of the concept, nor does he mention how the types of rationality combine [with one another] in history as distinct processes of rationalization or strive to overcome one another. Furthermore, the distinction Levine draws between types of social action and types of rationality in Weber, like the explanations of Ulrike Vogel (1979) and Ann Swidler (1974), is not sufficiently differentiated.

Many explorations of Weber's understanding of "rationality" have failed to emphasize its multifaceted manifestations. The clearest articulation of this approach is that in Weber's collected works, rationalization processes mean nothing more than the "disenchantment of the world," bureaucratization, or the increasing loss of freedom. Other commentators have discussed rationality merely as the equivalent of the increasing prevalence of [means-end calculative] social action.⁽⁴⁾ Still other authors have limited their investigations of Weber's conception of "rationality" and its manifestations in historical rationalization processes to specific spheres of life, such as the religious sphere.⁽⁵⁾

To a large extent, Weber himself is responsible for the lack of clarity that surrounds his analysis of “rationality” and the interplay of the multifaceted processes of rationalization in history. His scattered and isolated discussions on this theme are more likely to cause confusion than to provide illumination.⁽⁶⁾ And despite the centrality of this theme, nowhere does he offer a concise exposition of it. Furthermore, his chaotic writing style, as well as his frequent imprecisions, complicate all efforts to compile a list of the main meanings he intended for “rationality” and “processes of rationalization”: since in his works no suitable adjective precedes the [word] “rational” to describe it, one who researches Weber usually makes a choice; a choice between concluding that his usage followed a single path, and undertaking the unpleasant task of systematically examining the hundreds of phrases in which this term appears. Because in the numerous English editions of Weber’s works, various translations have been made of

⁽⁷⁾Rationalisierung, Rationalität, Rationalismus

as well as the key related terms, the reader who does not have access to the German texts is faced with a disheartening situation.

This article comprehensively examines, through a survey method, Weber’s intended meaning of “rationality” and “rationalization” and considers these terms as they appear in his major comparative-historical sociological works written after 1904 (Economy and Society and the collected essays on the sociology of religion⁽⁸⁾). The selection of these writings, rather than the methodological or political essays, was due to the other aim of this article: the reconstruction of Weber’s conception, on a purely conceptual level, of the multiplicity of rationalization processes; processes that, in various ways, engage with or merge into one another at societal and civilizational levels.⁽⁹⁾ Since the distinct types of rationality are the foundations of these rationalization processes, a catalog of their characteristics and interrelationships, as found in Weber’s comparative sociology, is a necessary prerequisite for such a reconstruction.⁽¹⁰⁾ But before delving into the types of rationality, in order not to fall into unnecessary confusion, we must address some introductory topics.

1. General Characteristics of the Types of Rationality and Rationalization in Weber’s Work:

In this section, the conceptual status of Weber’s four types of rationality is explained in relation to the four types of social action he proposes, as well as two general characteristics of the types of rationality and rationalization processes, [namely] their universality and their specificity regarding the “life-sphere.”

Types of Social Action and Types of Rationality

Weber’s fourfold typology of social action—affectual, traditional, value-rational, and means-end rational action—refers to the general capacities of the thinking human being. The existence of these types of social action is not dependent on societal, cultural, and historical configurations; [rather,] as anthropological characteristics of humans, they stand “beyond history.”

Against the French anthropology of the nineteenth century, Weber argued that man did not acquire his “rationality” with the Enlightenment, and that individuals in past eras were never incapable of rational action. On the contrary, even the daily actions of “primitive” man could be subjectively means-end rational, for example, as when specific religious rituals were performed with the aim of securing divine favor. In Weber’s view, the pure transactional relationship that existed in sacrifice and prayer⁽¹¹⁾ was identical in form to the calculation a modern merchant makes regarding the most suitable means of gaining profit. Likewise, the fact that the values of premodern societies differ vastly from modern values did not, in Weber’s view, call into question the fundamental human capacity to orient one’s actions rationally according to values. On the other hand, traditional and affectual action are not eradicated and do not disappear as modernization movements advance.

However general the four types of social action may be, Weber limited the application of this typology to specific and particular actions. Nevertheless, as a comparative-historical sociologist, he did not believe in examining action orientations in isolation; uniformities and patterns of action were of far greater interest to him. Patterns may be found at multiple levels of socio-historical processes; from those manifested in the main trajectories of entire civilizations to those specific to long-term historical developments or short-term societal movements. Uniformities of action also appear within institutions, organizations, strata, classes, and groups in all societies. The typology of types of rationality, a classification that must be extracted from Weber's writings, is one of several conceptual schemes he employs to analyze these uniformities and patterns. 'Practical,' 'theoretical,' 'formal,' and 'substantive' rationality constitute this typology. The conscious uniformities of action that all these types of rationality create bring about a mastery over discrete and disconnected realities.

Since the locus of these types of rationality lies in means-end rational action and value-rational action,⁽¹²⁾ the patterns characterizing civilizational and societal processes merely entail [the existence of] conscious uniformities in the orientation of individuals to their actions⁽¹³⁾ and, in some cases, 'ways of life.'⁽¹⁴⁾ Ways of life, or coherent 'attitudes' that have permeated the entire organization of life, like socio-historical processes, vary greatly from one another in terms of the extent to which they involve methodical action.⁽¹⁵⁾ In Weber's view, the wide range of variation depends, in the final analysis, on a multitude of ideas, values, resources, and economic, political, sociological, and historical factors that interact with one another. Rationalization processes of historical significance in societies and entire civilizations began when a constellation of factors crystallized those methodical and rational ways of life that were encouraged. As will be mentioned below, Weber asserts that precisely these ways of life are based on values, not on interests.

The Generality of Types of Rationality and Rationalization Processes

Weber often discusses the types of rationality and the various processes of rationalization with regard to the distinct path of modernization in Western civilization. This dominant orientation is most evident in the 'Author's Introduction' to the Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion. In this essay, as well as throughout the Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion, Weber specifically intends to address the question of why Chinese, Indian, and ancient Near Eastern civilizations did not pursue the kind of rationalization processes specific to European-American civilization. Although Weber directed these investigations toward the question of why 'rationalized societies' emerged only in the West, the formation of types of rationality and rationalization processes is more or less general. The 'Author's Introduction' itself provides the clearest evidence for this generality. There, in referring to specific types of rationality and rationalization processes that emerged in Western civilization, Weber implicitly states that rationalization also takes place in non-Western civilizations, albeit often in a different manner.⁽¹⁶⁾ For example, he very frequently demonstrates 'rationalism' in ancient Judaism⁽¹⁷⁾ and Confucianism,⁽¹⁸⁾ and the rationalization of mystical contemplation.⁽¹⁹⁾

F. H. Tenbruck, in an analysis of the rationalization of religion, reached the same conclusion. After examining the original 1905 version of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and the subsequently written 'Author's Introduction,' 'The Social Psychology of the World Religions,' and 'Religious Rejections of the World,' Tenbruck argues that the most important development in content here is the expansion [of the scope] of Weber's understanding of 'rationality' and rationalization processes.

⁽²⁰⁾

In the first edition of The Protestant Ethic, Weber, aware of the intellectual currents of his time, focused his attention entirely on rationalization in the West. Nevertheless, by the time he wrote his later essays, he had expanded his conception of rationalization to world-historical dimensions; dimensions that also encompassed the developments of Eastern civilizations.

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The Specificity of "Rationality" and "Rationalization" Processes in the Spheres of Life

Weber does not employ the concepts of "rationality" and "rationalization" in a general way merely to indicate the overall emergence of civilizations. Rather, rationalization processes of differing qualities, [each] potentially proceeding at its own pace, are realized at various socio-cultural levels and in different spheres of life, both in those spheres of life related to the "organization of the world," such as the spheres of law, politics, economics, domination, and knowledge, and in the "inner" spheres [namely] religion and ethics; processes of rationalization can also be found in the spheres of aesthetics and eroticism.⁽²²⁾

Weber's belief that rationalization occurs in diverse spheres of life compelled him to examine to what extent a single sphere could be considered a "carrier"; [that is,] a sphere towards which all other processes of rationalization are more or less harmonized. In posing this question, he was initially inclined to scrutinize the Marxist emphasis on the economic sphere as the substructure of all other spheres. In this regard, Weber found the Marxist emphasis to be refuted: in his view, processes of rationalization may be realized in any sphere, independently of other spheres and to varying degrees in each. For example, the "rational" form of legislation did not originate from the countries that first generated modern forms of capitalism; rather, it emerged in ancient Rome and attained a high form of rationality. This occurred in that region long before the onset of industrialization in the Catholic countries of Southern Europe, not in England, which was the first industrial country. Similarly, purely this-worldly "rational" philosophies emerged above all in France with the Enlightenment movement, not in England or the Netherlands, where economic "rationalism" had reached its most advanced stages. Furthermore, after comparing the intense capitalist activity of Florence in the 14th and 15th centuries with the economic backwardness of Pennsylvania in the 18th century, Weber concluded that modern capitalism alone could not have been the creator of an "economic ethic."

⁽²³⁾

Hence, he cast doubt on all theories that considered the progress of "rationality" as a unilinear, evolutionary process, with equal intensity across all spheres of a society. For this reason, he examined the manner of the rationalization of action in specific spheres.

The purpose of these introductory remarks on the general characteristics of Weber's types of rationality and processes of rationalization is merely to provide a convenient framework for defining these concepts and examining their interrelationships. Weber himself, especially in his later writings, repeatedly reminded his readers to pay attention to the ambiguity of the meaning of "rationality" and "rationalization" in his work.⁽²⁴⁾

2. Types of Rationality According to Weber: Practical, Theoretical, Substantive, and Formal

In surveying the types of rationality, the aim in this section is specifically to demonstrate the multi-form character of "rationality" in Weber's works. We will repeatedly emphasize Weber's axiom that very different patterns of action and ways of life may be "rational."

Practical Rationality

Weber calls any way of life that views and judges worldly activity with regard to individual interests in a purely pragmatic, self-interested manner, practically rational.⁽²⁵⁾ A way of life based on practical rationality does not involve patterns of action that, on behalf of an absolute value system, actively bring certain ordinary affairs of daily life under control, for example; rather, it acknowledges certain realities and considers the most expedient means for overcoming the problems those realities present. Pragmatic action is oriented upward, in terms of everyday interests, and to achieve specific practical goals, the most appropriate means must be weighed cautiously and considered with increasing precision.⁽²⁶⁾ Thus, this type of rationality is a manifestation of the human capacity for means-end rational action.

Wherever the fetters of primitive magic have been severed, whether in epochs upon which religions of ethical salvation have strongly impressed their role, or in thoroughly secular eras, the "capacity and inclination" of individuals for patterns of action based on practical rationality emerges.⁽²⁷⁾ According to Weber, the diversity in the uniformities of action based on practical rationality stems from two things: differences in the means available for mastering everyday problems, in terms of their relative sophistication⁽²⁸⁾ and [secondly,] the extent to which the ethical teachings of a religion reinforce patterns of action based on practical rationality by placing "psychological premiums" upon them.⁽²⁹⁾ All "urban" strata, especially merchants, artisans, and tradesmen, as a result of their routine activities, display a clear tendency to organize their way of life according to personal interests and practical rationality.⁽³⁰⁾ This way of life is especially characteristic of the everyday action of the people of the Liberum arbitrium, such as the Italians and the French.⁽³¹⁾

The pragmatic, this-worldly inclination toward patterns of action based on practical rationality entails individuals' adherence to certain realities and, along with it, a tendency to oppose any orientation based on transcending everyday affairs. Such persons are distrustful not only of every effort directed toward impractical, "other-worldly" values, whether religious or secular utopias, but also of the abstract theoretical rationality of all intellectual strata.

Theoretical Rationality

This type of rationality involves the conscious mastery of reality, not through action but through the construction of increasingly precise abstract concepts. Since here the person's cognitive confrontation with their experience, like thought processes such as logical deduction and induction, occurs abundantly, the attribution of causality and the creation of symbolic "meanings" are commonplace. More generally, all abstract cognitive processes, in all their comprehensive and active forms, are hallmarks of theoretical rationality.⁽³²⁾

Weber found numerous types of systematic thinkers who adopted this type of rationality. In the earliest stages of history, magicians and ritualistic priests sought an abstract means for mastering nature and the supernatural. With the emergence of religions of ethical salvation, ethical priests, monks, and theologians rationalized the values implicit in doctrines into internally coherent value systems or worldviews; these value systems and worldviews comprehensively explained the persistence of suffering. Philosophers of every school have also delved into nature and society and have repeatedly refined conceptual schemes to "explain" their workings. [Two other groups] may also realize processes of theoretical rationality: judges who interpret the germ of a worldview present in political statutes, [or] the disciples of a revolutionary theorist, such as those who have continually emerged to purify Marxist doctrine.

Systematic thinkers are often scientists who, after Weber's death, in decades devoid of revolutionary hopes or religious fervor, dedicated themselves to endowing the scientific worldview with theoretical rationality. Because theoretical thought always seeks interconnections and the construction of comprehensive and "holistic" explanations, it adopts a particularly hostile stance toward the fragmented character of magic.

Weber states that, unlike rational action oriented toward means and ends—which provides the foundation for a purely adaptive practical rationality—the processes of theoretical rationalization are reinforced and intensified by a “metaphysical need” arising from the nature of thinkers and system-builders and their “unquenchable urge” to go beyond merely ordinary matters and to provide a unified “meaning” for the random events of everyday life.⁽³³⁾ The ultimate motivation of these individuals is the search for an answer to the question that has formed the basis of all metaphysics: “If the world as a whole and life in particular were to have a meaning, what would that meaning be, and how must the world appear in order to correspond to it?”⁽³⁴⁾ According to Weber, this puzzle, whether examined in its religious or philosophical forms, has played an immensely significant role in the efforts of thinkers to transcend everyday realities and to comprehend the world as a “meaningful” cosmos. In the processes of theoretical rationalization in the twentieth century, this question has been observable only in its most restricted forms. Weber believes that a theoretical confrontation with reality may influence the thinker’s action and create new regularities in action, though this does not always occur. For instance, it rarely happens that a change a modern scientist makes in a mathematical equation affects his everyday action. On the other hand, the rational deduction of a magician from common experience—that supernatural demonic powers dwell within or lurk behind trees, rocks, and other natural objects—entails a new mode of interaction with this transcendent realm, both for the magician himself and, given a constellation of purely sociological factors that facilitate the dissemination of the magician’s thought, for his entire community.⁽³⁵⁾ For example, once the idea of the soul came into existence, the purpose of burial rites was to provide for the comfort of the dead in their graves.⁽³⁶⁾ When powerful gods were conceived as beings with specialized roles who could protect humans from calamities but failed to do so, logical thought again confronted this perplexity: abstract thought concluded that these gods were capricious beings whose wrath could only be appeased through supplication and prayer.⁽³⁷⁾ These purely “rational” conclusions themselves affected social action in several ways. Perhaps the most important was that the necessity of propitiating the gods provided the impetus for the crystallization of a new stratum of religious specialists—namely, priests—to perform cultic ceremonies. The priests, in turn, subjected concepts concerning the supernatural realm to further theoretical rationalization. In this process, diverse methods of supplication and entreaty were organized into various forms of regulated worship, including prayer, hymns of praise, penance, and asceticism. Priests also defined “good conduct” as behavior acceptable to the gods, and worshippers learned how to attract divine favor by acting in accordance with the deity’s expectations. These modes of interaction with this parasitic realm, provided a facilitating set of sociological forces were present, spread throughout society.⁽³⁸⁾

In the process of religious rationalization at a later stage, worldviews emerged as a result of concepts concerning the supernatural realm undergoing theoretical rationalization. These comprehensive views of the universe and humanity’s place within it claimed to offer exhaustive explanations for human suffering and the recurrent experience of injustice. In subsequent processes of purely cognitive rationalization, religious thinkers continually sought to reorder and systematize the religious values implicit in the worldview into doctrines of ever-increasing internal coherence; in doing so, they hoped to deduce patterns of action that would guarantee the grace [of God or the gods] for believers. According to Weber, religious doctrines themselves—such as the Indian doctrine of karma, the Calvinist belief in predestination, and the Lutheran justification through faith—could, under certain circumstances, exert a significant influence on practical ways of life. This was solely because these doctrines derived their authority from the coherent explanations they provided for persistent suffering.

⁽³⁹⁾

Therefore, although theoretical rationality masters reality through thought, it can potentially create patterns of action indirectly. In fact, Weber states that the abstract processes of rationalization, whose carriers are system-building thinkers, have played a decisive role in the processes of de-magification

⁽⁴⁰⁾

[de-magification]; processes that constituted the characteristic of the [course of the transformation of medieval Catholicism into Calvinism].

Substantive Rationality

Substantive rationality is similar to practical rationality in that it directly directs action toward patterns, though it bears no resemblance to theoretical rationality. However, this [directing] takes place not on the basis of examining ways to solve everyday problems through pure means-end calculation, but in relation to a "value postulate" that exists in the past, present, or potentially.⁽⁴¹⁾ The value postulate does not merely denote a single value, such as a positive valuation of wealth or the fulfillment of duty, but entire sets of values that differ in terms of comprehensiveness, internal coherence, and content. Thus, this type of rationality signifies the inherent capacity of humans for value-rational action.

Substantive rationality may be limited, [that is,] it may organize a limited sphere of life and leave all other spheres untouched. For example, wherever friendship entails commitment to values such as loyalty, compassion, and cooperation, it constitutes substantive rationality. Likewise, communism, feudalism, hedonism, egalitarianism, Calvinism, socialism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Renaissance view of life, however much their capacity for regulating action and their value content may differ, are, like all aesthetic beliefs regarding "beautiful things," examples of substantive rationalities.⁽⁴²⁾

In all cases, substantive rationality is considered a "valid standard"; that is, a unique "criterion" by which the endless empirical events flowing in the real world can be selected, measured, and judged.

⁽⁴³⁾

Since the positions advanced by value postulates may in principle be unlimited, action may be ordered into patterns, and indeed into comprehensive ways of life, in innumerable ways. Small groups, organizations, institutions, political entities, cultures, and civilizations in every epoch have been ordered and arranged according to identifiable value postulates, even though these postulates may not be readily identifiable to their participants and may possibly be of such extreme strangeness to the social researcher's own values that the researcher can scarcely imagine institutions in which these postulates hold validity.

The unlimited nature of possible value postulates points to an important aspect of Weber's conception of substantive rationality: it is a deeply perspectivistic concept. For him, substantive rationality and the rationalization processes based upon it always refer back to ultimate perspectives or "orientations":⁽⁴⁴⁾ each perspective entails a specific constellation of values; this constellation determines the direction of the rationalization process that potentially will occur in the future. Hence, there is no logical set of "rational" values that constitutes a set of permanent "criteria" for "rational matters" and for rationalization processes. Instead, a radical perspectivism prevails; within this perspectivism, the existence of a rationalization process depends upon the individual implicitly or explicitly, unconsciously or consciously, favoring certain ultimate values and systematizing his or her action to conform to these values. The "rationality" of these values is an achievement of their status as cohesive value postulates. Thus, "irrational" matters are not fixed and inherently "irrational" but arise from the exemplary incompatibility of one ultimate set of values with another: nothing is "irrational" in itself but becomes so characterized when examined from a particular "rational" standpoint. Every religious person is "irrational" from the viewpoint of the irreligious person, and likewise every hedonist considers any ascetic way of life irrational, even if "rationalization" in terms of its [asceticism's] ultimate values has been realized. This essay, if it can be of any effect at all, seeks to demonstrate the multidimensional nature of a concept [the concept of the "rational"] that only appears simple.⁽⁴⁵⁾ (Translation by the translator and emphasis from the original text.)⁽⁴⁶⁾

In every sphere of life, there is at least one identifiable perspective rooted in a value postulate. These value postulates are the reference point for "rationality" and potential rationalization processes within a given life-sphere. Life-spheres, in a sense, defend their own value postulates as "rational" matters and label the value postulates of other life-spheres as "irrational." For example, from the perspective of efficiency and productivity in the economic sphere, all status monopolies are "irrational" because they restrict the expansion of the free market, just as capitalism is considered irrational from the perspective of feudalism's values, in which status monopolies were paramount.

⁽⁴⁷⁾

Similarly, the capitalist's calculability and the politician's power-seeking are "irrational" from the standpoint of the salvation religions of brotherliness, and the reverse is also true.

⁽⁴⁸⁾

Likewise, to the modern thinker who relies solely on science and empirical knowledge, the religious person's reliance on faith falls within the realm of the "irrational."

⁽⁴⁹⁾

Perspectives possessing substantive rationality may also differ within a single sphere. For example, in the religious sphere, many ultimate value positions and worldviews stand opposed to one another, each declaring itself the locus of "rationality." The Hindu organic social ethic as a way of life is incomprehensible to the Buddhist mystic who seeks Nirvana through a life of contemplation, just as the ascetic's action within this world holds no meaning for him.

⁽⁵⁰⁾

On the other hand, the paths to salvation in these Eastern religions are entirely meaningless to the ascetic,

⁽⁵¹⁾

as is the study of classical literature by the Confucian gentleman.

⁽⁵²⁾

همین طور در عرصه اخلاق، طرفداران اخلاق باور همواره مدعی اند که پای بندان به اخلاق مسئولیت، در تحلیل نهایی، حامی موضعی «غیر عقلانی»اند. حامیان ارزش های عام، همین ادعا را در مورد پشتیبانان ارزش های خاص دارند. در هر یک از این موارد، عکس آن ها نیز صادق است.

مفسّران انواع عقلانیت تقریبا به طور کامل، از این جنبه مهم [اندیشه وبر [غفلت کرده اند؛ این امر تا حد زیادی پیامد این بوده است که آثار دست دوم، عموما ناظر به اخلاق پروتستانی بوده اند نه اثر متأخرِ «انحای دنیاگریزی در ادیان» که چشم اندازگرایی شدید ارزشی وبر در آن از همه جا واضح تر است.⁽⁵³⁾ همچنین این غفلت از طرفی، نتیجه این بوده است که عموما گرایش داشته اند حالت چند بعدی فرایندهای عقلانیت را به یک بعد (مثلاً دیوانسالار شدن) تقلیل دهند و از طرفی دیگر، نتوانسته اند مانند وبر ارزش های شخصی پژوهشگر را از سعیش برای تعریف علمی بنیان های تاریخی، پیش شرط های جامعه شناختی و پیامدهای مهم پدیده اجتماعی تمیز دهند. برای مثال، هربرت مارکوزه،⁽⁵⁴⁾ به ویژه استدلال می کند که وبر عقلانیت صوری سرمایه داری را با عقلانیت به معنای دقیق کلمه یکی می دانست و در آثار علمی اش این نظام اقتصادی را به عنوان نظامی که با ارزش مطلق عقل به معنای هگلی اش انطباق دارد، مورد تأیید قرار می داد. برعکس، تحقیق وبر راجع به عقلانیت و فرایندهای عقلانی شدن، به هیچ وجه به معنای تمایل شخصی او به طرفداری از گسترش یا محدودیت آن ها نیست.

چشم اندازگرایی شدید وبر، [یعنی] تصور وبر از عقلانیت ذاتی و جامعه شناسیِ Verstehende [تفهمیِ] او به عنوان یک کل، همه بر محور این اعتقاد می چرخند که ارزش ها با روش های علمی قابل اثبات نیستند،⁽⁵⁵⁾ اما در عصر حاضر تنها قلمروی خواهد بود که در آن، فرد مختار با «شیاطین خودش» مواجه می شود. اینکه تحقق عقلانیت حتی به دقیق ترین صورت و «صحیح ترین وجه فنی» مثلاً در عرصه اقتصاد را نمی توان به عنوان «پیشرفت» در سطح ارزش ها، مشروع و «معتبر» دانست، فرض ثابت تمام تحلیل های جامعه شناختی وبر است. همین طور علم نمی تواند از سوی دیگر اثبات کند که ارزش های راهب بودایی یا ارزش های مربوط به تعالیم و مواعظ مسیح علیه السلام از هر ترکیب ارزشی دیگر «برتر» است.⁽⁵⁶⁾

عقلانیت های صوری به حادترین صورت در تضاد مستقیم با بسیاری از عقلانیت های ذاتی قرار گرفته اند. تعارض همیشگی این انواع عقلانیت، نقشی به ویژه سرنوشت ساز در تحقق عقلانیت در غرب بازی کرده است.

عقلانیت صوری

برخلاف خصلت بین تمدنی و فراعصری انواع عقلانیت عملی، نظری و ذاتی، عقلانیت صوری به طور کلی⁽⁵⁷⁾ مرتبط است با عرصه های زندگی (بخصوص عرصه های اقتصاد، حقوق و علم) و ساختار سلطه (بخصوص شکل دیوانسالارانه سلطه) که فقط همراه با صنعتی شدن، حدود و ثغور آن ها دقیق و مشخص گشتند. در حالی که عقلانیت عملی همواره نشانگر گرایشی مبهم است به محاسبه و حل مسائل روزمره از طریق الگوهای کنش بر مبنای عقلانیت وسیله هدف و با لحاظ منافع شخصی در مقام عمل، نهایتا همان محاسبه مبتنی بر عقلانیت وسیله هدف را عقلانیت صوری با ارجاع به قواعد، قوانین یا مقرراتی که کاربرد عام دارند مشروعیت می بخشد.

به هر میزان که محاسبه محض بر حسب قواعد انتزاعی [بر تصمیم گیری ها [حکمفرما باشد، تصمیم ها «بدون توجه به اشخاص» اتخاذ می شوند. تطبیق کنش با قواعد رسمی و قوانین، معادل نفی هرگونه خودرأیی است: عاملگرایی و محاسبه بر حسب مقررات موضوعه، در اینجا دقیقا در تقابل با تصمیم گیری بر حسب خصوصیات شخصی افراد مربوطه قرار دارد. شخصیت های متمایز حتی شخصیت های فرهمند به مانند تفاوت های مبتنی بر منزلت، مشمول احکام آیین نامه های دارای عقلانیت صوری اند. برای مثال، مرحمت یا درخواست شخصی ای که ارباب تیولدار می کند، کاملاً با «روح» دیوانسالاری بیگانه است.⁽⁵⁸⁾

He considers bureaucratic domination to possess formal rationality because action conforming to general rules and laws that are theoretically analyzable, as well as the selection of the most appropriate means for their consistent observance, is most prominent in this type of domination. From a technical standpoint, the most

The significance of mental processes for Weber lies primarily in the degree to which they are capable of becoming patterns of social action. In cases such as practical rationality, uniformities of action are so thoroughly governed by calculation related to self-interest that the mental process itself is scarcely discernible. Theoretical rationality, on the other hand, represents the opposite end [of this spectrum]: here, cognitive processes often do not directly generate patterns of action, though they do so indirectly. In general, a fully direct connection between cognitive process and action corresponds to formal and substantive rationalities (see Table 1).

For Weber, constellations of historical and sociological factors determine whether a particular type of rationality finds manifest expression merely as mental processes, or additionally as uniformities of action as established socio-cultural processes, [and likewise determine whether this expression occurs] at the level of groups, organizations, societies, or entire civilizations. This shared capacity of the types of rationality to master reality is a cornerstone consciously present in Weber's analysis of the actualization of diverse rationalization processes in various civilizations.

Types of Action, Types of Rationality, and Legitimate Orders

Since the conscious uniformities of action that seek to master reality—practical and formal types of rationality—are typically based on the human capacity for means-end rational action, substantive rationality typically arises from value-rational action. On the other hand, even though theoretical rationality is rooted not in action but in abstract cognitive processes, rational action and even patterns of rational action may indirectly follow from rational theoretical thought (see Table 2).

In Weber's scheme, substantive, formal, and theoretical types of rationality do not remain merely amorphous socio-cultural uniformities for action, but, given the assumption of combinations of facilitating sociological and historical factors, become institutionalized as normative uniformities of action within "legitimate orders":⁽⁶⁵⁾ [that is, within] organizations,⁽⁶⁶⁾ forms of traditional (patriarchal, patrimonial, feudal) and legal-rational (bureaucratic) domination, types of economic structures, ethical codes, classes, and status groups. The diffuse and problem-solving character of practical rationality usually confines it to the realm of ordinary, everyday, practical problems.

Clear "elective affinities" exist between certain legitimate orders and specific types of action. When substantive rationalities are formulated by prophets, priests, and theologians as ethical religions of salvation and are institutionalized in an organization—be it a church, sect, or hierarchy—believers typically feel obligated, [by resorting] to value-rational grounds, to observe this "ethical substantive rationality." However, this does not necessarily occur. For example, many individuals, in Weber's view, do not possess the "necessary religious qualifications" to pattern their actions consistently on behalf of a set of values. Thus, their belief in these values serves not as absolute ethical principles but merely as guidelines for action that can be observed or set aside according to temporary needs. In this case, the observance of ethical substantive rationality often takes on the character of a purely means-end rationality. Other persons—although these persons are decidedly not representative members of the sect or church—may regard institutionalized ethical substantive rationality with an eye to their interests and nothing more. The means-end rational motives of merchants illuminate this probability; they joined the Calvinist sect only in order to be recognized for their complete honesty and thereby secure the business of the sect and other members of the community.⁽⁶⁷⁾ In this case, belief in patterns of action based on substantive rationality is not value-rational; rather, these patterns are merely a means possessing means-end rationality that is useful for conducting a prosperous business.⁽⁶⁸⁾

در موارد دیگر، قرابت های انتخابی بین نظم های مشروعی که نوعی از عقلانیت را نهادینه می کنند و انواع کنش اجتماعی، فقط در صورتی وضوح دارند که این نظم ها با توجه به مجموعه ویژه ای از ارزش های موجود در یک عصر مورد بررسی قرار گیرند. دیوانسالاری به عنوان نظمی مشروع که ویژگی آن، ضوابط رسمی انتزاعی است، به ادله مختلفی ممکن است حفظ شود، کارمندان دولت پروس در قرن نوزدهم وظایفشان را به شایستگی انجام می دادند و کار روزانه شان را رأس ساعت هشت آغاز می کردند، چرا که به مجموعه ای از ارزش ها اعتقاد داشتند: طبق «اخلاق دیوانسالاری»، وظیفه، مستلزم قابل اتکا بودن، دقت، لیاقت، وقت شناسی، انضباط، تداوم و قابل اطمینان بودن است. در این مورد فوق العاده، خود عقلانیت ذاتی غیرشخصی،

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ابزار مناسبی شد برای تحقق الگوهای کنش مبتنی بر عقلانیت صوری.

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در جوامع دیگر و اعصار دیگر، همین اجرای نظام مند وظایف با توجه به قواعد عام صورت می گیرد، چون مقام مسئول، صرفا به رسم پای بند است (کنش سنتی) یا چون می داند که عدم اجرای وظیفه به معنای از دست دادن کارش خواهد بود (کنش مبتنی بر عقلانیت وسیله هدف).

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به همین سان، سرمایه داری به عنوان نظم اقتصادی مشروع، ممکن است به ادله گوناگون حفظ شود. وبر استدلال می کند که خاستگاه سرمایه داری مدرن را بدون توجه به سازگاری ارزشی عقلانی پیورتینها با عقلانیت ذاتی اخلاقی نمی توان فهمید: مؤمنی که با انگیزه دینی، کار منضبط و روشمند و انباشت و سرمایه گذاری مجدد پول را ارزشمند می دانست، مؤلفه نظام مندی را وارد فعالیت اقتصادی کرد که معلوم شد در پاره کردن بندهای سنتگرایی اقتصادی، بسیار کاراتر از جهت گیری های سودگرایانه «سرمایه دار ماجراجو» بوده است.

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در این مورد نامتعارف و پرمعنا، انتخاب وسیله ای بر مبنای عقلانیت وسیله هدف (مجموعه ای از ارزش های غیرشخصی) توسط پیورتینها برای نیل به هدف اطمینان ناشی از یقین به رستگاری (هدفی که فقط از طریق کسب ثروت تحقق می یابد) نهایتا یک انگیزه را برای سازمان رسمی عقلانی بنگاه های اقتصادی فراهم آورد.

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از طرف دیگر، سرمایه دار مدرن، ممکن است بنا به ادله سنتی یا [ادله مبتنی بر] عقلانیت وسیله هدف، یا حتی در نتیجه اعتقادی ارزشی عقلانی به «صحیح» بودن قوانین انتزاعی بازار، بدان ها پای بند باشد. در واقع او ممکن است همچون کالونیست ها اعتقادی ارزشی عقلانی داشته باشد مبنی بر اینکه عقلانیت ذاتی غیرشخصی کار روشمند، اجرای شایسته وظایف، قابل اتکا بودن و غیره مناسب ترین وسیله برای رسیدن به هدف موفقیت در کسب و کار است.

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همچنین ممکن است انگیزه اش برای عمل کردن را دایما تغییر دهد، هرچند از نظر وبر نوعا چنین اتفاقی نمی افتد. این همه، این واقعیت را دگرگون نمی سازد که الگوهای کنش مبتنی بر عقلانیت صوری، برای تضمین موفقیت بنگاه تجاری ضرورت دارد.

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اما این مطلب، آن [دسته از [دیدگاه ها در باب تاریخ را مبنی بر اینکه جوامع مدرن، محصول پیشرفت تک خطی کنش مبتنی بر عقلانیت وسیله هدف یا کنش ارزشی عقلانیتند، صریحا زیر سؤال می برد.

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بنابراین به نظر وبر، نظم مشروعی که نوع خاصی از عقلانیت صوری یا ذاتی را نهادینه می سازد ممکن است انواع گوناگون کنش اجتماعی و حتی انواع بیشتری از عقلانیت را موجب شود. نمونه های فراوانی مانند آنچه در بالا آمد را می توان از آثار جامعه شناختی وبر استخراج کرد. عقلانیت نظری نیز با صرف نظر از اینکه در سازمان هایی نهادینه می شوند که مساعی علمی، دینی یا عرفی اخلاقی را در پیش می گیرند ممکن است به طور غیرمستقیم به انواع جهت گیری ها در کنش بینجامد.

قابلیت های انواع مختلف عقلانیت برای ایجاد شیوه های زندگی روشمند و عقلانی

Despite the shared capacity of the types of rationality to consciously master reality, they engage with heterogeneous realities in manifestly different ways and produce uniformities of action with varying degrees of effectiveness. Only practical and substantive rationalities give rise to ways of life. These ways of life differ greatly from one another in methodicalness and continuity: in Weber's view, only values, and especially an integrated combination of values, are capable of creating methodical, rational ways of life.⁽⁷⁷⁾

In Weber's view, a way of life based on practical rationality lacks a methodical character. Since it is founded on subjective interests, this way of life does not, for example, order changing situations under an ethical principle or abstract rule but constantly reacts to them. Moreover, to the extent that an individual, in confronting the scattered problems that external factors place before him, acts merely in the most reasonable manner based on means-end rationality, [action] acquires an element of coherence: here, personal interests regularly direct action and create a way of life rooted in those interests.

The diverse cognitive processes specific to theoretical rationality actively confront certain realities and seek to manipulate them abstractly; they do this through the search for interrelationships between discrete and seemingly unrelated spheres. Nevertheless, their power to create a way of life or to counteract practical rationality is decidedly limited. The modern scientist's formulation of hypotheses practically determines the orientations of his action inside or outside the laboratory in numerous instances, and the arguments of magicians, priests, monks, or theologians regarding the sources of evil and suffering only influence their everyday action when the "soulless" quality of theoretical processes is dispelled by the accompaniment of these processes with values.

The success of formal rationality in overcoming ways of life based on practical rationality is only slightly greater than that of theoretical rationality. As long as the civil servant, lawyer, merchant, and scholar carry out the routine tasks of their profession, their conformity to specific abstract rules removes them from the disorderly flow of scattered events and from confronting everyday problems on the basis of practical rationality. But these patterns based on formal rationality are generally incapable of describing the action of persons in personal relationships, in the situation of being a father or mother, in leisure time, or in the choice of their pastimes. Thus, the influence of formal rationality is limited, and it is entirely possible, for example, that the bureaucrat, as soon as he leaves his office, acts on the basis of practical rationality or any other mode. No unified attitude can be found here that provides a comprehensive description of action and creates a way of life.

Only action consistent with substantive rationality possesses the capacity to create methodical ways of life; ways of life that subordinate the way of life based on practical rationality and interests, conformity to rules based on formal rationality, and the chaotic flow of reality's events. This occurs most effectively after the values pertaining to a specific substantive rationality, with a distinct degree of importance, have been rationalized through the processes of theoretical rationality's realization into coherent value systems, in such a way that they comprehensively address and order all aspects of life. The value content of these substantive rationalities, which determines the direction of these rationalization processes,⁽⁷⁸⁾ varies between the two ends of a broad spectrum, from secular to religious. The most important point in Weber's view regarding the creation of methodical, rational ways of life is the fact that only substantive rationalities endow ethical action in this world with "psychological premiums."

Weber's definition of the "ethical" criterion is: "... a specific type of rational value-belief among individuals which imposes a normative element, as a consequence of this belief, upon action that is allegedly 'ethically good'; just as action that is allegedly 'beautiful' is measured by aesthetic criteria" (free translation, emphases from the original text).⁽⁷⁹⁾

This purely formal definition can be made concrete with countless rational value-beliefs; some of those beliefs—those that require consistency with value principles—elevate ethical standards to the rank of ethical substantive rationality. Weber calls the thoroughly this-worldly ethics and secular value principles such as communism, if held as a rational value-belief, just as much an ethical rationality as the ethics of even the most elementary religions,

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regardless of whether punishment and reward are in the hands of the God of [monotheistic] religions or the gods of [pantheistic] religions.

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It is not the case that ethical rationality merely entails memorizing rules of appropriate conduct, rules that conventionally contain the accumulated wisdom of past generations; rather, ethical action involves, first, the necessity of following the ethical good, a necessity accompanied by a feeling of inner obligation or compulsion, and second, that a gap exists between a standard that possesses normative validity and claims ethical status, and the empirical perception of the flow of disparate events. According to Weber, ethical rationalities, even if they lack "external" guarantees and sometimes even despite conflict with social forces, can exert a decisive influence on everyday action. When an ethical rationality penetrates action based on practical rationality, Weber refers to the resulting action as "ethical-practical" action.

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For all uniformities of ethical-practical action, the values that constitute the corresponding ethical rationality are of the utmost importance. Nevertheless, these values differ not only in content but also in comprehensiveness and degree of internal integration.

The realization of value-rationalization, for Weber, points to the fact that substantive rationalities, whether ethical or not, attain theoretical rationality: their comprehensiveness (the extent to which they claim to order all action) and their internal integration increase. The more the values within a substantive rationality, however comprehensive or limited, become ordered and systematized, the more internal integration becomes rational. As rationalization proceeds, values gradually not only find a coherent connection with one another but are also arranged hierarchically under an ultimate value. For example, in the religious sphere, the realization of value-rationalization entails the decline of disparate values associated with obsolete ritual practices, disconnected magical ceremonies, and the temple of gods, each of which demands sacrifices and loyalties, and [also entails] the shaping of these jumbled values into worldviews that become ever more comprehensive and integrated.⁽⁸³⁾ Whenever these values emerge as religious doctrines possessing substantive rationality, fully integrated worldviews provide coherent explanations for the totality of injustice and suffering; these explanations are offered in terms of principles concerning right and wrong in which all believe their "truth."

To the extent that processes of value-rationalization expand the comprehensiveness and internal coherence of a substantive rationality into a secular or religious worldview as an ethical standard, and to the degree that social action is value-rationally oriented to this set of values, the disparate occurrences of everyday life, the interest-driven lifestyle based on practical rationality, and patterns of action based on formal rationality all give way to ethical claims. Thus, in Weber's view, the probability that action will acquire substantive rationality in order to conform to a salvation-based ethic or any other type of ethical substantive rationality depends not only on the strength of hostile interests but also on the motivations of believers and the relative realization of value-rationalization within that ethic: the closer the ethic approaches the point of perfect comprehensiveness and internal integration, and the more value-rational action prevails, the greater the psychological emphasis on action systematically directed toward ethical goals. For Weber, the individual who value-rationally adapts his action to a comprehensive and integrated ethical substantive rationality acts methodically according to an ethic of conviction and rationalizes action "from within" in all spheres of life to conform to its binding values.⁽⁸⁴⁾

The content of the intrinsic rationality of values, as the determinant of the direction of the potential realization process of value-rationality, in Weber's view, channels action into specific conduits and prevents it from [entering] other conduits. This occurs when the realization process of value-rationality cannot be extended to its ultimate limit, although it also happens in the case of the emergence of an ethic of conviction.

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For example, in the religious sphere, this content has been of particular importance in terms of the potential influence of a belief system on the pragmatic action of its followers.

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When believers adapted their religious action to a worldview such as that of ancient Buddhism, based on the Eightfold Path to salvation, an orientation based on practical rationality, as well as all other "in-world" action orientations, were fundamentally considered "meaningless" and were entirely obstructed. On the other hand, many types of "practical ethics"

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such as the ethics of Catholicism for the laity, ancient Judaism, Lutheranism, and Hinduism, provided psychological premiums for the uniformities of action based on practical rationality, although they could not do so comprehensively and consistently. Calvinism and the masterful dogmas of Catholicism for monks consistently provided psychological premiums for patterns of action based on practical rationality for all believers. These faiths, in their extraordinary emphasis on disciplined work and methodical lifestyles, comprehensively elevated action based on practical rationality—whether in the monastery or "in the world"—to the [level of] ethical practical action. Practical rationality was not suppressed; rather, an ethical dimension was then introduced into it, and in this process, its depth was enhanced.

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These types of lifestyles compatible with practical rationality, which were emphasized because they had the most fateful consequences for modern man,

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were not to be rediscovered in the value content of any historically significant religion based on ethical salvation.

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Intrinsic rationalities in the secular sphere also vary immensely in terms of their value content, degree of comprehensiveness, and internal integration. In Weber's view, when, for example, individuals elevate the ideal of friendship to the level of an ethical criterion and feel internally obligated to observe all the standards of brotherhood, scattered events acquire theoretical rationality in order to become consistent with the secular value principle [of friendship]. When these standards acquire value-rationality, secular ethical rationalities may exhibit a more general application; an application that exerts a more comprehensive influence on social action. The rejection of traditional bonds in the Renaissance and its faith in the power of [ rationaturalisi natural reason

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] like the Enlightenment's faith in reason and classical liberalism's creed of human rights and freedom of conscience, cast a shadow over various spheres of life.

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Similarly, a commitment to egalitarianism may influence not only the purely political and legal activities of its adherents but also their social and even economic endeavors.

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Whenever values in these ethical rationalities attain a higher degree of theoretical rationality, they construct ethical rationalities possessing greater comprehensiveness and internal integration. This occurs when, for example, the orientation of action toward social justice as an ethical ideal achieves such a degree of value-rationality that a closed worldview emerges from it, one that provides an explanation for human misery throughout the past, present, and future. The first examples of secular political, social, and philosophical movements with this comprehensiveness and complete internal coherence flourished in nineteenth-century Europe. In Marxist socialism, for instance, the ideals of brotherhood, egalitarianism, and social justice were no longer obsolete ethical principles or vague aspirations but were integrated into a worldview that possessed systematic integration and explained human affliction in the past and present. This socialism promised that, if the principles set forth within it were correctly implemented, all material hardships would vanish in the future. Marxism, as an integrated belief system claiming absolute truth, bestowed an ethical order "from within" upon all spheres of life, provided there existed a rational value-belief in it. In Weber's view, the power of this secular ethic of conviction to rationalize all social action from the center, relying on its values, is in no way less than the power of a religious ethic of conviction. What is of vital importance in both cases is the faithful acceptance of that ethic and belief in it as something absolute and beyond all compromise.⁽⁹⁴⁾

Overall, substantive rationality is the only type of rationality that analytically possesses the capacity to create methodical rational ways of life. Although the theoretical and formal types of rationality also have the ability, indirectly and directly, to master reality consciously, neither can generate coherent attitudes toward life. Patterns of action based on practical rationality, though susceptible to such a task, are merely reactions to heterogeneous realities. Hence, the way of life based on practical rationality, characterized by the calculation of interests according to means-end rationality, lacks the element of methodicalness; the very element that emerges when values regulate action "from within," especially values that are believed in as ethical standards. Only substantive rationality possesses the analytical capacity to master or rationalize reality comprehensively. It does this through conscious regulation and methodical arrangement into patterns that cohere with explicit value sets (see Table 3).

4. Processes of Rationalization in General and Rationalization in Modern Societies

In Weber's view, a purely analytical discussion, such as the one just presented above regarding the capacity of different types of rationality to create methodical, rational ways of life, has little relevance to the question of the actualization of this capacity in societies. In the struggle of history, interests have fought against interests, and values and "ideas," regardless of the clarity of their formulation or their intrinsic validity, have suddenly died unless anchored within social and economic networks. Similarly, regardless of whether processes of rationalization have been based on practical, theoretical, formal, or substantive types of rationality, these processes have only been set in motion as significant socio-cultural developments when strata with firm social roots have emerged as their "carriers."

Table 1

The Conscious Mastery of Discrete Realities through Uniformities of Action

Processes of Rationalization: Interests and Values

Both the ambiguity and the perspectival nature of the theme of rationalization in Weber's [works] stem above all from the [concept of] substantive rationality. This type of rationality, in combination with the concept of ethical substantive rationality, constitutes the fundamental concepts of his analysis. Only ethical rationalities are capable of permanently suppressing the uniformities of action based on practical rationality or of reinforcing them by transforming them into action based on ethical practical rationality; and both of these are equally important. Moreover, only ethical rationalities possess the analytical force to completely overcome the processes of formal rationalization. Finally, only ethical rationalities provide value content for the processes of theoretical rationalization, channel them in specific directions as processes of value-rationalization, and create value configurations possessing comprehensiveness and internal integration.

Although, in Weber's view, these value complexes are themselves largely manifestations of 'non-rational' forces related to history, economics, politics, domination, and even geography,⁽⁹⁵⁾ they constitute worldviews that are rationally coherent and to which individuals may adapt their action in all spheres of life. Whenever these worldviews acquire the necessary social and economic support to spread throughout a civilization, they create 'tracks' or boundaries within which daily struggles among economic, political, and other interests occur.⁽⁹⁶⁾

All these achievements of ethical rationality stem from a single principle that equally forms the basis of Weber's fundamental anthropological view of the human being, the foundation of his historical sociology, and his methodological works: action cannot be seen, as manifested in practical, theoretical, and formal rationalities, as mere adaptation to 'given' realities, whether everyday affairs or bureaucratic regulations. Nor can that part of human action which lies outside the realm of everyday, adaptive behavior be assigned a residual status. Instead, in Weber's view, action motivated by values and resistant to the shaping influence of the environment, and on par with that [influence of the environment], has had the most tremendous consequences in history.

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In Weber's view, Alberti's⁽⁹⁸⁾ worldly wisdom and utilitarian common sense could not have engendered modern capitalism; likewise, the initial impetus of social, philosophical, or religious movements that claimed to alter given realities could not have been a crystallization of practical rationality.⁽⁹⁹⁾ Formal rationality certainly cannot have sown the seed for its own growth. Weber asserts that these uniformities of rational action alone have also never been capable of creating ethical substantive rationalities, processes of value-rationalization, worldviews, or integrated ways of life: no ethical action controlled by an internalized standard, whether involving a limited ethical rationality such as friendship, or an ethic of conviction, can possibly be entirely the result of means-end rational action.

Neither means-end rational action, which provides the foundation for practical and formal rationality, nor value principles devoid of an ethical dimension can transcend everyday affairs and order them to such an extent as to set in motion a comprehensive and sustained rationalization of given realities. Such a development can only take shape if, beforehand, processes of value-rationalization rooted in ethical rationality have led to the creation of at least a rudimentary worldview, a worldview which, regardless of its specific value content, can serve as a basis for qualitatively assessing the course of everyday affairs, finding its deficiencies, and rejecting it. Weber's conception of ethical substantive rationality and his emphasis that rationalization processes rooted in values pursue 'divergent' directions explain his opposition to all explanations that portray the advance of rationalization as a manifestation of adaptation to given realities or a mere struggle of interests.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾

It is precisely this view of Weber's that explains why, despite his unwillingness to underestimate the power of economic interests, he was reluctant to join Marx in generalizing the importance of economic interests. For example, only ethically rational action, and not merely the drive of interests, could effectively rupture traditional ways of life and attitudes. In Weber's view, certain types of ways of life have often shown a greater affinity with certain types of economic action; this was due to the effects of ethical rationality, not deep economic pressures,

⁽¹⁰¹⁾

despite the fact that the very origins of these ethical rationalities must themselves be considered largely the result of economic factors. Such distinctions at the levels of "meaning" and the motivation of action were of immense importance for understanding the winding paths that rationalization has taken in different civilizations.

Interests, the Basis of Rationalization Processes: Sociological Affinities, Antagonisms, and Supports

The centrality that substantive ethical rationality and the rationalization processes based on this type of rationality hold in Weber's scheme must be seen as an analytical centrality. Its conceptual importance, arising from its unique ability to create methodical-rational ways of life, provides no information about the role it has played in history. For Weber, types of rationality are by no means ends in themselves but merely essential tools for exploration, which he uses to scrutinize the historical fate of rationalization as socio-cultural processes. To do this, he seeks to discover which rationalization process or processes typically penetrate the various spheres of life and to assess the strength of these processes by examining the robustness of their sociological roots.

While employing concepts as ideal types of the types of rationality [and] as orienting tools that guided him toward important turning points in history, Weber, as a historical sociologist investigating the multidimensionality of rationalization or any other subject, was directly confronted with the raw "irrationality" of history. As a general rule, Weber did not view history as subject to a transcendent meaning, a dialectical and relentless advance of "Reason," revolutionary laws, or even [subject to] the centrality of the economic sphere, but rather considered it an arena characterized by the perpetual clash of "irrational" interests; interests whose ultimate boundaries are only regulated by worldviews. Even these worldviews are, in principle, determined by the predominance of specific interests, power, historical opportunity, and other contingent factors. For Weber, all questions concerning historical progress and change, and how certain movements and struggles envelop others within hegemonic situations, inevitably encounter the merely "irrational" movement and flow of interests and constellations of interests. "Rationalism is by no means merely an internally coherent concept but a historical concept that contains a world of contradictions within itself."⁽¹⁰²⁾

گاه به علت مجاورت کاملاً اتفاقی عوامل، منافع شفاف شده اند تا قشر متحدی را شکل دهند. در صورت شکل گیری ترکیب تصادفی دیگری از نیروهای تاریخی، این قشر توانسته اند «حامل» فرایند خاصی از عقلانی شدن باشد. برای مثال کارمندان دولت، حاملان فرایندهای تحقق عقلانیت صوری به عنوان نتیجه فعالیت های نوعی روزانه شان در سازمان ها بوده اند. کرارا اتفاق افتاده که اقشار دیگر، حامل فرایندهای تحقق عقلانیتی بوده اند که در تضاد با فرایندهای مورد حمایت دیوانسالاران بوده است؛ مثلاً مانند وقتی که روشنفکران دینی، فرایندهای تحقق عقلانیت ذاتی را پیش آورند. همین که تعداد بیشتری از حاملان سایر فرایندهای آرام عقلانی شدن در نظم های مشروع جامعه نهادمند می شدند، مارپیچی از این فرایندها شکل می گرفته است. برخی از آن ها در روابط قرابت انتخابی به هم پیوند خورده اند، در حالی که بقیه با هم برخورد کرده اند. با وجود این، فرایندهای دیگر از هم جدا شده و بعدا تلاقی کرده اند و با دیگر فرایندهای بی شمار عقلانی شدن در طول مسیر قبض و بسطشان ادغام گشته، در افتاده و تداخل کرده اند.

فرایندهای چند جانبه عقلانی شدن، نتوانسته اند در طول مسیری از گسترش خطی مانند «افسون زدایی از دنیا» آرایش بگیرند بلکه کرارا از نو ظاهر می شده و سپس در بستری از توان های ناپایدار و پیوندهای متغیرناپذیر می شده اند. شبکه چندرنگی که وبر ترسیم کرده، پر از موارد ضد و نقیض و طنز است. معروف ترین مورد، زمانی است که «عدم عقلانیت» در اخلاق کار کالونیستی وقتی از چشم اندازعقلگرایانه[eudaemonistic]محض نگریسته شود⁽¹⁰³⁾ بر الگوهای کنش و کلیه شیوه های زندگی تأثیر گذاشت، شیوه هایی از زندگی که مظهر بلندترین قله های تمدن تلقّی می شدند و با این همه، می رفت که در قرن بیستم افراد را در «قفس آهنین» غیرشخصی مالامال از فرایندهای عقلانیت صوری، نظری و عملی به اسارت بکشند.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ در بسیاری از موارد وبر نشان می دهد که چگونه گروه هایی از افراد از طریق یکنواختی های عقلانی کنش، به واقعیات پراکنده واکنش نشان می دهند و بدین ترتیب عرصه های آزادی را می آفرینند. اما همین گروه ها برای اینکه این یکنواختی ها را به حد اعلا برسانند ممکن است شبکه های تمام عیار بردگی را بسازند.

به نظر وبر به عنوان جامعه شناس تاریخی که از خلال اعصار می نگرد، تقریبا تمامی فرایندهای عقلانی شدن کم دوامند. فقط معدودی از آن ها آن ها که بر عقلانیت های ذاتی اخلاقی ای استوارند که خطوط سیر فعلیت یابی تمدن ها را شکل می دهند به هزاره می رسند. این عقلانیت ها و «ایده ها»ی مشروعیت بخش آن ها همین که به مثابه جهان بینی های مقبول تثبیت می شوند، جهت گیری های اعتقادی و کنشی کلیه جمعیت ها را با قدرتی مستقل⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ متمرکز می کنند؛⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ ولی با وجود این به نظر وبر فقط زمانی تداوم این عقلانیت ها تضمین می شود که درون نظم های مشروع، نهادینه شوند و حاملان آن ها اقشار ریشه دار اجتماعی باشند. اکثریت عمده فرایندهای عقلانی شدن، ریشه در منافع دارند و در سطح ارزش ها به طور مناسب مشروعیت نمی یابند. از این رو، هرگاه مجموعه قدرتمندتری از منافع متضاد در افق ظاهر شود آن فرایندها سرکوب می شوند.

فرایندهای مدرن عقلانی شدن درغرب:«شخص نوعی»

The realization processes of practical, theoretical, and formal rationality have heavily overshadowed the realization processes of substantive rationality in modern Western societies. The Judeo-Christian worldview, which served as a reference point for major groupings of substantive and ethical rationalities as well as for the theoretical rationalization of their values, has largely been replaced by the scientific worldview. With this pivotal shift, and given the definition of science—largely provided by Weber himself—as a mode of cognition analytically distinct from values, the definition of values as the content of major theoretical rationalization processes in the twentieth century is no longer justifiable. This holds true even though the scientific worldview as a whole is itself a theoretical rationality. The realization processes of formal rationality in the sphere of science, as well as in the spheres of economy and law and in the bureaucratic form of domination, simultaneously merged to create a network of action patterns; these processes all pointed in one direction: the suppression of value-rational action. Ethical rationalities thus lacked the constellation of interests that would enable them to effectively stand in open conflict with the impersonal character of all formal rationalities and, by subsuming them [formal rationalities] under an ethical principle, limit their influence.⁽¹⁰⁷⁾

As the power of substantive rationality to order life comprehensively and thoroughly based on values declined, the way of life based on practical rationality found the possibility of spreading again.

⁽¹⁰⁸⁾

This way of life, which was only under the control of formal rationality to the extent that action took place within enterprises and bureaucracies, gradually entered into open competition with action patterns based on formal rationality. Within bureaucracies, such as the specific bureaucracy of Prussian civil servants, wherever value-rational actions were weakened as a result of the uprooting of all substantive rationalities, purely means-end rational action concomitantly infiltrated these organizations with greater ease. To the extent that certain individuals and groups tend toward renewing the "bureaucratic ethic," efforts toward its renewal encountered deeply entrenched interests that are now institutionalized within legitimate orders. In such cases, Weber repeatedly emphasizes that the justifiability or "reasonableness" of the inclination toward change can only provide the impetus. This necessary condition only gains significance if a constellation of facilitating factors, rooted in interests, has [previously] crystallized.

In Weber's view, the emergence of science as a mode of cognition and experience signaled highly fateful consequences, if only because science warned that it would even drive values out of the realm of "belief" and into the realm of calculation: with the advent of the scientific worldview, even values might be subjected to empirical observation, highly precise measurement, and testing.⁽¹⁰⁹⁾ He stressed that this development, from an ethical standpoint, stands in the starkest contrast to religious worldviews; worldviews that, as ethical principles, insist on the "meaningfulness" of worldly life and certain actions, a meaningfulness that is the unquestionable result of the valuation that religions offer regarding specific paths to salvation. In all religions, values are absolute principles that are always "valid," and the world is a cosmos in which gods and rituals have established an inviolable order.⁽¹¹⁰⁾ The realization processes of theoretical rationality in past ages had shaped the scattered values of "primitive" religions into coherent syntheses of values; values that provided a comprehensive explanation for the persistence of suffering in this world; these very same processes were now freed from the dominion of values. As these values were clearly concentrated within the realm of science in the twentieth century, these processes [of theoretical rationality] gradually manifested as "soulless" processes of abstract thought: processes that labeled religion as a sphere "sacrificed to the intellect" and "irrational."⁽¹¹¹⁾

When this shift of theoretical rationality from religion to science combined with the realization processes of formal rationality, practical rationality, and other value-free theoretical rationalities, [this shift] became extraordinarily significant for the fate of methodical, rational ways of life. In the past, both the direction of these ways of life and their methodical aspect arose from value-rationalization. Wherever the realization processes of ethical rationality were set in motion, as a rule and often definitively, their values were religious values.

⁽¹¹²⁾

The banishment of these values led Weber to pose a particular question: "Which type of person will certainly or probably survive in the modern world?"

⁽¹¹³⁾

He wanted to know, first and foremost, which type of person would be the bearer of Western civilization; [and that] in an age when the life-sphere has lost its sociological anchor; a sphere that had previously integrated the personality into a force capable of withstanding the "stream of material aggregates." Is this type of person anything more than a faint reflection of formal rationality, which constitutes the character of his merely adaptive action in the spheres of law, economy, and science, as well as in the bureaucratic form of domination, and [is it anything more than a faint reflection] of orientations based on practical rationality, which are necessary for coping with the tasks and problems of everyday life? This type of person is capable of systematically rationalizing action "from within" in relation to an integrated set of values, and for this reason is capable of giving a clear "direction" and "meaning" to his entire existence; this person, in Weber's view, is the historical subject bound by constraints: historically and sociologically unique traditions, cultural values, and socio-economic structures. Glancing fleetingly through the ages, he saw at the beginning of the twentieth century that the distinct combination of sociological factors guiding the historical subject was gradually dissolving; a subject who, in his view, embodied the highest ideals of Western civilization: the autonomous and free individual whose actions are sustained because they are based on ultimate values.

Weber found no social stratum that held a firm place in Western industrial societies and [at the same time] could replace ethically-based salvation religions as the institutionalized carrier of ethical rationality and value-rationalization processes. The emergence of the major life-spheres along specific and "independent" paths of rationalization further reduced the likelihood of such a stratum crystallizing. The spheres of economy, law, cognition, as well as the bureaucratic structures of domination, while lacking a personal dimension, developed in complete connection with rules, laws, abstract regulations, and external necessities. In this way, these spheres remained beyond the reach and control of ethical claims.⁽¹¹⁴⁾ Without a conscience being cultivated [in them] during the normal course of childhood socialization, their fate was such that, as adults, their ethical needs would be ignored. That type of person, to whom ethical claims are unfamiliar, can rarely consciously master the reality [of his life] and guide [his] action coherently. Instead, such persons fall prey to the random, or as Weber says, "irrational" flow of stimuli in their environment. The crushing force of sociologically entrenched spheres [of life], which in principle could not generate value-rationalization processes, had condemned the integrated personality to appear "at the margins" of modern society in small, friendly groupings.⁽¹¹⁵⁾ Moreover, to the extent that the relentless onslaught of the realization processes of formal, practical, and theoretical rationality pushes aside the values of the political sphere, such as the values enshrined in the charter of citizens' rights, the character of politically-oriented action will increasingly be determined by the calculation of self-interest based on means-end rationality. According to Weber, if this trend is not reversed, the rule of arbitrary force will inevitably spread and suppress all political freedoms.

Rather than undertaking a comprehensive examination of Weber's overall view of historical rationalization processes, this article has merely taken the first step in that direction by discussing the types of rationality as concepts and their manifestations in rationalization processes. The comparative-historical sociology that is often present between the lines in Economy and Society and is "applied" in Weber's scattered studies on the religions of China, India, and the ancient Near East places Weber on a level far beyond that of an analyst confined to analytical concepts and brings him into an arena that was personally far more congenial to him. In his comparative-historical sociology, he sought typical patterns that might yield clues; clues to the general circumstances in which carrier strata of specific rationalization processes encounter constraints or openings in expanding and consolidating enduring traditions. Such investigations utilize the conceptual level merely as a means for identifying crucial historical junctures.

As many commentators on Weber's methodological writings apparently believe, the creation of clear concepts was not an end in itself for Weber but merely the unavoidable first step in undertaking a sociological analysis. For Weber, the concept, however clearly and even aesthetically shaped, was not of primary importance; on the contrary, the question of how historical processes unfolded sociologically within given civilizations was what mattered. If one wishes to follow Weber's methodological procedures, a mere inventory of the concept of the multiple types of rationality in Weber and their manifestations in the multiple rationalization processes—which this article has undertaken—can serve as the logical precondition for discovering the vicissitudes of rationalization processes in history at all levels of the socio-cultural process.

··· Notes

1. American Journal of Sociology, 1980, pp. 1145-1179.

An earlier translation of this article was presented in September 1977 in Gottlieben, Switzerland, at an academic seminar entitled

"Max Weber und die Dynamik der gesellschaftLichen Rationalisierung."

2. Roth and Schluchter 1979, pp, 14-15.

3. 1975, pp. 137-138.

4. Nelson 1973, p.85; Monch 1980.

5. Tenbruck, 1975.

6. (e.g.[1946].1958f, pp. 293-294 [266];[1930] 1958a, pp. 26 [11-12], 77-78[62]; 1968, pp.30[15],85 [44], 424[259], 809[468], 333 [195-196];1951, p. 226[512]; 1952, pp. 425-426, n.1[1-2]);

(For the numbers in brackets, see footnote 7.)

7 Weber uses this term and the preceding one interchangeably. These two terms are usually translated as "Rationality," though they are sometimes rendered as "Rationalism."

8 This three-volume work comprises The Religion of China, The Religion of India, Ancient Judaism, and The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, as well as the "Author's Introduction."

9 Accordingly, this article does not examine Weber's distinction between "rational" and "empathic" understanding as it relates to the process of interpretive understanding. For a discussion of this distinction, see:

Weber 1968,pp.5-14[2-7];Levin 1979,pp.10-11; and Weiss 1975, pp. 48-50.

10 While "rationality" and all "types of rationality" in Weber and in this article always denote a condition, "rationalization" and "rationalization process" denote a development. The "types" (Formen, Arten; see, for example, [1949]1958f,p.293[266];[1930]1958a,pp.26[12],30[15])) of rationalization are entirely based on the types of rationality.

11. 1968,p.424[258 -59];[1922]1973, pp.432-438.

12 Theoretical rationality, which is rooted in cognitive processes, not in action, is the only type of rationality that is not based on means-end rational action or value-rational action. Nevertheless, as will be explained below, this type of rationality can have an indirect effect on action. The relationship between the types of rationality and the types of social action will be discussed further in Section 3.

13 It should be kept in mind throughout this article that, for Weber, individual action is the fundamental "atom" of all societal and civilizational processes. Weber even considered collective concepts as specific, shared orientations of the actions of individuals within groups (1968,pp.4[1],8[3],19[8-9];[1922]1973,pp.429,439).

14 Tracing Weber's intended meaning of Lebensfuehrung in translations is not possible. This word is often rendered as "Conduct," especially in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, although it has also been translated as "style of life," "type of attitude," or simply "life."

15. [1946]1958f,p293[266].

16. [1930]1958a, pp.25-26 [11],30[15].

17. 1968,pp.610[367],618-619[327].

18. 1957I,pp.226-249).[512-36],164[452];1968,pp.538-539 [326- 327].

19. [1930]1958a,p.26[11].

20. 1975,pp.669,677-679.

21. Nelson 1969,p.6; 1974,p.272; Parsons pp. 567,752; 1963 ,pp. xxxii-iii; Bendix 1965,pp.11-12; Münch 1980; Levine 1979,pp.8-9.

22 Here, "arenas," "realms," and "spheres" are used synonymously (Lebensbereiche, Lebenssphaere). Contemporary sociologists often use the term "institutional orders" for life-arenas such as those just mentioned. [In the translation

18

into Persian, the equivalent "عرصه ها" (arenas) has been used for the three aforementioned words. Tr.]

23. pp.74-77[60-62],25[11].

24. [1946]1958f,p.293[266]; 1968, p.998 [576]; [1930] 1958a,pp .26[11-12],77-78[62].

25. [1930]1958a,p.77[62].

26. [1946]1958f,p.293[266].

27. [1930]1958a,p. 26[12].

28. [1946]1958f,p.284[256];1968,p.30[15].

29. 1951,p.247[533]1968,p.551[334]

See the content of Section 3;

30. [1946]1958f,pp.279[251],284[256].

31. [1930] 1658a,p77[62].

32 Weber also refers to this type of rationality as "intellectual rationality" [intellectual rationality].

[1946]1958f,p.293[265-266].

33. [1946]1958f,pp.279-281[251-254];1968,p.505-506[307-308].

34. 1968,p.451[275].

35. 1968,pp.399-403[245-248].

36. 1968,pp.404-405[248].

37. 1968,pp.432[264],424[258].

38. 1968,p.423[258].

39. [1946]1958f, p.286[258-59]; [1946]1958d, p.324[537];1968, p.424 [259]; Tenbruck 1975,pp. 683-685.

40 Although footnote number 7 suggests that the equivalent "جادوزدایی" or "افسون زدایی" (disenchantment) is not deemed suitable for Weber's intended concept, the translator could not find a more appropriate equivalent. Tr.

41. 1968,p.85-86[44-45].

42. 1968,p.44-45[85].

43. [1946]1958f,p.294[266].

44. 1958a,p.26[11-12] [1930].

45. [1930] 1958a,p.53,n.9 (35,n.1).

46 Weber added this footnote in the 1920 revision of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

47. [1946]1958f,p.301[275].

48. [1946]1958d,pp.348-349[561-562],331-340[544-545].

49. [1946]1958d,p.353[566];[1946]1958f,p.281[253].

50. [1946]1958d,p.338[551-552].

51. [1946]1958d,pp.352-356[565-570].

52. 1951,pp.226-249[512-536].

53 This essay immerses the reader in examples where Weber adopts the position of the "subject" as an ideal type and examines the world from the perspective of that subject.

54. 1972,p.133-151.

55. [1946]1958e .,pp.150-151 [607];1949,pp. 52-55[149-152],58 [154-155] 60 [157].

56. 1949,p.38[530];[1946] 1958e,p.148[604].

57 An important exception is mentioned below in the discussion of formal rationality in the sphere of religion. Roman law is also an exception.

58. 1968,pp.979[565]244[141],225[129].

59. 1968,pp.975[562],226[130];[1946]1958f,p.295[267].

60 Naturally, Weber does not deny the fact that "paperwork" may significantly reduce bureaucratic efficiency. His discussion of the characteristics of this form of domination, as an ideal type, is almost entirely oriented toward comparing it with patriarchal, feudal, and patrimonial forms of domination, none of which can even approach bureaucracy in terms of efficiency, reliability, etc.

61. 1968,pp.656-57[396].

62. 1968,p.85[44-45].

63. [1946]1958f.pp.293-294[266].

64 Although it is obvious that, for Weber, the conscious and systematic mastery of reality is not the only means by which uniformities arise (See1968,pp.33-38[17-20]).

65 Of course, Weber is not inclined here to argue that some orders are absolutely legitimate and others are not, but rather to mention the various and probable reasons individuals might have for ascribing legitimacy to an order or for guaranteeing its legitimacy (1968,p.33,n.20). It is very difficult to grasp what he means by "order" (Ordnung) and "legitimate order" (Legitime Ordnung) in Economy and Society, as these terms have been translated in various ways as "order" and "norm."

66 "Organization" (Verband) is a general term Weber used, for example, for an enterprise (Betriebe) and a voluntary association (Verein), as well as for a compulsory political and religious institution (Anstalt) (1968,pp.48-56[26-30]). It must be kept in mind that, for Weber, these organizations, as well as all legitimate orders, are nothing other than shared orientations of action toward the orientations of individuals in specific groups.

67. [1946]1958c,pp.305-308[210-213].

68. 1968,pp.26[13],85-86[45].

69 Here I distinguish between "personal" and "impersonal" values. Both types may be realized as sets and thus form substantive rationalities...

70. [1968,pp.26[13],85-86[45].

71. [1968,p.31[16].

72. [1930] 1958a,pp.47-78[30-62].

73. 1968,pp.26[13],85-86[45].

74 In Weber's view, it is precisely this belief in the "spirit" of capitalism that is dead in our time. But its death has not weakened "economic rationalism" in capitalism: its actual presence as an all-encompassing "cosmos" effectively compels individuals to submit to its exigencies.

75. 1975,p.193[133];1930,pp.70-73[54-59],55-56 [37];1968,pp.585[353], 1186 [709].

76. 1930,pp.74-78[60-62].

77 Following Weber, I use the terms "methodical ways of life" and "rational methodical ways of life" interchangeably.

78 In this case, since values are the reference point for the realization processes of theoretical rationality, the "value-rational rationalization process" can be used synonymously with the "realization process of theoretical rationality."

79. 1968,p.36[19].

80 Since ethical rationality is itself a type, and only one type, of substantive rationality, "ethical substantive rationality" denotes it well. However, to avoid this cumbersome phrasing, I will in most cases use the shorter term "ethical rationality."

81. 1968,p.429[262],518[314],325[191].

82. 1968,pp.36[19],528[321];[1946]1958f,pp.286[258-59], 293-294[266],280[252];[1946]1958d,p.324[537-538].

83 This is only one axis of the extraordinarily interesting rationalization of religion. See,e.g.,1951,p.226[512];1952,pp.425-426,n.1[1-2])) This rationalization process, which Schluchter (Roth and Schluchter 1979,pp.11-64) and Tenbruck (1975) have only partially addressed, cannot be discussed here. I have recently critiqued these articles at length in an essay (1979).

84. 1968,pp.424[259],450-451[275],578-579[349-550]; 1951,p.244[530];[1946]1958b,pp120-127[551-559].

85. [1946]1958f,p287[259].

86. [1949]1958f,p.289[261].

87. [1946],1958f,p.294[266].

88. 1968,p.551[334];1951,p.247[553-554].

89. 1930,p.26[11-12].

90. 1968,p.556[337];[1946]1958f,p.290[263].

91. [1946]1958f,p293[266].

92. 1968,p.1209[725-726].

93 In certain periods and in certain cultures, largely as a result of economic and political factors, egalitarianism may expand into spheres of social action from which tradition has prohibited it [egalitarianism in those spheres]. Such as minority rights and gender discrimination. Confirming Weber's emphasis on the potential impact of ethical rationalities is the point

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that demands for equality, in nearly all minority movements in the United States, from the abolitionist movement to the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and the gay men's movement of the 1960s and 1970s, are rooted in ethical rationalities derived from the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, such as "natural human rights" and the "equality of all" as articulated in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

94 It is clear that Weber considered Marxism a belief system based on faith, not science (1968, pp. 515-516 [313-314]). However, he refrained from directly referring to Marxism as a religion. He preferred to emphasize that this closed worldview exhibits certain characteristics generally associated with religions, including that its nature is a

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Types of Rationality in Max Weber's Thought, Ma'rifat Magazine, No. 80, Stephen Kalberg / Translated by: Mehdi Dastgardi

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