Science as a profession

Science as a profession is an essay by the sociologist and economist Max Weber . It is based on a lecture that Max Weber gave on November 7th, 1917 as part of a “Freedom Student Association. Landesverband Bayern ”organized a series of lectures entitled“ Intellectual work as a profession ”in the art hall of the Steinicke bookstore in Munich . After Weber had proven himself to be a speaker at the Lauensteiner cultural conferences, who could inspire young people and there were thematic points of contact, he offered himself for this lecture topic. In addition, the topic was also “close to his heart”. The extended text of this lecture was published in July 1919.

The concept of disenchanting the world is part of science as a profession .

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First of all, Weber commented on the advantages and disadvantages of a career in science in his lecture. He compares the German and American university systems, the advancement opportunities of lecturers and their salaries, emphasizes the factor of chance, which plays a not insignificant role in the career of every scientist. Furthermore, he goes into the relationship of the scientist as an individual to science in general, which prerequisites this should bring. You have to be able to live for and from science.

He takes the position that scientific achievement can only be achieved through specialization :

"Only through strict specialization can the scientific worker actually make this full feeling his own, once and perhaps never again in life: here I have achieved something that will last ."

- Max Weber in Science as a Profession , Section: Passion as a personal requirement of the scientist

He also deals with the question of the “value of science”. Science does have the tools (methods) to arrive at new insights and positions, but you cannot directly deduce why these are worth representing. What is meant is the narrower circle of the natural sciences in contrast to ethics and philosophy ; the latter must devote themselves to the investigation of the question of value.

No science is free from assumptions, and the value of a science is lost once its assumptions are rejected.

“All natural sciences give us an answer to the question: What should we do if we want to control life technically ? But whether we should and want to master it technically, and whether it actually makes sense in the end: - they leave that open or assume it for their purposes. "

- Max Weber in Science as a Profession , Section: Absence of the "ultimate" reason as the foundation of science

The question of the meaning of life cannot, if at all, be answered by the natural sciences alone.

In the last sections, Weber emphasizes that “politics” should not be carried into the classroom.

“In the lecture hall, where you sit across from your audience, they have to be silent and the teacher to talk, and I consider it irresponsible to consider the fact that the students have to attend a teacher's college for the sake of advancement and that no one is present there who opposes this with criticism, to exploit the listeners not, as it is his task, to be useful with his knowledge and scientific experience, but to stamp them according to his personal political opinion. "

- Max Weber in Science as a Profession , Section: Postulate of the restraint of personal convictions in the context of scientific work

interpretation

According to the traditional interpretation, Weber's lecture is geared towards the concept of value-free science, comments Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht in a contribution from 2004 entitled “The task of the humanities today”, and in contrast, he explains his assessment that Weber's argumentation is much more complex be. According to Gumbrecht, Weber is primarily concerned with innovative thinking, which is the goal of science. Weber suggests separating between the innovative value of a thought and its practical use. The relationship between these two is only random. Gumbrecht takes Weber to mean that scholars produce “unpleasant truths” according to a rule specific to universities and that the social effectiveness of the university consists in its potential for change.

literature

• Max Weber: Science as a Profession . In: Intellectual work as a profession . Four lectures in front of the Freedom of the Union. First lecture. Munich, 1919 ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )

Web links

Wikiquote: Science as a Profession  - Quotes

Wikisource: Science as a Profession  - Sources and full texts

• Science as a Profession - Version 1922, on textlog.de
• Science as a profession - source: Max Weber: Collected essays on science. Edited by Johannes Winckelmann. Tübingen 61985. Public domain work on zeno.org .
• published by Matthias Bormuth : Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95757-518-0 .
• Science as a profession . E-book: Epub , Mobi

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang J. Mommsen (Ed.): Weber, Max: Gesamtausgabe . Vol. 17 Science as a Profession. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1992, ISBN 3-16-145765-X , p. 46.
2. ^ Weber, Max ... ISBN 3-16-145765-X , p. 13.
3. ↑ His second lecture in the same series (" Politics as a Profession ") has become a classic in political science .
4. ↑ Passion as a personal requirement of the scientist
5. ^ Absence of the "ultimate" reason as the foundation of science
6. ↑ Postulate of reluctance to hold personal convictions in the context of scientific work
7. ↑ Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht: "The task of the humanities today" [2004], in: Presence . Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-518-29542-7 , pp. 145–168, therein pp. 153–154.