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Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History

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Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History Author(s): Stephen Kalberg Source: The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 85, No. 5 (Mar., 1980), pp. 1145-1179 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2778894 Accessed: 15/12/2010 10:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Journal of Sociology. http://www.jstor.org Max Weber'sTypes of Rationality:Cornerstones forthe Analysisof RationalizationProcesses in History' StephenKalberg UniversitdtTiubingen Rationalityhas been recognizedas perhaps the major theme in Max Weber's oeuvre. The commentatorswho have addressedthis themehave generallyconstricted its polymorphouscharacter. This articleinventories Weber's usage of "rationality"and "rationaliza- tion" in Economyand Societyand the CollectedEssays in the So- ciologyof Religion.Four typesof rationalityare identifiedand com- pared withone another:practical, theoretical, substantive, and for- mal. Only "ethical substantiverationality" introduces methodical ways of life. All four types become manifestin a multiplicityof rationalizationprocesses orchestrated at all levels of societal and civilizationalprocess. Long-term rationalization processes are seen to be rootedin values ratherthan in interests.The dominanceof prac- tical, theoretical,and formalrationalization processes in modern Westernsocieties implies immense consequences for the typeof per- son likelyto live in thesesocieties. Although"rationality" and its diverse manifestationsin historicalra- tionalizationprocesses have been universallyacknowledged as a major, and perhapsthe major,theme in Max Weber's corpus,only a few com- mentatorshave endeavoredto investigatethis theme or to relate the varioustypes of rationalityto one another.The attemptsby Schluchter (Roth and Schluchter1979, pp. 14-15) and Weiss (1975, pp. 137-38) are plagued by a commonshortcoming: both note "usages" or "dimen- sions" of rationalitythat cannot be consistentlytraced back to the fre- quentdiscussions of "rationality"and rationalizationprocesses in Economy and Society(E&S) and the CollectedEssays in the Sociologyof Religion 1 An earlier version of this article was presentedin September 1977 in Gottlieben, Switzerland,at a colloquium entitled"Max Weber und die Dynamik der gesellschaft- lichen Rationalisierung."A German version will appear in Seyfarth and Sprondel (1980). I would also like to express my deep gratitudeto Guy Oakes of Monmouth College; Winfried Brugger, Winfried Gebhardt, Klaus Koziol, Gerd Schmaltz, and F. H. Tenbruck in Tiubingen; David Herr in New York; Toby Huff in Boston; Donald Levine in Chicago; Richard Munch in DUsseldorf; Karl-Heinz Nusser in Munich; Guenther Roth in Seattle; Wolfgang Schluchterin Heidelberg; and Con- stans Seyfarthin Frankfurt. English version ? 1980 by The University of Chicago Press. 0002-9602/80/8505- 0006$02.70 AIS Volume85 Number5 1145 AmericanJournal of Sociology (CESR). Moreover,their definitions do not coincidewith Weber's various historical-sociologicalanalyses of the paths followedby rationalization processesin differentcivilizations. Donald Levine's (1979) recentdiscus- sion of Weber's notionof "rationality"avoids these difficultiesby ad- heringlargely to Weber's terminology,yet he does not comprehensively discuss this concept,nor does he touch on the issue of the mannerin which the types of rationalitycombine or struggleagainst one another in historyas separaterationalization processes. Furthermore, like Ulrike Vogel's (1973) and Ann Swidler's(1973) expositions,Levine's distinction betweenWeber's types of social action and his types of rationalityis insufficientlydifferentiated. Many explorationsof Weber's understandingof "rationality"have failed to emphasizeits multivalentembodiments. This approachis most clearlyrepresented by the assertionthat rationalizationprocesses in We- ber's corpus amount to nothingmore than a "disenchantmentof the world,"2bureaucratization, or an increasinglack of freedom.Other com- mentatorshave discussedrationalization as tantamountonly to an increas- ing pervasivenessof the means-end(zweckrational) type of social action (Nelson 1973,p. 85; Munch 1980). Still otherauthors have limitedtheir examinationsof Weber'snotion of "rationality"and its manifestationsin historicalrationalization processes to specificspheres of life,such as the religioussphere (Tenbruck 1975). Weber himselfis largelyresponsible for the lack of claritythat sur- roundshis analyses of "rationality"and the interplayof multifaceted historicalrationalization processes. His scatteredand fragmenteddiscus- sions of this themeare more likely to mystifythan to illuminate(e.g. [1946] 1958f,pp. 293-94 [266]; [1930] 1958a, pp. 26 [11-12], 77-78 [62]; 1968, pp. 30 [15], 85 [44], 424 [259], 809 [468], 333 [195-96]; 1951,p. 226 [512]; 1952,pp. 425-26, n. 1 [1-2]; see n. 2 regardingpage numbersin brackets)and, despiteits centrality,he nowhereoffers a suc- cinctexplanation of thistheme. His contortedstyle of writingalso hampers all attemptsto take an inventoryof his majorusages of "rationality"and ''rationalizationprocesses," as does his frequentcarelessness: since the appropriatequalifying adjective oftenfails to precede"rational" in his 2 This misinterpretationresults in part from the frequenttranslation of Entzauberung as "disenchantment."Entzauberung-literally, "de-magification"-has a very specific significancefor Weber: it is one of the two major axes followed by rationalization processesin the arena of religion (1951, p. 226 [512]; all referencesto Weber's texts give the English translationfirst, followed in brackets by the page numbers of the originalGerman; bibliographicinformation about the latter appears in the list of ref- erences). It relatesparticularly to religiousrationalization processes in the West, begin- ning with ancient Judaism,and characterizesespecially the transformationfrom me- dieval Catholicismto Calvinism."Disenchantment," a far more general term that con- jures up images of the romanticist'syearning for the Gemeinschaftand an earlier, "simpler" world, has not the slightestrelationship to Weber's usage of Entzauberung. 1146 Weber'sTypes of Rationality writings,the studentof Weber is generallyleft with a choice between concludingthat his usage is indeed unilinearand undertakingthe un- appealingtask of systematicallyexamining the hundredsof passages in which this term appears. Because of the varied translationsof Ratio- nalismus,Rationalitit,3 and Rationalisierung,as well as relatedkey terms in the numerousEnglish editionsof Weber's writings,the reader who does nothave accessto the Germantexts confronts a hopelesssituation. This articleexhaustively surveys Weber's usage of "rationality"and "rationalization"as theseterms appear in his majorcomparative-historical- sociologicalworks written after 1904: E&S and the CESR.4 The selection of these writings,rather than the methodologicalor politicalessays, has been determinedby anotheraim of this article: to reconstruct,at the purelyconceptual level, Weber's vision of a multiplicityof rationalization processesthat variouslyconflict and coalesce withone anotherat all so- cietal and civilizationallevels.5 Because the discretetypes of rationality constitutethe cornerstones for these rationalization processes, an inventory of theirdefining features and interrelationshipsas they appear in Weber's comparativesociology must serve as the necessaryprerequisite for such a reconstruction."Before scrutinizing the typesof rationality,however, a numberof preliminaryissues shouldbe dealt within orderto avoid un- necessaryconfusion. I. GENERAL FEATURES OF WEBER'S TYPES OF RATIONALITY AND RATIONALIZATION The conceptualstatus of Weber'sfour types of rationalityin relationto his fourtypes of social action will be clarifiedin this section,as well as 3 This and the preceedingterm are used synonymouslyby Weber. They have been gen- erally translatedas "rationality,"though occasionally as "rationalism." "Rationality" as well as "irrationality"will be repeatedlyplaced in quotation marks in this article in order to emphasize the exclusiveconcern here with Weber's distinctiveusage of these terms. 4 This three-volumework includes The Religion of China, The Religion of India, AncientJudaism, and The ProtestantEthic and the Spirit of Capitalism as well as the
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