The religious background to Max Weber

1984 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 393-407
Author(s):  
Norman Stone
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Protestant Ethic ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Religious Background ◽  
Good Question ◽  
The Individual

It is easy to vulgarize Max Weber. His assertion that ‘the Protestant Ethic’ was related to capitalism could be, and was, taken to mean that Protestantism was about money whereas Catholicism was about parasitism. Weber himself stoutly denied that any such vulgarization was legitimate. He himself could not see any sense in going through religious documents of early modern Europe with a view to finding out what the various divines had to say on economic subjects: on the contrary, he stressed that ‘Of course our concern is not with what was officially and theoretically laid down in moral compendia of the age … but rather with something quite different—the secular translation (Ermittlung) of the psychological forces, created by religious beliefs and practices, which gave directions for the conduct of one’s life and held the individual to them’. Did Protestantism and Catholicism vary on the ground, in daily life, and especially in economic affairs? It was a good question, and, for the literature and research it generated, one of the most important ones of this century.

scholarly journals PRIVATE PUBLISHING IN THE NAHḌA

2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 577a-577a
Author(s):  
Ami Ayalon
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scale Production ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Dynamic Changes ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
Large Scale Production ◽  
Historic Development ◽  
The Individual

The Arab cultural-literary “awakening” of the late 19th century, known as the nahḍa, represented the first phase of mass printing in the Middle East, a historic development of major implications. Underlying new trends in social, political, and cultural thought, it entailed the large-scale production of printed texts, introduction of new diffusion channels, and emergence of broad reading audiences. The present study explores one facet of these dynamic changes: the advent of private publishing first centered in Egypt and Lebanon. Through the individual prism of Khalil Sarkis—a Beirut printer, publisher, bookseller, and author (1842–1915)—the article examines early book- and journal-publishing initiatives by printers, bookshop owners, and others, as well as their motivations and dilemmas. The emerging scene illustrates a vivid and rapid cultural shift, arguably a kind of “printing revolution” akin to that which had occurred in early modern Europe.

Did Calvinists Have a Guilt Complex? Reformed Religion, Conscience and Regulation in Early Modern Europe

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 138-158
Author(s):  
Graeme Murdock
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Personal Anxiety ◽  
Salvation Theology ◽  
High Standards ◽  
Mind Set

This essay assesses ideas and evidence about the response of Calvinists to sin during the Early Modern period. It takes as a starting-point the analysis provided by Max Weber about the development of Reformed salvation theology in later Calvinism. Weber suggested that Calvinists came to connect the eternal fate of their souls with their behaviour on earth, and attempted to exert systematic controls over their own conduct. Calvinists, Weber argued, developed a mind-set of methodical self-analysis and exhibited constant vigilance, concern and guilt about ongoing sin. Some early modern Calvinists certainly did demonstrate this highly refined personal anxiety about their wrong-doing, and worried about what their lack of enthusiasm and commitment to true religion and moral conduct might mean. However, most Reformed ministers across the Continent seem to have been rather more concerned that members of their congregations did not feel guilty enough about their sins, and alongside encouraging self-discipline through sermons and catechizing, turned to elders and, where possible, to state authorities, to enforce high standards of morality on often recalcitrant parishioners.

The Impacts of Globalization on Mental Disorders: An Effective Solution From Islamic Perspective

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 477-490
Author(s):  
Abdul Latif Abdul Razak
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Psychological Problems ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Effective Solution ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Islamic Perspective ◽  
The World ◽  
Meaning And Purpose

Nowadays, the world in general is witnessing the frightening increase of psychological problems.  This is due to the fast developmental changes brought by globalization and the marginalization of religion. Secular and irreligious psychological approaches which reject the spiritual aspects of man could not resolve the problems.  Religion with its beliefs and practices guarantees the best and effective solutions to the problems. The challenge is how to apply those religious beliefs and practices in remedying those psychological problems. This requires right understanding of religious concepts and principles and the internalizations of these principles into daily life.  This paper tries to embark upon discourse on the true understanding of the nature of man, his uniqueness compared to animal, and the meaning and purpose of his life.  This true understanding of the nature of man leads to the understanding of the root causes of the problems and not the symptomatic ones.  Consequently, the proper remedy can be given to cure these illnesses. 

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. xxiv-23
Author(s):  
Mustafa Shah ◽  
Muhammad Abdel Haleem
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Qualitative Nature ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Made In

This Introduction charts the background of the scholarly engagement with the Qur’an in Early Modern Europe. Focusing on the historical importance of the emergence of academic treatments of the text in the nineteenth century and the scholarship which influenced these works, it outlines the discussions and debates which are prevalent in the study of the text and introduces the individual chapters included in this volume. While the area of Qur’anic Studies belatedly emerged from the matrix of a flourishing tradition of biblical scholarship and efforts to translate and confute the Qur’an, the constellation of topics and themes which currently feature in the study of the text underlines the qualitative nature of the advances made in the field of Qur’anic Studies.

Coda: American Patrimonialism

2011 ◽  
Vol 636 (1) ◽  
pp. 204-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Lachmann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Social Form ◽  
The World ◽  
Bureaucratic Rationalism ◽  
Do So

Patrimonialism, until fairly recently, seemed an archaic social form, largely replaced by bureaucratic rationalism. That confident view of modernity, in the histories that Max Weber and his followers wrote, deserves to be challenged as patrimonial regimes reappear in states and firms throughout the world. This article is my attempt to mount that challenge. I first revisit Weber’s conception of patrimonialism and discuss how gendered and elitist studies of early modern Europe require a reevaluation of patrimonialism’s dynamics and resilience. I then present an overview of evidence for the return of patrimonialism and of ideological justifications for its legitimacy, focusing on the United States. Since Weber and his successors all see patrimonialism and bureaucracy as incompatible, it is necessary to develop a theory of how the dynamics of elite conflict within bureaucratic, capitalist societies can generate patrimonialism. I do so in the penultimate section of this article, and I then explore the implications of that theory for predicting the future course of patrimonialism in the twenty-first century.

Uneven conversions: how did laywomen become nuns in the early modern world?

Conversions ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Simple Process ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Religious Landscape

Accustomed as we are to the presence of nuns in the religious landscape of early modern Europe, we imagine a straightforward trajectory by which secular women who entered a convent took vows and donned a veil. This chapter interrogates the seemingly simple process by which laywomen were “converted” into nuns. Upon entering convents, women crossed a border that separated the profane from the sacred. The cloister setting, in turn, required them to adapt to a very different type of existence. They were expected to adhere to monastic principles, many of which were distinctly gendered. Using evidence from English and Spanish convents between 1450 and 1650, this paper will analyze the mechanisms, and the material considerations, that shaped this transformation. How did religious rules, convent architecture, male ecclesiastical oversight, material culture, the rhythms of daily life within the convent, and other factors shape the process by which secular women became nuns? Ultimately, the chapter argues, these conversions were uneven or incomplete. The mechanisms listed above that conditioned this conversion permitted and sometimes even encouraged a complicated identity that blurred the distinction between sacred and secular worlds.

Ethical Conduct in the Present Age: The Case of Søren Kierkegaard

1998 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Tester
Keyword(s):  
Soren Kierkegaard ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Ethical Conduct ◽  
Protestant Ethic ◽  
Spirit Of Capitalism ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Søren Kierkegaard is widely read in the disciplinary spheres of philosophy and theology. However, the sociological resonance of some of his work has been overlooked. This paper seeks to introduce aspects of Kierkegaard's account of ‘the present age’ to a sociological audience. Kierkegaard's concerns are explored in the context of themes and issues raised by Max Weber. The paper has two themes. First, the paper uses the example of Kierkegaard to explore the relationship of the Protestant Ethic (which is identified as a mode of the production of the personality of the individual) with the Spirit of Capitalism (which is identified as a life order). Second, the paper outlines aspects of Kierkegaard's diagnosis of ‘the present age’ which might be of interest to a sociological audience.

For Reasoned Faith or Embattled Creed? Religion for the People in Early Modern Europe

1998 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 165-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euan Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Lord's Prayer ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Holy Trinity ◽  
The People ◽  
Graphic Illustration ◽  
The Cross ◽  
In The Beginning

There has long been some measure of agreement that European people in the middle ages adhered to a form of Christianity which was ‘folklorised’, ‘enchanted’, or ‘magical’. Interwoven with the traditional creeds and the orthodox liturgy were numerous beliefs and practices which were intended to ensure spiritual and bodily welfare, and guard against misfortune. To the endless frustration of theologians, ‘religion’ and ‘superstition’ stubbornly refused to remain clearly separate, despite the intellectual effort expended in forcing them into different compartments. ‘Superstitious’ rites or beliefs repeatedly intersected with the official Catholic cult. It was believed that if a talisman were placed under an altar-cloth during mass, it would acquire spiritual potency. Orthodox prayers were constantly adapted to serve the needs of popular magic. Clergy, let alone layfolk, found the line between acceptable and superstitious practice difficult to draw. For a graphic illustration of this problem, one need only look at the following recipe for curing a hailstorm caused by sorcery:But against hailstones and storms, besides those things said earlier about raising the sign of the cross, this remedy may be used: three little hailstones are thrown into the fire with the invocation of the most Holy Trinity; the Lord's Prayer with the Angelic Salutation is added twice or three times, and the Gospel of St John, ‘In the beginning was the word’, while the sign of the cross is made against the storm from all quarters, before and behind, and from every part of the earth. And then, when at the end one repeats three times, ‘the Word was made flesh’, and says three times after that, ‘by these Gospels uttered, may that tempest flee’, then suddenly, so long as the storm was caused to happen by sorcery, it will cease.

DEVIANT DERVISHES: SPACE, GENDER, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF ANTINOMIAN PIETY IN OTTOMAN ALEPPO

2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
New World ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Mad Men ◽  
Night And Day ◽  
The City ◽  
East West

In the letters he wrote from Aleppo in 1600, the British merchant William Biddulph described the daily life of this dynamic center of the East–West trade, the city where spices and silks from India and Iran were exchanged for English broadcloth and New World silver in one of the world's largest covered bazaars. He also presented Muslim practices and religious beliefs, emphasizing those features that seemed to him most unusual and reprehensible. His contempt fell firmly on a fixture of the early modern Islamic street, the ecstatic, antinomian Muslim saint: They also account fooles, dumbe men, and mad men,…Saints. And whatsoever such mad men say or doe…or strike them, and wound them, yet they take it in good part, and say, that they shall have good lucke after it. And when such mad men die, they Canonize them for Saints, and erect stately Monuments over their graves, as we have here many examples, especially of one (who being mad) went always naked, whose name was Sheh Boubac…they…erected an house over his grave, where…they are Lampes burning night and day, and many idle fellows (whom they call Darvises) there maintained to looke unto his Sepulchre…

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