ABSTRACT

The Weberian philosophy of value has its origin in Kantian philosophy. This means that at the outset it makes a radical distinction between facts and values. It has often been said that Max Weber tried to refute Karl Marx and to explain economic behavior by religions instead of presupposing religion as the superstructure of a society whose infrastructure consisted of the relations of production. Men make value judgments; they create values; historical existence is essentially a creation and affirmation of values. Values are given neither in the tangible nor in the transcendental; they are created by human decisions that differ radically in kind from the procedures by which the mind apprehends reality and elaborates truth. Weber would have answered Emile Durkheim that while it is quite true that societies are the context in which values are created, societies are composed of men, ourselves and others.