A ‘specific and peculiar rationalism’? Beyond the rationalisation thesis

The comprehensive unity of Max Weber’s historical sociology has usually been sought in the problem of the origins and development of Western rationalism, and in the concept of ‘rationalisation’. Conventional sociological wisdom attributes to Weber a ‘rationalisation thesis’, the thesis that both the unity of the development of Western civilisation and of Weber’s own project are given by this notion. This thesis has more recently been subject to scrutiny and qualification, particularly following Tenbruck’s (1980) seminal reappraisal of the themes of rationality, rationalisation, and disenchantment, and their place in Weber’s oeuvre.