ABSTRACT
As intriguing as some of Weber’s ideas on the role of psychology in social analysis are, they may well invite skeptics to raise a question about their applicability to actual social analysis. In particular, the question might arise: Do any of Weber’s actual works of social analysis substantively embody any of these methodological conceptualizations? I suggest that one of Weber’s works of social analysis in particular does this, and in ways that amplify and extend his methodological ideas in directions not fully apparent in their original form: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Similar examples of psychologically based social analysis abound in Weber’s later works, particularly in passages and sections of his various writings on religion—most markedly the “Sociology of Religion” chapters of Economy and Society, but also the essays “The Social Psychology of the World Religions” and “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions.” However, Weber never again focuses so concentratedly as he does in The Protestant Ethic on a single social phenomenon which, at its inner core, is so deeply psychological.
