ABSTRACT
This contribution has investigated the sociological notion of formal rationality as used by Max Weber and other eminent sociologists such as Adorno, Habermas, Horkheimer, Luhmann, Mannheim, Marcuse, and Vierkandt. All these sociologists have drawn a distinction between formal (or objective) and non-formal modes of rational action and considered the former mode as a distinguishing trait of modernity. Following Weber, formal rationality has been viewed as embodied in administrative apparatuses or, as with Luhmann, in the social system. Moreover, all the latter sets of sociologists, except Vierkandt, have based their conception of rationality on Weber’s seminal writings. Only Weber, however, has refrained from passing a negative value judgment on formal rationality. The Frankfurt School, finally, has drawn on Weber’s distinction between formal and substantial rationality in keeping with a Marxist perspective.
