ABSTRACT
For more than two centuries a spectre has been haunting the social sciences. Basic questions of theory and research remain unresolved and, perhaps, cannot be resolved, but assumptions concerning these questions are unavoidable nevertheless. In his Spirit of the Laws (1748), Baron de Montesquieu stated—as did Karl Marx and so many other writers—that “I have not drawn my principles from my prejudices, but from the nature of things.” The phrase and its equivalents have many meanings. This chapter provides a summary of the methodological guidelines Max Weber employed. Although the chapter does not contain an “intellectual confrontation” such as that between Marx and Alexis de Tocqueville or Marx and Montesquieu, the chapter provides this “confrontational background” in Weber’s case. In this way a set of questions, which scholars have grappled with since the eighteenth century, can be outlined.
