ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a general overview of Part V’s discussion of the origins, contours, and trajectory of Western rationalism and modern Western rationalism (Chapters 12–18). Weber’s analysis of the formation of the West’s singular “tracks” in the ancient epoch and Western rationalism’s unique “structural heterogeneity” in its Middle and High Middle Ages and Early Modern Era are summarized.
This chapter then examines the fate of ethical action under the modern Western rationalism. Weber fears that, owing to major features of this period, the public sphere will be saturated with the practical and formal types of rationality, indeed, to such an extent that substantive rationality will be circumscribed and marginalized. Weber views this development as especially unfavorable for, to him, this latter type of rationality constitutes the anchor for ethical action outside the family – that is, for the expansion of a civic sphere. However, yet again Weber rejects all monolithic descriptions of modern Western rationalism; he sees instead significant variation in this respect across empirical cases.
