ABSTRACT

This chapter traces the ground for the indifference of reason to Max Weber's existentialism and nihilism and not to any residual positivism within his methodology. Weber completes the first work of his Wissenschaftslehre with his theory of historical interpretation. The chapter outlines Max Weber's methodological perspective and critique through the four distinctive epistemological traditions: neo-Kantian philosophy of social science; German idealism, existentialism, and critique of empiricism and positivism; Historical School of economics and law; and radical Kantianism and nihilistic critique of reason. The elements of Kantian idealism and practical reason have also disappeared. From both Gustav Schmoller's economic theory and Heinrich Rickert's theory of knowledge, Weber develops a powerful critique of neo-classical economics and positivism in the social sciences. Carl Menger argued that economic laws reflected the essential laws of nature and universal forces in history, whereas Schmoller contended that they reflected only unique causal relationships between particular historical events.