Summary
Founding figure of German sociology whose demand for Werturteilfreiheit shaped the German Sociological Society, who opposed sketchy racial theories in its debates, and whose social-religious reading of ancient Judaism Franz Oppenheimer drew on (Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, PDF p.70-71, p.92, p.99).
Details
- With Tönnies and Simmel, Weber endorsed barring race science from academic sociology before the First World War; his constant interventions for Werturteilfreiheit were barely heeded, and the paragraph demanding it was erased from the DGS bylaws in 1924 (PDF p.70-71).
- At the first Soziologentag he rejected the factuality of Ploetz’s claims about Poles and African Americans, holding the interesting question to be why such claims were popular (PDF p.82).
- He developed Friedrich Naumann’s “primitive cooperative spirit” to explain double morals toward group insiders and outsiders, holding double morals were shared by all ancient societies, not uniquely Jewish (PDF p.74).
- Oppenheimer cited Weber’s argument that accusations of Jewish double morals in charging interest only to Christians legitimised the occasional looting of Jewish possessions by the upper class (PDF p.96).
- Oppenheimer’s concept of the Homo meditarraneus drew from Weber’s reading of the religious and social life of ancient Israel among its Mediterranean neighbours (PDF p.99).
- Eastern European migrants were considered, in Weber’s words as quoted, especially “physically and intellectually primitive” (PDF p.66).
Related pages
Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, Franz Oppenheimer, Werner Sombart, German Sociological Society