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Reading Weber’s Patterns of Response to Critics of The Protestant Ethic

Some ‘Affinities’ in and between Replies to Felix Rachfahl and Werner Sombart

University of Derby, UK

A close concentration on Weber’s replies to Felix Rachfahl (in 1910) and to Werner Sombart (in 1920) shows that whilst Weber seeks to create an ‘interpretative community’ for the reception of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (through an appeal to ‘common knowledge’ and ‘expert witnesses’), it is clear that Rachfahl is an outsider. It is also possible to trace developments in Weber’s articulation of his thesis across time relating to the importance of the psychological dimension in accounting for motivations to vocation, the relation between monastic asceticism and ascetic Protestantism, and the utilization of notions of affinity. During the dispute with Rachfahl, Weber utilized not only the notion of affinity but also the notion of a ‘corresponding soul’ created by asceticism for adaptation to the capitalist culture; however, the latter does not reappear in 1920.

Key Words: elective affinities • oysters • Protestant Ethic debate • psychology • Rachfahl • Sombart • Weber

Journal of Classical Sociology, Vol. 5, No. 1, 31-51 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1468795X05050037


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