Max Weber’s Nation (2020.12)
- Author : Chi-Won, Choi
- Journal : Zeitschrift der Koreanisch-Deutschen Gesellschaft fuer Sozialwissenschaften (ZdKDGS)
- Publisher : Koreanisch-Deutsche Gesellschaft Fuer Sozialwissenschaften(K-G Association For Social Sciences)
- Volume : Vol.30 No.4
- Date : 2020. 12
Abstract : There are two moments that shaped and characterized Weber’s life and thoughts. One was related to the special situation of his nation Germany, which faced the economic and political turning point, while the other was related to the universal existence of man. The former is embodied by the opinion from Weber as politician, and the latter by that from Weber as scholar. This duality, characterized by opposition and responsiveness, is first imprinted in his inaugural speech(1895). The method of Marx and Nietzsche plays a decisive role in Weber’s stance. The presentation that binds Weber as scholar and as politician is ‘Nation.’ From this, ‘Nation’s Political Education,’ as the final goal of science, emerges as an important immediate task. In ‘political education,’ science and politics meet each other. Its core is not related to the realization of the ‘ethical’, but of the clarification the ‘political’, restoring the true state of politics. In its primary sense, ‘political education’ is a means of overcoming Bismarck’s negative legacy and contributing to inner reunification of nation; in its broadest sense, it becomes a means of contributing to the formation of ‘political maturity’ (and therefore of ‘political judgment’ and ‘political will’). Therefore, this means is based on ‘freedom’, not force, and in this sense it is not merely a theory, but an essential presupposition of human practice. Weber’s idea, reflecting the special situation of the German ‘nation,’ has a universal value in this respect.