The Problem of Romanticism as Genealogy of Max Weber’s Thought : A Preliminary Study on the Value and Status of Weber’s Thought (2022.11)
- Author : Chiwon Choi
- Publication : The Korean Review of Political Thought
- Publisher : Korean Society For Political Thought
- Volume : 28(2)
- Date : November 2022
Abstract: In Germany’s historical time and space, especially the German Romanticism and the tradition of Historicism and the Historical School that is developed in a close relation with German Romanticism, Weber’s thought is formed and given its characteristics. This tradition is symbolized by the relationship between philosophy and history, and is particularly characterized by the rebellion of history against philosophy. In Weber’s thought, the philosophical moments unfold as a dual moment of acceptance of Kant and rejection of Hegel. The latter aspect has a decisive meaning in understanding the character and status of his thought. For Weber, regardless of his own intentions and thus paradoxically, is unable to completely dislodge from his thoughts the moment of Romanticism which he himself tried to deny in the spirit of a rational scholar and researcher. The point is that if Romanticism is born out of a reaction against philosophy, and thus rejects philosophy and put history to the fore as an antithesis to it, Weber’s thought is also located in such frame. In short, although Weber’s thought can be clearly distinguished from Romanticism and has especially no relation to the conservative reactionism of the German Political Romanticism, when it comes to rejecting philosophy and accepting history, Romanticism is revealed as a distant source of his thought. This problem needs to be studied in detail in the context of the historical school and historicism.