The Protestant Ethic Debate: Max Weber's Replies to His Critics, 1907-1910 | Liverpool Scholarship Online | Oxford Academic
2 Weber's First Reply to Karl Fischer, 1907: From the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vol. 25, pp. 243–49 Get access Arrow
https://doi.org/10.5949/liverpool/9780853239765.003.0004
Pages 31–38
Published: May 2001
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Abstract
This chapter contains Weber's response to Fischer's review of The Protestant Ethic in 1907.
Referred to as ‘his critic’, Weber refutes Fischer's arguments regarding ‘calling’ and his psychological explanation for the rise of a capitalist attitude.
Per Weber, he affirms the contrasting view of Jacob Fugger and Benjamin Franklin in the concept of ‘the spirit’, in which Fischer claims that Weber viewed them as equal.
Also, Weber contested on Fischer's claims that Weber believes that the Reformation created a capitalist spirit which was a factor to the concept of ‘the calling’.
In the psychological explanation, Weber argues that Fischer's theory of the emergence of the capitalist attitude for psychological reasons is flawed due to the historical realities that debunk it, and if the theories do fit, according to Weber, he simply does not care.
Keywords: calling, Jacob Fugger, Benjamin Franklin, the spirit, capitalist attitude, psychology
Subject Political Theory
