Video: Thomas Kemple on ‘A Century after Weber and Simmel’

23 Oct

Thomas Kemple introduces his Theory, Culture & Society article ‘A Century After Weber and Simmel‘.

Abstract

This essay reviews two recently published volumes of the Max-Weber-Gesamtausgabe (Collected Works) which contain writings on methodological questions and theoretical problems concerning ‘objectivity’, ‘interpretive understanding’, and ‘value-freedom’. Since many of these texts explicitly address Weber’s views on the writings of Georg Simmel, the essay treats these volumes as an occasion to commemorate the legacy of these two classic theorists of modern capitalism a hundred years after their death. In addition to considering new scholarship on these thinkers, the essay also highlights their relevance to problems and questions still being posed and contemplated today.

Further Reading:

Max Weber (2018). Zur Logik und Methodik der Sozialwissenschaften. Schriften 1900-1907. Edited by Gerhard Wagner, with the assistance of Claudius Härpfer, Tom Kaen, Kai Müller and Angelica Zahn. Max Weber Gesamtausgabe I/7. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Max Weber (2018). Verstehende Soziologie und Werturteilsfreiheit. Schriften und Reden 1908-1917. Edited by Johannes Weiß with the assistance of Sabine Frommer. Max Weber Gesamtausgabe I/12. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Kemple, Thomas (2014). Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kemple, Thomas (2018). Simmel. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Special Double-Issue ‘Georg Simmel’s ‘Sociological Metaphysics’’, co-edited by Austin Harrington and Thomas Kemple. 12 critical essays and 4 translations. Theory, Culture & Society, Annual Review 29 (7-8) December 2012: 6-323.

Special section ‘Georg Simmel on Aesthetics, Ethics, and Metaphysics’, edited and with selected translations and notes by Thomas Kemple. Theory, Culture & Society (Annual Review) 24 (7-8), 2007: 20-90.

Weber, M. (2005) ‘Remarks on Technology and Culture’, co-translated from the German by Beatrix Zumsteg and Thomas M. Kemple. Edited with notes and an introduction by Thomas Kemple. Theory, Culture & Society, 22(4), pp. 23–38.