Le sociologue et le prophète. Weber et le destin des modernes

In modern societies, the fact that a specifically intellectual authority acts as a normative basis is a crucial question, in philosophy as in sociology. This paper argues that it is primarily a sociological question, before being a philosophical one. More precisely, as Max Weber’s work shows, it can be approached in the context of a comparative sociology of religions, a dimension well brought to light by the opposition between a corrupted figure of the prophet – the « chair prophet » –, and that of the scientist endowed with well-established professional ethics – an opposition central to his 1917 conference Science as a Vocation. In that regard, Weber’s text is viewed in a critical way, as this paper shows that, far from abandoning all reference to religion in a secularized context, Weber’s thinking eventually redefines what it may mean for social scientists in the Modern era, if however they are able to measure up to its singular fate.