Max Weber: education as academic and political calling

In the Wissenschaftslehre and the less well-known pedagogical texts Max Weber (1864-1920) defines the pursuit of knowledge as practiced in the academic world as an honorable task, fostering the political agency of the gebildete Bürger. Specifically, the ideal of value-free science, and the Enquete as portrayed in his political writings, allowed Weber to redefine an 'academic calling' in the service of science, and as a force in the political sphere. This essay shows how Weber's thought remained grounded in the older traditions of the Bildungsideal yet expressed a valiant attempt to reconstitute those ideals for the modern world. Reprinted by permission of the German Studies Review