Peter Breiner
Biographic Data
| ID | 280963 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Breiner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Breiner |
| SIGNATURE | BREINER P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Albany State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Weimar's Long Shadow
Weimar casts a long shadow over post-war political thought. The Weimar Republic is used to understand contemporary threats to democracy and to critique or defend modernity. It has generated a series of political lessons that are invoked whenever democracies are challenged. This book questions the historical validity of most of these lessons and their applicability to contemporary political orders. It shows how Weimar lessons are often influenced …
Weber's Concept of Traditional Herrschaft Reexamined
In his theory of the unconscious, Freud recurrently reminds us that conscious experiences repressed into the unconscious always return in obscure and often deviant forms in our conscious life and conduct. And he draws an analogy between the psychic process of “the return of the repressed” and social life: A similar notion is central to Marx’s theory of “primitive” or “original” accumulation of capital. Marx argues that the original accumulation w…
A Political Style of Thinking
[MWS 19.1 (2019) 116-134] ISSN 1470-8078 doi: 10.15543/maxweberstudies.19.1.116© Max Weber Studies 2019, Global Policy Institute, University House, Coventry University London, 109 Middlesex Street, London E1 7JF. Book Reviews Kari Palonen, A Political Style of Thinking: Essay on Max Weber (Colchester : ECPR Press, 2017), 227pp. (hbk). ISBN 978-1-785522-65-9.£52.00. Kari Palonen’s A Political Style of Theorizing collects in one place the many arti…
The crises of German historicism
Interpreters of the political theory of Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss have frequently noted the deep disagreements between the two over both the meaning of political theory and, more importantly, t
Translating Max Weber
Raymond Aron’s engagement with Weber
This article traces the arc of Aron’s interpretation of Weber from his dynamic political reading of Weber’s sociology to his deflationary criticism, a criticism that robs Weber’s sociology, in particularly his political sociology, of the very force that led Aron to embrace it in the first place. At the outset I trace Aron’s stylized dynamic political reading of Max Weber’s historical sociology, political sociology, and sociologically informed pol…
Machiavelli's “new prince” and the Primordial Moment of Acquisition
Commentators have frequently noted the discrepancy in il Principe between the figure of the new prince and the impossibility of exemplifying him. Against interpretations that claim Machiavelli's text either traps a prince in a web of self-destructive advice or destabilizes the very political knowledge it provides, the author argues that it uses the figure of the new prince to locate us in the primordial moment of acquisition of political power, a…
The Postmodern Prince
The Postmodern Prince: Critical Theory, Left Strategy, and the Making of a New Political Subject. By John Sanbonmatsu. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004. 272p. $65.00 cloth, $22.95 paper. As the title suggests, this book has a great and admirable ambition. It seeks to write a version of Antonio Gramsci's Modern Prince for a post–New Left, postmodern era. While it does not actually do this, it does provide a critical settling of accounts both w…
The Origins of the Puritan Capitalist and the Vocational Politician - a Series of Just-so Stories? Or Why is Weber's Genealogy of the Vocational Politician So Uncontroversial
This article seeks to answer a rarely asked question about Max Weber's political sociology: Why has there been so little controversy about his account of the origins of the vocational politician in Politics as a Vocation when there has been so much debate over his account of the origins of the ascetic accumulating entrepreneur in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? In particular, I ask why his peculiar narrative in which he connect…
The Origins of the Puritan Capitalist and the Vocational Politician-a Series of Just-so Stories? Or Why is Weber's Genealogy of the Vocational Politician So Uncontroversial
This article seeks to answer a rarely asked question about Max Weber's political sociology: Why has there been so little controversy about his account of the origins of the vocational politician in Politics as a Vocation when there has been so much debate over his account of the origins of the ascetic accumulating entrepreneur in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? In particular, I ask why his peculiar narrative in which he connect…
Weber's The Protestant Ethic as Hypothetical Narrative of Original Accumulation
In this article, I address the 'hypothetical', 'self-referential' and 'constructed' nature of Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the 'Spirit' of Capitalism. In particular, I argue that complaints of commentators that his account lacks empirical verification are misplaced. Weber's narrative in The Protestant Ethic does not function as an historical explanation of the origins of capitalism that can be tested against a body of facts. Rather, using the…
Distance and Engagement in a Time of War
In “Social Science and Liberal Values in a Time of War,” Jeffrey Isaac urges us to discuss “the responsibilities of social scientists during wartime.” He focuses specifically on the ethics of responsibility appropriate to the university-based scholar when political authority attacks the values, both moral and non-moral, that we implicitly presuppose when we function as academics in general, and political scientists in particular. Isaac invokes th…
Translating Max Weber
Although it is well-recognized that Max Weber was of central importance to many of the emigre social scientists who fled Hitler, commentators have overlooked both Weber’s attempt to found a new dynamic political science that would test partisan commitments and the endeavors of emigre political scientists to develop this project. This article lays out this new Weberian political science and assesses the fate of the various attempts on the part of …
Unnatural Selection
This article examines the meaning of the much neglected concept of selection ( Auslese) in Weber. It demonstrates that Weber is able to account for the way economic, domestic political, and international spheres interact with one another by showing how the principle of selection operates differently in each sphere of action. But it also shows that when these three principles interlock with each other, we get a more powerful account of the struggl…
Max Weber & democratic politics
In this work, Peter Breiner explores the implications of Max Weber's political sociology for political judgment and democratic theory. In the process, he rejects what is problematic and retains what is valuable in the theorist's political thought and then uses the results to elaborate upon and extend democratic theory. Breiner demonstrates the tension between the subjective and objective dimensions of Weber's logic of rationality, and describes h…
Max Weber and Democratic Politics
Rigorous, tightly argued, and concise, the volume will interest both political and social theorists: the former because of the focus on judgment and participatory democracy and the latter for the author's thorough and novel treatment of Weber
The Political Logic of Economics and the Economic Logic of Modernity in Max Weber
The explanation of everything by economic causes alone is never exhaustive in any sense whatsoever, in any sphere of cultural phenomena, not even in the economic sphere itself. Max Weber, “Objectivity” in Social Science and Social Policy (1904
Democracy
Creation and development of democratic institutions of Ancient Greece, Simon Hornblower Ancient Greek political theory as a response to democracy, Cynthia Farrar democracy, philosophy and science in Ancient Greece, Geofrey Lloyd the Italian city repubics, Quentin Skinner the levellers, David Wootton democracy and the American Revolution, Gordon S. Wood democracy and the French Revolution, Biancamaria Fontana democracy since the French Revolution,…
Democracy and Deliberation
Democratic Autonomy, Political Ethics, and Moral Luck
Unnatural Selection
This article examines the meaning of the much neglected concept of selection ( Auslese) in Weber. It demonstrates that Weber is able to account for the way economic, domestic political, and international spheres interact with one another by showing how the principle of selection operates differently in each sphere of action. But it also shows that when these three principles interlock with each other, we get a more powerful account of the struggl…
Machiavelli's “new prince” and the Primordial Moment of Acquisition
Commentators have frequently noted the discrepancy in il Principe between the figure of the new prince and the impossibility of exemplifying him. Against interpretations that claim Machiavelli's text either traps a prince in a web of self-destructive advice or destabilizes the very political knowledge it provides, the author argues that it uses the figure of the new prince to locate us in the primordial moment of acquisition of political power, a…
Weber's The Protestant Ethic as Hypothetical Narrative of Original Accumulation
In this article, I address the 'hypothetical', 'self-referential' and 'constructed' nature of Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the 'Spirit' of Capitalism. In particular, I argue that complaints of commentators that his account lacks empirical verification are misplaced. Weber's narrative in The Protestant Ethic does not function as an historical explanation of the origins of capitalism that can be tested against a body of facts. Rather, using the…
The Political Logic of Economics and the Economic Logic of Modernity in Max Weber
The explanation of everything by economic causes alone is never exhaustive in any sense whatsoever, in any sphere of cultural phenomena, not even in the economic sphere itself. Max Weber, “Objectivity” in Social Science and Social Policy (1904
Democratic Autonomy, Political Ethics, and Moral Luck
Raymond Aron’s engagement with Weber
This article traces the arc of Aron’s interpretation of Weber from his dynamic political reading of Weber’s sociology to his deflationary criticism, a criticism that robs Weber’s sociology, in particularly his political sociology, of the very force that led Aron to embrace it in the first place. At the outset I trace Aron’s stylized dynamic political reading of Max Weber’s historical sociology, political sociology, and sociologically informed pol…
The Origins of the Puritan Capitalist and the Vocational Politician - a Series of Just-so Stories? Or Why is Weber's Genealogy of the Vocational Politician So Uncontroversial
This article seeks to answer a rarely asked question about Max Weber's political sociology: Why has there been so little controversy about his account of the origins of the vocational politician in Politics as a Vocation when there has been so much debate over his account of the origins of the ascetic accumulating entrepreneur in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? In particular, I ask why his peculiar narrative in which he connect…
Distance and Engagement in a Time of War
In “Social Science and Liberal Values in a Time of War,” Jeffrey Isaac urges us to discuss “the responsibilities of social scientists during wartime.” He focuses specifically on the ethics of responsibility appropriate to the university-based scholar when political authority attacks the values, both moral and non-moral, that we implicitly presuppose when we function as academics in general, and political scientists in particular. Isaac invokes th…
Translating Max Weber
Although it is well-recognized that Max Weber was of central importance to many of the emigre social scientists who fled Hitler, commentators have overlooked both Weber’s attempt to found a new dynamic political science that would test partisan commitments and the endeavors of emigre political scientists to develop this project. This article lays out this new Weberian political science and assesses the fate of the various attempts on the part of …
Democratic Autonomy, Political Ethics, and Moral Luck
Democracy
Creation and development of democratic institutions of Ancient Greece, Simon Hornblower Ancient Greek political theory as a response to democracy, Cynthia Farrar democracy, philosophy and science in Ancient Greece, Geofrey Lloyd the Italian city repubics, Quentin Skinner the levellers, David Wootton democracy and the American Revolution, Gordon S. Wood democracy and the French Revolution, Biancamaria Fontana democracy since the French Revolution,…
Democracy and Deliberation
The Political Logic of Economics and the Economic Logic of Modernity in Max Weber
The explanation of everything by economic causes alone is never exhaustive in any sense whatsoever, in any sphere of cultural phenomena, not even in the economic sphere itself. Max Weber, “Objectivity” in Social Science and Social Policy (1904
Max Weber & democratic politics
In this work, Peter Breiner explores the implications of Max Weber's political sociology for political judgment and democratic theory. In the process, he rejects what is problematic and retains what is valuable in the theorist's political thought and then uses the results to elaborate upon and extend democratic theory. Breiner demonstrates the tension between the subjective and objective dimensions of Weber's logic of rationality, and describes h…
Max Weber and Democratic Politics
Rigorous, tightly argued, and concise, the volume will interest both political and social theorists: the former because of the focus on judgment and participatory democracy and the latter for the author's thorough and novel treatment of Weber
Distance and Engagement in a Time of War
In “Social Science and Liberal Values in a Time of War,” Jeffrey Isaac urges us to discuss “the responsibilities of social scientists during wartime.” He focuses specifically on the ethics of responsibility appropriate to the university-based scholar when political authority attacks the values, both moral and non-moral, that we implicitly presuppose when we function as academics in general, and political scientists in particular. Isaac invokes th…
Translating Max Weber
Although it is well-recognized that Max Weber was of central importance to many of the emigre social scientists who fled Hitler, commentators have overlooked both Weber’s attempt to found a new dynamic political science that would test partisan commitments and the endeavors of emigre political scientists to develop this project. This article lays out this new Weberian political science and assesses the fate of the various attempts on the part of …
Unnatural Selection
This article examines the meaning of the much neglected concept of selection ( Auslese) in Weber. It demonstrates that Weber is able to account for the way economic, domestic political, and international spheres interact with one another by showing how the principle of selection operates differently in each sphere of action. But it also shows that when these three principles interlock with each other, we get a more powerful account of the struggl…
The Origins of the Puritan Capitalist and the Vocational Politician-a Series of Just-so Stories? Or Why is Weber's Genealogy of the Vocational Politician So Uncontroversial
This article seeks to answer a rarely asked question about Max Weber's political sociology: Why has there been so little controversy about his account of the origins of the vocational politician in Politics as a Vocation when there has been so much debate over his account of the origins of the ascetic accumulating entrepreneur in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? In particular, I ask why his peculiar narrative in which he connect…
Weber's The Protestant Ethic as Hypothetical Narrative of Original Accumulation
In this article, I address the 'hypothetical', 'self-referential' and 'constructed' nature of Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the 'Spirit' of Capitalism. In particular, I argue that complaints of commentators that his account lacks empirical verification are misplaced. Weber's narrative in The Protestant Ethic does not function as an historical explanation of the origins of capitalism that can be tested against a body of facts. Rather, using the…
The Postmodern Prince
The Postmodern Prince: Critical Theory, Left Strategy, and the Making of a New Political Subject. By John Sanbonmatsu. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004. 272p. $65.00 cloth, $22.95 paper. As the title suggests, this book has a great and admirable ambition. It seeks to write a version of Antonio Gramsci's Modern Prince for a post–New Left, postmodern era. While it does not actually do this, it does provide a critical settling of accounts both w…
The Origins of the Puritan Capitalist and the Vocational Politician - a Series of Just-so Stories? Or Why is Weber's Genealogy of the Vocational Politician So Uncontroversial
This article seeks to answer a rarely asked question about Max Weber's political sociology: Why has there been so little controversy about his account of the origins of the vocational politician in Politics as a Vocation when there has been so much debate over his account of the origins of the ascetic accumulating entrepreneur in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? In particular, I ask why his peculiar narrative in which he connect…
Machiavelli's “new prince” and the Primordial Moment of Acquisition
Commentators have frequently noted the discrepancy in il Principe between the figure of the new prince and the impossibility of exemplifying him. Against interpretations that claim Machiavelli's text either traps a prince in a web of self-destructive advice or destabilizes the very political knowledge it provides, the author argues that it uses the figure of the new prince to locate us in the primordial moment of acquisition of political power, a…
Raymond Aron’s engagement with Weber
This article traces the arc of Aron’s interpretation of Weber from his dynamic political reading of Weber’s sociology to his deflationary criticism, a criticism that robs Weber’s sociology, in particularly his political sociology, of the very force that led Aron to embrace it in the first place. At the outset I trace Aron’s stylized dynamic political reading of Max Weber’s historical sociology, political sociology, and sociologically informed pol…
Translating Max Weber
The crises of German historicism
Interpreters of the political theory of Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss have frequently noted the deep disagreements between the two over both the meaning of political theory and, more importantly, t
A Political Style of Thinking
[MWS 19.1 (2019) 116-134] ISSN 1470-8078 doi: 10.15543/maxweberstudies.19.1.116© Max Weber Studies 2019, Global Policy Institute, University House, Coventry University London, 109 Middlesex Street, London E1 7JF. Book Reviews Kari Palonen, A Political Style of Thinking: Essay on Max Weber (Colchester : ECPR Press, 2017), 227pp. (hbk). ISBN 978-1-785522-65-9.£52.00. Kari Palonen’s A Political Style of Theorizing collects in one place the many arti…
Weber's Concept of Traditional Herrschaft Reexamined
In his theory of the unconscious, Freud recurrently reminds us that conscious experiences repressed into the unconscious always return in obscure and often deviant forms in our conscious life and conduct. And he draws an analogy between the psychic process of “the return of the repressed” and social life: A similar notion is central to Marx’s theory of “primitive” or “original” accumulation of capital. Marx argues that the original accumulation w…
Weimar's Long Shadow
Weimar casts a long shadow over post-war political thought. The Weimar Republic is used to understand contemporary threats to democracy and to critique or defend modernity. It has generated a series of political lessons that are invoked whenever democracies are challenged. This book questions the historical validity of most of these lessons and their applicability to contemporary political orders. It shows how Weimar lessons are often influenced …
Political science (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Politics (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory (11 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Political Theology and Sovereignty (8 works)