Max Weber's Rhetoric of 'Objectivity

The Parliament as a Paradigm for Scholarly Disputes

Bibliographic Data

ID5949495
AuthorsKari Palonen, Кари Палонен (0000-0001-7274-1690, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume10
Issue1
Pages71-93
Publication date2010-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMax Weber Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-8078 • E-ISSN: 2056-4074
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/max.2010.a808828
OpenAlexW4379624476
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited12

In this essay, Max Weber's classical 1904 essay on 'Objectivity' is revisited from a rhetorical perspective. When Weber speaks of 'objectivity', he is referring to the Methodenstreit in the economics of his time from the broader viewpoint of discussing the modes of conducting scholarly disputes in general. He insists that the struggle between opposing standpoints and their supporters, which is widely accepted politics, should also be revalued in scholarly controversies. For Weber, the point of 'objectivity' is not to end scholarly disputes but ensure the open-minded and fair discussion of them. This fair play concept of objectivity can be traced back to the Renaissance rhetorical culture and its political institutionalisation in the English Parliament as an arena of fair debate. Weber's own rhetoric of defending 'objectivity' while simultaneously altering its meaning and range of reference also illustrates the use of the rhetorical redescription of a concept that is characteristic of parliamentary rhetoric

Epistemology · Linguistics · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Theology · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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