The Scholarly Pathfinder

In 1969/70, Andō Hideharu (1921–1998), a Japanese historian of ideas, was a visiting professor at the Max Weber-Institute in Munich, Germany, for a period of one year. He was a harsh critic of Marianne Weber’s 1926 biography of her husband. During his tenure, he travelled to a number of places associated with Max Weber, with the aim of reconstructing his personal history. Andō literally followed Weber’s path from the cradle to the grave, though not necessarily in a chronological order. In a travelogue published in 1972, Andō recounted his experiences in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and France, with a particular emphasis on interviews conducted with contemporaries of Max Weber who were still alive in 1969/70. Andō’s primary concern was in the personality of Max Weber, with a secondary focus on Weber’s work and the adaptation of Weber’s sociology for the study of Japanese modernity. The following article reconstructs Andō’s travel experiences in Europe by analysing his “Weber Travelogue”. It then discusses a bitter controversy that arose between Andō and certain colleagues in the context of Japanese Weber studies upon his return to Japan. Finally, the article assesses the merits and limitations of Andō’s “time travel” into Max Weber’s life through the lens of “Motivenforschung” (study of motives), a concept he drew from Weber’s methodological writings

Library science · Pathfinder · Computer Science · German Colonialism and Identity Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

• The Genesis of the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe and the Contribution of Wolfgang J. Mommsen

  Edith Hanke, Gangolf Hübinger et al.•Max Weber Studies•2012

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• Die Interviews mit Else Jaffe, Edgar Salin und Helmuth Plessner über Max Weber 1969/1970

  Open Access•Hideharu Ando•KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für…•2003

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• The Spirit of Modernity

  Open Access•Wolfgang Schwentker•Journal of Classical Sociology•2005

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