Science as a Vocation

Summary

In Science as a Vocation, Weber weighed the benefits and detriments of choosing a career as an academic at a university who studies science or humanities. Weber probes the question "what is the value of science?" and focuses on the nature of ethics underpinning the scientific career. Science, to Weber, gives methods of explanation and means of justifying a position, but it cannot explain why that position is worth holding in the first place; this is the task of philosophy. No science is free from suppositions, and the value of a science is lost when its suppositions are rejected.

Weber reasons that science can never answer the fundamental questions of life, such as directing people on how to live their lives and what to value. Value he contends can only be derived from personal beliefs such as religion. He further argues for the separation of reason and faith, noting that each has its place in respective field but if crossed over cannot work.

Weber also separates fact from value in politics. He argues that a teacher should impart knowledge to students and teach them how to clarify issues logically – even political issues – but teachers should never use the classroom to indoctrinate or preach their personal political views.

Weber also makes some practical comments about research and teaching. He notes that good scholars can be poor teachers, and that qualities that make one a good scholar, or a good thinker, are not necessarily the same qualities that make for good leaders or role models.

Translations

Weber, Max (1946). Science as Vocation, in From Max Weber, tr. and ed. by H. H. Gerth, and C. Wright Mills. New York: Free press.

Weber, Max (2004). Science as Vocation, in The Vocation Lectures, tr. by Rodney LIvingstone, and Edited by David Owen and Tracy Strong (Illinois: Hackett Books).