Max Weber, Historian
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22478/ufpb.2317-6725.2026v31.78080Keywords:
Max Weber; Historicism; Positivism.Abstract
Max Weber's contribution to History has generally been approached from a sociological perspective, in such a way that historical research appears as an illustration for sociological theories. In this article, I seek to explore Weber's positions on the method of historical research, the use of sources, the relationship with German Historicism, the problematization of the past from the present, and the issue of objectivity in the production of knowledge. The selected material from Weber for analysis consists mainly of his early historical publications: “The History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages” (1889), “Roman Agrarian History”, (1891), his time in the United States, and “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” from 1920 and biographys. Finally, I discuss how his methodological proposition prioritizes culture as an object of study and recommends precautions to prevent evidence from being distorted by imagination saturated with value judgments.
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