Nietzsche, Weber and the question of value free social science
By Thomas Poell <mailto:tpoell@dds.nl>
To call attention to the similarities and links between the work of Max
Weber and Friedrich Nietzsche has become a common thing in contemporary
social sciences (See: Fleischmann 1981; Runciman 1972; Stauth & Turner
1986; Hennis 1987, Owen 1994).
I will show the similarity in philosophical and cultural
problems they are confronting and the differences between their analyses
of these problems and the solutions they come up with. The tension
between Nietzsche's philosophy and Weber's attempts to construct a value
free social science points to one of the most interesting and
fundamental epistemological distinctions in the human sciences. The
object of this paper is to present this tension and to let the two
thinkers confront each other.
In the second part of the paper, titled 'Language & Truth', I will show
how Nietzsche attacked Kant's project, transforming epistemology into
genealogy. Nietzsche criticized Kant for not constructing a total
critique. Kant sets out to delineate the faculties governing the claims
to knowledge and morality, however he fails to raise the question of the
value of these ideals. Nietzsche takes on the task of doing just that.
Weber on the other hand, borrowing from Rickert's neo-Kantian
philosophy, continued to work within the dualist ontology of Kant. This
dualist ontology forms the basis of his attempt to construct a ideal
typical, value-free social science.
Weber's analysis of modernity
is from a general point of view very similar to Nietzsche's diagnosis.
Like Nietzsche, Weber recognizes that the highest values, embodied in
Christianity, have withdrawn from the public sphere through the
development of rationalism. The explanation of the development of
Western rationalism is Weber's central interest, however this does not
directly entail an evaluation of this development. These two things are
for Nietzsche inseparable. Weber describes the development of Western
rationality as the disenchantment of the world through the construction
of the Protestant ethic, and related to this the development of Western
capitalism, the modern state and the process of bureaucratization. His
historical analysis of modernity leads him to conclude that the central
dilemma of the modern world is the tension between the bureaucratization
of social life and certain western values, like creativity and autonomy.
The value of truth as we know it in Western science is for Nietzsche a
specific product of Christian morality. With the loss of the
transcendental ground of the value of truth, the will to truth has
become conscious of itself as problem. Nihilism which is a result of
this can only be overcome, if we learn how to set our own values and act
according to them. Nietzsche develops a principle which can is powerful
enough to function as the basis for a kind of culture which breeds such
individuals. This principle is the 'eternal recurrence'. All this means
that the Christian morality and its 'will to truth' which has determined
our values for two thousand years has to be destroyed. Weber on the
other hand, remaining within the neo-Kantian framework, continues to
hold on to the value of truth. Although he acknowledges that it is a
specific product of certain cultures. He does, however, believe and
strive for a science, which is not governed by value judgements. This is
important in relation to Weber vision of autonomy. His idea of autonomy
in our contemporary world is to choose a vocation, and act according to
the demands of this vocation. The demands of science as a vocation is to
clarify and search for truth.