Max Weber's Concept of "Event", and the Logical Categories of a "Science of Chaos" [Spanish]

Authors

  • Luca Mori University of Pisa

Keywords:

chaos, event, history, Max Weber, natural sciences, observer

Abstract

This paper aims at revealing the originality of Max Weber’s conception of the logical category of “historicity”, suggesting that in his writings on the methodology of the social sciences we can find a stimulating and forerunner contribution to the analysis of some logical and formal problems concerning the relationship between human knowledge and the chaos of reality (what we might call, ante-litteram, “science of chaos”). In particular, considering that in Weber’s conception scientific knowledge finds no facts “to grasp” in the natural world, but rather a chaos of unique and infinitely divisible events, the analysis will be focused on the following aspects: (a) Weber’s separation of causal imputation from the notion of necessary (natural) law; (b) the importance attached to “probability judgments” with different degrees of certainty; (c) the proclaimed irreducibility of individual events to scientific models, laws, and (ideal)-types; (d) the effects imputed to the differentiation of the point of view of a scientific observer.

Author Biography

Luca Mori, University of Pisa

Doctor

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Published

2013-01-22

Issue

No. 18 (2013): Jan-Jun

Section

Articles

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