Theology often lays claim to scientific status, Weber observes, but in doing so does something that no genuine science does: It operates with substantive presuppositions, especially the assumption that the cosmos is meaningful. In “Science as a Vocation,” he writes, “All theology represents an intellectual rationalization of the possession of sacred values. No science is absolutely free from presuppositions, and no science can prove its fundamental value to the man who rejects these pre- suppositions. Every theology, however, adds a... Read more

Max Weber begins his lecture on “Science as a Vocation” by noting the “meaningless” of science, a product of the notion of scientific progress that guides scientific pursuits in the modern world. “Each of us knows,” Weber writes, “that what he has accomplished will be antiquated in ten, twenty, fifty years. That is the fate to which science is subjected; it is the very meaning of scientific work, to which it is devoted in a quite specific sense, as compared... Read more