1920 – A Caesura in Social Theory? Cover Image

1920 – A Caesura in Social Theory?
1920 – A Caesura in Social Theory?

Author(s): William Outhwaite
Subject(s): Sociology, History and theory of sociology
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Sociologický ústav
Keywords: Max Weber; Germany; social theory; generations

Summary/Abstract: The centenary of Max Weber’s death raises the question of the wider significance of 1920 as marking a break in the history of social theory. This essay focuses on Germany and Austria, where the political break with the past was particularly sharp and the discontinuities in the social and intellectual configuration of the social sciences were most obvious. Three trends are particularly striking: the development of neo-Marxist social theory with György Lukács and Karl Korsch and the later emergence of critical theory, the polarization between neo-positivism and interpretive sociology, and the consolidation of the sociology of knowledge.

  • Issue Year: 56/2020
  • Issue No: 6
  • Page Range: 897-909
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: English