BİLİM VE SİYASET İKİLEMİNDE MAX WEBER: POLİTİK-FELSEFİ BİR İNCELEME
MAX WEBER’S DILEMMA ON SCIENCE AND POLITICS: A PHILOSOPHICAL-POLITICAL ANALYSIS

Summary/Abstract: Max Weber was a productive philosopher/scientist who wrote a great number of academical works in relation to divergent disciplines in social sciences. Weber embraced his own perspective of “freedom from value judgments”in the social sciences in his own works. An ideal referred by him as “value freedom (Werturteilsfreiheit)” has methodical foundations and is the result of his attempt to justify social sciences which should not be positivist or metaphysical. Weber, however, was also an active politician who expressed his ideas on political and economic matters in his time. Whereas the “scientist” Weber acted in accordance with his “value freedom” axiom, the “politician” Weber was not free from value judgments. This was because a politician, according to Weber, is a person who takes decisions responsibly, attributes values instead of becoming free from value judgments, becomes a party of a view, and strives to gain support of the masses. In this context, the aim of this study is to point to, examine and discuss the reasons for the contradiction between the “scientist” Weber and the “politician” Weber by analysing his own original works in German. In addition to this, the secondary aim of this study is to contribute to the scholarly debate on a question between positivist/empirical and normative/postmodern traditions in philosophy of science, in general, and in political science/philosophy, in particular, on the examination of politics by offering a general framework of Weber’s ideal of value-freedom: cannot a (political) scientist embrace normative and value-ridden moral, metaphysical or ethical perspectives in relation to the issues of state, justice, liberty and equality; ask questions about and do research on them or offer value-ridden conclusions and recommendations? Methodologically, this is a qualitative study in theoretical and analytical (political) philosophy.

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