Skip navigation
Title: 

Habitus and personality in the work of Max Weber

Authors: Anderson, Elisabeth
Keywords: habitus;labour unions;life-conduct;Max Weber;personality;voluntary associations
Issue Date: 22-Jun-2022
Publisher: Sage
Citation: Anderson, E. (2022). “Habitus and personality in the work of Max Weber.” Journal of Classical Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X221099207
Abstract: Weber’s critique of modernity centred on how it shaped the habitus – life-conduct and motivations – of the modern individual. I explicate six habitus-types that appear in Weber’s work: the early-modern Puritan Berufsmensch, the modern specialist, the modern industrial worker, the politician, the civil servant and the citizen voter. In doing so, I identify the main characteristics of each type and the causal mechanisms through which Western modernity’s core features – capitalism and bureaucracy – brought them into being. Further, I discuss two habitus-related problems that concerned Weber: the general failure of the modern habitus to achieve ‘personality’; and the mismatch between habitus and occupational role in the Wilhelmine political sphere. I then explain the practical reforms through which Weber hoped to address these problems. Finally, I show how this analysis helps resolve two apparent contradictions which have long perplexed Weber scholars.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2451/64431
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X221099207
Rights: CC BY-NC-ND
Appears in Collections:Elisabeth Anderson’s Collection

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
Anderson_Habitus_and_personality_in_the_work_of_Max_Weber_JCS.pdfAccepted version421.83 kBAdobe PDFView/Open


Items in FDA are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.