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Hans-Peter Müller 1 (Transl. by: Oleg Kil'dyushov 2 )
  • 1 Humboldt University Berlin, Universitätsstraße 3b , Berlin, 10117, Deutschland
  • 2 National Research University Higher School of Economics, 20 Myasnitskaya Str., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation

Life Conduct: A Systematic Sketch in the Context of Max Weber’s Research Program

2017, vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 111–135 [issue contents]
The article focuses on one of Max Weber‘s central concepts known in German as Lebensführung(i.e., life conduct, though often mistakenly translated as life style in English). The author of this article begins with a rather paradoxical statement that this key concept remained without either a strict definition or a detailed elaboration in Weber’s sociology. He demonstrates the importance of lifefor Weber’s scientific research program, putting it into the complex context of the intellectual history at the turn of the century where the German Neo-Kantianism of the Baden School, philosophical anthropology, and the philosophy of life played significant roles. He continues with the reconstruction of the functional place of Lebensführungamong the analytical tools Max Weber applied in his studies of Western rationalization, understood as a process of the total disenchantment of the world. Müller distinguishes between three main aspects of the rationalization of life in the situation of Modernity: the scientific-technological, the metaphysically-ethical, and the practical forms of modern rationality. He points to the poly-semantical meaning of Lebensführung, while, at the same time, noticing that there is no special attention paid to the concept in current studies of the forms and styles of life. After a concise analysis of similar problems, he in turn formulates ten different forms of Lebensführung in the globalized world, proper to the people in Western countries. These forms are related to trans-nationality, laborization, flexibilization, project-based activity, acceleration, instability, creativity, social control, digitalization, and reflexivity. In conclusion, from his analysis, he draws far-reaching consequences regarding the heuristic capacity and operationalization opportunities of Max Weber’s concepts.
Citation: Müller H. (2017) Vedenie zhizni: sistematicheskiy ocherk v kontekste issledovatel'skoy programmy Maksa Vebera [Life Conduct: A Systematic Sketch in the Context of Max Weber’s Research Program]. The Russian Sociological Review, vol. 16, no 3, pp. 111-135 (in Russian)
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