The Politics of Intellectual Integrity

Redistributed here with the permission of the publisher. This version differs slightly from the final published version. Max Weber’s writings on science and the meaning of intellectual activity have been criticized in the light of his apparent willingness to limit the evaluative aims of intellectuals by rejecting the appropriateness of social criticism in their professional work. In response, defenders of Weber have been struck by his insistence that intellectuals must think of their professional activity as a kind of service to ‘moral forces’1 even though they must also- for the sake of intellectual integrity – avoid partisanship itself. Paradoxically, ‘value-free ’ social science itself is portrayed as an enterprise in which confrontation with critical and evaluative stances is indispensable and directive of intellectual interests. This paper is an attempt to find a broader platform for addressing Weber=s seemingly paradoxical attachment to both ‘value-freedom ’ and a model of social science that requires an irreducible attunement to the world of cultural meanings and moral-practical problems. Two Views on Disenchantment: Weber and Pragmatis