Abstract

In light of the questions Weber poses for liberal democratic theory this study discusses those of his work in which the "tragic" tensions between power and individualism, ethics and politics and science and politics are most sharply portrayed. We will note how Weber's own 'political theory' is embedded both within his substantive sociology and in his understanding of the "existential" situation of social actors. For Weber the recognition of the value of individualism, liberal democracy and Enlightenment culture is not a straightforward antidote for the ills of contemporary systems of power and domination. He therefore stands as an ambiguous figure from the perspective of liberal-democratic thought. ;For this reason the present study will be largely preoccupied with discussions of contemporary theorists who, either explicitly or implicitly, offer criticisms or Weber's account of the paradoxes of reason and freedom. In chapters two and three we will try to test the critical power of Weber's antinomy between rationally impersonal domination and the concept of individualist freedom. We also address MacIntyre's suggestion that we live in a "Weberian" social universe precisely because of the deep failures of liberalism as a moral tradition. ;The last four chapters of this study deal with contemporary political philosophers--mostly Habermas, Strauss and Rorty--who try to resolve the ambivalence toward liberalism that today exists as a result of an "intellectual crisis" associated with the heritage of Weber and Nietzsche. We end by examining Rorty's controversial suggestion that liberalism might be best defended simply as a culturally successful form of life. We examine whether the "moral skepticism" of post-Nietzschean thought is overcome when one judges the merits of a moral system by the contingent usefulness of the institutions and modes of solidarity it produces