Weber and Anthropology

23 Aug 2002 11:29 AR AR169-AN31-11.tex AR169-AN31-11.
sgm LaTeX2e(2002/01/18) P1: IBC

10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085332
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2002. 31:233–55

doi: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085332
Copyright ° c 2002 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
First published online as a Review in Advance on May 21, 2002
WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY

Charles F. Keyes
Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle,
Washington 98105; email: keyes@u.washington.edu
Key Words interpretive anthropology, developmental history, religion,

rationalization, charisma
■ Abstract This article is about the influence of the work of the German sociologist
Max Weber (1864–1920) on English-speaking anthropologists. Although Weber does
not figure prominently in the history of anthropology, his work has, nonetheless, had
a profound influence on anthropological methodology and theoretical thinking on the
relationship between religion and political economy. The “interpretive anthropology”
first developed by Geertz has roots in Weber’s “interpretive sociology.” Bourdieu’s
“theory of practice” is also strongly Weberian in character. The anthropological study
of religion, and particularly the debate over the foundations of this field between Geertz
and Asad, is reconsidered in light of Weber’s sociology of religion. His comparative
study of the ethics of the world’s religions and particularly the “Weber thesis” about
the relationship between religion and the development of bourgeois capitalism are
shown to have been the foundation for a large body of anthropological research on
religion and political economy in societies in which the major world religions have
been long established. The essay ends with a suggestion that Weber’s work on politics
and meaning merits reexamination in light of contemporary anthropological interest,
derived from Foucault, in power and knowledge.
INTRODUCTION
David Gellner (2001, p. 1), in his introduction to The Anthropology of Buddhism

and Hinduism: Weberian Themes, writes, “The conjunction of ‘Weber and anthro-
pology’ is sufficiently unusual to warrant justification.” In this essay I seek both
to offer such a justification and to show that whereas there may not be “Weberian
anthropology,” much anthropological work has been influenced directly or indi-
rectly by the work of Max Weber. Moreover, there are good reasons, I believe, for
rethinking Weber’s work in light of contemporary anthropological concerns.
This article is about the influence of the work of Max Weber on English-speaking
anthropologists. No effort is made here to assess the broader influence of Weber
on the social sciences, especially in sociology and political science, where Weber
has been and continues to be read more than in anthropology. I also consider only
the English translations of Weber’s work.
0084-6570/02/1021-0233$14.00 233
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234 KEYES
WEBER AND HIS WORK
Max Weber (1864–1920) does not figure in the history of anthropology in the
way Durkheim, Freud, or even Marx do because Weber made next to no use of
ethnographic (or proto-ethnographic) materials in his work—indeed, few histories
of anthropology make any mention of Weber.1 Weber was trained in economic
history, and his very large corpus of work is centrally concerned with historical
processes in the great civilizations of the world. His historical sociology has,
however, considerable relevance to an anthropology that has become increasingly
historically oriented.
If fledgling anthropologists read any of Weber’s work today, it is usually The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber 1958a) (hereafter PESC).
Although the significance of this study cannot be underestimated, it is only one
small part of the large corpus of work that Weber produced. PESC is part of a
three-volume study on the comparative religious ethics of the world religions, the
Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (Collected Essays in the Sociology
of Religion) (Weber 1922–1923), a work that sets out to answer the question of
what role religion in practice (rather than in theology) played in the emergence of
capitalism. It begins with an inquiry into the Protestant ethic, which Weber found
to have fostered an attitude toward the world—a spirit (geist)—that contributed
to the rise of bourgeois rational capitalism. It then turns to studies of Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Chinese religion to explore why these religious traditions did not
foster the same geist and to a study of ancient Judaism, in which Weber found the
roots of the Protestant ethic. He had also intended to study Islam, but he never
completed a sustained examination of this religious tradition, although fragments
of it can be found in other parts of his work such as the section of Economy and
Society concerning law.2
The Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie has been translated by dif-
ferent scholars and published piecemeal in English. Weber’s introduction to the
whole appears as the introduction to PESC. His essay “The Protestant Sects and the
Spirit of Capitalism” has been published in translation separately (Weber 1958b,
pp. 302–22). Two essays comparing the world religions, “The Social Psychology of
World Religions” and “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions,”
also have been published separately (Weber 1958b, pp. 267–301, 323–59), and
translations of his studies of Chinese religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, and ancient
1
Harris (1968, p. 285) in his monumental history of anthropology dismisses Weber’s ap-
proach as being “incompatible with historical materialism.” Harris sees the Weberian ap-
proach as associated with Boasian anthropology, but Stocking (1968) in his historical studies
of the Boasian tradition makes no reference to Weber. The histories by Kuper (1973, p. 160)
and Eriksen & Nielsen (2001, pp. 32–35) give more positive, but still very brief, assessments
of Weber’s influence.
2
B.S. Turner (1974) has attempted to pull these fragments together and to reflect on what a
Weberian study of Islam might have looked like.
WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 235
Judaism have all appeared as separate books (Weber 1951, 1958c, 1952); excerpts
from the first two also appear in the collection, From Max Weber.
Weber’s second monumental work, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Economy and
Society) (hereafter W&G) (Weber 1925), has been translated as a whole (Weber
1978), with many parts also published in separate volumes. The opening of this
study, which lays out the basis for Weber’s “interpretive sociology,” has been
published separately as Basic Concepts in Sociology (Weber 1962). In addition
to this work, three other methodological essays not included in W&G have been
translated in The Methodology of the Social Sciences (Weber 1949).
WEBER’S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Weber, like Marx, operated with a philosophy of history; like Marx, Weber be-
lieved that history is progressive. However, Weber differs from Marx in what he
saw as leading to progress. Whereas Marx saw progress as a function of humans
acting in the world in relation to the forces of production, Weber saw progress as
derived from humans giving meaning to the world and their actions. Instead of
historical materialism, Weber’s philosophy of history is based on the assumption
that progress comes through the process of disenchantment that occurs because of
rationalization or intellectualization.
Weber was not, however, an idealist; his philosophy of history cannot be re-
duced to the proposition that “humans think themselves” to progress. He was more
sophisticated than the eighteenth-century rationalists because he was aware of the
materialist argument. Rationalization occurs with reference to the material condi-
tions (what he called “interest situations”) that humans confront. Weber was not
interested in ideas per se but in ideas that become practically realized. That is, he
was interested in those ways of giving meaning to action within the world that
after having been advanced become incorporated into the understandings (culture)
by which people orient their lives. In other words, it is not sufficient for an idea to
be thought up; it must become the basis for practical action.
There are many passages in Weber’s work that have led scholars to see his phi-
losophy of history as entailing a nonmaterialist unilinear evolutionary view of the
process of rationalization. Gerth and Mills in their introduction to From Max Weber
observed that “Weber’s view of ‘disenchantment’ embodies an element of liberal-
ism and of the enlightenment philosophy that construed man’s history as a unilinear
‘progress’ towards moral perfection” (Weber 1958b, p. 51). They went on to note
that although Weber expressed a “skeptical aversion” to unilinear evolutionist the-
ories they still “feel justified in holding that a unilinear construction is clearly im-
plied in Weber’s idea of the bureaucratic [rationalization] thrust” (p. 51). That this
evolutionary thrust was sufficiently marked in Weber’s work is manifest in the fact
that Parsons (1966) and Bellah (1964) both constructed a nonmaterialist unilinear
evolutionary theory based on their interpretation of selected parts of Weber’s work.
However, in many other writings Weber adopted a “developmental” view of his-
tory (Entwicklugsgeschichte) (see Roth 1987, Roth & Schluchter 1979, Schluchter
236 KEYES
1981) rather than an evolutionary one. Weber recognized, in his comparative so-
ciology of religion for example, that whereas the impetus to rationalization and
intellectualization can be assumed to be universal the processes of rationalization
have followed different paths in different societies. As Roth observed, “If there
was no deterministic scheme of evolutionary development [for Weber], the only
empirical alternative seemed to be the construction of ‘type concepts’ or socio-
historical models and of secular theories of long-range historical transformation”
(Roth & Schluchter 1979, p. 195). The rethinking of modernity that has become
particularly evident in the wake of the emergence of postmodernism has led some
to look again at Weber’s work with more emphasis on his development history
rather than the evolutionary implications (see the essays in Lash & Whimster 1987
and Turner 1992).
ANTHROPOLOGY’S DISCOVERY OF WEBER
Weber began to be read by English-speaking anthropologists in the post–World War

II period when attention was shifted away from the study of primitive societies—
that is, the study of the social structures and cultures of small-scale premodern
societies—and toward societies that had been radically reshaped by the influences
of modern nation-states and the global economy. The first significant influence of
Weber on anthropology was in the United States, particularly among anthropolo-
gists trained at Harvard, where Parsons had a profound role in the training of those
anthropologists who took their degrees in the Department of Social Relations.3
Parsons had first made Weber available for English-speaking students in his
translation of and introduction to PESC, which first appeared in 1930, and
especially in The Structure of Social Action, first published in 1937 (Parsons 1968).
In The Structure of Social Action Parsons developed a general theory of social
action based on his synthesis of the ideas of the economist Marshall (1842–1924),
the economic sociologist Pareto (1848–1923), Durkheim, and Weber. Parson’s four
3
Even in the post-WWII period most British social anthropologists remained wedded to a
structural-functionalist orthodoxy that had its roots in the work of Durkheim (Kuper 1973,
p. 160). An important exception was Evans-Pritchard, who in his Marrett lecture in 1950
rejected the ahistoricism of structural functionalism (reprinted in Evans-Pritchard 1962,
pp. 139–57). In his own effort to historicize what he called the “sociology of religion,” Evans-
Pritchard found Weber to be relevant. In his Theories of Primitive Religion Evans-Pritchard
(1965) showed he had read PESC as well as other parts of the Weberian comparative
study of world religion as translated in the collection From Max Weber and Religion of
China and Religion of India. Although he noted that Weber had read little about primitive
societies (Evans-Pritchard 1965, p. 117), he advocated that anthropologists emulate Weber’s
comparative project because “we anthropologists have not made much progress in the sort
of relational studies which I believe to be those required and the only ones which are
likely to lead us to a vigorous sociology of religion” (Evans-Pritchard 1965, p. 120). Few
followed Evans-Pritchard’s admonition, and what Weberian influence is found in British
anthropology appears mainly to have come via American sources. An important exception
is Beidelman (1971).
chapters on Weber (Parsons 1968, pp. 500–94) are based on an extensive reading
of much of Weber’s work in German.
The Structure of Social Action was required reading for graduate students in
the Department of Social Relations, which was founded by Parsons after World
War II.4 In the 1950s and 1960s a number of anthropologists who trained at Har-
vard in this department came under Parsons’ influence.5 Although Geertz has
characterized Parsons as teaching “in his grave and toneless voice” (Geertz 1973,
p. 249), he clearly learned much from Parsons. Geertz, together with fellow grad-
uate student Robert Bellah, would emerge as the preeminent interpreter of Weber
for anthropology in the 1960s.
FROM INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY

TO INTERPRETIVE ANTHROPOLOGY
The publication in 1973 of The Interpretation of Cultures by Clifford Geertz inau-
gurated a new theoretical approach that became known as “interpretive anthropol-
ogy.” Although this approach had its roots partially in the symbolic anthropology
that had preceded it (Fischer 1997, p. 263; Fischer 1977), as Geertz made clear
in his opening essay, “Thick Description,” in The Interpretation of Cultures, he
drew explicitly on Weber’s interpretive sociology (verstehenden Soziologie) in for-
mulating his method of “cultural analysis.” “Believing, with Max Weber,” Geertz
wrote, “that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has
spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an
experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning”
(Geertz 1973, p. 5).
In the methodological section of Economy and Society, Weber set forth the
basic premise on which his interpretive sociology is predicated:
Sociology (in the sense in which this highly ambiguous word is used here) is a
science concerning itself with the interpretative understanding of social action
and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences. We shall
speak of ‘action’ insofar as the acting individual attaches a subjective meaning
to his behavior—be it overt or covert, omission or acquiescence. Action is
‘social’ insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behavior of
others and is thereby oriented in its course. (Weber 1978, p. 4)
4
I was told about this curricular requirement by the late A.T. Kirsch, long a professor of
anthropology at Cornell, who studied in the Social Relations Department at Harvard in the
1960s. Kirsch first introduced me to Weber and to The Structure of Social Action when he
joined for a year the class in Thai language at Cornell in which I was enrolled as a graduate
student. I am very indebted to Kirsch for guiding my first study of Weber.
5
By no means all trained in anthropology at Harvard during the 1950s and early 1960s
fell under Parsons’ influence. In the 1950s and 1960s two different departments existed at
Harvard in which one could pursue a PhD in anthropology: the Department of Anthropol-
ogy and the Department of Social Relations. Only some Harvard anthropologists, such as
Kluckhohn and DuBois, were sympathetic to Parsons’s approach.
238 KEYES
Interpretation for Weber was not, as Eldridge (1980, p. 31) observed, “to be
confused with psychological reductionism.” Rather, interpretation begins with
observations of the actions of the individual.
For Weber, the individual is “the sole carrier of meaningful conduct” (Weber
1958b, p. 55). Although he acknowledged that the “organic” approach to the study
of society—the approach that based on the work of Durkheim would become
dominant for several generations in anthropology—“is convenient for purposes of
practical illustration and for provisional orientation.” In the end “if its cognitive
value is overestimated and its concepts illegitimately ‘reified’, it can be highly
dangerous” (Weber 1978, p. 14–15). Weber was not, however, advocating that the
social is only the sum of individual actions; he was no more a behaviorist, as we now
use the term, than he was a psychological reductionist. While Weber’s approach
presumes that individuals act on impulses or motivations, such impulses or motiva-
tions are, he argued, manifest in action only through meanings they have acquired
from others. In other words, the meaning of actions must be understood by “plac-
ing the act in an intelligible and more inclusive context of meaning” (Weber 1978,
p. 8).
Our certainty about our interpretation of action is best, he maintained, when
there is a clear link perceivable between the ends sought by the actor and the means
that the actor has employed “on the basis of the facts of the situation, as experience
has accustomed us to interpret them” (Weber 1978, p. 5). This mode of “logical
and mathematical” (Weber 1978, p. 5) interpretation can be seen, I suggest, as
foreshadowing rational choice theory.
Weber also noted that there are other types of actions that have an emotional or
aesthetic quality that do not lend themselves to the rational choice type of interpre-
tation. “Empathetic or appreciative accuracy [of interpretation of this second kind
of action] is attained when, through sympathetic participation, we can adequately
grasp the emotional context in which the action took place” (Weber 1978, p. 5).
There is an inherent rationale for fieldwork, I believe, in the idea of “sympathetic
participation.”
Although recognizing this second type of action, Weber advocated beginning
with an assumption that any action is rationally based (Weber 1978, p. 6). Only
by seeing that an action deviates from “a conceptually pure type of rational ac-
tion” (Weber 1978, p. 6) can affectual factors be brought in to account for the
deviation. As Parsons (1968, p. 588) observed in his explication of Weber’s the-
ory, only by checking one’s interpretation with “reference to a rationally con-
sistent system of concepts” can the interpretive sociologist forestall “an endless
succession of ‘intuitional judgments’ which depart farther and farther from
reality.”
Geertz followed Weber in making the individual actor central to his methodol-
ogy: “Nothing is more necessary to comprehending what anthropological interpre-
tation is, and the degree to which it is interpretation, than an exact understanding
of what it means—and what it does not mean—to say that our formulations of
other peoples’ symbols system must be actor-oriented” (Geertz 1973, p. 14).
He differs from Weber in shifting focus from action to symbols. By stressing

the symbolic aspect of action, Geertz went on to develop his interpretive ap-
proach with reference to Ricoeur’s (1971; also see Ricoeur 1976, 1981) “model
of the text.” “Doing ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of ‘construct
a reading of’) a manuscript” (Geertz 1973, p. 10). Whereas the model of the
text has proven to be useful, it is not adequate for interpreting many types of
actions.6
BOURDIEU’S THEORY OF PRACTICE

AND INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY
Bourdieu’s “theory of practice” brought ethnography closer to the interpretive
sociology of Weber (Bourdieu 1977; also see Bourdieu 1990). Bourdieu traced his
own intellectual genealogy as a movement
from the anti-individualist philosophy of the Durkheimians to a philosophy
of the subject practiced by phenomenologists and existentialists (Sartre, in
particular) and later, in the 1960s, to a “philosophy without subject,” as
Ricoeur, defender of Christian personalism, characterized “structuralism”
[that is, Lévi-Strauss], . . . [and] once again towards a philosophy of the subject
in the 1980s, with various strands of rational choice theory and “methodolog-
ical individualism.” (Bourdieu 1993, pp. 268–69)
Although Bourdieu did not include Weber in his intellectual genealogy, his
references to Weber both in his Outline of a Theory of Practice and particularly
in his assessment of Weber’s sociology of religion (Bourdieu 1987) demonstrate
that he was both directly and indirectly influenced by Weber.7
To demonstrate the convergence of Bourdieu’s theory of practice with Weber’s
interpretive sociology would require a much more extended discussion than space
permits. I would, however, like to discuss how Bourdieu’s central concept of
habitus can be said to exemplify what Weber termed “ideal type” constructs used
for interpreting action.
Weber developed his notion of ideal types “to bring order into the chaos of those
facts which we have drawn into the field circumscribed by our interest” (Weber
1949, p. 105, emphasis in original), that is, to provide the appropriate language for
interpreting the actions the observer has observed. An ideal type “is no ‘hypothesis’
but it offers guidance to the construction of hypotheses. It is not a description of
reality but it aims to give unambiguous means of expression to such a description”
6
In making this claim, I am also acknowledging the validity of some of the criticism of my
own use of the model of the text (see Keyes 1984, 1986, 1991 and especially Kirsch 1985).
7
In Outline of a Theory of Practice, Bourdieu (1977, pp. 76, 215: note p. 19) referred to
Weber’s discussion in Economy and Society (1978, pp. 319–33) of “custom, convention,
and law” and used “interest” in a Weberian manner.
240 KEYES
(Weber 1949, p. 90, emphasis in original). Ideal types do not describe reality, nor
do they represent anything in reality in a precise one-to-one fashion. They are
also not a statistical average or “a formulation of the concrete traits common to
a class of concrete things, for instance in the sense that having beards is a trait
common to men as distinct from women” (Parsons 1968, p. 604, emphasis in
original).
An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points
of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less
present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are
arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a uni-
fied analytical construct (Gedankenbild). In its conceptual purity, this mental
construct (Gedankenbild) cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality.
It is a utopia. Historical research faces the task of determining in each in-
dividual case, the extent to which this ideal-construct approximates to or
diverges from reality . . . When carefully applied, those concepts are partic-
ularly useful in research and exposition. (Weber 1949, p. 90, emphasis in
original)
An ideal type may, thus, be a model or a generalizing concept or an abstraction
from particular historical circumstances.8 Whatever its logical character, it is a
construct developed to make sense out of a chaos of facts or a set of observations
of actions.
Bourdieu proposed the concept of habitus precisely for this purpose. The appeal
of the concept lies in its utility to interpret why people act in certain observable
ways. Although these ways seem natural to the person engaged in them, there
lies behind them, Bourdieu argued, “dispositions” that are not only explicitly
sanctioned in text-like cultural forms such as “wisdom, sayings, commonplaces,
ethical precepts” (Bourdieu 1977, p. 77) but are embedded in the structures of
space and in social practices whose meaning is implicit.
The habitus is the universalizing mediation which causes an individual agent’s
practices, without either explicit reason or signifying intent, to be nonetheless
‘sensible’ and ‘reasonable’. That part of practices which remains obscure in
the eyes of their own producers is the aspect by which they are objectively
adjusted to other practices and to the structures of which the principle of their
production is itself the product. (Bourdieu 1977, p. 79)
The observer who finds Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to be useful in rendering
as sensible and reasonable the practices (actions) of those for whom their meaning
8
Weber’s own most-extended discussion of ideal types is in the essay, “Objectivity in Social
Science and Social Policy” in The Methodology of the Social Sciences (Weber 1949).
However, there are also many other passages in his other works that discuss ideal types.
See Parsons (1968) and Bendix (1960) for guides to Weber’s not overly consistent use of
the concept.
is obscure has engaged precisely in that methodological move that Weber made
central to his interpretive sociology.9
Although the label “interpretive anthropology” ceased to have much currency
by the 1990s, I suggest that ethnography still remains fundamentally interpretive
in the sense that Weber first formulated the interpretive method for his sociology.
WEBER’S SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION AND

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION
Weber’s interpretive method is predicated on an assumption that is also fundamen-
tal to his theoretical approach. In a passage on “Religious Groups” in Economy
and Society Weber posited that “the human mind . . . is driven to reflect on ethical
and religious questions, driven not by material need but by an inner compulsion
to understand the world as a meaningful cosmos and to take up a position toward
it” (Weber 1963, pp. 116–117, emphasis added).
Whereas much of the meaning that makes possible acting in the world de-
rives from what Weber termed “tradition” (perhaps better formulated in terms of
Bourdieu’s habitus), there are experiences that render problematic conventional
meaning. Parsons, reflecting on such “problems of meaning,” observed that
Weber postulates a basic ‘drive’ towards meaning and the resolution of these
discrepancies on the level of meaning, a drive or tendency which is often
held in check by various defensive mechanisms, of which the pre-eminent
one here relevant is that of magic. But whatever the situation regarding the
effectiveness of this drive, there is a crucial point concerning the direction
in which this tendency propels the development of culture. This is that the
search for grounds of meaning which can resolve the discrepancies must lead
to continually more ‘ultimate’ reference points which are progressively further
removed from the levels of common sense experience on which the discrep-
ancies originally arise. The ‘explanations,’ i.e., solutions to the problems of
meaning, must be grounded in increasingly generalized and ‘fundamental’
philosophical conceptions. (Parsons in Weber 1963, pp. xlvii–xlviii).
“Ultimate” meaning can never be attained through reflection and rationalization;
rather, it can come only, Weber argued, through the nonrational acceptance of the
dogmatic propositions embedded in the salvation ethic of a religion. Salvation—the
9
It has been suggested to me that I overstate my interpretation of Bourdieu’s habitus as an
ideal type in Weberian terms. This person notes that for Bourdieu “rules and values exist
only in practice. This seems to contrast markedly with the idea of a ‘unified analytical
construct [that] cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality.’” I still maintain that the
comparison is valid and points to the first part of Weber’s definition of an ideal type construct
as a “synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent
concrete individual phenomena.” These phenomena for Weber, as for Bourdieu, are manifest
in what Weber called “social action” and Bourdieu “practice.”
242 KEYES
absolute certainty that the cosmos is ultimately meaningful—is more psychological

than cognitive. “The quest of certitudo salutis itself has . . . been the origin of all
psychological drives of a purely religious character” (Weber 1958a, p. 228).
Geertz’s (1966; 1973, pp. 87–125) “Religion as a Cultural System” starts with
and elaborates on this Weberian position. Asad (1983; 1993, pp. 27–54) has
strongly criticized Geertz’s approach, and although this was not his intent, his
criticism points to some important differences between Geertz and Weber.10 First,
Asad (1993, pp. 30) points to Geertz’s (1973, pp. 92) definition of religion as a
“system of symbols” as entailing a confusion between symbols as an “aspect of
social reality” (what I would term, following Weber, an aspect of social action)
and symbols as representations of social reality. Weber, like Asad, saw meaning
as embedded in social action, in Asad’s (1993, pp. 32) words, being “intrinsically
and not temporally connected.”
Asad (1993, pp. 28) further criticized Geertz for adopting a modern post-
Enlightenment Western view of religion as having an autonomous essence separate
from politics. Although this criticism might not be sustainable if one were to take
into account Geertz’s ethnographic work on Islam in Indonesia and Morocco, the
point I want to make here is that Weber certainly would not make such a distinction.
In “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions,” for example, he wrote,
The widely varying empirical stands which historical religions have taken
in the face of political action have been determined by the entanglement of
religious organizations in power interests and the struggles for power, by the
almost unavoidable collapse of even the highest states of tension with the world
in favor of compromises and relativities, by the usefulness and the use of reli-
gious organizations for the political taming of the masses and, especially, by
the need of the powers-that-be for the religious consecration of their legiti-
macy. (Weber 1958b, pp. 337–38)
Weber maintained that from time to time in all societies in which religions with
rationalized salvation ethics have evolved tensions develop between religious and
political institutions:
Every religiously grounded unworldly love and indeed every ethical religion
must, in similar measure and for similar reasons, experience tensions with the
sphere of political behavior. This tension appears as soon as a religion has
progressed to anything like a status of equality with the sphere of political
associations. (Weber 1963, p. 223)
10
Although Asad shows some familiarity with Weber, he does not draw on him to any
significant extent. What is striking, however, is that Asad seeks to push anthropological
work in the same direction as Weber. In his introduction to Genealogies of Religion he
wrote, “I am concerned with how systemacity (including the kind that is essential to what is
called capitalism) is apprehended, represented, and used in the contemporary world” (Asad
1993, pp. 7) and “Modern capitalist enterprises and modernizing nation-states are the two
most important powers that organize spaces today . . .” (Asad 1993, p. 8).
I disagree with Asad’s criticism of Geertz’s predication of religion on the

experience people encounter with fundamental problems of meaning. Geertz,
who in this respect is very much following Weber, formulates these problems
as ones in which “chaos—a tumult of events which lack not just interpretations
by interpretability—threatens to break upon man: at the limits of his analyti-
cal capacities, at the limits of his power of endurance, and at the limits of his
moral insight. Bafflement, suffering, and a sense of intractable ethical paradox
are all, if they become intense enough or are sustained long enough, radical chal-
lenges to the proposition that life is comprehensible and that we can, by tak-
ing thought, orient ourselves within it—challenges which any religion . . . which
hopes to persist must attempt somehow to cope” (Geertz 1973, p. 100, empha-
sis in original). Geertz (1973, pp. 109–10) went on to argue that the experiences
of fundamental problems of meaning “drives” people toward “belief” in partic-
ular formulations of ultimate meaning that constitute what he calls a “religious
perspective.” Asad ignored, in his critique of Geertz’s discussion of the religious
perspective, the central point that “religious belief involves . . . a prior acceptance of
authority which transforms” the experiences of problems of meaning (Geertz 1973,
p. 109). Asad’s failure to recognize or unwillingness to accept that problems of
meaning, albeit always in particular manifestations, are universal led him to the
untenable conclusion that religion, except in “the most vacuous sense,” is not
“basic to the structure of modern lives” (Asad 1993, p. 49).11 One wonders how
he would approach a study, to take only two presumably very modern societies,
of the significance in America of the religious right in politics, the moral debate
over abortion, or the proliferation of New Age religions or in Japan of the de-
bate over the visit of a prime minister to a Shinto shrine, the attack on the Tokyo
subway of a movement identified as a cult, or the moral debates over the use of
organs of deceased persons, and so on. There is now a growing literature that
demonstrates well the persistence, resurgence, and transformation of religions in
modern societies owing to the fact that although “science and technology, together
are basic to the structure of modern lives” (Asad 1993, p. 49, emphasis in origi-
nal), problems of meaning continue to impel people in modern societies towards
religion.12
“My aim,” Asad (1993, p. 54) wrote in the conclusion to his essay, “has
been to problematize the idea of an anthropological definition of religion by as-
signing that endeavor to a particular history of knowledge and power . . . out of
which the modern world has been constructed.” This statement could very easily
be used to characterize Weber’s Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion.
11
It might seem curious that Asad should, thus, have contributed a most insightful essay on
torture to a book entitled Social Suffering that is clearly concerned with exploring cross-
culturally what Geertz termed the “the sense of intractable ethical paradox” (Asad 1997).
12
I cannot survey all the relevant literature on this subject but point to only two works that
both take up the theme of problems of meaning in modern societies: Keyes et al. (1994)
and Kleinman et al. (1997).
244 KEYES
Weber sought in this collection to undertake a comparative sociology of the

relationship between the major salvation religions of the world (Christianity, Ju-
daism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese religion, and Islam), the political economies
of the societies in which large majorities of the populations found the soteri-
ological practices of these religions compelling. Weber was always concerned
with the distinctive “developmental history” of each of these religious tradi-
tions rather than trying to fit them into a procrustean mold of some essentialized
religion.
THE WEBER THESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL

STUDIES OF RELIGION AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
Weber’s comparative study of world religion was predicated on the premise that
orientation toward the world is shaped by the distinctive ethic followers derive
from the dogmas about ultimate reality embedded in a particular soteriology. His
“thesis,” as it came to be known, was that only the ethic derived from Puritanism
made possible the development of rational bourgeois capitalism, whereas the ethics
of the other great religions served as barriers to this development. In the introduc-
tion to his comparative study, which appears in translation as the introduction to
the PESC, he wrote
For though the development of economic rationalism is partly dependent on
rational technique and law, it is at the same time determined by the ability and
disposition of men to adopt certain types of practical rational conduct. When
these types have been obstructed by spiritual obstacles, the development of
rational economic conduct has also met serious inner resistance. The magical
and religious forces, and the ethical ideas of duty based upon them, have in the
past always been among the most important formative influences on conduct.
In the studies collected here we shall be concerned with these forces. (Weber
1958a, pp. 26–27)
The Weber thesis is not that religious ethics determine whether or not capitalism
can develop.
We have no intention of maintaining such a foolish and doctrinaire thesis as
that the spirit of capitalism . . . could only have arisen as the result of certain
effects of the Reformation, or even that capitalism as an economic system is
a creation of the Reformation . . . . On the contrary, we only wish to ascertain
whether and to what extent religious forces have taken part in the qualitative
formation and quantitative expansion of that spirit over the world. (Weber
1958a, p. 91)
The Weber thesis has inspired a large body of work on the relationship between
religion and economy in the societies in which the dogmas of the major religions
of the world have been widely adhered to. Many anthropologists have also taken
up this project. However, because their studies have focused on contemporary
societies, they have for the most part reformulated Weber’s thesis to ask not why
in the past did capitalism not emerge in a society with a non-Western religion, but
instead how people in such a society today confront the expansion of industrial
capitalism from the West.13
It is not possible in this short paper to review in detail the anthropological work
inspired by the Weber thesis; such should be undertaken in a review of the sociology
(including anthropology) of each of the world religions. I only can point the reader
toward some selected works that illustrate the contribution of anthropologists to
the project begun by Weber.
Although Weber was not able to complete a study of Islamic societies, there
have been many studies inspired by the Weber thesis of the relationship between
Islam and political economy. Geertz was again at the forefront of this work, hav-
ing begun his research in Indonesia in a Harvard-MIT project to study the impact
of modernization on that society. Geertz’s work on Javanese religion and mod-
ernization (Geertz 1956; 1960; 1962; 1963; 1965a,b) initiated what has become
a major research undertaking not only by Geertz himself, but also by some of
Geertz’s students and others influenced by him who have worked in Indonesia (e.g.,
Peacock 1968; Geertz 1984; Hefner 1991, 2000), and also in North Africa (e.g.,
Geertz 1968; Geertz et al. 1979; Rabinow 1975, 1977; Rosen 1989; Eickelman
1976, 1985; Eickelman & Piscatori 1996), Iran (Fischer 1980), and comparatively
(Peacock 1978; Roff 1987; Clammer 1985a, 1996).
Weber’s Religion of China has inspired a number of works on the relationship
between religious values and economy in East Asian societies. Much of this work,
beginning with Bellah’s study of the religion of the Tokugawa period in Japan
(Bellah 1957), has been undertaken by sociologists and historians (e.g., Golzio
1985; Davis 1980, 1989 on Japan; Elvin 1984, Eisenstadt 1985, Hamilton 1985
on China), but a few studies have been done by anthropologists, especially those
attempting to understand the marked embrace of capitalism in Taiwan (e.g., Weller
1994, Skoggard 1996a,b) and Japan (Clammer 1997). Bellah’s (1965) edited vol-
ume, Religion and Progress in Modern Asia, has provided a model for other com-
parative projects on religion and political economic change in East, Southeast, and
South Asian societies (Buss 1985b, Clammer 1985b, Keyes et al. 1994, Hefner
1998).
Weber’s Religion of India (Weber 1958c) “has suffered a strange and undeserved
fate,” wrote Gellner (2001, p. 19). It is particularly the case among Indianists that
the book “has given rise to rather little discussion of the numerous theories it
puts forward among the specialists most competent to judge them” (Gellner 2001,
p. 19). This neglect has, however, been primarily among Indianists; it is much
13
Both Peacock & Kirsch (1980, pp. 231–48) and Gellner (2001, Chapter 1) provide good
discussions of the Weber thesis as approached by anthropologists.
246 KEYES
less characteristic of students of Theravāda Buddhism and society. It is true that

the book is marred by “frequent obscurity and inaccuracies in the translation”
(Gellner 2001, p. 20) that any student should be aware of.14 Gellner noted that
Sanskritists dismiss the book because it is based on old secondary sources, but the
neglect of social scientists seems to be due more to the fact that the work of another
scholar, Dumont, has been far more influential. Dumont in his monumental Homo
Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste System (1967, 1970) and his many studies
published in Contributions to Indian Sociology, clearly set the agenda for the
sociology of Hinduism. Although Dumont made few references to Weber, Gellner
(2001, p. 41) argues persuasively that he was “the foremost disciple of Weber in the
study of South Asia.” This is certainly apparent in the work of Madan, the leading
Indian anthropologist and long-time editor of Contributions to Indian Sociology
(Madan 1983, 1994, 1997) (see Buss 1985a, Singer 1985, Schluchter 1984, and
especially Kantowsky 1996 for discussion of Weber’s Religion of India).
The anthropological study of Buddhism and society, or more precisely, the
study of religion and society in those countries where Theravāda Buddhism is
dominant (Sri Lanka, Burma/Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos) has since
the early 1960s, unlike the anthropological studies of Hinduism, been strongly
influenced by Weber. Some of this influence can be traced through such scholars
as Ames (1964) and Kirsch (1973, 1975, 1982), who were trained at Harvard,
or by those such as myself (Keyes 1983a, 1983b, 1990, 1993), who had a close
relationship with the “Harvard School.” A second strand is associated with Spiro
and Nash, two scholars who were at the University of Chicago in the 1950s, where
they were strongly influenced by the work on development being undertaken in
other departments at Chicago at the time. Both worked in Burma in the late 1950s
(see Spiro 1966, 1970; Nash 1965, 1966). Spiro’s distinctive synthesis between
Weberian and Freudian approaches in his work on Burma markedly shaped the
work of his student, Obeyesekere. Whereas Obeyesekere is perhaps better known
as a psychological anthropologist, some of his early work on Sri Lankan Buddhism
shows a marked Weberian influence (Obeyesekere 1968, 1972), and his more recent
work with the well-known textual scholar, Gombrich (Gombrich & Obeyesekere
1989), has made a strong case for the emergence of a “Protestant Buddhism” in
Sri Lanka that is conceived of in Weberian terms. Another distinctive Weberian
approach to Buddhism and society is manifest in the work of Tambiah. Although
first trained in sociology at Cornell, Tambiah, subsequent to having carried out
fieldwork in Thailand, came under the influence of Leach at Cambridge. Leach,
who had always made economics basic to his ethnographic (as distinct from his
later text-based) research, had in his last fieldwork in Sri Lanka focused on the
relationship between economy and culture (Leach 1959, 1961). Tambiah (1973,
1976) drew on both Leach’s social anthropology and Weber’s sociology in a series
14
Gellner has retranslated a number of passages based on a new German edition of the work
(Weber 1996).
of studies of Buddhism and society in Thailand.15 Tambiah appears to be the

primary influence on Gellner (1990, 2001), who has extended the Weberian study
of Buddhism and society to the Nepali tradition of Mahayana Buddhism.
This survey certainly does not account for all the work inspired by the Weber
thesis, but it should suffice to indicate that the Weberian influence on the anthro-
pological studies of world religions has been quite profound.
RATIONALIZATION AND CHARISMA: SOURCES

OF DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGE
As discussed above with reference to Weber’s philosophy of history, he saw the
drive toward meaning as being a fundamental process in the transformation of
the world. This drive manifests itself as rationalization and intellectualization.
Through the exercise of the intellect, humans have promoted conscious reflection
not only on the world but also on the ideas with which they make sense of the world.
Through time such conscious reflection has led to the repudiation of magic, the
systematization of meanings under more general principles, and the self-conscious
application of rationalized knowledge for action in the world (for good guides to
Weber’s discussion of rationalization see Roth & Schluchter 1979; Schluchter
1981, 1987; and Roth 1987). Rationalization has often, however, been impeded by
habit or by the authority of tradition.
Rationalization is not, however, the only process Weber saw as leading to
change. He recognized that humans also act on emotional or affectual impulses and
that “in times of psychic, physical, economic, ethical, religious, political stress”
(Weber 1958b, p. 245) these impulses may lead individuals to turn to a leader
who is neither the holder of an office invested with traditional authority nor an
intellectual. The leaders that emerge at such times “have been holders of specific
gifts of the body and spirit; and these gifts have been believed to be supernatural,
not accessible to everybody” (p. 245). Weber termed the perceived gifts of such
individuals charisma but used the word “in a completely ‘value-neutral’ sense”
(p. 245) rather than in the specifically Christian sense from which it was derived
(On the three types of motivated action—traditional, rational, and charismatic—
see Weber 1978, pp. 24–26; also see Gerth and Mills in Weber 1956b, pp. 56–57).
The long debate among anthropologists about “primitive mentality” that began
with Lévy-Bruhl (1912, 1922, 1926, 1966) and Boas (1916), continued with Radin
(1927, 1953), and culminated with Lévi-Strauss (1966) has some resonance with
Weber’s theoretical arguments regarding rationalization. The links between this
debate and Weber’s rationalization have, however, not been explicitly established.
15
I have been critical of Tambiah’s work for not being sufficiently historical in the Weberian
sense, a criticism that he has rejected (Keyes 1978, 1987; Tambiah 1987). Tambiah (1984)
has also contributed to a recent reevaluation of Weber’s Religion of India.
248 KEYES
Rather, those anthropologists who have taken up Weber’s project have been con-
cerned with religious reforms that have occurred as a consequence of the challenge
posed by contact between cultures. Examples include the “internal conversion” of
Balinese religion and of a “primitive” religion that Geertz (1964; 1973, pp. 170–92)
and Atkinson (1987) have argued came about because of the requirement imposed
by the Indonesian state that all religions be “religions of the book.” Other examples
include the reformation of Theravāda Buddhism that took place in both Sri Lanka
and Thailand because of the challenge of Western culture, including Christianity
(Obeyesekere 1972, 1995; Gombrich & Obeyesekere1989; Kirsch 1973; Tambiah
1976). Horton (1975a,b) and Hefner (1993) have both engaged Weber’s ideas of
rationalization with reference to conversion to Christianity.
In contrast to rationalization, Weber’s notion of charisma is probably the most
widely used Weberian concept in anthropology.16 Worsley (1968), in one of the
most extended discussions of the concept by an anthropologist, criticized Weber for
assuming that charisma was an attribute of personality. In fact, Worsley ended up
restating Weber’s own position. Worsley wrote that if a “charismatic appeal . . . is
to become the basis of collective social actions, [it] needs to be perceived, invested
with meaning, and acted upon by significant others: those who respond to this
charismatic appeal” (Worsley 1968, p. xi, emphasis in original). Weber (1956b,
p. 246) himself wrote that the claim by someone to charismatic authority “breaks
down if his mission is not recognized by those to whom he feels he has been
sent.” Bourdieu (1987, p. 131) was true to Weber’s formulation in admonishing
those who use the concept to “dispose once and for all the notion of charisma as a
property attaching to the nature of a single individual.” The counterpart to charisma
might well be said to be communitas, the sense of nonhierarchal comradeship that
Turner (1969) posited was characteristic of participants in rituals and in religious
movements.17
A charismatic person, both in its original Christian meaning of charisma and
in the ideal typical reformulation that Weber proposed, is always someone who is
perceived to have a direct connection with supernatural or sacred power. Charisma
is far from being the synonym for popularity that it has become in everyday English
usage. The linkage with the supernatural or sacred is always construed according
to particular compelling ideas, for example, to whether one has been set apart by
virtue of a trip to and from the land of the dead as in classic shamanism (Kracke
1978), whether one manifests the qualities of a Buddhist saint (Keyes 1981b), or
16
Indicative of this is the inclusion of an article on charisma in a recent dictionary of an-
thropology (Lindholm 1997). For other general discussions of charisma by anthropologists
see Beidelman (1971), Keyes (1981a), and Lewis (1986). I have drawn on only some of the
anthropological literature on charisma for illustration rather than attempting a systematic
survey of relevant work.
17
Turner never made this connection himself. He apparently became aware of Weber only
after joining the faculty at Cornell in the early 1960s. In Drama Fields and Metaphors
he made one reference to Weber (V.W. Turner 1974, p. 200) with reference to Peacock &
Kirsch’s The Human Direction (1980).
whether one articulates a new vision that becomes the basis of a new movement
or cult (Zablocki 1980, Carter 1990).
Weber conceived of the emergence of charismatic authority as posing a chal-
lenge to existing authority based on tradition or on rationalized bureaucracy. Un-
like these other forms of authority, charismatic authority in its pure form is always
transitory. “The charismatic holder is deserted by his following . . . because pure
charisma does not know any ‘legitimacy’ other than that flowing from personal
strength, that is, one which is constantly being proved” (Weber 1958b, p. 248). It is,
thus, “the fate of charisma, whenever it comes into the permanent institutions of a
community, to give way to powers of tradition or of rational socialization” (Weber
1958b, p. 253). Although always transitory, charisma is never finally domesticated
or rationalized (as Weber would say), but erupts from time to time.
Although many, perhaps most, charismatic movements have been what Gluck-
man (1954) termed “rituals of rebellion,” in which a challenge to the social order
is followed by a reassertion of that same order, there have been times when charis-
matic movements have made possible a fundamental rupture in the existing order
and have contributed to the establishment of a new, perhaps even more ratio-
nalized order. For Weber such charismatic eruptions were central to his theory
of developmental history. A number of anthropologists have studied charismatic
movements, but most, like Comaroff (1985), have added to our understanding of
how such movements are rituals of rebellion rather than how they have contributed
to “breakthroughs” (Bellah 1964) to the emergence of new orders. There are a few
such studies, however, such as Obeyesekere’s (1995) of Angarika Dharmapala
(Don David Hewavitarana) (1864–1933), a charismatic Sinhalese Buddhist leader
who played a key role in the development of Protestant Buddhism in Sri Lanka.
Weber’s theoretical ideas about charisma were formulated as part of a larger
effort to think through the question of how noncoercive political authority is es-
tablished. Other than studies that make reference to charismatic authority, Weber’s
political sociology has been given little attention by anthropologists. The time
may have come for a rediscovery of this part of Weber’s contribution to social
thought.
RETHINKING WEBER
I have attempted to demonstrate that Weber’s influence on anthropology has been

more profound and pervasive than might be apparent given the relative paucity of
direct references to his work in recent anthropological writings. I also hope to have
demonstrated that much can be gained by reading Weber in light of contemporary
issues.
Because of the influence of Foucault, many anthropologists have come to rec-
ognize the relationship between knowledge (what used to be called culture) and
power. This relationship was clearly already explored in many ways by Weber. For
example, Weber recognized long before Foucault the role played by discipline in
establishing authority over people’s actions. “The content of discipline is nothing
250 KEYES
but the consistently rationalized, methodically trained and exact execution of the
received order . . .” Weber (1956b, p. 253). As Gordon (1987, p. 293) observes,
There are many respects in which one might compare Michel Foucault’s work
with that of Max Weber: their studies of forms of domination and techniques
of discipline, their concern with what Weber called ‘the power of rationality
over men’, their writings on methodology and intellectual ethics, their interest
in Nietzsche—and the effect of that interest on their thought.
Anthropologists could, I believe, gain by rethinking Weber in light of Foucault—
and vice versa (Gordon 1987 provides a good starting point for this; also see
Turner 1992, especially Chapter 7).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have not worked with Weber’s writings in German and, thus, disclaim any com-
petence as a Weberian scholar. I would like to acknowledge the guidance I have
received from Guenther Roth with regard to some problems relating to the trans-
lations of Weber’s works and in identifying the correspondence of English trans-
lations of Weber’s work to the original work in German. I would also like to thank
the Technical Editor for the Annual Review of Anthropology for useful critical
comments even though I did not take them all into account.
The Annual Review of Anthropology is online at http://anthro.annualreviews.org
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23 Aug 2002 11:29 AR AR169-AN31-11.tex AR169-AN31-11.

sgm LaTeX2e(2002/01/18) P1: IBC

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2002. 31:233–55

Key Words interpretive anthropology, developmental history, religion,

David Gellner (2001, p. 1), in his introduction to The Anthropology of Buddhism

WEBER AND HIS WORK

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 235

WEBER’S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

ANTHROPOLOGY’S DISCOVERY OF WEBER

Weber began to be read by English-speaking anthropologists in the post–World War

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 237

FROM INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 239

He differs from Weber in shifting focus from action to symbols. By stressing

BOURDIEU’S THEORY OF PRACTICE

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 241

WEBER’S SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION AND

absolute certainty that the cosmos is ultimately meaningful—is more psychological

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 243

I disagree with Asad’s criticism of Geertz’s predication of religion on the

Weber sought in this collection to undertake a comparative sociology of the

THE WEBER THESIS AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 245

less characteristic of students of Theravāda Buddhism and society. It is true that

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 247

of studies of Buddhism and society in Thailand.15 Tambiah appears to be the

RATIONALIZATION AND CHARISMA: SOURCES

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 249

I have attempted to demonstrate that Weber’s influence on anthropology has been

The Annual Review of Anthropology is online at http://anthro.annualreviews.org

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 251

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 253

Comparative Perspectives. Englewood Schluchter W, ed. 1984. Max Webers Studie

WEBER AND ANTHROPOLOGY 255

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