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Charles Merriam, Max Weber, and the Search for Synthesis in Political Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Avery Leiserson
Avery Leiserson*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
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Abstract

The centenary of Merriam's birth provides the opportunity to reappraise the consequences of his prophetic advocacy of a more scientific expression and systematization of political knowledge. The vehicle for this appraisal is a comparison of Merriam's ’activist” epistemology wjth the more self-limiting methodology of Max Weber who, perhaps among all twentieth-century social scientists, stated most explicitly and experienced most poignantly the tensions among the requirements of acquiring objective knowledge about politics and exercising responsibility in political action. Notwithstanding their many points of difference, Merriam and Weber are interpreted as sharing common grounds of disbelief that the disjunction between science and politics will be removed by the development of a unifying, paradigmatic world-view, either within political science or between the several sciences of man, nature, and society. The political context and role of scientists are visualized by the author as consisting in: (1) mastering the personal temptations and obstacles to achieving their own peculiar brand of political competence, (2) securing public recognition and respect for the factual-scientific component of controversial situations involving their sphere of expertness, and (3) acting upon the assumption of joint skills and contributions, along with other scientists, philosophers, technicians (including politicians), and participating citizens in improving the utilization of scientific research in the formulation of public policy and reform of governing institutions.

Type
APSA Presidential Address
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , March 1975 , pp. 175 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1975

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References

1 See Merriam's autobiographical sketch in White, L. D., ed., The Future Government in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942)Google Scholar. Also, Karl, Barry D., “The Power of Intellect and the Politics of Ideas,” pp. 431–461, in Rustow, D. A., Philosophers and Kings: Studies in Leadership (New York: Braziller, 1970)Google Scholar; Charles E. Merriam and the Study of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974)Google Scholar; International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 10, pp. 254–259Google Scholar.

2 Systematic Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945), p. xGoogle Scholar.

3 For Max Weber, I have relied primarily on Bendix, R., Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1962)Google Scholar; International Social Science Journal, vol. XVII (1965), pp. 9–70Google Scholar, and literature there cited; Aron, R., Main Currents of Sociological Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1967), vol. II, pp. 177–264Google Scholar; Hughes, H. S., Consciousness and Society (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1956)Google Scholar; Lichtheim, G., The Concept of Ideology (New York: Vintage Books, 1967)Google Scholar; Parsons, T., The Structure of Social Action (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937), vol. IIGoogle Scholar, and translator's introduction to Weber, M., The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947)Google Scholar.

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5 Arendt, H., “Truth and Politics,” pp. 3–39, in Political Theory and Social Change, ed. Spitz, D. (New York: Atherton Books, 1967)Google Scholar; Bronowski, J., Science and Human Values (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959)Google Scholar; Dubos, R., The Dreams of Reason (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Landau, M., Political Theory and Political Science (New York: Macmillan, 1972), ch. 2Google Scholar; Runciman, W. G., “Socialogical Evidence and Political Theory,” ch. 2, in Philosophy, Politics and Society, 2d series, ed. Laslett, P. and Runciman, W. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962)Google Scholar.

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8 Only he has the calling for politics who is sure he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer.” Weber, Max, “Politics as a Vocation,” p. 128, in Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W., From Max Weber (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946)Google Scholar. See also, ibid., “Science as a Vocation,” pp. 129–156.

9 Merriam, C. E., Prologue to Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), p. 91Google Scholar.

10 J. Habermas calls this condition “depoliticization.” Toward A Rational Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), pp. 103–104Google Scholar.

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