Abstract: While Max Weber is typically cited as a fierce critic of political engagement by academics, anyone familiar with his biography knows that Weber himself was highly active in the politics of his day. The question is thus how we can interpret Weber's contrasting accounts of the respective vocations of politics and scholarship with his practice of both. I will argue that, for Weber, to carry out either of these vocations successfully requires a similar approach to facts and values, one combining passionate commitment with cool objectivity. Anyone who is able to achieve this very difficult combination in one vocation probably has the requisite personal qualities to achieve it in the other as well. Insofar as Weber is genuinely opposed to combining politics and scholarship, he is only opposed to doing so badly, in ways that meet the demands of neither vocation.

Bio: Dr. Michael L. Frazer is a political theorist at the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on canonical moral and political philosophy, with a focus on its relevance for contemporary political theory, ethics, and the philosophy of social science. He is the author of ‘The Enlightenment of Sympathy: Justice and the Moral Sentiments in the Eighteenth Century and Today’ (Oxford University Press, 2010), as well as many shorter works. Dr. Frazer received his BA from Yale University, his PhD from Princeton, and has previously held positions at Brown, Harvard, and UEA.