Iranian Journal of Sociology

Abstract Could we talk about Shariati's reading of Max Weber? Many believe that Shariati was not a sociologist. His work is considered to have had a negative impact on the development of sociological imagination in Iran. Shariati's approach to Weber can be examined in two ways: one is to what extent has Shariati been influenced by Weber and could he be considered as a Weberian sociologist? The second way of dealing with Shariati and his relation to Max Weber could be that Shariati had a "Shariatiesque reading of Weber that was inconsistent with Eurocentric readings? Is Shariati's understanding of Weber consistent with the text or is Shariati's Weber a Shariatiesque construct? Questions like these that deal with hermeneutics need to be analyzed in depth.

Abstract Max Weber put forward the most important philosophical question of methodology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century: "What is the meaning and nature of objectivity in social and cultural sciences?" By using the neo-Kantian concept of "value relation" Weber prevailed over the positivistic dichotomy of "value freedom" and "value judgment" and helped to establish cultural science and its objectivity. We need more philosophical reviews to understand and analyze the importance, and meanwhile, the weaknesses of "value relation" for capturing objectivity in cultural sciences. Following his previous philosophers, such as Rickert, Max Weber could manage the job by returning to Kant. However, there are few references to Kant in his methodological writings. This article intends to have a systematic review of Max Weber's thought and analyze the Kantian value relation of objectivity in his ideas with an emphasis on its transcendental dimension. From the methodological point of view, the analysis of transcendental and Kantian objectivity of Max Weber belongs in the realm of the philosophy of social sciences. Looking at Max Weber's objectivity with regard to Kantian transcendental view showed that value as a limit and a priori condition is a condition of formation and meanwhile, condition for understanding cultural objects.  Therefore taking into account that value relation is the condition of objectivity of research, but it is essentially a subjective condition.