Max Weber and Émile Durkheim during the First World War: Common Challenges and the Evolution of Ideas

Abstract

This article presents a comparative analysis of the impact of the First World War on the lives and intellectual trajectories of two classics of sociology—Émile Durkheim and Max Weber—who found themselves on opposite sides both of the methodological divide between realism and nominalism and of the military front as citizens of rival states. The author seeks to determine how the First World War affected their theoretical positions, civic stances, and directions of scholarly activity, drawing on a biographical approach to the study of the history of sociology. It is demonstrated that Durkheim and Weber were actively, though in different ways, involved in the events of the First World War. Durkheim participated in the so-called “war for law,” engaged in the study and documentation of the war, and published texts aimed against German propaganda. The article describes how Weber, in turn, voluntarily enlisted and served for more than a year as a member of a commission responsible for organizing military hospitals in Heidelberg, and how, after demobilization, he became actively involved in public and political debates concerning Germany’s future. At the same time, it is argued that the war did not lead to a radical revision of their theoretical foundations, although it did significantly influence the thematic focus of their wartime publications. Durkheim interpreted the war as a manifestation of regression toward mechanical solidarity associated with authoritarian statehood, whereas Weber gradually shifted from supporting Germany’s war effort to criticizing expansionism, militarism, and Bismarck’s project of the nation-state, while advocating the principles of democracy and parliamentarism. The article substantiates the thesis that the biographical approach to the study of the history of sociology allows for a deeper understanding of classical sociological concepts by revealing the interconnections between ideas, biographical experience, and historical context, and therefore continues to retain its heuristic potential.