... It is not possible, says Weber, to confer the objective validity of facts on the basis of a value-judgement; and second, it is not possible to judge the value of values through the use of scientific reason. This leads him to maintain a distinction between science and ethics, the former dealing with questions of fact, the latter with questions of value. Nicholas Gane
About This Quote

A famous sociologist Karl Mannheim has a different opinion on this quotation. He is of the belief that Weber was not trying to make a distinction between science and ethics. In fact, he was trying to show that scientific research can be used in both realms. In his book, Ideology and Utopia, Mannheim is of the opinion that science can be used to discover values. This is because values are subjective and unlike science, science is objective.

Source: Max Weber And Postmodern Theory: Rationalization Versus Reenchantment

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More Quotes By Nicholas Gane
  1. ... Lyotard suggests that while discourse operates as a system of representation which defines meanings according to their relation to other concepts in that system, figure is the realm of the singular, of that which refuses to, or simply cannot, be captured and systematized by...

  2. [Art] acts as 'an instrument allowing us to see through the gaps of dominant ideologies, and the source from which new methods could be drawn in the struggle against the system(s)'.

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  5. ... Weber insists that the value of science is always to be questioned and not simply presupposed... He is... critical of the presupposition which underlies Strauss' position, namely that scientific reason is necessarily of value.

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