In Part 2, we bring Max Weber’s speech about Science as a Vocation to the present day and show that many of the same themes and concerns Weber express are still relevant. Modern technologies such as artificial intelligence may have changed academia in compelling ways, but the worthiness of scientific pursuit remains a valid concern.
E137: Science as a Vocation -- Max Weber (Part 1)
02/06/2026 | 48 mins.
We return once more to Max Weber and look at one of his most important and noteworthy speeches, “Science as a Vocation.” The speech includes a number of major themes such as what is the worth of science, what are the roles of junior academics as they establish themselves as scientists, and what constitutes proper teaching. Controversial in its day, but required reading for many graduate programs today.
E137: Science as a Vocation -- Max Weber (Summary of Episode)
26/05/2026 | 3 mins.
Coming soon! We return once more to Max Weber and look at one of his most important and noteworthy speeches, “Science as a Vocation,” delivered in 1918 at Munich University. This speech may be seen as a text assigned to rising graduate students in many fields, owing to its exhortations to go beyond researching and writing about important knowledge and consider the ethical and moral implications of that research.
136: Bureaucracy (revisited) -- Max Weber (Part 4)
05/05/2026 | 26 mins.
This is an expanded version of the supplement from the original Episode 6 on Max Weber's Bureaucracy. This release includes both the original supplement from Dmitrijs along with an extended commentary from Tom to cover contemporary views on bureaucracy since the original episode's January 2016 release.
136: Bureaucracy (revisited) -- Max Weber (Part 3)
28/04/2026 | 46 mins.
In this release, we take a retrospective look at Weber's famous work and our original episode. How has our views about bureaucracy changed over the past decade (2016-when the original Weber episode was released) or century (1918-when the speech was delivered).
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