Science as a Vocation: Max Weber and Disenchantment of the world

Portrait: Starry Night, Vincent Von Gogh

I have visited some places of worship. University is one of the them. What is worship then? Belief all too beliefs or intellectual quest to know intermittently, without a moment of refuge? What is known and what has been known hitherto; no meaning could be discerned like Tolstoy reached on the verge of suicide when he thought " what significantly he has achieved won't die after death?" Isn't it a mythical perception to intellectualize death as a meaningless phenomenon, knowing that life does not have any why question, and if any, it is speculative and non-demonstrable? Is it possible to hold the ocean if being is only a drop of it? Or every drop is ocean in itself? Weber advises not to be awe-inspiring gentleman to turn science into a divine revelation. Science is not meant to tell you why to live, a Tolstoy's question. It is a method or set of methods for clarity, a tool to provide comfort in life; its quest lies in limitation, fragmentary progression, and its possibility is to fade away in darkness in midst of time. Science is not meant to be eternal and meaningful; it is useful for life. Who knows, may be one beautiful day, many hows will accomplish the "Why" (the meaning of life); this hypothesis is in line with Stephen Hawking's last prophecy that science will one day solve all the meta-questions. As a scientist he was optimistic about that, in fact, science is not possible without having belief in science, for science is the pre-condition of science itself or science of knowing. Weber is advocating for a value neutral framework as a scientist, to avoid value judgements; leave this question for prophets and demagogues; a scientist is supposed not to reveal his values and tastes, his cognitive bias or any other preferences. He is supposed to know the limitation of science, narrowness of its journey, belittlement of its questions, temporality of its existence; it's neither holy nor revealed. Apart from the science of scientific beliefs, a pre-condition, science does not teach or inspire to believe in any thing else, rather questions everything; questioning is not limited to its conclusions but also to its methods and processes, for example, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, August Compte, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, Thomas Kuhn, or Karl Popper; all these scientists have different outlooks with respect to its methods as well, for they have not surrendered their imaginations in believing all one and always fixed formula, in fact, science is not a pursuit to believe but to suspect, dissect, experiment, observe, and the quest is on and on. He goes on to say, "Science provides methods of thought, the tools of the trade, and the training needed to make use of them. You will perhaps object that this is not vegetables, but equally it is no more than the means by which to procure vegetables". A scientist cannot expound the ultimate meaning but he may least help him (those who have quest for meaning), to render an account of the ultimate meaning of his own actions".

Science functions at the premise of intellectualization and rationalization, what he calls, the "disenchantment of the world". He is not relying on any value judgment about whether it's good or bad, holy or unholy. He is explaining a phenomenon, a movement, a rupture in continuity, took place at 17th century onwards, which is known as European Enlightenment, which questioned the sacred conception or teleological understanding of the world. Magic, totem, taboo, fate, disappeared and gave a place to calculation, prediction, observation, continuity, verification; for reason and intellect were pre-supposed as the pre-condition of the disenchanted world. 

Weber was critical about someone to whom he calls 'professional prophet', who, in the guise of a vocation of science, prophesizes and imposes his own value judgments upon the students in a lecture room, where students are not supposed to question him at equal footing. For those prophets and demagogues, he finds a public place a better space to persuade the public on their prophecies, for they will be questioned by their opponents. But in a lecture room, students are supposed to learn the intricacies of knowledge, for they will discover the value for themselves. Teachers are supposed to be neutral regarding values, which is, of course, a difficult task; neutrality itself, in a way, is a value. Weber presents a contrasting trajectory of value judgments, when he refers two paradoxical values with equal intensity; "Resist not him that is evil" (Matthew, 5:39), and "Resist evil,  otherwise you will bear some of the responsibility for its victory". It becomes a difficult choice to choose one at the exclusion of other. This is not what a scientist is supposed to do. He finds a tension between science and theology, while for prior intellect is the pre-condition to exist and for latter "the sacrificing the intellect" (St. Augustine) is the definition feature for having it. 

In the end of lecture he hopes that scientists shall go on questioning and nurturing it because unconditional acceptance of the answers have already produced all too waiting like "waiting a Godot" (Samuel Beckett). He quotes the book of Isaiah, "One calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? what of the night? The watchman said, Even if the morning cometh, it is still night: if ye inquire already, ye will come again and inquire once more". He goes on to advise, "The people to whom this was said have inquired and waited for much longer than two thousand years, and we are familiar with its deeply distressing fate. From it we should  draw the moral that longing and waiting is not enough and that we  must act differently. We must go about our work and meet the challenges of the day-both in our human relations and our vocation". 

There is no possiblity to escape, as Goethe rightly said, "Even as the sun and planets stood, to salute one another on the day you entered the world-even so you began straightaway to grow and have continued to do so, according to the law that prevailed over your beginning. It is thus that you must be, you cannot escape yourself"(Goethe, Damon).