Max Weber is important to us today above all because he is a universalist thinker capable of operating under modern conditions, such as specialization and cultural difference, that are radically hostile to universalism. Paying particular attention to his writings on Wissenschaft and higher education, it is argued that Weber had a distinct conception of Wissenschaft, which is significantly broader than the well-worn theme of his “methodology”. Weberian Wissenschaft is shown to be primarily meaningful within the context of society and Kultur, because this was the primary value context. Here, as always, Weber is a social thinker. So the basis of his thinking is in principle the same whether he is considering academic research, the make-up of a methodological tool such as the ideal-type, relations between professors and students, or those between universities and the state. Its strength lies in its ability to combine traditional and universal elements. On the one hand, an insistence that Wissenschaft must remain rooted in personal values and commitment, and that it should continue to seek ‘truth’ and empirical reality (Sachlichkeit); on the other, acceptance of the fundamental, modern reality that there were no longer any agreed and uniform values for society as a whole. Many of the components of this state of affairs were widely recognised at the time, but no-one apart from Weber was prepared to accept it as a datum and theorise accordingly. The centrepiece of his thinking here is familiar – the need to practise a universally accessible “value-freedom” within academic analysis. Even so “value-freedom” is not just a methodological cliché; it can only properly be understood within the social context of a plurality of clashing value-commitments. The relevance today of such a conception of Wissenschaft is clear.
