再论韦伯的经济理性批判:基于“理想类型”法

On Weber's Critique of Economic Rationality:Based on the“Ideal Type”Method

与一种流行误解相反,韦伯眼中的资本主义并非一座只重复而无发展的“铁笼”,相反他认为资本主义的自我矛盾性使其前途莫测、值得期待。韦伯通过对资本主义的基本逻辑——经济理性的批判进入对资本主义矛盾性的理解,他认为,经济理性的抽象性使其不能免于向本能欲望、技术理性转化,但它本质上并不是后者,相反它的主导逻辑是与后者对立的、对于目的的自主选择,即目的理性。韦伯对经济理性的批判旨在为经济理性及其寓于的资本主义社会探寻一条克服抽象性局限的出路。由于经济理性的抽象性,对它的认识过程不能依赖直接的实证方法,须采取间接、建构性的“理想类型”法。

Contrary to a popular misunderstanding,capitalism in Weber's eyes is not an“iron cage”that only repeats without development.On the contrary,he believes that the self-contradiction of capitalism makes its future unpredictable and worth looking forward to.Through the criticism of the basic logic of capitalism namely economic rationality,Weber finds the deeper way to understand capitalist contradiction.As far as he is concerned,the abstractness of economic rationality makes it inevitable to transform into instinctive desire and technical rationality,but it is not the latter in essence.On the contrary,its dominant logic is the independent choice of purpose,that is,purpose rationality.Weber's critique of economic rationality aims to explore a way to overcome the limitations of abstraction for economic rationality and its capitalist society.Due to the abstractness of economic rationality,the process of understanding it cannot rely on direct empirical methods,and it is necessary to adopt an indirect and constructive“ideal type”method.