Bjørn Schiermer Andersen presents a working paper on 'Max Weber on Creativity: Towards an Alternative Theory of Action in Weber's Work'

The present paper aims to unearth an alternative theory of action in Weber. Centering on the three concepts of creativity, personality and Sachlichkeit in Weber's work, I argue that one finds action theoretical impulses at these instances which are principally at odds with the Kantian, subject-centered, formalistic and dualist perspectives pervading much of his work. I aim to show how so-called object-orientated attitudes surface at these instances, attitudes that rests on fundamentally different epistemological and ontological assumptions than the Kantian ones. The paper consists of two parts. In the first, critical or 'negative' part, I contour the most Kantian passages in Weber's work and demonstrate the fatal theoretical and empirical consequences they entail. In the second, "positive" part I start by investigating Weber's understanding of creativity, highlighting its object-orientated impulses. I then demonstrate how his conceptualization of personality changes in the course of his work, likewise due to the emergence of object-oriented attitudes. Thereupon, I seek to show how Weber's ideas of creativity and personality fuse in his concept of Sachlichkeit and how the latter concept leads his late methodological work in a decisively Anti-Kantian and anti-dualist direction. Concluding, I discuss in more general terms the sociological relevance of this alternative 'theory' of action found in Weber.