EURO ST 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Historical Materialism, Abstract And Concrete, Economic Determinism
Document Summary
How ideas from the 16th century which have nothing to do explicitly with the economy nonetheless can create a culture ripe for capitalism. Weber"s approach goes to the heart of what we"re investigating in this course: how apparently distant historical ideas and phenomena helped shape our modern world. There"s a good reason to learn about things like lutheran theology, the holy roman empire, the thirty years war. Focused on interpretive approaches, not just empirical and quantitative. Economic forces of production explain developments in society, law, culture. Economic basis vs ideological superstructure ; ideas merely reflect economic reality and the interests of the dominant class. In the title of this study is used the somewhat pretentious phrase, the spirit of. Spirit seems like an abstract entity for a scientist to be interested in . Yet certainly still a historical materialist or empirical scientist (2nd paragraph: a complex of elements associated in historical reality )
