“ Intermediate Reflections: The Destiny of the West ” is a virtually unknown work of Weber's thought , a marginal work, so to speak. The World-Universe is depicted as a reality fraught with conflict, in which culture divides rather than unites. These conflicts embrace various fields of human knowledge: from religion to secular life, from economics to private life. Weber is ahead of his time because he emphasizes humanity's disorientation in contemporary society. The interpretation that scholars have developed around Weber's work has involved various pillars of knowledge, mostly focused on economics , politics , and society . The best-known writings are based on the cultural and social rationalization that corresponds to the spirit of capitalism.
Forerunner of modernity
The "Intermediate considerations" are an excellent way to study the modernity and the fate of the West. Alessandro Ferrara, professor of sociology at the University “Wisdom” of Rome, speaks of disenchantment in the sense that the process of rationalization has crumbled all the elements, the entire anthropological, mythological, magical basis of the society in which today's man lives. And the moralMorality undergoes a long process of evolution that passes through various stages: magical ethics, religious ethics of the rules, ethics of principle (in which the is placedProtestant ethic) until reaching theethics of responsibility.
The ethos of brotherhood
The beating heart of Max Weber's thought is the ethos of brotherhood , that is, the duty to fraternally help those in difficulty, a principle that is not strictly rational but emotional: " What you lack today, I may lack tomorrow ." He becomes the secular prophet of those who center their lives on the need for progress and emancipation.
Concetta Padula
