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Lektor: 
 
Greg Ransom, Peter Boettke and Stephen Horwitz have raised the connections 
between Weber and the Austrian economists, which are numerous and 
important. I want to point out the connection between Weber and Frank 
Knight. 
 
This past summer I wrote the following list of questions to three friends, 
all of whom are interested in the relation between Knight, Weber, and 
Talcott Parsons (my friends are two historians of sociology and a 
political theorist). Under each question I have summarized what I know at 
the moment, from my conversations with these friends and my own research: 
 
1. When was Knight first introduced to Weber's work? 
 
Knight probably was introduced to Weber while a doctoral student at 
Cornell (1913-16), although if he did sit in on lectures in Marburg 
during his visit to Europe in the summer of 1913 (as Richard Gonce 
suggested in a recent article) he would have heard at least some of the 
fallout from Weber's essays which appeared in the Archiv fur 
Socialwisssenschaft in 1904-05. In any case, he was definitely aware of 
Weber's work by the time he was an instructor at the University of 
Chicago in 1917-19, because of the nature of his critique of Veblen (see 
below). 
 
2. When did Knight first study Weber's work in any systematic fashion? 
 
We know that Knight translated Weber's _General Economic History_ into 
English (published in 1927 -- Weber's first work to appear in English), 
and taught a seminar on Weber's work at the University of Chicago in 1935. 
Did he study Weber extensively in the 1920s? I think so. My reason for 
arguing this is that during the mid-1920s Knight read extensively in the 
German literature on economic history for two reasons: 1) he was beginning 
to reorient his own research away from economic theory toward historical 
economics (I know this is hard to believe given the 1930s capital 
controversy literature, but I can document it both in terms of his writing 
in the period and his correspondence), and 2) he was working on the 
methodological question of the scope and role of theory versus history 
(see the 1930 article on "Statics and Dynamics" for his eventual answer to 
the question). 
 
3. What parts of Weber's work did Knight read? 
 
Knight owned copies of three of Weber's works in German: Gesammelte 
Aufsaetze zur Wissenschaftslehre (1922); Gesammelte Aufsaetze zur Sozial- 
und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1924); and Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 2nd ed. 
(1925). Large sections of these are well-marked and annotated. There are 
two translations by Knight of portions of these works in the Knight Papers 
at the University of Chicago: "Legal Sociology," from Wirtschaft und 
Gesellschaft, vol. II, Part 2, chapter 7, and "Roscher and Knies and the 
Logical Problems of Historical National Economy," from Gesammelte Aufsaetze 
zur Wissenschaftslehre. 
 
4. What role did Parsons play in introducing Knight to Weber's work, and 
vice versa? 
 
Knight obviously read Knight before he met Parsons; I expect Parsons had 
already been introduced to Weber before Knight became his mentor. In 
the early 1930s, Parsons' work was exactly the kind of research that 
Knight wanted to be involved in and the two maintained a close 
correspondence. In some ways, I'd argue that Parsons' work on Weber and on 
the relation of economics and sociology pre-empted work that Knight might 
have done. Certainly we know that Knight intended to translate more of 
Weber's work, but stopped when he discovered that Parsons had created a 
plan for the English translation of several of Weber's works. Knight read 
portions of the translations of Weber by Parsons and Shils prior to their 
publication. 
 
5. What is the relation between Knight's reading of Weber and his response 
to Veblen (who had also read Weber)? 
 
I still don't have an answer to this question, but I think Knight's 
understanding of and response to Veblen has to be read through Weberian 
eyes to make sense. That is, it would be a mistake to see Knight's 
negative reaction to Veblen as emerging primarily from a strong 
attachment to neoclassicism. 
 
6. What is the relation between Knight's understanding of uncertainty and 
Weber's? And what is the relation between Knight's understanding of the 
entrepreneur and Weber's discussion of the capitalist? 
 
Here is an interesting aspect of the relation between Knight and Weber 
that I'd like to pursue more. If Knight had read Weber while a doctoral 
student, we may be able to construct a relationship between Risk, 
Uncertainty and Profit and Weber's work. Here is what one of my 
correspondents (Richard Boyd) said to me: 
 
"On to a slightly different subject. When I was teaching Max Weber's 
Protestant ethic this summer, and was at the same time working on Knight, I 
noticed for the first time that Weber is attempting in a very elementary 
way to distinguish "risk" or the spontaneous and uncalculating actions of 
the pre-capitalist entrepreneur from those "which rest on the expectation 
of profit by the utilization of opportunities for exchange..." (17). 
 Interestingly, Weber comes up with two sorts of entrepreneurs, the 
precapitalist or speculative, and the modern capitalist entrepreneur, who 
is oriented to methodical calculation. Weber then attempts to supply an 
historical account of how this distinction came into being in the Occident, 
as you well know. 
 I wonder if you see any relation between Weber's historical 
distinction between risk and profit, and Knight's later efforts to work out 
this same (I believe) distinction in pure economic theory?" 
 
 
7. What is the relation between Weber's interpretative sociology and 
Knight's writing on the methodology of economics? 
 
In the spring or summer of 1930 Knight gave a lecture at the University of 
Vienna entitled "Ist wertfreie Nationaloekonomie moeglich?" The lecture is 
based on Knight's reading of Weber, and was probably given to the Mises 
circle. This lecture provides an interesting connection between Weber, the 
Austrians and Knight. I have not been able to find any reactions from the 
Austrians to Knight's lecture (Morgenstern's diary discusses Knight's 
visit, but doesn't comment on the lecture). Another interesting Knight 
essay that has remained unpublished, but has significant Weberian 
connections is "Fact and Interpretation," a lecture also given in the 
early 1930s. 
 
8. What is the relation between Weber's analysis of the history of 
capitalism and Knight's? 
 
The strength of Knight's argument for a clear distinction between history 
and theory is I think based upon his desire to clear intellectual space 
among economists for a Weberian historical/sociological analysis of 
capitalism. But I have never tried to develop the arguement. 
 
Ross B. Emmett                Editor, HES and CIRLA-L 
Augustana University College 
Camrose, Alberta CANADA   T4V 2R3 
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