Max Weber and the End of the ‘Metaphysics of State’

Abstract

Max Weber ended the metaphysics of the state just as Nietzsche had ended the meta-physics of being. However, Weber was building on the theories of the historian Heinrich von Treitschke and the constitutional scholar Georg Jellinek. Weber replaced Jellinek’s legal formalism and Treitschke’s nationalism with a new type of politics. This was the politics of responsibility, which eliminated the metaphysical concept of the state and was replaced by a dynamic approach to legitimate political leadership.