WEBER,MAXS CRITIQUE OF THE SYSTEM-ALTHOFF WITH REGARD TO ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN THE POLITICS OF SCIENCE

This article examines Weber's conflict with the so-called Althoff Syst em between 1908 and 1911 in the context of the verdict he pronounced i n Wissenschaft als Beruf: ''both in theory and in practice, the consti tution of the university has become fictitious.'' In the light of more recent research on the late German empire conducted by universities a nd historians, this critique by Weber has, despite his well-known tend ency for temperamental outbreaks prompted by events in his life, taken on significance as a key to precisely defining the qualitative gap wh ich existed between the standard ideal of a university, embodied in th e Humboldt University, and the historical truth of the distortion of u niversity and academic structures at the turn of the century. Under th e conditions of the uniquely constituted industrial society in Germany , an evaluation of Weber's position on this subject may be useful in o perationalizing criteria (bearing in mind university and academic hist ory) for a system which allows academic life to flourish.