PEDRO A. PIEDRAS MONROY
Philosophy of the History and Sociology of Religion. Max Weber's viewpoints on Universal History.

When reading the works of Max Weber we soon realise their connecting points with the secular works of the Philosophy of History and, in particular, with the essays on Universal History. Yet the observations regarding this do not seem conclusive. Whilst some authors see in the Weberian Theory the denial of the Universal History, others perceive in it the acceptance of the searches and of its legacy. This essay seeks to partake in this debate and it defends that Weber's works on the Sociology of Religion are this author's response to the Philosophy of History, particularly that of the 19th century.
In the last of his texts, the introduction (Vorbemerkung) to Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (Complete essays on the Sociology of Region) , the author indicates that the essays aim to trace the sequence of circumstances, which lead to such a peculiar development as the western one, in contrast with the other cultural developments outside the western culture. However, unlike the reports of Universal History, in which the West became the essential end of humanity or of the human spirit, in the Weberian Sociology of Religion a decentralisation occurs, placing the West and the western world on a plane of global world dominion as a more efficient rationalisation scope than the others, yet by no means "essential", nor "better", and least of all "superior". To come to such conclusions, our paper traces a diachronic revision of the premises of Universal History and compares them to the Weberian theses.