Carl David Alfred Weber (; 30 July 1868 – 2 May 1958) was a German economist, geographer, sociologist, philosopher, and cultural theorist whose work was influential in the development of modern economic geography.

His other work focused on the sociology of knowledge and the role of intellectuals in society. In particular, he introduced the concept of free-floating intelligentsia (Freischwebende Intelligenz).

He was the brother of influential sociologist Max Weber.

Life

Alfred Weber, younger brother of the well-known sociologist Max Weber, was born in Erfurt and raised in Charlottenburg. From 1907 to 1933, he was a professor at Heidelberg University. Weber started his career as a lawyer and worked as a sociologist and cultural philosopher.

Work

Weber supported reintroducing theory and causal models to the field of economics, in addition to using historical analysis. In this field, his achievements involve work on early models of industrial location. He lived during the period when sociology became a separate field of science.

Though his theory on 'Industrial Location' was strictly economic during his time it is widely studied in the field of geography now, mostly as a theoretical concept in the subdomain of economic geography. found the first direct (non iterative) numerical solution of the Fermat and Weber triangle problems. Long before Von Thünen's contributions, which go back to 1818, the Fermat point problem can be seen as the very beginning of space economy. It was formulated by the famous French mathematician Pierre de Fermat before 1640. As for the Weber triangle problem, which is a generalization of the Fermat triangle problem, it was first formulated by Thomas Simpson in 1750, and popularized by Alfred Weber in 1909.

In 1985, in a book entitled Économie spatiale: rationalité économique de l'espace habité, Tellier formulated an all-new problem called the "attraction-repulsion problem", which constitutes a generalization of both the Fermat and Weber problems. In its simplest version, the attraction-repulsion problem consists in locating a point D with respect to three points A1, A2 and R in such a way that the attractive forces exerted by points A1 and A2, and the repulsive force exerted by point R cancel each other out. In the same book, Tellier solved that problem for the first time in the triangle case, and he reinterpreted spatial economics theory, especially, the theory of land rent, in the light of the concepts of attractive and repulsive forces stemming from the attraction-repulsion problem. That problem was later further analyzed by mathematicians like Chen, Hansen, Jaumard and Tuy (1992), and Jalal and Krarup (2003). The attraction-repulsion problem is seen by Ottaviano and Thisse (2005) as a prelude to the New Economic Geography that developed in the 1990s, and earned Paul Krugman a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2008.

Works

  • Über den Standort der Industrie (Theory of the Location of Industries) 1909
  • Ideen zur Staats - und Kultursoziologie (1927)
  • Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie (1935)
  • Farewell to European History or the Conquest of Nihilism (1947)
  • Einführung in die Soziologie (1955)

See also

  • Johann Heinrich von Thünen
  • Sociology of knowledge

References

Further reading

  • Colvin, Milton (1959). "Alfred Weber-The Sociologist as a Humanist". American Journal of Sociology. 65 (2): 166–168.
  • Biography at CSSS
  • On Alfred Weber's Theory of Industrial Location
  • Alfred Weber and Subsequent Developments in Industrial Location Theory
  • Weber' Theory of the location of industries – English translation