Comunità, soggetto e «immagine del mondo». Per una semantica del mutamento politico in Max Weber

The essay investigates the connection between community, the individual and the ‘image of the world’ (Weltbild) in Max Weber's work. The thesis is that community can be redefined as a space of subjectivation capable of producing transformative consequences on existing social orders from new configurations of subjectivity. This interpretative hypothesis is tested starting from three central themes in Weber's work: the early writings on Prussian agricultural workers that investigate the end of patriarchalism and the advent of class struggle; the genesis of the Western city and the people as a revolutionary subject in the Middle Ages; and the role of the Puritan sect in the writings on Protestantism.