Lujo Brentano

Brentano appears in Weber's text as a dissenting voice on the genealogy of the spirit of capitalism, and Weber's rebuttal of him is part of how the argument defines itself. The disagreement is not decorative: it concerns whether religious ethics genuinely shaped economic conduct or whether that link is an illusion imposed by later interpreters. For readers moving through the central chapters, Brentano is the pressure point that keeps Weber honest, forcing him to specify what his evidence can and cannot show.