韦伯第一部重要的社会学著作是《基督教伦理与资本主义精神》(最初于1904—1905年间以文章形式发表)。在这本著作中,他提出从社会学角度对一种独特的社会形态,即近代欧洲资本主义进行分析,并试图通过理想类型的方法来解释欧洲社会主义的历史发展情况。到了1904年,韦伯逐渐从历史研究转向社会学研宄,尽管他在著作中仍然使用文化的概念而不是使用社会的概念。韦伯把历史现象的独特性同按照具体的文化价值对这一现象进行的解释联系起来,在韦伯的这种文化意义的概念中,李凯尔特(H.Rickert) Weber’s first major sociological book was “Christian Ethics and Capitalism” (originally published as an article in 1904-1905). In this book, he proposes to analyze a unique social form, the modern European capitalism, from a sociological point of view and try to explain the historical development of European socialism through an ideal type of approach. By 1904, Weber gradually shifted from historical research to sociological research, though he still used the concept of culture rather than the concept of society in his writings. Weber linked the uniqueness of historical phenomena to the interpretation of this phenomenon in terms of specific cultural values. In Weber’s notion of cultural significance, H. Richter,