Max Weber as a professor of theoretical economics

We are used to think of Max Weber as a lawyer-turned-historical-sociologist who dedicated his life to study economic questions. It can come as a surprise that during a few years of his academic career, from 1894 to 1898, he was nominated professor of theoretical economics and actually planned and delivered ex cathedra series of lectures that were nominally about economic theory. It is well known that in the Methodenstreit, which had erupted a decade earlier than this lecturing activity, Weber came publicly in favor of the theorists and against the historicists. The recent publication of all extant materials related to his lectures allows us to examine the real measure of his commitment to economic theory. The result of such examination confirms what is plain from his published works as well as the judgment of those economic theorists who knew him personally, namely that Weber never understood what the theory of economics is about or how to use it.