 Such an appreciation of Weber’s main problematic, which culminates in the question of modern individual freedom, may help shed light on some of the controversial aspects of Weber’s methodology. In accounting for his methodological claims, it needs to be borne in mind that Weber was not at all interested in writing a systematic epistemological treatise in order to put an end to the “strife over methods” (Methodenstreit) of his time between historicism and positivism. His ambition was much more modest and pragmatic. Just as “the person who attempted to walk by constantly applying anatomical knowledge would be in danger of stumbling” [Weber 1906/1949, 115; translation altered], so can methodology be a kind of knowledge that may supply a rule of thumb, codified a posteriori, for what historians and social scientists do, but it could never substitute for the skills they use in their research practice. Instead, Weber’s attempt to mediate historicism and positivism was meant to aid an actual researcher make a practical value-judgment that is fair and acceptable in the face of the plethora of subjective values that one encounters when selecting and processing historical data. After all, the questions that drove his methodological reflections were what it means to practice science in the modern polytheistic world and how one can do science with a sense of vocation. In his own words, “the capacity to distinguish between empirical knowledge and value-judgments, and the fulfillment of the scientific duty to see the factual truth as well as the practical duty to stand up for our own ideals constitute the program to which we wish to adhere with ever increasing firmness” [Weber 1904/1949, 58]. Sheldon Wolin thus concludes that Weber “formulated the idea of methodology to serve, not simply as a guide to investigation but as a moral practice and a mode of political action” [Wolin 1981, 414]. In short, Weber’s methodology was as ethical as it was epistemological.