Scientist – a profession or a mission?

In this article I present a concept of profession as a mission, which was formulated by Max Weber at the beginning of the past century. It has been put by Weber in such a vision of a capitalist society, that emerges (after various ages of “transformations”) as a “greatest power” in the modern world, that is capitalism. Weber had no doubts about capitalism as a greatest modern power and he saw its major force in the rationalization of economics and human relations. On the other hand, he was very full if doubts regarding the issue of attitudes, behavior and actions of scientists. He wasn’t quite sure in the question if we might speak about their calling in the same sense as about the calling of a capitalist businessman or worker. He certainly was aware, that there do exist such “young researchers”, who think and act like they would be an integral part of the capitalist “machine”, but he also made certain reservations. The changes, which occurred later on at many higher education institutions, made this objection valid in many points. Nevertheless it is difficult to find such solutions, which would allow simultaneously to keep the traditional unique character of the world of academics and to fulfill the realization of tasks, which nowadays are being addressed towards the scientifical society from various social groups. This I attempt to show in the last part of this article.