Disenchantment

Disenchantment Definition

Disenchantment is a process, described by Max Weber, in which the development of science and rational modes of thought displaces the explanations for natural phenomena once provided by belief in magic, miracles, and the supernatural. As rational and scientific understanding advances, the world is progressively stripped of its mysterious and sacred qualities.

Significance

For Weber, disenchantment is one of the defining tendencies of modernity, and it is regarded as one of the factors driving increasing secularization — the declining social significance of religion — as supernatural accounts of the world give way to rational and empirical ones.