In this article, the author looks at the most recent Italian edition of Weber’s methodological essays, edited by Pietro Rossi. After presenting the principal new features in this edition, Marra analyses Weber’s essays on law, focusing in particular on Weber’s critique of a book written by Rudolf Stammler in 1906 about overcoming the materialist conception of history. In his essay, Weber postulates a dual existence for legal norms: on the one hand, they can be conceived as ideal norms (from the point of view of the logically correct meaning they express), while on the other they constitute empirical maxims that can be observed in the behaviour of real people. Marra criticises Weber’s premise and the consequences it implies (especially the dual nature of legal science, in dogma and in sociology).