Ferdinand Tönnies

Ferdinand Tönnies , born the July 26th 1855 and dead April 9th 1936, is a Sociologue and German Philosophe .

He is the author of the work " the Community and Société ". This work knew little success at the time of its first publication in 1887, it was necessary to await its republication in 1912 so that it deserves a certain success. Tönnies was also (1909-33) president of the German Société of sociology , to which belongbelonged Simmel and Weber.

Its Sociology

In its sociology, Tönnies uses the psychological approach through the concepts of organic Volonté ( Wesenwille ) and that of considered will ( Kürwille ) to explain the passage of the individual of the Communauté ( Gemeinschaft ) towards the company ( Gesellschaft ). For him, the organic will is at the origin of the Community social form of life . It is a specificity of the behavior of the individuals living in Communauté, characterized by the attachment, the affection that with the individual, towards his family (blood tie), her village and those which live there (bond of friendship) and the usual practices and nuns there existing. the social form sociétale is, as for it, the product of the considered will , i.e. it is resulting from the human Pensée. A contrario, of the Moral Community cement of the the Community, the Pensée is varied. Each Individu has his Pensée. Each individual thus returns in particular social and economic competition with others. So one attends a development of the Individualisme. For Tönnies , the progress of the Town planning - fact of evolving the community to the company and it thinks that the business enterprise , characterizing the company of its time and who is the reason for the search for individual profit, will involve the company with its loss.

Tönnies emphasized the historical process which led in the passing of the union in Gemeinschaft (family communities), at associations in Gemeinschaft (corporations, trade-guilds, churches), then to associations in Gesellschaft (individualistic companies), and leads in union in Gesellschaft (companies tending to recreate “a pseudo” Gemeinschaft , by the means of measurement of redistribution, like the insurance unemployment for example). But the Dichotomy of the “community” and the “company” at Tönnies is more than one simple historical process: these two elements in fine are regarded influencing states and either as variables. Tönnies is thus at the origin of the typological use of the concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft : it indeed created starting from these two elements of the homogeneous formal classes with an aim of facilitating the classification and the analysis of more complex sociological phenomena.

Epistemological contributions

Tönnies and Simmel are regarded as the fathers the formal Sociologie (practical studies, on the levels of the individual and the interactions). The contribution of Tönnies to formal sociology appears less obvious at first sight than Simmel because this contribution, while being primarily of a nature conceptual or epistemological, appears less striking of share the practical character of formal sociology. According to Ronald Fletcher, Tönnies recognized well three levels with the sociology of most concrete with most abstract: the Sociographie (collection of the data and methods of study on the ground), the empirical study of particular problems and theoretical analysis (the construction and clarification of theories, and conceptualization of these theories under a current angle). Its affinity with the most abstract level, did not mean by he considered this last more important, he acted well of a choice, of a very personal attraction.

Its test on the habit appeared in the collection Custom, social An essay one codes (or have it finds Simmel and Sombart) is one of the illustrations: it incorporates certain elements of the psychological analysis and is diverted in it abstraction, i.e theoretical analysis. Just like Simmel, Tönnies did not see the company like being a clean aware, but well like an interrelationship of human beings. The individual is not an organization answering organic impulses or a conditioned personality. The individual is rather of conscious nature, deliberating, implied in the creation of his own character.

Influence of Tönnies

While being with the listening of the destruction of the Social link related to the rise the Individualism, Tönnies positioned in rupture with the authors of the XVII and XVIIIième centuries applied to emphasize the state, the administrative law, the trade and industry. By replaçant the problems of the community in the center the scene of the social sciences, work of Tönnies had indeed an significant impact on the discussions and theories sociological which were born starting from the end of the 19th century.

At Weber

One finds the typology of Tönnies at Weber, for example in his study on the agricultural situation in Eastern Germany, although this last preferred the use of different terms to knowing Communalisation ( Vergemeinschaftung ) and Sociation ( Vergesellschaftung ), terms introducing the nuances that the concepts of company and community rather raise more interactions between individuals than of social structures fixed. But with final the vocabulary employed remain the expression of the idea of Tönnies, with the image of division between culture (emotional, spiritual relation) and civilization (rational, scientific, intelligent relation), between traditional and rational authority. In the same way the decline of the History is for him to put on the account of the Rationalization, representation which also joined that of Tönnies. Finally, one can estimate that max Weber took part to enrich the initial Typologie by adding for example the concept of opening to it: in its comparative study of the structures and urban behaviors, it shows that open communities (i.e whose adhesion is not related to the relationship - example: churches in opposition to the family), while allowing arrived from abroad took part as of the feudal time in the rise of individualism and thus of capitalism and laic rationality.

Another outstanding concept is also allotted to max Weber, even if one finds this concept makes in filigree some in the work of Tönnies: that of the existence of a bridge between the two categories, emphasizing the fact that a Sociation which lasts makes establish sentimental values which exceed the end established initially (example: a colleague who would become friendly then wife).

At Georg Simmel and the formal Sociology

The formal Sociologie also made use of the concepts of Tönnies as bases for their study of the interactions between individuals and the social forms which derive from it. Simmel, which is one of the contributors most representative: it based its studies on phenomena " microscopiques" (ex: the secrecy, friendship, obedience, honesty, confidence), i.e relations implying a restricted number individuals (dyad, triad). One finds the influence of Tönnies in many of these works of which for example test on the affiliation of the group where Simmel uses the symbolic system of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft , by the means of remark on the opposition between medieval company (or the affiliation the individual absorbs and puts in relation to the communities revolving around its group of membership) and modern (where the loss of the final character of the affiliation enriches its feeling by individuality). In “the metropolis and the mental life” he also insists on the loss of counterweight compared to the anonymity of the large metropolises in the modern society. In its work on the money, the currency becomes the symbol of the evolution of Malayan manners translating it of a company privileging quantitative and it mechanical, connecting the individual then in an impersonal way. Simmel thus tends to focus its studies on the research of the effects hidden on an individual level of the process clarified by Tönnies, by using same typology.

In the German authors affiliated with formal sociology one finds same fiber: Vierkandt tried, via a new branch of named sociology phenomenology , to integrate the idea of Tönnies and Simmel according to which the social one is the result of the reciprocal actions (by using same typology once again). Litt which belonged to a similar current, supports in Individuum und Gemeinschaft the thesis according to which the company is included by the community so much the latter influences the first.

This influence finds until in the sociologists Anglo-Saxon followers of the pure Sociologie, influence particularly remarkable initially in England perhaps of share the implication of Tönnies in the foundation of the English Sociological Society (1904). Edward Westermarck will take again for example the dichotomy between reason and feeling, moderate resumption of the Wesenwille and Kürwille , since it will put the emphase on the positive side of the role of the reason in its relationship to the emotions. Idea that one finds at Gidding in his study of the three types of social actions (impulsive, traditional and rational). Mead and Cooley, also interested by the level of the Microphone-sociology, will take again the concepts of Tönnies in their studies on the social Ego. One will also find the historical process emphasized by Tönnies, in the evolutionists, in particular Hobhouse or Sumner Maine, on the other side of the Atlantic. Ward will emphasize, from a similar point of view, the emergence of the associations specialized at the time of the passage of the traditional company to modernity.

In the German authors

Schmalenbach took again the categories of Tönnies by adding a third to it: the league ( Bund ) supposed being opposed to the community by the characters rational but resting on an instinctive and sentimental basis. It was to be a place for enthusiasm and enthusiasm. Geiger also associated a third element, the " group ": container of the company and the community, it with an aim of emphasizing their complementarity. This influence it is also made feel in the work of contemporary German sociologists, with the image the École of Frankfurt, which will join again with the critic of the natural right and the reason inherited the lights (critical necessary according to them if this one to conduit with the capitalism of crisis), and who will borrow by the means of Adorno the Dichotomie Gesellschaft | Gemeinschaft to denounce a society based on a prevalence of associative relations directed exclusively towards the commercial or interested exchange ( Vergesellschaftete Gesellschaft ).

At Emile Durkheim

The influence of Tönnies exceeds the framework of the epistemological debates of the Sociologie. Its critical and partial work while being (if one disregards nostalgia certain inherent in his work), Tönnies influenced sociologists of all edges who could have in particular sensitivities and from the different points of view. One thus finds the proof of this universality as well as this power of construction in the work of Durkheim, since one can regard Tönnies as partly responsible for the evolution of his conclusions.

Thus, at the beginning of its work, Durkheim designs the company like an enlarged Community, since it draws its roots in the community. Its article entitled the Community and company according to Tönnies expresses this point considering: the author if he admits the separation founded between the two elements (organic cf will and mechanics) considers that “ Apart from the purely individual movements, there is in our contemporary companies a properly collective activity which is quite as natural as that of the less extended companies of formerly ”. The author does not admit the purely mechanical character of the Gesellschaft of share his Community origin. Durkheim will start a nuance of these remarks in Of the division of the labor , where even if he always considers that the division of the labor brings a world righter because based on the reason (example: less punishment, more repair), it defends the idea consequently that the community is cement which makes that the division of the labor is possible. Finally in the suicide the community becomes a little more the guarantor of the company, he is clear for him that it ensures stability consequently of it.

Origins of the theses of Tönnies

The idea of division between company and community is not the only fact of Tönnies. The renewed interest related to this subject corresponds to a stage of the history of the sociology in which Tönnies played certainly a paramount role but was not the only actor.

The influence of Hobbes was eminent. The influence of Hegel exists, particularly by the means of its work on the philosophy of the right where the community is a recurrent theme. Its vision of the company rests on a concentric model of association (family, corporation, city, church…). The State should not for him thus not be conceived as the sum of the individual interests, but more the aggregate of these communities. In the same way at the end of the 19th century, following the effects of the Industrial revolution, Henry Maine, Otto von Gierke, F.W. Maitland supported the idea that the sovereignty of the state, the normative right and individualism was only one consequence of the atomization of the medieval community. Thus in Das Deutsche Genossenschafts-recht (1868), von Gierke analyzes the structure of the medieval company (clarifying the rigidity of statute and the organic unit), and that of the state nation (where centralization causes the bursting of the intermediate structures, between state and individual). Maine while considering the old right is also in the middle of the subject, raising the difference between the companies known as underdeveloped or the statute is imposed by blood and the tradition, and the companies known as modern or the statute is acquired by the means of contracts.

The typological use thus was already started by the conservatives and the radicals within the framework of the opposition between modernization and tradition. Bonald in Of the agricultural family and the industrial family (1818) makes use of the differences between mentalities and feelings to distinguish rural company (more loan of the tradition) and urban (more individualistic). Play in its study European Workmen (1855). will grant a remarkable place to the study of the family, smaller denominator of the community, raising three types of families: patriarchal (inspired by the feudal model), unstable (where individualism creates the insecurity) and stock (mixture especially present in the East, which draws advantage from the characteristics of the two preceding types). Fustel de Coulanges, will present before Weber the concept of opening, by studying the history of Rome and Athens, last cities of communities stable and closed with individualistic and opened metropolises.

It is also advisable not to neglect the influences of the theses of Marx and Engels. Thus as indicates it Tönnies in these proper terms in the foreword of Communauté and Société : Marx was a thinker who tried to give form to the same idea that I wanted expressed myself with my own conceptualization . One finds this Marxist influence in the explanation of the Gesellschaft when Tönnies recognizes that it can be described in three acts all managed by the capitalist class (purchase, use and sale of work in the form of richnesses).

Works

Ferdinand Tönnies Gesamtausgabe (TG), ED. Lars Clausen, Alexander Deichsel, Cornelius Bickel, Carsten Schlüter-Knauer, Uwe Carstens, 24 Tom., Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 1998 -

Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft , Darmstadt 2005
DER Nietzsche - Kultus , " Tönnies-Forum" 2005/1
Thomas Hobbes, der Mann und der Denker 1910
Kritik DER Öffentlichen Meinung , Berlin/New York ( Ferdinand Tönnies Gesamtausgabe , Tom. 14) 2002
Einführung in die Soziologie , 1931
Geist DER Neuzeit , Berlin/New York ( Ferdinand Tönnies Gesamtausgabe , Tom. 22) 1998

References

Emile Durkheim “ the Community and company according to Tönnies. ”, 1889
Ronald Fletcher, The making off sociology , vol. 2, London, Michael Joseph, 1987
Georg Simmel, Philosophy of Geldes , Leipzig, 1900.
Georg Simmel, Conflict and the Web off group affiliation , NY, Free Near, 1955.
max Weber, Verein für Socialpolitik , 1890.