Ferdinand Tönnies and Western European Positivism

Ferdinand Tönnies and academic ‘socialism’

“…The repressive legislation generally seems to have strengthened the position of the Social Democrats, as votes for the Social Democrats climbed from 3 per cent in 1871 to 10 per cent in 1887 (Steinbach, 1990: 4 f.). Tönnies' devotion to the causes of the labour movement was a reason for him to reject elitist philosophies: his critique of Nietzsche (Tönnies, 1897a) was attributed by Georg Simmel to his 'social democratic outlook' (Bond, 2007), and his sociology was in part conceived as a rebuttal to the anti-socialist Herbert Spencer (Bond, 2009). Tönnies positioned himself as a critical ally of the workers' movement, criticizing the state repression of the social democratic movement in a pamphlet published under the pseudonym Normannus, promoting workers' interests when cofounding the German chapter of the Society for Ethical Culture in 1892, which accorded priority to the ethical education of the working man, supporting striking dockworkers in Hamburg in 1896 and 1897, and promoting consumer cooperatives in later life (Schlüter, 1988).…”

Amerika’da Üç Tönnies: Park, Sorokin ve Parsons Alımlamaları

“…Nitekim Pierre Bourdieu'nun ABD'de kendi alımlanma biçimiyle ilgili öngörüsü de şu şekildedir: "Benimki gibi, Fransız entelektüel ya da akademik alanının belli bir durumunda, belli bir pozisyondan üretilen metinlerin Amerikan [bilimsel] alanında tahrif ve deformasyon olmadan kavranması zordur" (akt. Tönnies (1855Tönnies ( -1936 gelmektedir (Adair-Toteff, 2005;Jacobs, 1909;Mitzman, 1971;Bond, 2009). Tönnies'in konuşmasının önemi daha sonra ortaya çıkacaktır.…”

Sociology, Culture and Energy: The Case of Wilhelm Ostwald’s ‘Sociological Energetics’ – A Translation and Exposition of a Classic Text

“…In a prize-winning essay on 'Philosophical Terminology', which was first published in three parts in the leading philosophical journal Mind, Tönnies (1899Tönnies ( -1900) made reference to Ostwald's work while describing energetics as part of the challenge to the mechanistic world-view -and therefore to the simplifying tendencies of 'natural scientific reason' -posed by a new 'vitalistic impulse'. 10 Here energetics is posited as offering a challenge to the assumptions of positivism, which Tönnies sought to take up more generally in his rethinking of sociological positivism (Bond, 2009). In his opening address to the first conference of the German Sociological Society in 1910, on 'Ways and Goals of Sociology', Tönnies drew upon the example of Julius Robert Mayer's theory of energetics (which Ostwald cites as a source for his own thinking in Die Energie) to illustrate his argument that sociology cannot afford to be blind to contemporary theoretical questions drawn from other disciplines.…”

“…In a prize-winning essay on ‘Philosophical Terminology’, which was first published in three parts in the leading philosophical journal Mind , Tönnies (1899–1900: 481–6) made reference to Ostwald’s work while describing energetics as part of the challenge to the mechanistic world-view – and therefore to the simplifying tendencies of ‘natural scientific reason’ – posed by a new ‘vitalistic impulse’. 10 Here energetics is posited as offering a challenge to the assumptions of positivism, which Tönnies sought to take up more generally in his rethinking of sociological positivism (Bond, 2009).…”