Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- General introduction
- Chronology of Tönnies's life and career
- A note on the texts and further reading
- A note on translation
- Glossary
- COMMUNITY AND CIVIL SOCIETY
- Book One A general classification of key ideas
- Book Two Natural will and rational will
- Book Three The sociological basis of natural law
- Appendix: Conclusions and future prospects
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
General introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- General introduction
- Chronology of Tönnies's life and career
- A note on the texts and further reading
- A note on translation
- Glossary
- COMMUNITY AND CIVIL SOCIETY
- Book One A general classification of key ideas
- Book Two Natural will and rational will
- Book Three The sociological basis of natural law
- Appendix: Conclusions and future prospects
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Summary
The inclusion of a classic text of theoretical sociology among a series of works on political thought may seem something of an anomaly. Much of the argument of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft concentrates on human beings as social animals in their various daily habitats, with only secondary or oblique reference to the over-arching structures of political power. Nevertheless, the case for scrutinising Tönnies's early master-work through the lens of political theory is a strong one. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft was composed during the 1880s, at a moment when it was still (just) possible for a European intellectual to aspire to familiarity with, if not total mastery of, all different aspects of the natural, social and humane sciences. Although Tönnies himself was to spend a lifetime promoting academic ‘sociology’, there is no evidence to suggest that either in 1887 or later he saw his work as being confined within a single disciplinary sphere. On the contrary, he conceived of both sociology and political theory as part of a cognitive continuum that embraced geometry at one extreme and narrative history at the other; and throughout his life he insisted that the true inventors and masters of theoretical sociology were Hobbes and Hume. Both disciplines were simply particular applications of ‘philosophy’, entailing problems of logic and epistemology comparable with those encountered in, say, linguistics, mathematical physics or the theory of law.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Tönnies: Community and Civil Society , pp. ix - xxxPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001