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Leopold von Wiese and the ambivalence of functionalist sociology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Harry Liebersohn
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Extract

‘Spencer is dead’, wrote Talcott Parsons at the beginning of The Structureof Social Action, ‘but who killed him and how ? This is the problem’. In this study, which was both the foundation of Parsons’ structural-functionalism and a major reinterpretation of the history of modern social science, Spencer stood for a vanquished schoolof social thought. He represented positivism at the suicidal extreme where its naive individualism fell apart, paradoxically passing over into its antithesis, a biological determinism precluding individual initiative. His thought had died at the intersection of individual and society.Beyond this point, Parsons discovered the rise of a new social theory in Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim and Weber. From these four thinkers, working independently of one another, Parsons tried to put together the pieces of a system, succeeding where Spencer had decisively failed, reconciling personal agency and social order.

Type
Soziologische Selbstbespiegelung
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , May 1982 , pp. 123 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1982

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References

(1) Parsons, Talcott, The Structure of Social Action: a study in social theory with special reference to a group of recent European writers (1937; New York 1968), p. 3Google Scholar.

(2) Wiese's sociological system, All gemeine Soziologie, is an immediate prede- Funkcessor of structural-functionalism; Walter Buckley over-anticipates when he writes that the English translation introduced functionalism to American sociologists. Cf. Id., Structural-Functional Analysis in Modern Sociology, in Becker, Howard and Boskoff, Alvin (eds), Modern Sociological Theory in Continuity and Change (New York 1957), p. 238Google Scholar. The line of descent from Wiese to structural-functionalism and beyond it to systems theory is fairly clear. Cf. the interpretation in Luhmann, Niklas, Funktion, und Kausalitat, , in Soziologische Aufklärung I (Cologne and Opladen, 1974), p. 10Google Scholar.

(3) On the Research Institute for Social Sciences in Cologne, see: Heine von ALESociology, Mann, Leopold von Wiese und das Forschungsinstitut für Sozialwissenschaften in Kö1n 1919 bis 1934, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, XXVIII (1976), 649–673Google Scholar. On Wiese's activities after the Second World War, see: Hohkhemer, Max, Survey of the Social Sciences in West Germany (Washington 1952), p. 2Google Scholar; and Konig, Rene, Germany, in Roucek, Joseph S. (ed.), Contemporary Sociology (New York 1958), p. 780Google Scholar.

(4) For biographical details, see Wiese, Leopold von, Erinnerungen (Cologne and Opladen 1957)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most complete bibliography of Wiese'sworks appears in Geck, L.H. Ad., Kempski, Jürgen von and Meuteb, Hanna (eds.), Festgabe für Leopold von Wiese aus Anlaβ seines 70. Lebensjahres (Mainz 1948)Google Scholar. For a bibliography of English-language works by and about Wiese, see Wiese, Leopold von, Sociology, ed. Mueller, Franz (New York 1941), pp. 115–118Google Scholar.

(5) Wiese, , Erinnerungen, p. 4Google Scholar.

(6) Ibid. p. 29.

(7) On the ‘new course’ in social policy and its impact on the educated middle class, see Born, Karl Erich, Staat und Sozial politik sett Bismarcks Sturz (Wiesbaden 1957), passimGoogle Scholar.

(8) Ibid.; on Stumm, see Hellwig, Fritz, Carl Ferdinand Freiherr von Stumm (Heidelseeberg and Saarbrucken 1936)Google Scholar.

(9) Cf. Wiese, , Erinnerungen, pp. 32 ffGoogle Scholar.

(10) Ibid. pp. 33–34. Wiese never categorically rejected all social reform. He merely redefined it to restrict it to Leitmeasures which would encourage ‘self-help’ from the working classes. Thus he remained an advocate of one of the standard liberal demands of the day, complete legal recognition of the unions (still subject to harassment from business and the state). Cf. Wiese, , Bemerkungen über die Leitmeasures gedanken der Sozialpolitik der Gegenwart, Deutsche Wirtschaftszeitung, III (1907), pp. 967–975Google Scholar.

(11) See Verhandlungen des Vereins fur Sozialpolitik, CXXXII (1909), pp. 238 ffGoogle Scholar.

(12) See Saul, Klaus, Staat Industrie Arbeiterbewegung im Kaiserreich (Dusseldorf 1974). PP. 365–366Google Scholar.

(13) Wiese, Leopold von, Individualismus und Staatssozialismus, Verhandlungen des Evangelisch-Sozialen Kongresses, XXIII (1912), pp. 13 ffGoogle Scholar. For press reactions, see Tdgliche Rundschau, 05 31, 1912 (evening); Vorwarts, june 2, 1912; Berliner Tageblatt, june 2, 1912 (morning); Frank furter Zeitung, June 1, 1912 (evening). See also the many reports quoted at length in the Congress newsletter, Evangelisch Sozial, XXI (1912), pp. 188 ff.Google Scholar, and ibid. pp. 227 ff.

(14) Friedrich Naumann, Die Hilfe, June 6, 1912, reprinted Ibid. pp. 231–232.

(15) Simmel, Georg, Soziologie: Untersuchungen Über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung (Leipzig 1908), p. 1Google Scholar.

(16) The habilitation (Habilitations sckrift) is written after the dissertation and qualifies German teachers for a regular academic appointment.

(17) Zur Grundlegung der Gesellschafts theorie: eine kritische Untersuchung vonHerbert Spencers System der synthetischen Philosophie (Jena 1906), pp. 1–3Google Scholar; Wiese, , Erinnerungen, p. 34Google Scholar.

(18) Wiese, , Zur Grundlegung, pp. 1–37Google Scholar.

(19) Spencer, Herbert, The Study of Society (1873; London and Edinburgh 1880), p. 50Google Scholar.

(20) Ibid. p. 59.

(21) Wiese, , Zur Grundlegung, pp. 45–56Google Scholar.

(22) Ibid. p. 60.

(23) Ibid. p. 64.

(24) Cf. Hamann, Richard and Hermand, Jost, Epochen deutscher Kultur von 1870 bis zur Gegenwart I Griinderzeit (Munich 1971), pp. 22–45Google Scholar. The idea of ‘personality’ (Persönlichkeit) has complex sources in Protestant theology, philosophical idealism and the secularaesthetic culture of the eighteenth century. For a fuller treatment of the religious and idealist aspects, see Liebersohn, Harry, Personality and Society: the Protestant Social Congress, 1890–1914 (Ph. D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1979), passimGoogle Scholar.

(25) Cf. Timm, Hermann, Theorie und Praxis in der Theologie Albrecht Ritschls und Wilhelm Herrmanns. Ein Beitrag zur Entaiicklungsgeschichte des Kultwprotestantismus (Gütersloh 1967)Google Scholar.

(26) Wiese, Leopold von, Individualismus und Staatssozialismus, Verhandlungen des Evangelisch-Sozialen Kongresses, XXIII (1912), p. 18Google Scholar. Wiese had good memories of the social work he had done with the Protestant Social Women's League in Berlin. Cf. Erinnerungen, p. 33.

(27) Wiese, L. v., Individualismus und Staatssozialismus, p. 30Google Scholar.

(28) See Baumgarten's, response to the democratic educational program of Friedrich Paulsen in Verhandlungen des Evangelisch-Sozialen Kongresses, X (1899), 114–115Google Scholar.

(29) Wiese, , Erinnerungen, p.35Google Scholar.

(30) Cf. Wiese, Leopold von, Allgemeine Soziologie als Lehre von den Beziehungen und Beziehungsgebilden der Menschen II: Gebildelehre (Munich and Leipzig 1929), viiGoogle Scholar.

(31) Wiese, Leopold von, Die Rodias auf Ceylon, Archiv für Rassen- und Gesell- schaftsbiologie, XXI (1914/1915), p. 45Google Scholar.

(32) Ibid.

(33) Wiese, Leopold von, Das Problem der Auslese in seiner Bedeutung für die Sozialpolitik, Internationale Vereinigung filr vergleichende Rechtsmssenschaft und Volkswirtschaftslehre in Berlin, Heidelberg, I (1911), p. 536Google Scholar.

(34) Ibid. p. 537.

(35) Ibid.

(36) In addition to Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, see Hughes, H. Stuart, Consciousness and Society: the reorientation of European social thought 1890–1930 (New York 1958)Google Scholar;and Haskeix, Thomas L., The Emergence of Professional Social Science: the American Social Science Association and the nineteenth-century crisis of authority (Urbana, 111. 1977)Google Scholar.

(37) Wiese, , Erinnerungen, pp. 27 ffGoogle Scholar.

(38) Achinger, Hans, Wilhelm Merton in seiner Zeit (Frankfurt a.M. 1965), pp. 108–121, 128Google Scholar

(39) Ibid. pp. 280, 283; Wiese, , Erinne rungen, pp. 29–32Google Scholar.

(40) Achingek, , Wilhelm Merton, p. 284Google Scholar.

(41) Ibid. pp. 81–87.

(42) Wiesb, , Erinnerungen, pp. 35–37Google Scholar.

(43) See Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Von den ‘Reichsfeinden’ zur ‘Reichskristall- nacht’: Polenpolitik im deutschen Kaiser- reich, 1871–1918, in Krisenherde des Kaiser- reichs 1871–1918: Studien zur deutschen Sozial- und Verfassungsgeschichte (Göttingen 1970), pp. 181–199Google Scholar.

(44) Wiese, , Erinnerungen, p. 37Google Scholar.

(45) Wiese, Leopold von, La colonisation interieure en Prusse, Revue économique Internationale, IV (1907), p. 616Google Scholar.

(46) Ibid. p.617.

(47) Max Weber used the phrase ‘vocation ethic’ to make a connection between the abandonreligious calling of the ascetic Protestant and the ceaseless labor of the modern capitalist. My argument here, turning Weber back on his own generation, is that there is a Protestant ethic hidden in the ‘spirit’ of sociology. Wiese's resentment of jobs imposed on him by the necessity, as Adorno puts it, ‘to keep his life going’ (see motto), was overriden by his culturally conditioned thankfulness, his belief that his vocation fulfilled a higher calling. He retained this belief even though he abandonreligious ed the Protestant cosmology in which it originated. Below I shall try to show how the vocation ethic also pervaded his sociology, where Protestant vocation got turned into sociological function.

(48) Wiese, Leopold Von, Wahlrecht, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 1st ed. (Tubingen 1909–1913)Google Scholar.

(49) Wiese, Leopold von, Liberalismus und Demokratismus in ihren Zusammen- hangen und Gegensätzen, Zeitschrift für Politik, IX (1916), p. 424Google Scholar.

(50) Wiese, , Erinnerungen, pp. 50, 58Google Scholar.

(51) Wiese, Leopold von, Probleme der Sozialisierung, Verhandlungen des Vereins für Sozialpolitik, CLIX (1919), pp. 144–146, 251–260, esp. 259–260Google Scholar.

(52) Wiese, Leopold von, Einführung in Die die Sozialpolitik (Leipzig 1921), p. 74Google Scholar.

(53) Cf. Eckert, Willehad Paul, Kleine Geschichte der Universität Kōln, (Cologne 1961), pp. 150 ff.Google Scholar; Eckert, Christian, Die Wiedererrichtung der Universitāt, in Uni- versitāt Köln 1919–1929 (Cologne 1929), 57 and passimGoogle Scholar.; University of Cologne, Die Univetsität Köln im ersten Jahrfünft nach ihrer Wiederaufrichtung 1919 bis 1924 (Cologne 1925), 4Google Scholar.

(54) Universität Köln im ersten JahrfÜnft, 8; Napp-Zinn, Anton Felix, ‘Christian Eckert’ (Gedenkrede) (Mainz 1952), 13–14Google Scholar; Wiese, , Erinnerungen, 52Google Scholar.

(55) Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziolo-gie, III (1923), 5–6Google Scholar; Wiese, , Erinnerungen, 59–60Google Scholar.

(56) universität Koln im ersten Jahrfünft, pp. 5, 24–25; Eckert, , Kleine Geschichte der Universität Köln, pp. 170–175Google Scholar; Wiese, , Erinnerungen, p. 59Google Scholar.

(57) Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie, II (1922), 109–110Google Scholar.

(58) Wiese, Leopold von, Allgemeine Soziologie als Lehre von den Beziehungen und Beziehungsgebilden der Menschen I: Beziehungslehre (Munich and Leipzig 1924), and IIGoogle Scholar: Gebildelehre (Munich and Leipzig 1929)Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as AS I and AS II.

(59) AS I, 44–45. On Waxweiler, see: Frost, Henry H. Jr, The Functional Sociology of Emile Waxweiler and the Institut de Sociologie Solvay, in Académe royale de Belgique Classe des lettres et des sciences morales et politiques Mémoires, 55 no. 5 (1960)Google Scholar.

(60) AS I, 74.

(61) Ibid. 102–117.

(62) Ibid. 130–210.

(63) Cf. the chart of social relations at the end of AS I, where association always leads to dependency, dissociation to ‘self-determination’.

(64) AS I, 45.

(65) Ibid. ch. 7, makes the transition from relations to structural processes; see also AS II, 17.

(66) AS I, vii.

(67) Hintze, Otto, review of AS II ap. Idem., Zeitschrift fülr die gesamte Staatswissenschqft, LXXXVII (1929), 402–406Google Scholar.

(68) AS. I, 28–29; cf. ASH, 247, 249–260.

(69) Wiese later upheld the distinction between organicism and organic analogy, Idem., Herbert Spencers Einführung in die Soziologie (Cologne and Opladen, 1960), p. 27Google Scholar.

(70) AS I, 52–53, 211 ff.

(71) Cf. AS II, 247, 249–260.

(72) AS I, 259.

(73) Wiese, Leopold von, Zur Psychologie und Ethik der Berufe und Stānde I: Der GroBunternehmer, Recht und Wirtschaft, III (1914), pp. 162–167Google Scholar.

(74) Ibid. 166.

(75) AS I, 185.

(76) Ibid. 190.

(77) Wiese, Leopold von, Das Wesen der Revolution, Verhandlungen des 3. deutschen Soziologentages in Jena, 1922 (Tubingen 1923), 12–14Google Scholar.

(78) Ibid. 16–18; cf. the discussion of social inequality in AS I, 219–223, and the redefinition of ‘liberation’ in AS I, 289.

(79) AS I, 1.

(80) AS I, 19.

(81) Adorno, Theodor, Gesellschaft, Gesammelte Schriften, VIII (Frankfurt a.M. 1972)Google Scholar, 12; ibid., Einleitung zu èimile Dur- kheim, ‘Soziologie und Philosophic’ (1967), 250.

(82) AS I, 17.

(83) Wiese, , Zur Grundlegung, 2Google Scholar. Wiese was fond of spiritual lineages. Elsewhere he traced the vocation of the writer back to the priesthood of ancient societies. See idem., Der Schriftsteller und der Stoat (Berlin 1918)Google Scholar.

(84) AS II, 78.

(85) Ibid.

(86) Cf. Wiese's conclusion, ibid., 271–273.

(87) Ibid. 113.

(88) Ibid. 247, 249–260.

(89) Ibid. 74.

(90) AS I, 56–58.

(91) AS II, 71–72.

(92) Wiese, Leopold von and Becker, Howard, Systematic Sociology (New York 1932), 7Google Scholar.

* The motto beneath the title is from Theodor ADORNO, Gesellschaft reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften, VIII (Frankfurt a. M. 1972), p. 10. The translation is mine.