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American Sociological Review
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF FERDINAND TONNIES*
RUDOLF HEBERLE
University of Kiel
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Io AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
"Hafenarbeiter und Seeleute in Hamburg vor dem Streik I896-97." drchio far Sozial-
wissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, X, 1897; "Der Hamburger Streik von I896-97 ebenda. Nebst
verschiedenen anderen Aufsitzen fiber den Streik in dieser Zeitschrift"; and "Die Ostseehifen
Flensburg, Kiel, Luibeck," in "Die Lage der in der Seeschifffahrt beschaftigten Arbeiter,"
Schriften des Vereinsfiur Sozialpolitik, Band I04, I903.
4 "Studie zur schleswig-holsteinischen Agrarstatistik," irchit fur Sozialwissenschaft und
Sozialpolitik, XXX, 9Io0.
6 "Verbrechertum in Schleswig-Holstein." Arch.ffir. S. und S., LII, I924 and LVIII, I927.
"Die schwere Kriminalitat von Minnern in Schleswig-Holstein in den Jahren I899-I9I4
in Verbindung mit Dr. E. Jurkat," Zeitschriftfuir Volkerpsychologie und Soziologie, I929.
"Ortsherkunft von Verbrechern in Schleswig-Holstein," Deutsches statistisches Zentralblatt,
I929.
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF FERDINAND TONNIES II
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12 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF FERDINAND TONNIES 13
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14 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF FERDINAND TONNIES is
that they also are mere classificatory concepts. The last of these is
certainly not Tonnies' meaning. Though he sometimes designates
the family or the village as a "Gemeinschaft," the city or the state
as a "Gesel/schaft," this is only as a paradigm. To him "Gemeinschaft"
and "Gesellschaft" are pure concepts of ideal types which, as such,
do not exist in the empirical world. They can, therefore, find no
employment as classificatory concepts. Rather are they to be re-
garded as traits, which, in empirical social entities, are found in
varying proportions. If one should, e.g., define the family as a
"Gemeinschaft," the road to sociological understanding would
thereby be barred; it is the peculiar task of the sociologists to find
out how far the family in a concrete situation (e.g., the wage earner's
family in a great city) approaches more nearly to the type of "Gesell-
schaft" than a family in another situation (e.g., on a farm).24 If one
takes the concepts in this sense, it will then be possible to apply them
to historical phenomena without doing violence to the logic of the
system.
A peculiar difficulty lies in the fact that the two categories are not
strictly antithetical, inasmuch as a purely "gesellschaftliche" em-
pirical condition of social life is for Tonnies inconceivable. For, since
man, in his behavior, is never motivated alone by intellect and reason
but, whatever the stage of social development, by inclinations and
emotions, that is to say, fundamentally by "Wesenwillen" and only
partially by "Kfirwillen," all empirical "associations" must have a
"Gemeinschafts," or "community," basis.25
The social entities are classified as (i) social relations ("VerhAlt-
nisse"); (2) social "Samtschaften"; and (3) social corporations
("Kdrperschaften"). These social relations are to be conceptually dis-
tinguished from natural and psychic relations. Natural relation by
common blood does not per se constitute a social relation. A social
relation springs from a psychic relation "in the measure in which the
latter is felt not only as such but is also willed to exist and persist"
. * . and in so far as certain common and mutual rights and duties of
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i6 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF FERDINAND TONNIES 17
that they have definite obligations and from which they acquire
certain rights. Thus a man says, "My friendship to X binds me to
do or refrain from doing this or that." When social relations are
legally sanctioned as, e.g., marriage, or the relation of employer and
employee, the identity in principle of their mode of existence with
the corporations becomes obvious. And with that we define the point
where the objects of sociology and social psychology diverge. Sociol-
ogy deals with types of social relationship, not with the typical
psychic attitudes of the persons related.
The state, as the most important corporation, has been the object
of philosophical and sociological speculations and theories ever since
antiquity. Tdnnies considers the so-called "Al/gemeine Staatslehre"
as a part of sociology,2" so far as it deals with the "Sein" and not
with the "Sollen," i.e., with really existing states and not with ideals
of the state. Several of his most important writings are concerned
with problems of the theory of the state, and, during the great war,
T6nnies wrote an excellent comparative study of the English and
the German state.27
General (Pure) Sociology. It is the criterion of the social life of
human beings, as distinguished from the mere living together in
groups, such as occurs even among animals, that that life is regu-
lated; for this reason the theory of social norms and social values-
from which these norms derive their meaning-is the necessary com-
plement to the theory of social entities. Tbnnies was always par-
ticularly interested in the theory of social norms, and we, therefore,
find it more systematically developed in his work than is the theory
of social values.28
In this paper only the elementary features of Tbnnies' theory of
norms can be presented. Social norms are defined as all command-
ments and inhibitions, of general validity to individuals linked to-
gether in a social entity, which regulate the conduct of those individ-
uals toward one another and toward outsiders. These regulations
gain validity by the agreement (consent)-expressed or tacit-of
the individuals; they may be norms autonomous or heteronomous;
and they may be followed from conviction of their rightness or
26 The differentiation between sociology and political science apparently does not go so far
in Germany as in the United States.
27 Der englischc und der deutsche Saat, Berlin, 1917.
28 This theory has been formed remarkably by a disciple of Tonnies, E. Jurkat: Das
soziologischc Wertproblem, Dissertation, Kiel, 1930.
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i8 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF FERDINAND TONNIES I9
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF FERDINAND TONNIES 21
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF FERDINAND TONNIES 23
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24 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. WORKS:
Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, I887. 8. Auflage, Leipzig, I935.
Hobbes Leben und Lehre, I896. 3. Auflage, Stuttgart, I925.
Die Entwicklung der sozialen Frage, Leipzig, I907; 4. Auflage "bis zum
Weltkrieg," Berlin, I926.
"Das Wesen der Soziologie": (Vortrag in der Gehe-Stiftung), in Neue Zeit-
und Streitfragen, IV. Band, I907.
"Entwicklung der Soziologie in Deutschland im i9. 7ahrhundert," in Ent-
wicklung der deutschen Jolkswirtschaftslehre im 1g. 7ahrhundert. Fest-
gabe fir Gustav Schmoller, I908.
Die Sitte, Frankfurt a./Main, I909.
Der englische Staat und der deutsche Staat. Eine Studie, Berlin, I9I7.
Marx, Leben und Lehre, Berlin, I92I.
Kritik der dffentlichen Meinung, Berlin, I922.
"Zweck und Mittel im Sozialen Leben," in Hauptprobleme der Soziologie,
Erinnerungsgabefiur Max Weber, Muinchen und Leipzig, I923.
"Einteilung der Soziologie." Zeitschrift fuir die gesamte Staatswissenschaft,
LXXIX, I925; also published in Atti del V. congresso internazionale
difilosofia, Napoli, I925.
Fortschrit und Soziale Entwicklung. Geschichtsphilosophische Ansichten,
Karlsruhe, I1926.
Soziologische Studien und Kritiken, I, Jena, I925; II, Jena, I926; III, Jena,
I929.
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF FERDINAND TONNIES 25
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