Spirit of the modern age

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Geist der Neuzeit (GdN) is thelast major work by the 80-year-old Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936), published in 1935 . In it, the founder of sociology in Germanyundertakesto define sociologically and conceptuallythe decisive upheaval from the European Middle Ages to the global modern age and to develop it in detail. Strictly speaking, it is the general, theoretical first part of a two-part planned work. Volume II should present exemplary individual examinations; however, it was assumed that his manuscript was lost in the course of the persecution of Tönnies and his students by the National Socialists.

After years of research, the then scientific advisor to the Ferdinand Tönnies Society , Uwe Carstens , discovered the missing GdN parts II, III and IV in the Federal Archives in 2013 . They were published as volume 22/2 as part of the Ferdinand Tönnies complete edition in July 2016.

Goal of the work

The “spirit of the modern age” was presumably already envisaged by Tönnies in the 1880s, so that it would have flanked his basic work on “pure sociology”, community and society (GuG) from 1887. GuG had the task of establishing the subject of sociology axiomatically and defining its object of knowledge - the answer to the question why people affirm one another - in a conceptually unmistakable way; But GdN - as “applied sociology” - should deductively apply the terms gained to a specific and central social process, namely to the emergence of modernity .

Author's location

Tönnies never completely gave up on other work projects, most notably shortly before the First World War was written down, and it was not until 1935, at the insistence of his students, that he combined his preparatory studies for this work with their editorial help.

Content-related approach

Tönnies proceeds in six steps:

  1. The first section (§§ 1–12) is conceptual (what are “Antiquity”, “Middle Ages” or “Modern Times”?). According to Tönnies, antiquity (seen in comparison) had its own 'Middle Ages' and its own 'modern times'.
  2. Second section (§§ 13–35): Tönnies sees the essential mental difference between the Middle Ages and the modern age in the fact that people who were influenced by the Middle Ages understood all social associations as institutions for the purpose of which the individual was there as their means. This allowed them to socially affirm one another. In Tönnies' terms, they viewed all social collectives ( clusters , social associations, etc. - even business enterprises) as “communities” . This conception of the world was initially only slowly ( evolutionarily ) dwindled, while individualism , the time of the "great personalities", was able to develop.
  3. Third section (§§ 36–51): The modern age then began in a revolutionary way : Now people saw themselves as an end, they had increasingly viewed all collectives as a mere means, especially in the economic, but then also in the political and mental area. This also allowed them to affirm each other, but now they regard all collectives (including families) as “societies”.
  4. Fourth section (§§ 52–57): The spirit of the modern age is globalized via long-distance trade .
  5. Fifth section (§§ 58-72): Here Tönnies develops the "moving forces of social development " - the natural, then the social - first simply, then especially for the modern age, and finally in their spiritual form.
  6. Finally (§§ 71–82) Tönnies examines the relationships between economic, political and spiritual-moral life, emphasizes interactions and overcomes the “sociological understanding of history”.

That throughout of "socially" influenced conceptions of social Vergesellung (affirmation) embossed "Modern Times" will take their end in a few centuries, Tonnies foresees. To quote his closing sentences, written under the National Socialist dictatorship : In contrast , the true sociologist must all the more unconditionally and decisively take the side of science, whatever its effects; even if one not only admits, but positively insists, that the power of science preferably belongs to the declining branch of an overall social development, for the decline is also necessary by nature, that is, legally conditioned, and there is still no reason to give up the assumption that it always the indispensable condition of a new ascent and progress , thus under certain circumstances a new great cultural epoch . Rather, this confidence is based on an understanding of the general conditions of human development.

effect

Since Tönnies had actually not been able to publish scientifically in the German Reich since 1933, it was particularly lucky that an antiquarian and small publisher like Hans Buske in Leipzig dared to publish the book by Professor Tönnies, who had been dismissed by the Nazis. In terms of the history of its impact, this was also a misfortune that this important study by Tönnies' 1935 was purchased by very few libraries, appeared almost entirely in camera and was not reviewed. It was not until 1971 that Georg Jacoby's in- depth study on “modern society” closed this reception gap. Since 1998 the “Spirit of the Modern Era” has been available in the context of the critical complete edition of science.

Remarks

  1. ↑ See the editorial report in Volume 22 of the Ferdinand Tönnies Complete Edition , 1998, p. 520.
  2. ↑ Lost book emerged , article kn-online, accessed on November 14, 2013, see also: Uwe Carstens: “The second department of GdN must be considered lost”. The search for a lost manuscript, in: Tönnies-Forum 2/2013, pp. 49–53.
  3. ↑ Ferdinand Tönnies Complete Edition , Volume 22, 1998, p. 518.
  4. ↑ The "mutual affirmation " was in need of explanation for Tönnies because he saw the mutual negation, the " struggle of all against all " of Thomas Hobbes , as the natural state of man.
  5. ↑ Ernst Jurkat , Georg Jacoby , Heinrich Striefler ; Great merit also goes to his last academic private secretary, Else Brenke - Ferdinand Tönnie's Complete Edition , Volume 22, 1998, p. 519.
  6. ↑ d. i. towards the actual attitude of all conservative and reactionary spirits - Ferdinand Tönnies Gesamtausgabe , Volume 22, 1998, p. 218.
  7. ↑ Ferdinand Tönnies Complete Edition , Volume 22, 1998, p. 577.

Critical edition

  • Ferdinand Tönnies, Complete Edition Volume 22. 1932-1936. Spirit of the Modern Age • Writings • Reviews , ed. Lars Clausen , Walter de Gruyter , Berlin / New York 1998, pp. 3-223, 518-520.
  • Ferdinand Tönnies, Complete Edition Volume 22.2. 1932-1936. Spirit of the Modern Era, Part II, III and IV , ed. Bärbel Carstens and Uwe Carstens, Verlag Walter de Gruyter , Berlin / New York 2016.

literature

  • Eduard Georg Jacoby : The modern society in social science thinking by Ferdinand Tönnies , Enke, Stuttgart 1971