Svend Ranulf

Svend Ranulf (born March 26, 1894 in Odense , † March 16, 1953 in Aarhus ) was a Danish philosopher and sociologist. From 1939 until his death he was professor of philosophy at Aarhus University , where he came into conflict with Theodor Geiger , who also taught in Aarhus, in the so-called "Danish positivism dispute" .

Career

Ranulf completed a teacher training in Odense until 1916 and then turned to philosophy. In 1922 he passed the Magister exam, in 1924 he received his doctorate. During study visits to Leipzig and Paris, his interest in sociology , never waning, arose , and he saw himself as a student of Émile Durkheim . In 1938 he applied unsuccessfully for the first Danish professorship for sociology in Aarhus, which Theodor Geiger received. Ranulf had been in a tense competitive relationship with Geiger since his emigration in 1933 and was jealous of how Geiger first gained recognition in Copenhagen , then in Aarhus, in the still weakly structured Danish social science. Ranulf did not accept the appointment of the violinist, who is often better qualified in the field, to the newly created chair - even when he was appointed to a professorship for philosophy in Aarhus in 1939. After Geiger's return from Sweden (he had to leave Denmark during the German occupation of the country) Ranulf involved him in the so-called "Danish positivism dispute". He revealed considerable gaps in specialist knowledge that were detrimental to his reputation. His second attempt to become a sociology professor failed in 1949 at the University of Copenhagen .

"Danish positivism dispute"

In his book of methods ( Socialvidenskabelig metodelære ), published in 1946, Ranulf criticized the vagueness and uncertainty of German sociology, which is oriented towards the humanities. Specifically, Ranulf was directed against the understanding of methods in Geiger's Danish-language survey Sociologi. Grundrids og Hovedproblemer from 1939. Earlier works by Geiger, in particular his contribution to Vierkandt's Concise Dictionary of Sociology from 1931, were regarded as the epitome of problematic methodology. He found that the understanding sociology of the Weimar Republic , especially Geiger's writings, was too imprecise and demanded empirical accuracy. Ranulf Geiger also accused him of having opened the door to National Socialist thinking with his sociology, albeit unintentionally. As early as 1939 Ranulf had counted Ferdinand Tönnies among the "scientific forerunners" of fascism.

Geiger, who had lost his professorship in Braunschweig in 1933 because of "national unreliability", saw the accusations as a malicious insinuation and blatant distortion of his understanding of science and as damage to his reputation in the time immediately after the end of the Second World War, in which the harassment and atrocities of Nazi barbarism took place occupied Denmark are still vividly remembered. He responded with the polemic “Ranulf contra Geiger. An attack and an offensive defense ”. In it he stated that Ranulf used a traditional understanding of methods that did not go back directly to Durkheim, but to the simplified version of his pupil François Simiand , who wanted to transfer the research methods of the natural sciences seamlessly to the social sciences. Ranulf did not address the fact that he was in contrast to Max Weber , whom he admired. In his reply, Geiger criticized Ranulf's vague terminology and theoretical conception, in which the importance of research methodology was far overestimated. Geiger pointed out that no methodological approach, no matter how sophisticated, could replace one's own reflection on the context of the problem.

After reading Geiger's polemical pamphlet, Ranulf recognized in a letter that “we are actually less divided than I had believed”, but he continued his attacks nonetheless. The conflict did not end until Geiger's death in 1952.

In retrospect, after the death of the two opponents , René König did not consider Ranulf's affinity between phenomenology and National Socialism to be absurd and called Ranulf an “extremely original Danish sociologist” and a “very astute methodological thinker”.

Fonts (selection)

• The Eleatic principle of contradiction. Gyldendalske Bogh, Copenhagen 1924.
• Moral indignation and middle class psychology: a sociological study. Copenhagen 1938.
• Hitler's struggle against objectivity. Universitetsforlaget, Aarhus 1946.
• On the survival chances of democracy. Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1948.
• Socialvidenskabelig metodelære. Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1946.
• Methods of Sociology. Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1955.

Web links

• Svend Ranulf , Gyldendal - Den Store Danske, taken over from Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, Danish, accessed December 15, 2014
• Literature by and about Svend Ranulf in the bibliographic database WorldCat

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Torben Agersnap : Ranulf, Svend. In: Wilhelm Bernsdorf , Horst Knospe (Ed.): Internationales Soziologenlexikon. Volume 1, 2nd edition. Enke, Stuttgart 1980, p. 346.
2. ^ Klaus Rodax : Theodor Geiger: Complete edition. Volume 5: Ranulf versus Geiger. An attack and an offensive defense . PL Acad. Research, Frankfurt am Main 2011, Preface, p. XIV, ( Online version of the Preface ( Memento of the original from July 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; PDF, accessed on December 17, 2014). 
3. ↑ Klaus Rodax uses this term in his preface to: Theodor Geiger: Gesamtausgabe. Volume 5: Ranulf versus Geiger. An attack and an offensive defense . PL Acad. Research, Frankfurt am Main 2011, p. VIII.
4. ^ ^{A b} René König : Sociology in Germany. Founder, advocate, despiser . Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich / Vienna 1987, p. 316 f.
5. ↑ In his preface to Volume 5 of Geiger's complete works, which he has edited, Klaus Rodax explains the methodological conflict in detail: Theodor Geiger: Gesamtausgabe. Volume 5: Ranulf versus Geiger. An attack and an offensive defense . PL Acad. Research, Frankfurt am Main 2011. Unless otherwise documented, this preface is the source of the presentation.
6. ^ Svend Ranulf: Scholarly Forerunners of Fascism. In: Ethics. Vol. 50, Chicago 1939, pp. 16-34.