Ferdinand Toennies

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Ferdinand T�nnies (July 26, 1855, near Oldenswort (Eiderstedt) - April 9, 1936, Kiel, Germany) was a German sociologist. He was a major contributor to sociological theory and field studies, as well as bringing Thomas Hobbes back on the agenda, by publishing his manuscripts. His distinction between two types of social groups � Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft � is what T�nnies is best known for. He was, however, a prolific writer and also co-founder of the German Society for Sociology. In English his name is often spelt without umlauts: Ferdinand Toennies.

Contents 1 Life 2 Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft 3 Bibliography 4 See also 4.1 References

Life

Ferdinand T�nnies was born into a wealthy farmer's family in Nordfriesland in Schleswig-Holstein, then under Danish rule. He studied at the universities of Jena, Bonn, Leipzig, Berlin, and [[University of T�bingen|T�bingen]]. He received a doctorate in T�bingen in 1877 (with a Latin thesis on the ancient Siwa Oasis). Four years later he became a private lecturer at the University of Kiel. Because he had sympathized with the Hamburg dockers' strike of 1896, the Prussian government considered him to be a social democrat, and T�nnies was not called to a professorship until 1913. He held this post at the university of Kiel for only three years. He returned to the university as a professor emeritus in 1921 and taught until 1933 when he was ousted by the Nazis, due to his earlier publications criticizing them.

T�nnies published over 900 works and contributed to many areas of sociology and philosophy. Many of his writings on sociological theories � including Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887) � furthered pure sociology. He coined the term Voluntarism. T�nnies also contributed to the study of social change, particularly on public opinion, customs and technology, crime, and suicide. He also had a vivid interest in methodology, especially statistics, and sociological research, inventing his own technique of statistical association.

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

T�nnies distinguished between two types of social groupings. Gemeinschaft � often translated as community � refers to groupings based on a feeling of togetherness. Gesellschaft � often translated as society � on the other hand, refers to groups that are sustained by an instrumental goal. Gemeinschaft may by exemplified by a family or a neighbourhood; Gesellschaft by a joint-stock company or a state.

His distinction between social groupings is based on the assumption that there are only two basic forms of an actor's will, to approve of other men. (For T�nnies, such an approval is by no means self-evident, he is quite influenced by Thomas Hobbes' homo homini lupus.) Following his "essential will" ("Wesenwille"), an actor will see himself as a means to serve the goals of social grouping; very often it is an underlying, subconscious force. Groupings formed around an essential will are called a Gemeinschaft. The other will is the "arbitrary will" ("K�rwille"): An actor sees a social grouping as a means to further his individual goals; so it is purposive and future-oriented. Groupings around the latter are called Gesellschaft. Whereas the membership in a Gemeinschaft is self-fulfilling, a Gesellschaft is instrumental for its members. In pure sociology � theoretically �, these two normal types of will are to be strictly separated; in applied sociology � empirically � they are always mixed.

Bibliography

T�nnies' Complete Workes (Ferdinand T�nnies Gesamtausgabe (TG), 24 vols., since 1998, critically edited by Lars Clausen, Alexander Deichsel, Cornelius Bickel, Rolf Fechner, and Carsten Schl�ter-Knauer; Publisher: Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York)

• T�nnies, F. (1887) Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft �, 2nd ed. 1912, 6 further editions; his basic and never essentially changed study of social man; translated in 1957 as Community and Society, ISBN 0887387500
• T�nnies, F. (1910) Thomas Hobbes, der Mann und der Denker ISBN � a philosophical study that reveals his indebtedness to Hobbes, many of whose writings he has edited
• T�nnies, F. (1922) Kritik der �ffentlichen Meinung �, 2nd ed. 2003 (TG 14); translated as On Public Opinion; applied sociology revealing T�nnies' thorough scholarship and his commitment as an analyst and critic of modern public opinion
• T�nnies, F. (1924, 1926, 1929) Soziologische Studien und Kritiken � collection in three volumes of those papers he considered most relevant
• T�nnies, F. (1931) Einf�hrung in die Soziologie � his fully elaborated introduction into sociology as a social science
• T�nnies, F. (1935) Geist der Neuzeit, 2nd ed. 1998 (in: TG 22); a study in applied sociology, analysing the transformation from European Middle Ages to modern times

Secondary: Fechner, Rolf: Ferdinand T�nnies - Werkverzeichnis'#, Berlin/New York (Walter de Gryuter) 1992, ISBN 3-11-013519-1

See also

• [[Ferdinand-T�nnies-Gesellschaft]]
• Voluntarism[[ast:Ferdinand T�nnies]]

[[cs:Ferdinand T�nnies]] [[de:Ferdinand T�nnies]] [[es:Ferdinand T�nnies]] [[fr:Ferdinand T�nnies]] [[it:Ferdinand T�nnies]] [[nds:Ferdinand T�nnies]] [[no:Ferdinand T�nnies]] [[nn:Ferdinand T�nnies]] [[pl:Ferdinand T�nnies]]

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Ferdinand_Toennies" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Toennies, used under the GNU Free Documentation License