Empirical social research in Weimar-Germany 9783111558547, 9783111187990

Table of contents :
Table of contents
Introduction
CHAPTER I. German sociology 1883-1933
CHAPTER II. German sociology and German social research
CHAPTER III. Non-sociological social research
References

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EMPIRICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH IN WEIMAR-GERMANY

Publications of the International Social Science 15

MOUTON PARIS-THE HAGUE MCMLXXII

Council

S U S A N N E PETRA SCHAD

Empirical Social Research in Weimar-Germany

MOUTON PARIS-THE HAGUE MCMLXXII

All quotations from German texts have been translated by the author

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-93157 © 1972 Mouton and École Pratique des Hautes Études Printed in the Netherlands

For: Guilietta and Yolanda

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION

1

1. The general problem 2. The emergence of sociology in Germany 3. Social research in the area of social problems

1 5 7

CHAPTER I: German sociology 1883-1933

10

1. The role of sociology in the university 2. Statistics and sociology A. Statistics in Germany 1650-1850 B. Statistics in Germany after 1871 C. Statistics and sociology: the emerging rivalry D. Robert Michels and Moralstatistik E. Statistics and sociology 1918-1930 3. The major schools of sociological thought 4. The 'Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie' A. The Methodenstreit Β. The attitude towards empiricism C. Conclusions 5. The 'Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie' 6. The 'Jahrbuch für Soziologie' 7. The 'Archiv für angewandte Soziologie'

10 17 18 22 25 30 33 35 42 44 46 48 49 52 53

CHAPTER II: German sociology and German social research

56

1. Leopold von Wiese and Kaiserswaldau, 1876-1968 A. Von Wiese's life and professional career Β. The Beziehungslehre C. Von Wiese's students D. Conclusions 2. Ferdinand Tönnies, 1855-1936

58 59 61 63 65 66

vin

Table of contents

Α. Tönnies's life and professional career B. Tönnies's concept of Erfahrung and 'social-ethics' C. Tönnies's empirical studies D. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft E. Conclusions 3. The 'Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt A. The Institut 1924-1931 Β. Horkheimer's conception of the role of the Institut C. Horkheimer's concrete research objectives D. Authority and the Family E. The social-psychological framework F. The relationship between the cultural sphere and the socio-economic base G. The empirical studies H. Summary

87 88 92

CHAPTER III: Non-sociological social research

97

1. Psychology, psychiatry, medicine and education: general introduction A. The concern with social problems a. Medicine b. Psychiatry c. Psychology and education B. Resort-envy and the willingness to draw upon the experiences of other fields C. The acceptance of the methods of the pure sciences D. The integration of theory and praxis and the cooperation with government agencies 2. Psychology and education A. Differenzielle Psychologie a. Testing b. Survey methods {Erhebungsmethode oder Umfragemethode) c. Typologies B. Empirical research 1920-1932 C. Hans Busse, Das literarische Verständnis der werktätigen Jugend D. Adolf Busemann: Handbuch der jugendlichen Milieukunde E. Research methods in the field of Milieukunde 3. The development in Austria

68 69 72 73 75 76 76 78 82 83 84

99 100 100 101 103 105 106 108 110 112 114 114 115 116 117 120 122 124

Table of contents

ix

4. Medicine and psychiatry A. Medical social research a. The concern with the cost of illness b. Medical sociology and the emergence of medizinische Psychologie Β. Research in psychiatry a. The concept of 'social psychiatry' b. Empirical research in the area of social pathology c. Gruhle's study on juvenile delinquency d. The collection of data e. The research design f. The variables under investigation g. The data analysis h. Adalbert Gregor and Else Voigtländer: Leitfaden der Fürsorgeerziehung i. Adelheid Fuchs-Kamp: Lebensschicksale und Persönlichkeit ehemaliger Fürsorgezöglinge j. Summary

128 128 129

REFERENCES

149

131 135 135 137 138 138 140 141 142 143 145 146

Introduction

1.

THE GENERAL PROBLEM

One of the most striking characteristics of German sociology in the early phases of its development (1910-1930) is the fact that it developed almost exclusively as a theoretical discipline. At the meetings of the German Sociological Society, for example, during the first 20 years of its existence the role of empirical social research was discussed occasionally in general theoretical terms, but not one paper delivered at the meetings was actually based on an empirical study. It is the purpose of this paper to explain why German sociologists chose to devote their energies to the pursuit of theoretical questions and why they did not establish an empirical tradition comparable to what developed in the United States. Furthermore we have to ask why those German sociologists who actually conducted empirical social research employed methods which were strikingly less sophisticated than those developed at much the same time in Germany in fields other than sociology, notably psychology, psychiatry and medicine. We delimit first what is meant by 'German sociology' or, more accurately, 'German sociologists', in order to distinguish them from other social scientists and scholars in neighboring fields who engaged in studies which today would be subsumed under the label of empirical social research or even empirical sociology. When we use the term sociologist in this context we refer to those individuals who share the following characteristics: 1) Self-identification as sociologists, or employment by the university in that position; 2) Active participation in the meetings of the German Sociological Society; and 3) Acknowledgement by German and foreign contemporaries as bonafide representatives of the field. This three-part definition of the term sociologist is necessary because even though its first official chair for teaching was created in 1919 in the German university, German sociology is much older than that. The first major works in German sociology were published in 1884 and 1887 (Tönnies, 1884;

2

Introduction

Gumplowicz, 1899) and the German Sociological Society was founded in 1910, for the purpose of establishing sociology as an autonomous academic enterprise, independent of the existing and established disciplines. The subjects of our investigation then are the sociologists as we defined them above, rather than the scholars who produced research which we today would call sociology. The almost exclusive emphasis on theory by German sociologists during the time span under consideration (1910-1930) constitutes a noteworthy phenomenon for number of reasons: 1) Prior to World War I a notable but largely neglected tradition of empirical social research existed in Germany; 2) For the German sociologists empirical research methods were potentially useful for the purpose of answering more accurately many of the questions which they dealt with from the beginning; 3) The collection of empirical data concerning society constituted a socially acknowledged necessity; and 4) Most of the German sociologists were, if not familiar, at least aware of the research methods developed by their foreign colleagues. Before we proceed by outlining the theoretical framework within which we will try to explain why German sociology was so reluctant to engage in empirical social research we should elaborate and substantiate the four statements which we just made. 1. Oberschall (1965) and Lazarsfeld & Oberschall (1965) have shown in great detail that in Germany during the years 1848-1914 the interest in empirical social research was growing steadily and that men like Tönnies and Weber, professional organizations like the Verein für Sozialpolitik (Association for social policy legislation) and interested laymen created a substantial number of empirical studies dealing with a wide range of topics, such as living conditions of the working class and the rural laborers, crime and suicide. Even though, as Lazarsfeld and Oberschall pointed out, none of these scholars succeeded in successfully solving a number of methodological problems such as attitude measurement, coding procedures, and data analysis, the reader is left with the impression that in view of the interest in empirical studies on the part of the researchers under discussion the problem of methodological knowhow was not going to constitute a roadblock for the development of a sound tradition of empirical social research. Yet, our analysis of the development of German sociology from 1910-1930 will demonstrate that this was not so. On the contrary, the interest in empirical social research on the part of the German sociologists, as we defined them, declined after 1914 and only re-emerged in the last years of the Weimar Republic. With respect to the development of research methods it seems fair to state that

The general problem

3

the advancements that were made in that area by sociology were all but negligible. 2. Empirical social research would have been very useful for the German sociologists for the purpose of answering more accurately many of those questions which they were dealing with from the beginning. The most prominent examples are the attempts to analyse and evaluate the effects of the industrial revolution and the increasing urbanization on society. If we consider Ferdinand Tönnies's Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1884) not only as one of the starting points of German sociology but also as one of the guiding theoretical frameworks for this discipline during the period under consideration, then it seems indeed extraordinary that none of his basic assumptions about the origin and differences between community and society were ever tested empirically. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft was considered to be a classic even outside of academic circles and according to Peter Gay it 'made its fortune in the Weimar Republic' (Gay, 1970). The fact that Tönnies's basic propositions were never verified either by himself or one of his students is particularly puzzling since most of his propositions could have been easily translated into testable hypotheses. Furthermore Tönnies was one of the few German sociologists who actively engaged in empirical social research. (For further details, see our chapter on Tönnies: Ch. II, Sec. 2.) 3. During the first three decades of the 20th century no industrialized western society tried to cope with its social problems without attempting to gather a body of detailed factual information based on quantitative empirical social research. If we only take the problems of poverty, crime and delinquency as examples, a perusal of the literature reveals that in France, England, America and Germany, the number of empirical studies dealing with the origin, nature and social consequences of those phenomena increased with an unprecedented speed during the years 1900 and 1930 (Ziegenfuss, 1956). Germany, perhaps more than other western countries, was faced with a multitude of social problems which were due primarily to its rapid industrialization, the war, the revolution of 1919, the change from a monarchy to a democracy, the inflation and the subsequent economic and political crises which plagued the Weimar Republic throughout its existence and finally led to its downfall. Yet in 1930 in Germany there was not one authoritative empirical study dealing with any of the major problems which had been conducted by a sociologist. 4. There was no need for German sociologists to 'invent' empirical research techniques because most German sociologists were familiar with such techniques, particularly those developed in the United States. Furthermore, other fields, particularly psychology and psychiatry, in Ger-

4

Introduction

many had developed highly sophisticated research methods and had applied them to a wide range of topics since the turn of the 19th century. (For further details, see Ch. III, Sec. 4). In order to determine whether the sociologists were aware of the existence of research techniques applicable to sociology, we investigated their familiarity with American social research as an indicator. An analysis of the book-review section of the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie, the leading German journal of sociology and the official organ of the German Sociological Society, shows that roughly 90% of the reviews during the years 1924-1934 dealing with empirical studies and conducted in the United States, merely discussed the findings of these studies but not the methodology which had been employed. Usually the reviewer indicated only that the study under review was empirical in nature. Since the methodological aspects of American empirical social research were rarely discussed in these reviews we tried to ascertain the extent to which German sociologists were in direct contact with their American colleagues and we discovered that a sizable number of American sociologists were members of the German Sociological Society and occasionally participated at the meetings.1 Even more important is the fact that an equal number of German sociologists had visited the United States and thus had an opportunity to acquaint themselves directly with American research techniques.2 Yet despite the fact that German sociologists were exposed to these research methods, they did not incorporate them into their work. What is even more curious is the fact that the attitude reflected in the book reviews and particularly in the papers in which those German sociologists who had visited the USA discussed their experience, was a mixture of mild surprise, a certain defensiveness and condescension. The surprise pertained to the recognition that some of the research conducted in the USA was actually interesting, that facts and figures were not in all cases boring, and that a full professor in America would not consider it below his dignity to personally go out into the field and collect his own data. The defensiveness revealed itself in repeated discussions about the notion that the philosophical orientation which characterizes German sociology, was superior to the empirical approach of the American sociologists since fact finding could not possibly result in deep understanding (Erkenntnis) of social phenomena. 1. Among others: E. L. Hayes, Albion Small, Howard Becker, F. H. Giddings, E. A. Ross, H. E. Barnes, Florian Znaniecki, Louis Wirth. 2. Among others: Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Andreas Walter, Willy Gierlichs, Leopold von Wiese, Rudolf Heberle, Johanna Meuter, Greta Lorke and L. H. Geek.

The emergence of sociology in Germany

5

The condescension towards their American colleagues was expressed most succinctly by Greta Lorke (1928) who argued that since the basic philosophical orientation of the American sociologist was limited to the proposition that 'truth' only exists insofar that it is empirically verifiable, or even 'workable', the American sociologist had no choice but to concentrate on empirical social research. This attitude leads us to suspect that these German sociologists were not aware of the empirical work done by their German colleagues in the fields of psychology and psychiatry, since they gave the impression that they regarded empirical social research as a specifically American phenomenon. Since it does not seem reasonable to assume that the lack of interest in empirical social research displayed by German sociologists merely reflects their individual preferences - even though they too have to be taken into consideration - we have to examine the problem in a broader framework. In our attempt to explain the attitude of the German sociologists towards empirical research we followed two separate and yet interrelated lines of inquiry: 1) We investigated the factors which shaped the development and institutionalization of the field sociology in the university; 2) We investigated those disciplines which devoted themselves to what we today call empirical social research. Since sociology did not meet the social and political demand for the collection of empirical data we have to assume that another field or fields must have done so. Furthermore we expected that a comparison between the field of sociology and those disciplines which devoted themselves to social research and an examination of the interaction between these two groups of scholars would provide a key to the understanding of the development of German sociology during this period.

2.

T H E E M E R G E N C E OF S O C I O L O G Y I N G E R M A N Y

The starting point of our inquiry will be an examination of the emergence of sociology as an autonomous academic enterprise. We will examine the emergence and institutionalization of sociology in terms of its intellectual orientation and in terms of the response of established disciplines towards it since we assumed that sociology like almost any other new academic discipline encountered a considerable degree of skepticism or even hostility on the part of the established fields. We are primarily interested in determining the extent to which the critical attitude of the established fields influenced the way in which German sociology conceptualized its subject matter, its methodology and particularly its attitude towards

6

Introduction

empirical research. The fields that are of greatest importance in this context are: history, philosophy and statistics, all of which seem to have shaped decisively the development of sociology in terms of its theoretical orientation, mode of inquiry and preoccupation with the philosophical foundations of the field. However we will also show that the concentration on theory construction on the part of the sociologists was not a direct result of the critique of philosophy, history and statistics but that this critique merely reinforced and maintained this orientation, since those scholars who founded the German Sociological Society had established it because of their great interest in sociological theory. More specifically, the impetus to establish sociology as an autonomous academic discipline and to found the German Sociological Society came from a small group of scholars originally associated with the Verein für Sozialpolitik. The association had been created in 1872 essentially for the purpose of collecting data on what was regarded as one of the major social and political problems the so-called 'social question', i.e. the living and working conditions of the proletariat and the peasantry and its relationship with industry and the landowners. During the 1890's some of the members of the association, headed by Max and Alfred Weber, attempted to shift the general approach of the association from the preoccupation with data collection towards the development of social theory. However they met with such determined resistance from the majority of the members of the association and its president Schmoller that they decided to establish the German Sociological Society for the explicit purpose of devoting themselves to social theory. As a matter of fact, it was one of the stated objectives of the society not to deal with concrete social and political problems until they had succeeded in defining precisely the subject-matter and philosophical foundations of sociology as an academic discipline. Even though the intellectual orientation of the founders of the Society constitutes an important factor in the subsequent development of German sociology, it is not a sufficient explanation for the fact that German sociology remained a theoretical discipline for nearly 20 years after the founding of the society. It seems that the intellectual division of labor in the German university and particularly that between the different social sciences constituted a very important factor in the development of sociology. We intend to show that the field of statistics and the way it conceptualized its subject matter constituted perhaps the single most important factor which prevented German sociology from incorporating empirical research as a tool of inquiry into their field. Since the 17th century, statistics in Germany had

Social research in the area of social problems

7

not been merely a method but a substantive field, whose central objective consisted in the collection of quantitative (and to a lesser extent qualitative) data on all conceivable social phenomena. The German statisticians felt very strongly that if sociology were to engage independently in empirical social research this would constitute an act of academic trespass and a threat to the dignity and autonomy of the field of statistics. Thus we will analyse in great detail the interaction between sociology and statistics and its impact on the attitude of the German sociologists towards quantification and empirical social research. The next part of our inquiry will deal with the development of sociology in order to ascertain what the main subject matters and problem areas were which occupied the sociologists during this time span. For this purpose we will examine the sociological literature, i.e. the major publications, the leading sociological journals and the proceedings of the German Sociological Society. We will examine this literature from three perspectives: 1) The extent to wich the subject matters under investigation lent themselves to empirical verification and quantification; 2) The role of empirical research; 3) The degree to which the way sociology defined itself actually reflected the critique made by the other academic disciplines, i.e. philosophy, history and statistics. Finally we will examine in greater detail three sociologists who actually engaged in empirical social research in order to ascertain those factors in their personal life and intellectual orientation which seemed to have helped or hindered the pursuit of their empirical work. The three scholars whose work is analysed are Ferdinand Tönnies, Leopold von Wiese and Max Horkheimer.

3.

S O C I A L RESEARCH IN THE AREA OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS

We indicated earlier that Germany during the time span under investigation was faced with a multitude of social, political and economic problems, which at times threatened the very existence of the Empire and later that of the Republic. We considered it inconceivable that Germany like any other highly industrialized Western nation could have functioned and adjusted to the changes which resulted from the industrial revolution without detailed quantitative social research data. Therefore we surveyed those academic fields which might have been likely candidates to fill this need for empirical data. As we will show in the second part of this paper, the fields which produced the greatest amount of empirical social research most of which today would be categorized as empirical sociology, were

8

Introduction

psychology, education,3 medicine and psychiatry. We examined the history of these fields in order to determine to what extent they preempted the areas of inquiry which today constitute the subject-matter of sociology. We discovered that medicine and psychiatry had been engaged in systematic empirical social research since 1840 and that psychology and education started to move in the same direction from 1900 on. Furthermore we will be able to show that all of these fields employed research methods which were extremely sophisticated and at times even considered by their foreign colleagues to be the most advanced methods in the field, (see Ch. III, Sec. 2). In other words, we can demonstrate that the fields of psychology, education, medicine and psychiatry together with statistics, economics and criminal law had started to investigate systematically those problem areas which could have become the subject-matter of sociology, before sociology had constituted itself as an autonomous academic discipline and that by the time sociology had come to grips with its philosophical and metatheoretical problems and the effort of gaining recognition as a legitimate and established field, the disciplines listed above had succeeded in accumulating a solid and substantial body of empirical research data on the subjects of population, stratification, migration, economic fluctuations, crime, delinquency, suicide, prostitution, the social correlates of mental and physical health, the impact of poverty on learning, school performance, intelligence, family cohesion, etc. Ch. III will be the attempt to determine in what respect the fields of psychology, psychiatry, education and medicine differed from sociology, besides the obvious difference in subject-matter. The most important differences which we encountered and which seem to have a direct bearing on our problem are the following. The four fields listed above, in contrast to sociology, were characterized by: 1) A deep concern with social problems; 2) A great amount of interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and cooperation; 3) An untroubled acceptance of the methods of the natural sciences; and 4) A high degree of integration of theory and praxis and a continuous cooperation of the university professors in these fields with the various government agencies. It appears that all of these factors in their conjunction were singularly beneficial for the development of an empirical research tradition which was most impressive, both in quantity and in quality. In sum we intend to show that the reluctance on the part of the German 3. We are using the term Education in this context even though the field under discussion should be considered Developmental Psychology because much of this research was conducted in Teachers Colleges and by scholars who held a degree in Education.

Social research in the area of social problems

9

sociologist to engage in empirical social research was essentially due to the following factors: 1) The initial impulse on the part of a small group of scholars in the Verein für Sozialpolitik to devote themselves to the pursuit of social theory construction and thus equating sociology with sociological theory setting it in contradiction to and contrasting with statistics and social policy legislation as the fields devoted only to the accumulation of empirical data; 2) The attacks on the part of history and philosophy with respect to the legitimacy of sociology and the philosophical soundness of its mode of inquiry; 3) The insistence on the part of the statisticians that the collection of data pertaining to the various realms of social life was their proper domain or intellectual territorality and that the attempts of incorporating statistics into sociology would deprive the field of statistics of their professional autonomy and integrity; 4) The way in which German sociology defined itself, i.e. its subject-matter which was not conducive to the use of empirical social research, i.e. predominance of systematic and historical schools of thought and the intense preoccupation with the philosophical foundations of the discipline; 5) The fact that most of what constitutes today the subject-matter of empirical sociology was being investigated systematically by other fields before sociology had become institutionalized.

CHAPTER I

German sociology 1883-1933

1.

THE ROLE OF S O C I O L O G Y I N THE U N I V E R S I T Y

The first German sociologists came from many different fields, primarily economics (Weber, Sombart), ethnology (Vierkandt, Thurnwald), history (Troeltsch, Salomon), philosophy (Scheler, Tönnies, Jerusalem), and law (Gumplowicz, Sauer, Ehrlich). If we take the publications of Ludwig Gumplowicz, Grundriss der Soziologie (1883), and Ferdinand Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1884), as the starting point of German sociology, and, if we consider the fact that it took 36 years to establish chairs for the teaching of sociology, despite the fact that the faculty lines increased by more than 100% during this time span, then we have to conclude that this discipline had an extremely hard time establishing itself as an autonomous field in the university. In contrast to the situation in France, England and the USA, German sociology had to overcome unusual difficulties in order to establish its raison d'être? It is for this reason that sociology in its early stages was much more concerned with the 'why' of its existence than the 'how'. Donald McRae noted: In France, Britain and the United States of America the development of the social sciences has had an underestimated but continuing unity. There has been a community of descent and concern with similar problems and methods. In Germany, the problems and methods of the social sciences, especially sociology, have only partly overlapped with those of the world west of the Rhine. Philosophical problems and methods derived from Kant, an attitude to the data of history descended from Herder and Hegel, a dispute over the task and nature of economics nowhere else found so extreme a form, and a continuing debate with Marx and Marxism. All combined to give classical German sociology its particular and separate character. (In Aron, 1964: vii, viii.) 1. For a comparison between the different Western countries see Maus (1956), Madge (1962), Martindale (1960) and Oberschall (1968).

The role of sociology in the university

11

From the beginning, sociology was viewed as a superfluous intruder into the neat relationships between the various disciplines, an illegitimate usurper which aroused suspicion. Since the first chairs for sociology were created in 1919, after the revolution of 1919, it was then suspected, particularly by the historian Georg von Below and his followers, that the Weimar Republic tried to legitimatize socialism with the help of sociology - a charge which immediately drew a sharp and angry response from Tönnies and von Wiese.2 The notion of the illegitimacy of sociology as an independent field of scholarly inquiry was primarily based on the arguments of the very influential philosopher Dilthey and those of the school of historicism as represented by von Treitschke. Dilthey3 in 1883 declared flatly that the philosophy of history in Germany and sociology in England and France did not constitute a 'Wissenschaft' (science), but a point of view, and that its methods were radically wrong. He felt that sociology, if anything, is a 'naturalistic metaphysics'. Social phenomena and historical developments cannot be analyzed by the methods of the pure sciences alone, because they can only trace causalities. Hence those theories of sociology and of the philosophy of history, which consider the presentation of factual material (des Singulären) as nothing more than raw material for their abstractions, are incorrect. This superstition, which subjects the writings of the historian to a mystical process in order to transmute alchemically the mass of facts found in their works into the pure gold of abstract theory and thus to compel history to divulge its ultimate secret, is just as quixotic as was the dream of any alchemistic philosopher of nature, who imagined that he could extricate from nature the magic formula. There is no such ultimate and simple magic formula for the true meaning of history, just as nature does not have such a formula to divulge. (Dilthey, 1959: 9 1 - 9 2 . )

The Geisteswissenschaften (humanities) for which the field of history is prototypical needs the additional tool of verstehen (interpretation) which is based on analytic and descriptive psychology. Psychology, Dilthey argued, would have to start by ascertaining all the facts constituting consciousness, which would then enable us to understand the structural relationships pertaining to individuals, and society, in its organic historical 2. For details on the beginnings of German Sociology see Eisermann (1959), Honigsheim (1959) and Sombart (1923). 3. Wilhelm Dilthey (1959). For his discussion of sociology see Ch. I, Sec. XIV: 'Die Philosophie der Geschichte und Soziologie sind keine wirklichen Wissenschaften'; Section XV: 'Ihre Aufgabe ist unlösbar'; Section XVI: 'Ihre Methoden sind falsch', and Section XVII: 'Sie erkennen nicht die Stellung der Geschichtswissenschaft zu den Einzelwissenschaften der Gesellschaft.'

12

German sociology

1883-1933

development, and in its various cultural manifestations, such as science, art and religion: The psychic facts constituting consciousness which pertain to, on the one hand, community (Gemeinschaft), and, on the other hand, authority (Herrschaft) and dependence (interdependence is, of course, included in that concept) flow through the external organization of society like life-blood in a system of minutest blood-vessels. All intra-organizational relationships (Verbandsverhältnisse) are, from the point of view of psychology, composed of them. (Dilthey, 1959: 68.) He felt that the task of understanding history was far from completed, that no general history was as yet possible. Sociology, by separating the unique and specific from the general, was only creating roadblocks in an attempt to reach this goal. Universal history - which ultimately may turn out to be a superhuman task - would be the 'grand finale' of the humanities. With respect to the methodology of sociology, Dilthey accused sociology of assuming that, having dispensed with metaphysics, the era of positivism was the natural successor. But he argued that positivism as a philosophical tool is even more inadequate for the understanding of historical man than the idealism of the Hegelian variety. The methods employed by sociology claim that, having dispensed with the metaphysical era, they have left the way clear for the era of positivism. However, Comte, the founder of this philosophy (positivism), only created a naturalistic metaphysic of history, which, as such, was even more inadequate for (the interpretation of) the facts of historical evolution than that of Hegel or Schleiermacher. (Dilthey, 1958: 105.) Historicism, (Troeltsch, 1923) on the other hand, maintained that there were no regularities or laws in history; that each period was unique and 'equal in the sight of God' (allein zu Gott) in its configuration and selfunderstanding and could not be analysed in terms of the development of its parts and their mutual interaction. In other words, this school of thought denied the existence of what could be called the very essence of sociology: structural processes, the interrelatedness of social institutions and the assumption that social and historical change has to be understood in terms of previous conditions. Historicism claimed that the social world at any given time is such an unique phenomenon that only the most empathetic intuitive interpretation could do justice to it, while the search for social and historical laws would only blind the scholar to the very essence of a given period. Historical phenomena, in contrast to the materials of the natural world which can be approached with the tools of pure

The role of sociology in the university

13

science, have an unique spiritual quality which would elude the naturalistic attempts of understanding. Of equal importance in the shaping of sociology was its relationship with the other social sciences, i.e., the Staatswissenschaften (Sciences of the State and Political Science), the different branches of economics and statistics.4 One of the basic assumptions which was shared by all of these disciplines and which strongly determined the concept which they had of their respective fields was the notion that it was their purpose to provide the State with information and suggestions regarding social policy and social legislation. This attitude was expressed most clearly in the Verein für Sozialpolitik, an association formed by university professors from the different social sciences, businessmen and journalists, which was founded in 1872, one year after the consolidation of the German empire. It was largely through the connection with the Verein für Sozialpolitik that sociology became academically acceptable. Until the founding of the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie in 1921, the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaften und Sozialpolitik, the official organ of the Verein, was the leading journal for the publication of sociological papers, even though it was by no means devoted exclusively to sociology. On the other hand sociology became an autonomous academic discipline only by distinguishing its subject matter, methodology and purpose from that of the Verein. Gustav Schmoller, the president of the Verein, started out with the basic assumption that it was the responsibility of the State to protect the working classes from the greed of the industrialists and the peasants from that of the big landowners, and that it was the job of the social sciences to provide the State with the necessary information to do so. Gustav Schmoller in the opening speech of the first meeting of the Verein in 1872 stated: They (the members) agree on a concept of the State that is just as far removed from the glorification of the individual as advocated by the School of 'natural law' and his arbitrary exercise of individual rights as it is from the absolutist theory of an all-engulfing Government (Staatsgewalt) . . . for them (the members) the State remains the highest moral institution for the education of mankind. Although sincerely dedicated to the constitutional system, they do not want a changing class rule in which the various social classes vie for power; they envision a strong Government (Staatsgewalt) which will, while remaining aloof from egotistical class interests, pass laws, direct the administration with a just hand, protect the weak, elevate the lower classes. (Boese, 1939: 10.) 4. The relationship between statistics and sociology will be discussed in section 2 of this chapter.

14

German sociology

1883-1933

The notion of the need for protection of the working classes, however, did not grow out of pure humanitarianism, but to a considerable extent out of the felt necessity to check the spread of socialism. 'Though we are dissatisfied with existing social conditions and are imbued with the necessity of reform, nevertheless we do not preach any radical change of the social sciences nor the overthrow of all existing conditions; we protest to all socialist experiments.' (Boese, 1939:8) With that ideological basis Schmoller, according to Honigsheim (1959), was very well received by the administration, and he became quite influential, not only in the area of social legislation, but, also, through his connections with the Minister of Education, with respect to the hiring and promotion of his former students in the various universities. From the beginning, the Verein saw itself as a mediator, with an unquestioned loyalty to the State. According to Bunzel: The political radicalism and republicanism of the forties and fifties, the Utopian and revolutionary ideals were opposed by the beati possedentes happy in the status quo, (the 'fat cats' of the last century) numerous politicians, businessmen and journalists, philanthropists and most of all professors of economics (which) formed a small and influential group out of which the first

membership of the Verein für Sozialpolitik was recruited.

Even though the Verein was rather hostile towards socialism it was soon jokingly referred to as the Kathedersozialisten (armchair socialists). They engaged in countless studies in the area of social history and the 'social question', i.e. the working and living conditions of the workers in the various branches of industry and agriculture, and they launched several large surveys (Enqueten) which could have become the starting point for a tradition of empirical social research had they succeeded in solving some very basic methodological problems, particularly in the area of attitude measurement.5 In this context, however, we are mainly concerned with the general orientation of the Verein and its consequences and the emergence of sociology. In their preoccupation with data collection, the Verein and the social sciences in general had neglected the pursuit of theoretical questions and the analysis of the philosophical foundations of these fields (Erkenntnistheorie). Schmoller and his colleagues had taken it for granted that the State should be the most decisive factor in society, the all-protector and provider; they had neglected the fact that there were many other social institutions which were also important, as, for example, the church, unions, political parties, etc., and that the latter also wanted and did have 5. The surveys conducted by the Verein, and the methodological problems are discussed in detail in Lazarsfeld & Oberschall (1965).

The role of sociology in the university

15

a say in the decision-making process. In other words, the polarity government - subjects, as reflected in the ideology underlying Bismarck's social legislation, eventually turned out to be too simple a model. Little was known about the function and potential of these other social institutions, and, in general, about the structure of a differentiated social system in its historical context. This type of information was not considered worth pursuing by the older members of the Verein. Only the younger members, who eventually founded the German Sociological Society, were interested in the pursuit of such studies. From 1886 on, debates discussing the extent to which the State should intervene in all areas of the economy became increasingly heated. In the meeting of the Verein in 1886 the question of whether the unions should be entitled to oppose the government as independent and autonomous entities was essentially answered negatively, but it was in that debate that the question about the role and function of the State was raised for the first time; it was no longer taken for granted. The questioning dissenters were headed by L. Brentano, Max and Alfred Weber and Friedrich Naumann. In 1905 the debate came to a head and developed into an ongoing open intellectual warfare waged essentially between Schmoller and Max Weber, who expressed their attacks and counter attacks in public lectures and 'open letters' published in the journal of the Verein. The battle revolved around Schmoller's paper on 'trusts' which contained the suggestion that members of the government should have a specified number of representatives in the boards of directors of large companies to prevent the large trusts from monopolizing the entire economy. Even though the hostilities, according to Theodor Heuss, were in no small measure due to 'offended vanity of professors' (gekränkte Professoreneitelkeit) (Boese, 1939), the theoretical disagreement was also a genuine one in which Schmoller maintained the position that he had sufficient faith in the State to protect the interests of all groups in society properly and fairly. Max Weber strongly disagreed with this evaluation of the State. Even though this debate remained in the realm of polemics, the need for theory was felt, and, in 1907, the Verein decided to devote its next meeting in 1909 to the treatment of a theoretical problem. Upon the suggestion of Alfred Weber they chose the topic: Ά theory of work'. However that meeting was quite unsuccessful, since most of the papers that were delivered dealt primarily with the training of professionals in commerce and industry, and some of the suggestions made in these papers led to a heated debate between the professors and the businessmen. Little light was shed on Ά theory of work'. The failure of that meeting produced a sense of crisis among the members of the Verein, which was accentuated

16

German sociology 1883-1933

by the fact that four members of the Verein had grown so weary of the whole concept of social legislation in general that they publicly renounced their membership. Basically, it was the question of the role of the State and the need for a 'theory of society', together with general philosophical questions, which provided sociology with a subject matter and also provided the impetus for Max Weber and the Austrian economists as well as novelist and pacifist Rudolf Goldscheid to plan the founding of the German Sociological Society. One of the very important distinguishing characteristics between the Verein and the Sociological Society was that the Sociological Society was not oriented towards problem solving. Instead it decided to start out with a basic theoretical réévaluation of the existing knowledge about society and the philosophical foundations for that kind of inquiry. Thus in 1910 sociology found itself in a position whereby it was faced with the problem of establishing its professional autonomy by creating social theory which transcended the theories of the existing social sciences and which, at the same time, would be acceptable to philosophy and history. This turned out to be a formidable task indeed. In view of these difficulties it is understandable that it took so long until sociology was able to tackle concrete problems. Aron correctly noted: The second characteristic of German sociology seems to me to be its concern with methods,6 its search for a philosophical basis and its uneasiness about any self-evident justification of the discipline. This has even been called a 'national disease'. But it is only a disease in particular circumstances; for example, in order to become a recognized teacher and occupy a chair of sociology, the aspirant has to write a 'system of sociology' and these systems often comprise nothing but methodological discussions divorced from genuine philosophical thought and from empirical research. (Aron, 1964: 115.) The very negative reactions on the part of history and philosophy and statistics (see Ch. II, Sec. 3) and the disagreement with the general orientation of the Verein considerably influenced the way in which sociology defined itself. In particular, the arguments of Dilthey were continuously referred to by sociologists and non-sociologists alike. The famous Methodenstreit, i.e., the attempt to determine which methodology would be appropriate for sociology as a 'philosophical discipline' (Geisteswissenschaft), the conceptualization that sociology was part of the humanities, and the rejection of positivism and the methods of the pure sciences seem essentially 6. Methods in this context does not mean the same thing as it does today. It refers to the metatheoretical foundations of the discipline.

Statistics and sociology

17

to represent an effort to come to terms with the arguments of Dilthey and Treitschke. Similarly the ongoing debate about the subject matter of sociology which lasted for over 20 years is clearly related to the contention held by historians and philosophers that social laws did not exist, and that sociology did not constitute an academic discipline but a point of view. Finally the Werturteilsstreit, i.e., the insistence on value-free sociology, does not appear as totally unrelated to the fears of historians like Schäfer and von Below, who assumed that sociology represented an attempt to justify socialism scientifically. Furthermore, Max Weber, who had initiated the Werturteilsstreit in the meetings of the Verein, and who was one of the most persistent defenders of value-free sociology, despite the fact that he himself never questioned his acceptance of the idea that the survival of the nation-state superseded all other considerations, was well aware of the fact that any discipline which would question the power of the State woud soon be considered as a Staatsfeind (public enemy) and dealt with accordingly. Finally, as we already pointed out, sociology was not geared towards problem solving or playing the role of the troubleshooter, since the experience with the Verein had disillusioned them. It seems that this fact constitutes part of the explanation for sociology's reluctance to devote itself to the task of conducting empirical social research. 2.

STATISTICS A N D SOCIOLOGY

Before we begin the outline of the major schools of German sociological thought between 1883 and 1933, we will discuss at length the history of statistics and its relationship to sociology. The reason we are doing this at this point is fourfold: 1) In order to understand the attitude of German sociologists towards quantification we have to understand the unique nature of the German conceptualization of the field of statistics; 2) The history of statistics is perhaps the best illustration of the relationship between the social sciences and the State; 3) The attitudes expressed by the statisticians are a very typical example of the interaction among German university professors when they felt that another field was threatening their dignity and autonomy, and because we feel that the hostilities between these two fields produced an ambiguity towards quantitative empirical social research among the German sociologists; 4) It seems that the polemics on the part of the statisticians contributed to the preoccupation of the German sociologists with concept formation and the abstract study of social formations (Soziale Gebilde).

18 German sociology 1883-1933 In order to substantiate the last two points it is necessary to spell out in great detail the sequence of the interactions between these two fields from 1895 to 1930, because it seems to us that without a thorough examination of the role of statistics in Germany, i.e. in the university and vis-à-vis the State, the subsequent sections on the development of sociology will strike the American reader as rather strange. We shall begin with a rough sketch of the history of German statistics prior to the emergence of sociology in Germany. To this day, statistics as a separate field is taught in the German university not in the context of general research methods but usually as a subfield of economics. René König, in his handbook of sociology published in 1958, touches the field of statistics in the section 'related disciplines' or Hilfswissenschaften (auxiliary sciences) and under the subheading 'Social morphology' (Soziographie, Sozialökologie, Demographie) (König, 1958). Only in the latest edition of the Wörterbuch der Soziologie (Bernsdorf, 1959) are statistical techniques treated as part of the general social science methodology. However, the author starts the entry Statistik und Soziologie (statistics and sociology) by stating: A n exact definition of Statistics is very difficult especially in Germany, and the role of Statistics in social research is also accordingly controversial. The older view considered Statistics as a science having as its subject matter the description of a country's economic and social developments. Actually, this concept of Statistics as a kind of social bookkeeping system is the basis for the main underlying idea of official statistics and thus offers a certain justification for this usage of the term. (Bernsdorf, 1969: 1123.)

The definition of the term statistics is uniquely German and its history has to be explained in the context of the political and social history of Germany. Wilhelm Winkler noted already in 1922: 'Probably everywhere in the world with the exception of Germany, statistics is considered as a method which is applied to this observation one day and to that the next.'7 A. Statistics in Germany 1650-1850 " In Europe the field of statistics emerged in the middle of the 17 th century in response to the pressing need of the states (from which the term statistics is derived) to obtain factual information about their countries. For 7. Quoted from Wilhelm Winkler's review of Franz Zizek's 'Grundriss der Statistik' in Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft und Sozialpolitik, Ν .F. Π (1922), 149. 8. This synopsis is based on Lazarsfeld (1961).

Statistics and sociology

19

example, the periodic outbreaks of the plague made it virtually impossible for any ruler to know how many people inhabited an area at any given time. Originally, the job of the European statisticians consisted of gathering every possible piece of information - quantitative and qualitative - about the various characteristics of the country and its inhabitants, in order to implement legislation, collect taxes and plan wars. Towards the end of the 17 th century statistics moved in two different directions: 'University statistics' in Germany and 'political arithmetic' in England. The main difference between these two branches was that 'University statistics' was descriptive and designed specifically for political and administrative purposes. In England, the first statisticians had also started out by assembling descriptive statistical material, but as soon as they had collected the necessary facts (roughly from 1660-1680), they shifted their focus towards an attempt to determine quantitatively the demographic, social and economic structure of society and to search for causal relationships between quantitative variables. Both schools originated roughly at the same time and both of them gained widespread and equal recognition in Europe. The difference between the two schools should be explained within the framework of the different political structures of England and Germany and the roles of the statisticians in both countries. In 1660 England had victoriously emerged as a nation after a succession of civil disorders, uprisings and external wars. It was conscious of its internal strength and unity, of its freedom from external treats and it set out to further solidify and expand the empire. The monarchy had been reestablished in 1660 and in 1689 the parliament was created in order to counterbalance the power of the monarchy. The political structure of England barely changed during the next 200 years. The atmosphere created by the strength of the nation-state and its inner political stability seems to have been conducive to a tradition of detached scholarship which focused on the improvement and elaboration of statistical methods, survey techniques and comparative analyses. In Germany things were very different. The Thirty Years War had devastated the country economically and politically. After the peace treaty of 1848 it consisted of over 300 principalities. Even though the central power was in the hands of the emperor, the principalities were quite independent and it was only under the reign of Frederick the Great (1740-1786) that the emperor obtained some substantial political power over the various princes and was not until 1871 that Germany finally became united as a nation.

20

German sociology 1883—1933

The founder of the school of 'University statistics' was Herman Conring (1606-1682) who conceptualized the role of the statistician as that of a political advisor in the effort of restoring the economy and the political order after the war. Even though he was familiar with many of the mathematical techniques developed in England, he was neither interested nor enthusiastic about them: 'All in all, the critical German problem of the time was civic reconstruction. Problems of law and administration had high priority. The competition between the principalities pressed in the same direction; the struggle over a little piece of territory, the question of which principe should have which function in (the) imperial administration; questions of marriage and succession among the ruling houses were discussed and settled in the light of precedent and the exegesis of historical records. International law started a few miles from anyone's house or place of business. No wonder then that it was a spirit of systematic cataloguing what existed, rather than the making of new discoveries that made for academic prestige.' (Lazarsfeld, 1961: 287.) Conring's basic model was that of 'the state as an acting unit' and it was structured according to four aspects: 1) The goal of the state; 2) Its people and economic goods; 3) Constitution and law; 4) The administration of the state and the function of the aristocratic hierarchy. His 'system' was published posthumously under the title Collegium Political-statisticum and it became the standard textbook for the training of civil servants. The tradition of Corning was passed on through his student Baron J. C. Boineburg (1622-1667) who worked as an advisor to the Archbishop of Mainz and who became one of the most prominent statesmen of his time. He, in turn, employed the famous scholar and diplomat Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) who had tried unsuccessfully to interest Conring in the work of his British colleagues. In the 18th century the University of Göttingen became the center of 'University statistics', defined as 'the knowledge of the state'. The most influential representative of this school was Achenwall (1719-1772). He refined Conring's system and published it in 1749 in a book with the subtitle The science of today's main European realms and republics. In the same vein his successor Schloezer created in 1804 the slogan: 'Statistics is history at a given point in time, while history is statistics in flux'. (Lazarsfeld, 1961: 292.) The most detailed elaboration of Conring's system and the last of its kind was written by Nieman in 1807. From that time on the quantitative statisticians started to take the upper hand over the university statisticians. Already in 1742 the military priest Suessmilch (1707-1767) had evoked the interest of Frederick the Great with a statistical compendium.

Statistics and sociology

21

For the first time fertility, death and birth rates were computed and related on the one hand to social and political factors and on the other to the eternal divine order. Frederick II was sufficiently impressed with his quantitative approach to order several such surveys and thereby weaken the tradition of university statistics. At the same time, a group of younger scholars from the Göttingen school had become interested in the presentation of comparative data on crime, demography and anthropomorphy from the different European countries, which they presented in tables. Soon they began to substitute figures for the descriptive statements obtained from the census bureaus which began to spring up in different parts of Germany at the beginning of the 19th century. These scholars were angrily attacked by the university statisticians who referred to them as 'table statisticians' (Tabellengelehrten) and who called their enterprise 'brainless busy-work' in contrast to the refined, educational and spiritual work of the university statisticians. Nevertheless, the table statisticians succeeded. That victory was due in part to the fact that the State had realized, after the victory of Napoleon, that the university statisticians were not such good political advisors after all. Thus, the state and the academic world became more receptive to the quantitative approach in the tradition of the British political arithmeticians. Another factor in this development was the growing interest in the studies of the Belgian astronomer Quetelet (1796-1874) who set out to apply the probability theory to social statistics and the work of the French mining-engineer Le Play who, during the same period, conducted surveys of household-budgets and who interpreted his findings as indicators for the functioning of the economic and political system. By 1850 the quantitative approach of the table statisticians had completely replaced the tradition of university statistics. More accurately, what had taken place was a division of labor between statistics and the newly established fields of the 'sciences of the state' (Staatswissenschaften), political economy and constitutional law (Staatsrechtslehre). From that point on the statisticians devoted all their energy to the job of social bookkeeping, i.e. the effort to obtain the numerical composition of all areas of social life. However, the statisticians continued to view themselves as indispensible servants of the state except that they had reluctantly decided to share the role of political advisor to the government with the other social sciences and the field of law. But it is important to note that from the beginning the statisticians in Germany had defined their subject matter and methodology in terms of the needs of the government. It was only after the state had found their political and administrative advice wanting and had requested quantitative

22

German sociology 1883-1933

data, that the statisticians abandoned the tradition of university statistics and devoted themselves to the job of social bookkeeping. Under these circumstances it is quite understandable that the German statisticians were most suspicious of anybody who would attempt to challenge the secure position of their newly defined discipline. After all, since all universities were state institutions, academic prestige and social position were closely associated. After the division of labor between the different social sciences and law, the scholars in these four disciplines cooperated closely and thus constituted the scholarly backbone of the state which recruited its civil servants and administrators almost exclusively from those four fields. The professionals trained in these disciplines managed to retain their monopoly over the higher civil servant positions from the middle of the 19th century until 1933. Thus, it becomes clear that any threat to the respective autonomy and the definition of the subject matter of those four fields woud have represented a threat to their privileged academic and social position, not only with respect to their monopoly over government posts but also because of the fact that the state determined the number of faculty-lines allocated to each field in the different universities.

B. Satistics in Germany after 1871 After the consolidation of the German Empire in 1871 the role of statistics was further solidified through the growing number of statistical bureaus, which busily collected data on the numerical composition of every conceivable social and economic phenomenon, ranging from demography to the number of cows on the different-sized farms. When Georg von Mayr, perhaps the most famous and influential statistician between 1880 and 1925, set out to summarize the material, it took him 12 years to do it and the result filled three thick volumes and an outline for a fourth (von Mayr, 1895, 1912, 1917). At the turn of the century, every major city, every state and the federal government had its own statistical bureau. Statistics as an independent field was taught in almost every German university. Very often the heads of the statistical bureaus were also engaged in university teaching. The fact that the German Statistical Society was only founded in 1911 under the auspices of the German Sociological Association is explained by the fact that the practicing statisticians were regularly holding conventions anyhow (see Würzburger, 1914). The heads of the federal bureaus and those of the states started meeting occasionally from 1871 on and they

Statistics and sociology

23

started meeting annually in 1897. In 1899 the heads of the urban bureaus also held annual conventions and in 1903 they founded their own professional society, the Verband der Deutschen Städtestatistiker. The association of urban statisticians usually invited colleagues from the state and federal bureaus as well. But the contact with the academic statisticians was not considered to be close enough. Thus the German statisticians gladly followed Max Weber's invitation in 1910 to establish the German Statistical Society in connection with the German Sociological Society. The bylaws stated clearly that both societies would be autonomous, but they also stipulated that the president of each society was automatically a voting member of the executive committee of the other society. Furthermore, it was agreed that the meetings of the two societies should be held in the same city, either simultaneously or one immediately following the other (Anon., 1912: 75). The German Statistical Society met for the first time in 1911 but plans for the close cooperation between the two societies were never actualized even though Zizek, an Austrian statistician, immediately drew up a programmatic book outlining the relationship between the two disciplines and the areas in which they could join forces. (Zizek, 1912; Zizek's book will be discussed later in this chapter.) During the first two decades of the 20th century von Mayr's conceptualization of statistics as die Wissenschaft von den sozialen Massen (the science of social agglomerations) was the predominant approach in the field. He originally conceptualized statistics as one of the social sciences (von Mayr, 1895: 4) and later as one of the sciences of the state (von Mayr, 1914). Its subject matter is social man to the extent that he shares certain characteristics and interacts with others, and the consequences of these actions. 'The term social agglomerations refers not only to the aggregates of the individuals linked to each other in some type of social relationship, but also to the aggregates of the actions of these individuals and the lasting external effects of these actions.' (von Mayr, 1895-1917, Vol. I: 4.) Thus collectivities, collective actions and the effect of these actions have to be studied separately. In order to do so the statistician tries to count and measure all those phenomena that can be approached numerically. Those phenomena which cannot be treated quantitatively have to be treated qualitatively and descriptively. The methods appropriate for such studies are 1) estimates on the basis of earlier counts and measurements and 2) 'in addition thereto, in the place of actual observation, collection of the subjective opinions of experts on the phenomena in question.' (von Mayr, 1895: 5.) In order to conduct special studies, what he called typische Einzel-

24

German sociology 1883-1933

beobachtungen (typical single observations) similar to Le Play's study of budgets, the enquête or Untersuchung is the best methodological tool. In von Mayr's view the enquête uses all the quantitative statistical methods but its primary source of data is obtained through informant interviewing (Sachverständigenbefragung), a method which had been widely used in the surveys conducted by the Verein für Sozialpolitik. The enquête serves a dual function. If it treats a problem area that has already been researched quantitatively-statistically, then the enquête will explain the meaning of the existing data. In the case where a problem has not yet been treated numerically, then the results of the enquête will lay among other things the groundwork for subsequent statistical inquiry by pointing to the pertinent problem areas which need to be studied. The actual subject matter of statistics consists, according to von Mayr, of four parts: 1) Allgemeine Statistik; 2) Bevölkerungsstatistik; 3) Moralstatistik; and 4) Wirtschaftsstatistik. Allgemeine Statistik (general statistics) deals with the definition of the field, its relationship to other fields and statistical methods and techniques. Bevölkerungsstatistik oder Demologie (demography) collects data on population distribution, composition, migration, birth and mortality rates and population growth. Moralstatistik (moral statistics). The 'general part' comprises the areas: crime, suicide and divorce rates in the general population. The special studies, on one hand, deal with the investigation of the relationship between the findings of the 'general part' and variables such as age, sex, income, etc. and, on the other hand, the special studies investigate unusual deviations from the norm in such areas as infant mortality, illegitimacy, alcoholism, syphilis, etc. The topics of charity, poverty and prostitution were strangely enough relegated to the area of Wirtschaftsstatistik (economic statistics). As we will show later in greater detail, the field of moral statistics had been subject for a long time to philosophical debates and attacks from different camps and for different reasons. Von Mayr refuted all these arguments by simply stating that moral statistics were merely 'statistics pertaining to actions which lend themselves to a moral evaluation and to the effects of such actions.' (von Mayr, 1917: 28.) Since Moralstatistik, which is the third volume of von Mayr's magnum opus Statistik und Gesellschaftslehre (von Mayr, 1917), was published in 1917, ten years after the publication of the second volume, Bevölkerungsstatistik, there is no way of knowing whether the difference between the two volumes - Moralstatistik is considerably more sociological in its orientation - is due to the time factor or the subject matter. In his chapter on crime, for example, he suggested that the statistical data should be

Statistics and sociology

25

used to ascertain possible 'social laws' or regularities as, for instance, the relationship between the frequency and type of crimes and specific social conditions. He also felt that the particular characteristics of the criminal should be investigated in order to establish whether there are any relationships between criminal activity and age, sex, social class, race, intelligence, profession, marital status, etc. In reviewing existing statistics on crime he discovered some trends in criminal activities which are reminiscent of some of Durkheim's observations about the fluctuation of suicide rates. Von Mayr found that there exists an inverse relationship between the frequency of crimes against persons and crimes against property. He explained the fact that the former type is more prevalent in the summertime due to the greater incidence of alcohol excesses during this season. His recommendation for the future was to collect more and more data on the 'natural and social influences' on crime rates as well as criminal behavior in order to learn more about the origin of crime in society. His outline for the fourth volume, Wirtschaftsstatistik, finally, suggests a vast collection of economic data, trends, social conditions, etc. which in many ways would make it indistinguishable from similar treatises done by economists. (A typical example would be Meerwarth, 1920.) Economic statistics subsequently became almost a separate field, resulting in a more or less frictionless cooperation between the two fields. Thus, it is not surprising that when the Carnegie Foundation tried to ascertain the influence of the First World War on population, income and life style in Germany, they put Rudolf Meerwarth, the leading German economic statistician, in charge with the cooperation of Adolf Günther and Waldemar Zimmerman (Meerwarth et al., 1932). Generally speaking, in the 1920's, the combination economists-statisticians monopolized quite thoroughly the entire field of social bookkeeping in the areas of stratification, mobility, economic fluctuations and fluctuations of personnel in the different branches of industry, commerce, agriculture and the professions. This cooperation between economics and statistics was not really a new phenomenon; it had begun in 1872 in the Verein für Sozialpolitik.

C. Statistics and sociology: The emerging rivalry The interaction between sociology and statistics went through several phases. The failure in the attempt to establish some form of fruitful collaboration between the two fields constitutes in our opinion one of the factors which drove sociology away from empiricism and into the area of theory construction. The battle revolved essentially around the question

26

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1883-1933

of academic status, i.e. who was invading whose territory and whose approach and subject matter was more legitimate. It seems that the battle and the inability to cooperate were not altogether accidental. In many ways it lay in the very nature of the way in which the two disciplines conceptualized their methodology and their subject-matter. Georg von Mayr, in his first critical evaluation of sociology (von Mayr, 1895), set the stage for the conflict by arguing, on the one hand, that sociology without statistics was impossible and, on the other, that social bookkeeping was the task of statistics as one of the social sciences. Thus, inevitably, the question had to arise that if von Mayr is right in his assertions, then who is to determine what facts are to be collected and how to analyze them. It seems to us that this question was the real bone of contention. In 1895 von Mayr approached sociology quite cautiously (von Mayr, 1895: 14-15). He acknowledged the subject matter of sociology, namely the study of social formations (soziale Gebilde) as a legitimate one: The first preliminary question regarding the legitimacy of a separate sociology as an autonomous science is whether the social formations are to be recognized as new, separate phenomena, independent of the elements of which they consist. This preliminary question is to be answered in the affirmative, (von Mayr, 1895: 14.)

But, he went on to argue, in the attempt of studying each and every social formation, sociology is trying to absorb a whole group of already established disciplines: In this sense it attempts to be an eclectic science; its material is the product of other sciences; it accepts the results of historical research, of anthropology, statistics (other sociologists, on the other hand, are proud of dispensing entirely with statistics), psychology; like a semi-finished product, it does not refer directly to the matters which are already being treated by other sciences, but rather tries to create a new synthesis out of those findings which already constitute synthesis from the point of view of the other sciences, (von Mayr, 1895: 14.)

In other words, he had considerable reservations about the idea of studying the forest by disregarding the trees and he added that it seemed to be the goal of sociology, as far as he could make it out from 'the frequently rather mystical and entangled explanations uttered by the discipline's exponents' (von Mayr, 1895: 14), to do just that. The sociologists von Mayr was talking about were: Comte, Spencer, Lorenz von Stein, Schäffle, Gumplowicz and Giddings. Von Mayr was even more critical of the methods used by sociology. He challenged the claim of sociology that to work in a purely inductive manner was possible and he added that socio-

Statistics and sociology

27

logy, to his knowledge, had done nothing to substantiate that claim. He argued that direct observation of social formations was not possible without a prior quantitative study of its elements, i.e. people, actions, the effect of their actions and objective characteristics (in other words his definition of statistics). Thus, he concluded that, lacking this empirical base, the existing sociological observations or theories were based on the unsystematic personal experiences of the individual scholar with some established facts borrowed from other disciplines thrown in. The most problematical aspect of sociology, according to von Mayr, was that sociologists as he understood them intended to proceed from an inductive starting point, i.e. the direct observation of social formation, to the deduction of 'general sociological laws'. His comment on that score is quite devastating: The main problem, however, is posed by the process of deductive reasoning which, on the basis of arbitrary impressions of social conditions, trends and evolutive phenomena, pretends to reach some kind of intuitive understanding of supposedly established sociological laws which then — in line with their deductive-subjective process of formation — are proclaimed by their discoverers as a kind of article of faith, (von Mayr, 1895: 16.) The next important step in the development was the establishment of the German Sociological Society and the German Statistical Society. Max Weber, the driving force behind this cooperative effort, already, through the very terminology which he used to describe the relationship between the two societies, also set the stage for the subsequent battle. In the bylaws he referred to the Statistical Society as a Tochtergesellschaft (affiliated society) (Anon., 1912: 75) of the Sociological Society. Tönnies in his opening speech was even more condescending in his attitude towards statistics. In referring to von Mayr's definition of statistics he argued: I do not consider it admissible to incorporate a quantitative attribute or definition into the concept of the subject matter of a science. Since the essence of a science cannot be exhaustively defined by its method... it appears to be advisable... to abandon and drop the concept of statistics as a science or, to put it differently, to abandon the use of the name statistics for a specific science. (Anon., 1910: 34.) He elaborated on his point by stating that data are part of a discipline but not an autonomous field. Unfortunately, the proceedings of the meeting do not contain a discussion of Tönnies's paper; thus, there is no way of knowing how von Mayr and his colleagues responded to Tönnies's argument. But it is clear that the statisticians at this point were quite willing to cooperate with sociology. This willingness may have been due

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1883-1933

in part to the fact that the statisticians felt that they, as the older and according to F. Schmid 'immensely more successful discipline' (Schmid, 1916) were giving the new field of sociology a helping hand. Whatever the motivations, the Austrian statistician Franz Zizek immediately set out to write his programmatic book Soziologie und Statistik (Zizek, 1912). His starting point was the assertion that, as far as the methodology and the subject matter of the two fields was concerned, there was indeed many areas that called for joint studies but neither field could or should subsume the other. Both, sociology and statistics, concern themselves with society as a whole, its agglomerations or groups and social facts, in order to develop typologies and general social laws. Zizek then pointed out four main areas in which statistics can be of help to sociological inquiry: 1) A quantitative approach to social structures, i.e. a numerical account of the division of labor, social stratification, distribution and number of the different voluntary and involuntary associations in society, etc.; 2) Information about the continuity or change of given social institutions and phenomena. That way statistics supplies sociology with the quantitative material for the evaluation of the speed and direction of the social evolution; 3) Statistics can trace causal relationships between phenomena which transcend the different social sciences. An example would be the relationship between mortality and variables like sex, age, marital status, occupation, income, eating habits, etc. What Zizek in effect claimed was that statistics engaged in multivariate analysis by relating, for example, data on social pathology with social class data on the one hand, and demographic and economic data on the other (Zizek, 1912; 32 ff). That statement, however, was rather a reflection of wishful thinking, not of reality; 4) In the areas of Rassenbiologie and Rassenhygiene (eugenics), the cooperation between the two fields is particularly imperative and fruitful. Zizek's books got a rather negative reception from his colleagues essentially for two reasons: 1) It put statistics into a subservient position in its relationship to sociology; and 2) it only addressed itself to the question as to what statistics can do for sociology but does not answer the opposite question. While the second criticism is valid, the first one is not. Zizek stated quite clearly: On the other hand, however, statistics cannot become part of sociology; rather it has its own task: the systematical, numerical recording of all social phenomena, taking into account not only the wishes of sociology but also those of all other specialized social sciences and in addition - as far as official statistics is concerned — sometimes the requirements of the public authorities as well as practical necessities (information of the business world and the like). More-

Statistics and sociology

29

over, the technical character of statistical methodology requiring a specialized professional training probably will always bring about a certain division of labor with workers mainly devoting themselves to purely statistical work. (Zizek, 1912: 46-47.)

In his closing paragraph Zizek indicated that both sociology and statistics have to join forces in the development of inductive empirical methods since neither field could base its investigations on intuition, analogies or one-sided 'grand' theories. Even though the notion of subservience had not been intended by Zizek, the war was on. Conciliatory papers, such as Schmid's very rational attempt to heal the breach (Schmidt, 1916) which will be discussed below, were essentially lost voices in the wilderness of polemics. Already in 1914, three years after the founding of the German Statistical Society, von Mayr saw the autonomy and cohesion of his field seriously threatened by the 'enemies from within' and the 'enemies from without' (von Mayr, 1914). The enemy from within is the branch of mathematical statistics which he felt seemed to be determined to extinguish the pure statisticians (die echten Statistiker). While he had felt that the efforts of men like Knapp, Lexis and Bortkiewicz constituted a valuable, if specialized, contribution to the field, the current attempts to force all statistics into mathematical models and formula of such complexity that they are out of reach for everybody except a select few, was an attempt to eliminate the very substance of the field. Thus, he argued, any mathematical efforts that went beyond percentaging and averaging should merely be a specialized subsection of the general field. The enemy from outside is sociology and gewisse Erkenntnistheoretiker (certain phenomenologists), who want to relegate statistics to a position of an inferior helpmate, rather than that of one of the most important sciences of the state. According to von Mayr, the three fields which made up the sciences of the state are social legislation, statistics and sociology. He felt that the mutual respect and cooperation between the first two fields had remained intact and appeared to be even more promising in the future, a statement which turned out to be a rather accurate forecast. Von Mayr's attitude towards sociology had become considerably more hostile since 1895: Uncertain and unclear is the realm of research of the third social science introducing itself under the name of Sociology. According to the ideas of some of its most eminent exponents, it is supposed to be some kind of social superscience or, i.e. the general social science which usurps any and all social science research and swallows up not only the field of social legislation but also the whole field of statistics hook, line and sinker. I cannot feel any

30

German sociology 1883-1933

enthusiasm for such a monster of sociology; I rather feel that if sociology desires to have a separate and strictly defined area of research, it will have to content itself with the task — which by the way is quite rewarding — of studying the essence, nature and evolutionary trends of the various social formations (Soziale Gebilde), (von Mayr, 1914: 2.)

And he went on to argue that the social sciences could not possibly function without the substance of statistics and that it seemed to him rather senseless and absurd to reintroduce statistics under such inappropriate labels as Demography, Demology or even Sociology. Von Mayr, as well as some of his colleagues (e.g. Grävell, 1921), clearly recognized that the trend towards mathematical statistics could have threatened the role of statistics as one of the social sciences by relegating it to the rubrique 'general research techniques'. On the other hand, von Mayr feared that sociology might become an important social science which might become a competitor for the allocation of faculty lines, government positions and federally sponsored research institutes and projects. We interpret his suggestion that sociology should confine itself to the study of social formations as an attempt to keep sociology out of areas of research that might be of interest to the government. The question of the proper subject matter of statistics as well as the battle with sociology became frequently discussed topics in the statistical journals for many years to come.

D. Robert Michels and 'Moralstatistik' Von Mayr had made no reference as to whom he referred to with the term gewisse Erkenntnistheoretiker (certain phenomenologists), but it seems reasonable to assume that one of his prime targets was the very influential sociologist Robert Michels who had published one of the major attacks on 'moral statistics' (Michels, 1914; see also Michels, 1911). The term Moralstatistik refers essentially to statistical data on social pathology such as rates for crime, suicide, divorce and illegitimacy on one hand and data on literacy, education, voting patterns etc. on the other. The collection, interpretation and discussion of moral statistics became particularly fashionable between 1860 and 1890 because they gave rise to a variety of philosophical and ideological debates which revolved essentially around three questions: 1) The proposition that the rates of social pathology were relatively constant resulted in an involved controversy over the notion of free will vs. destiny; 2) The question was

Statistics and sociology

31

raised as to what extent moral statistics as a whole could prove or disprove the existence of an eternal divine or social order; 3) To what extent could moral statistics be used as indicators for the progress or decay of 'morality', 'ethics' and 'culture' in a given society. Because of these debates the field of Moralstatistik had lost much of its scientific respectability and it was largely von Mayr's accomplishment to have reintroduced it into the discipline of statistics without all those ideological implications. Robert Michels, who was not opposed to empirical social research in principle, became very interested in the area of moral statistics because he felt that the middleclass orientation of the social scientists prevented them from an adequate and unbiased understanding of the life style of the working classes (Michels, 1914). Furthermore, because of his deep involvement with socialism, he was also very much in favor of the fight for women's rights. According to Marianne Weber, he was also attracted to Freudian psychology (Weber, 1926) and strongly opposed to bourgeois moralizing which was so common at the beginning of the 20th century. Since he saw the collection of statistical data, particularly in the area of sexual behavior, as an attempt to accumulate intellectual ammunition for the camp of the reactionary cultural pessimists, he devoted a considerable amount of time and energy to the job of proving that Moralstatistik could not be used as an indicator for morality (in the sense of ethics and cultural progress) and to provide a basis for the attempt to prove that one country or one social class was morally superior to another. In 1928 he stated flatly: 'In the case of statistics pertaining to sexual behavior (Sexualstatistik) we are faced with the fact that this infinite bulk of phenomena totally eludes the crude measurement of statistics' (Michels, 1928: 97). Michels's relentless polemics denouncing moral statistics which he pursued for almost 20 years were particularly unfortunate for two reasons: 1) The areas of crime, suicide, illegitimacy etc. could have become one of the most promising topics for the emergence of empirical social research; and 2) Michels's arguments taken by themselves were entirely accurate and in many ways brilliant, but they were based on a non-sequitur; namely, that the numerical study of a social phenomenon is inseparable from a normative evaluation. His minute critique of the statistics of illegitimacy rates, for example, is well worth spelling out in detail because it could have been used as a guideline for valuable social research and data interpretation. Instead, he set out to show that 'morality' could not be measured. 'Among all types of progress, the field of morals is the hardest to determine. We have no tools whatsoever, permitting us to measure the degree of morality which a nation possesses.' (Michels, 1914: 71.)

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1883-1933

He argued that illegitimacy rates are not an indicator for morality and he listed the following reasons: 1) They are rarely reliable; 2) Because illegitimacy is based on a legal definition and thus excludes common law marriages; 3) Statistics count every child born into a marriage as legitimate even if it is the product of marital infidelity; 4) Illegitimacy-rates are affected by external factors such as social legislation, which means that countries which have the institution of paternity suits and which provide social welfare for the unwed mother will have higher rates than those countries where the mother does not receive any help from the government; 5) Societies which do not give women any freedom and privacy (i.e. permit them to move around freely without a chaperone) will also have a greater number of unwed mothers. Therefore, without great exaggeration, it can be affirmed that sexual morality, insofar as it is measured by the number of illegitimate births, is inversely proportional to the degree of appreciation of a woman's dignity prevailing in the various countries. Since the degree of freedom enjoyed by a woman is almost always the natural result of the respect and confidence shown towards her, and since it is only this freedom which paves the way to her complete emancipation as a human being (völlige Menschwerdung), it can be said that culture and a certain degree of sexual freedom coincide in this respect. (Michels, 1914: 89.) Furthermore he felt it would be exciting to study, in Italy for example, whether the illegitimacy rates were higher among those groups which voted for the socialist parties. In those areas where the socialists constituted a majority, socialism had succeeded in virtually wiping out infanticide, prostitution and abortion. Seen in this context, illegitimacy rates would be an indicator of cultural or moral progress; 6) Illegitimacy rates are related to poverty, since poverty tends to raise the average marriage age-rates; 7) Many societies have legal prohibitions against certain kinds of marriages which almost exclusively apply to the poor; 8) A drop in the illegitimacy rates may merely be a reflection of the increase of abortions. From those and other observations he concludes: Thus, Loria is completely justified in his assertion that any preoccupation with the problem of ethical progress is nothing but a useless waste of time. According to him, progress is detectable only in the case of things (objects) and not in the case of human beings (subjects), and even perfection in the latter would not be capable of increasing the latter's chances of happiness (Glücksmöglichkeit). (Michels, 1914: 94.) and he added that dry figures are more likely to hide rather than to reveal the underlying pain, agony and misery.

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Unfortunately, we have no way to evaluate the exact impact of Michels's arguments on the sociologists in Germany, but we suspect that it was considerable. His papers on this topic were regularly reviewed in the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte. Michels's comments on the interpretation of statistical data were precisely the kinds of guidance which the young German statistician Ferdinand Schmid had been asking for in 1916. In response to Zizek (1912) he stated that there were many areas where statistics could utilize sociology in order to conduct a more meaningful kind of inquiry. He listed the following ways: 1) Clarification and definition of concepts, particularly in the area of social pathology which tends to confuse the notions of average and normal; 2) Factual material based on empirical social research i.e. the attempt to interpret empirical data in the context of the structure, function and history of the social institutions to which they pertain; 3) New questions and categories of inquiry as well as interpretation. And he concluded: Only sociology is capable of pointing the way for this kind of formally conceptualized presentation of social phenomena. Thereby statistics and sociology merge in order to become a higher unity, a general social science in the broader sense of the term, of which both are to be considered to be subdisciplines of equal rank and value ( .) Henceforth the motto should be: from statistics to sociology. (Schmid, 1916: 71, 74.)

Unfortunately, men like Schmid constituted a very small minority; statistics and sociology did not work towards this type of synthesis. Most statisticians adhered to the conceptualization of the field as outlined by von Mayr.

E. Statistics and sociology

1918-1930

From 1918-1933 the studies conducted by the German statisticians became somewhat more sophisticated mathematically, and greater attention was paid to the problem of representative sampling (Schatt, 1914; Grävell, 1921). Thus there was a greater number of in-depth studies in contrast to the broader social-bookkeeping approach. During this time span the Allgemeines Statistisches Archiv published only two papers dealing with the relationship between statistics and sociology (Zizek, 1924; Günther, 1927). Both papers were remarkable because of their author's preoccupation with the attempts to establish a reconciliation with their statistical colleagues. Zizek stressed the fact that what he had advocated earlier was merely the

34

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1883-1933

fact that statistics needed some methodological improvements, particularly in the area of concept formation but in order to do so they did not have to lean on the field of sociology. He pointed out further that the attempt to adapt statistical studies to the needs of heir prospective customers - as for example sociologists - who according to Zizek 'can hardly be said to have reached the point where they possess a recognized doctrine or method (System)' (Zizek, 1924; 20), would be dangerous. He emphasized very strongly his contention that statistics should be an independent field but that does not mean that it should be isolated from the other social sciences. The statistician should be familiar with his related fields without trying to play a double or multiple role because 'it is impossible to simultaneously consider all aspects of social life' (Zizek, 1924: 21). Adolf Günther who, in 1924 at the meeting of the German Sociological Society (see Ch. II, Sec. 1), had assured sociologists that statistics could be very helpful but could never constitute a threat to their autonomy, subsequently assured the statisticians that sociology should not be seen as a dangerous enemy. He pointed out that in the past sociology had unfortunately acquired the reputation of trying to be a superscience swallowing up all the other social sciences: This disastrous overestimation of its methods and possibilities has, as we all know, exposed sociology to the most massive, most brutal and — unfortunately it has to be admitted — justified attacks on the part of the disciplines, whose dignity appeared threatened. Historians, philosophers and lawyers especially joined into a kind of dragnet hunt on sociology as they saw it at the time. (Günther, 1927: 27.) But he continued, since sociology which worked primarily deductively, constitutes essentially the study of social formations, there is no reason why the two disciplines could not be friendly partners. The earlier hostilities between the two fields had been based on misconceptions about the goals of sociology as well as statistics: Especially when the statistician emphasized the methodical quality of his discipline, it was easy to see sociology as a material science which set out to realize its goal by using the statisticians to serve them with statistics as an art, method and technique. Only the adoption of von Mayr's view of statistics as a material science with a substrata of its own, could lead to any doubts as to how to differentiate this discipline from universal sociology which was also understood as a material science. (Günther, 1927: 50.) After having dealt with the methodical differences between sociology and statistics he discussed the similarities and dissimilarities between the the concepts of population vs. society, social group vs. statistical 'mass',

The major schools of sociological thought

35

sociological and statistical treatment of a variety of subject matters e.g. the notions of development and progress, sociological laws and processes and relationships. Günther's arguments were extremely rational and intelligent, but they almost completely disregarded the irrational aspects of the earlier polemics. Thus we are led to suspect that his paper contributed very little to a reconciliation between the two fields. The fact that we were unable to find any reply to his rather thought-provoking paper seems to substantiate our assumption. We do assume however that his closing statement did not generate a large amount of agreement on either side: The statistical concept of dispersion, with its reference to the law of error, has a sociological background. Sociology, one day, may perhaps identify the possible factual situations within which social processes can take place, and statistics may attempt to show the quantitative relationships according to which the empirically observed processes approach or differ from the established models of social behavior and action. This perhaps indicates the generally desired direction of statistical-sociological research beyond the scope of the topic of the 'social process' dealt with in this paper. (Günther, 1927: 53.)

It was only in 1928 that the German sociologists became interested in the use of statistical data but only in the form of 'sociography'. As we will show later the sociologists accepted the statisticians but merely in the role of subservient 'helpmates' who provided them with statistical data which were suitable for their purposes. To conclude, it seems that the relationship between sociology and statistics during that period represents a rather outstanding example of how the 'resort-envy' between two fields could not only prevent a badly needed cooperation but also result in a stagnation in the development of both fields involved. However in the framework of the role of the social sciences in the university and vis-à-vis the state, this unfortunate development is understandable.

3. THE MAJOR SCHOOLS OF S O C I O L O G I C A L

THOUGHT

Aron's observation that the scholar who wanted to obtain a professorship had to create a 'system of sociology' is perhaps one of the most important characteristics of German sociology. Each of these systems would usually start out by defining the task and method of sociology in contrast to that of other systems and other fields and then outline the structure or development of society or the realm of the social world. Gumplowicz in his

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Grundriss der Soziologie stated: 'The function of sociology consists in showing that universal laws apply to social phenomena; in pointing out the peculiar effects produced by them in the social domain, and finally in formulating the special social laws' (Gumplowicz, 1899: 82-83). For Gumplowicz the history of society is essentially the result of conflict between groups; i.e., races, nations and classes. All social processes are ultimately based on the interaction of social groups or aggregates, rather than on individual actions. The most basic social institutions, namely property and the family, are based on intergroup conflicts. Since sexual relations in the early stages of the horde were promiscuous, paternity could not be established and the children were the mothers' property. Thus the male had to resort to wife-stealing from other hordes in order to establish a family of his own in which the woman and children became the male's property. Wife-stealing was followed by plundering goods, the acquisition of territory and, finally, the subjugation of the conquered horde by the victors for the purpose of economic exploitation. The state, finally, is the representation of the superior (in terms of military and intellectual ability) minority whose job it is not to administer justice but to regulate subjugation and economic exploitation. The state was 'not a union or community for securing the common-weal, for realizing justice . . No state was ever founded with these ends in view' (Gumplowicz, 1899: 118-119). The individual has no place in Gumplowicz's system; its consciousness is essentially formed by the group to which it belongs, and changes in beliefs, or, more generally, in cultural structures are due to the interaction of different social groups, i.e. conflict and competition. Gumplowicz's view of the role of the state is by no means a negative one. The role of the state is a necessary one which is based on the natural laws of society. There simply is no room for 'inalienable human rights' in society. This notion is a basic misunderstanding of the social processes and the role of the state. 'This fancied freedom and equality is incompatible with the state and is a direct negation of it. But the only choice for men here below is between the state with its necessary servitude and inequality and - anarchy' (Gumplowicz, 1899: 180). Thus Gumplowicz moves away from the traditional concept and content of the Staatslehre and makes the interaction of social groups the subject matter of his sociology. His system is both an outline of the subject matter of sociology and a theory of history. Tönnies, on the other hand, focuses primarily on the forms of social interaction and the underlying motivations. He goes beyond the concrete historical events by developing what Weber later called two 'ideal types' of modes of human interaction; namely, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

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(Tönnies, 1884, 1935). Tönnies's goal was not so much that of constructing a theory of history but rather of juxtaposing two modes of social existence which in many ways were outright ahistorical. Tönnies contrasted community and society. The prototype of the former is the small village with its face to face relationships and its traditional order, while the impersonal, contractual industrial city represents the latter. Tönnies' starting point was the assumption that all social facts and relationships are the result of human will. He distinguished natural will (Wesenswille) and rational will (Kürwille) which also constitute ideal types. Natural will is profoundly organic in nature; it is based on the spontaneity of experience and is rooted in tradition, habit and memory. Rational will on the other hand is based on reflection and aims at a means-end oriented mode of action. Depending on the predominance of either will as the basic motivational form in human interaction, social life is either a community or a society. Community life is simple, based on the natural bonds of family life, traditional religion, nature and the acceptance of established authority. Society, in contrast, is based on contracts and laws; the bonds of family life and established order are superseded by the impersonal relationships created by commerce and industry. In a community, human relations are seen as an end in itself, while in society they are either the results of role expectations or simply constitute means to an end. The dominant social relationships in community are fellowship, kinship and neighborliness, while, in society, exchange and rational calculation predominate. Social control in community is based on concord, folkways, mores and religion, while society is governed by convention, legislation and public opinion. While Tönnies did not trace the causal factors which are responsible for the emergence of society, he did state that society emerged from community following natural laws. Tönnies and Gumplowicz set the stage for two important traditions in Germany: pure or systematic sociology (reine Soziologie), and what might be called a sociological theory of history or the historical school of sociology. These are admittedly crude categories, but they point to an important difference in the subject-matter of sociology. Systematic sociology puts its primary focus on the forms of social interaction which are common factors in all societies, while the historical school looks primarily at the concrete social-historical developments which resulted in the specific structures of existing societies. Max Weber's sociology can be seen, as Freyer (1930) viewed it, as a synthesis of both, or, as Aron (1964) claims, as a type of sociology which fits into neither category but dominates them both. Systematic Sociology, which concerns itself with interactional constants

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German sociology 1883-1933

can be as macroscopic as Spann's 'universalisai' and as microscopic as Simmel's study of the triad. Simmel, who belongs to the formal branch of systematic sociology conceived of his enterprise as a 'geometry of social Ufe'. Simmel's Soziologie (1908) is a loose collection of essays on seemingly randomly selected parts of the social structure. They are analyzed apart from the conscious motives of the individuals. Social form and content can be interchangeable; different contents can appear in different forms and vice versa. In this vein he studied topics such as the structure of submission and domination, competition, struggle, the nature and function of the secret, etc. Leopold von Wiese took a similar approach in his Beziehungslehre (von Wiese, 1906, 1924, 1929), which is the systematic study of 'reciprocal relations' (Wechselbeziehungen), i.e. how individuals move towards each other and withdraw in a given social space. His four basic terms are social process, social distance, social space (sozialer Raum) and social formations (soziale Gebilde). All social events can be analyzed in these terms; furthermore, the development of the different social formations can be described in this way. Von Wiese, in contrast to Simmel, attempted to create a closed sociological system in which the main categories could be broken down into sub-categories until every last form of social interaction was covered. Another branch of systematic sociology is the phenomenological school represented by Vierkandt (1928). Its objects are the 'last forms, forces and facts of social life as such', manifested in the specific characteristics of group life. Sociology is defined as the theory of interaction and its products, or as the study of relations and relationships (Beziehungen und Verhältnisse). Vierkandt deals with basic emotions or dispositions such as instinct of submission and self-awareness as authentic givens which cannot be explained in terms of other feelings. They are autonomous and deepseated instincts. (According to Vierkandt, every emotion is always both individual and social.) Out of the mutuality of our feelings and the reciprocity of interaction emerge the community, its cohesion and its specific spirit. Phenomenology relies very heavily on the power of intuition to accurately abstract the pure types of relationships and the basic sentiments. It approaches totalities rather than the elements which constitute them. Othmar Spann's 'Universalism' (Spann, 1914) - also belongs to the branch of systematic sociology. His system is based on the juxtaposition of the principles of individualism and universalism, each of which leads to an entirely different analysis of society, political orientation and set of values. Spann totally rejected the notion that the individual can be conceptualized as a self-contained entity; it exists only through the community to which it belongs. Spann's starting point is Aristotle's notion that

The major schools of sociological thought

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the whole is prior to the parts. Thus, the study of society, which is a spiritual entity, has to proceed from the most universal concept of the community of mankind to an analysis of its parts, i.e., specific societies, communities, the family, in terms of the larger entity which they constitute. The decisive elements which constitute the general reality are god, the objectivity of the spirit as manifested in language, values, knowledge, etc., and the universal forms of social relationships such as love, friendship, belonging, subordination, etc. In other words, any sociological analysis which conceptualizes society as consisting of parts which can be studied separately, misses the very essence of society as a 'totality (Ganzheit) which constitutes the very essence of society in general' (Spann, 1914: 30). The historical school of sociology aims at a theoretical explanation of concrete social phenomena, as, for example, the emergence of capitalism or the interaction of the different social spheres in history. Oppenheimer (1928, 1922-1933) viewed society as an organism in which conflict and the desire for justice are constantly interacting. He intended to determine the fundamental laws that govern phenomena such as the emergence of classes, property, state, etc., and the relationship between economic and political variables which enter into that development. Like Gumplowicz, he started with the conditions of primitive societies and tried to trace the development to a modern stratified social system. History for Oppenheimer is a continuous attempt of one group of people to subjugate others for their own benefit. He saw class struggle and the struggle between nations and other aggregates not as an emergent from primitive accumulation and increase in population-density but as a historical constant. Its product is the state. Violence is the origin of every government. 'The state is a judicial institution initially imposed upon a conquered people by the conquerers, originally with the sole object of subjecting them to a tribute, as heavy and as lasting as possible, for the benefit of the conquerers' (Oppenheimer, 1922-1933, II: 235). Alfred Weber (1935) in his 'cultural sociology' attempted to construct an interpretation of the whole of human history in terms of cultural phenomena. Weber distinguished between three different spheres or processes: the social sphere (Gesellschaftsprozess), culture and civilization. Civilization encompasses rationality, logic, and technology; in short, the whole body of positive knowledge. Often, the process of this body of knowledge unfolding itself is discontinuous. The sociologist studies the conditions which help or hinder the unfolding of civilization. Culture, in contrast, is not objective or universal or communicable. It is unique and tied to the human beings who are its carriers. While the content of civilization is discovered, culture is created. There are no laws governing the development

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1883-1933

of culture; it has, indeed, that uniqueness which historicism attributed to all of history, and the sociologist can neither explain nor analyze it, even though the cultural sphere is more susceptible to the influences of the social sphere than civilization. The evolution of the social process is also a discontinuous one, but it has to go through a necessary number of stages to reach a necessary and predestined final result or outcome. Because the social process moves through the different historical aggregates (societies) with their different configurations of culture and civilization, it obtains its unique and special characteristics. In other words, Weber's Kultursoziologie combines the notion of social laws with the approach of historicism. Any given society is, on one hand, the product of socio-historical laws, and, on the other hand, a unique phenomenon unlike others. The sociology of knowledge can be seen as part of the historical school even though it was not interested in any theory of history. It set out to investigate systematically the relationship between ideas and existential (real) factors. For an overview of this field, see Merton (1958) and Lenk (1961). Scheler (1960, 1924), Mannheim (1936) and Geiger (1953, 1949) did not focus on specific types of knowledge; all types of ideas and styles of thought, were potential topics of investigation. In contrast to Marx & Engels (1947), they did not attempt to unmask false beliefs and prejudices, but rather to trace their social functions and origins. This shift of attention was in part due to the fact that the turn of the century had given rise to substantial doubts in the validity of absolute values and absolute truths. Instead we have studies such as Weber's 'Sociology of religion" which traced the interrelation between religious beliefs and economic structures; Scheler's analysis of styles of thought in relation to social class; Mannheim's attempt to demonstrate the social determination of ideas, and Geiger's search for the paratheoretical elements which interfere with human reasoning. One of the most important characteristics of the sociology of knowledge is the absence of unicausal or even any causal explanations. Instead a multiplicity of factors and their interrelationships is examined. Examples for such factors are Scheler's blood-ties, kinship associations, race and economic structures. Scheler assumed that the importance of these factors varied over time. Geiger and Mannheim included every aspect of an individual's social and economic position as a potential factor in determining his world-outlook. The concept 'social position', as they used it, is a much wider term than 'class'; it takes into account not only the relationship to the means of production as Marx had done but also a man's multiple group-affiliations and their differential importance 9. Max Weber (1964). For an overview of Max Weber's studies on the sociology of religion see Bendix (1960).

The major schools of sociological thought

41

in shaping his identity. As stated above, the nature of the relationship between the intellectual sphere and the various existential factors is hardly ever seen as a causal one. Weber created the term 'elective affinity' to denote the relationship; Scheler assumed an 'interaction' between the two spheres. Existential factors, according to Scheler, determine whether or not and when specific ideas are expressed and actualized. Ideas which have no direct bearing upon real factors cannot assume any important social role, because an idea must be related to interests, emotions, institutional structures, etc., if it is to become effective. Geiger, on the other hand, insisted that the real factors cannot enter thought unless the thinker himself includes them. An idea becomes ideological and thus false, if the thinking subject includes atheoretical or emotional elements in his reasoning and treats them as if they were objective facts or logical conclusions. The mentality of the thinking subject, then, is the link between thought and its existential base. Mannheim's term 'social determination of ideas' (Mannheim, 1936) (Seinsverbundenheit des Denkens) implies nothing about the exact relationship between the two spheres. He uses the terms: correlation, correspondance, determination, outgrowth, connection, conjunction etc., to describe the forms of interplay between ideas and real factors. Mannheim claimed that all ideas were related to and shaped by the social position of the thinker. Since Mannheim would not take the position of complete relativism he suggested the term 'relationism', a form of inquiry which accepts the fact: that there are spheres of thought in which it is impossible to conceive of absolute truth existing independently of the values and position of the subject and unrelated to the social context... The question that can be asked then, is: which social standpoint vis-à-vis history offers the best chance for reaching an optimum of truth. (Mannheim, 1936: 79-80.) Scheler resolved the same problem by stating that even though the categories and objects of thought are rarely ever independent from social conditions, this does not imply that they are necessarily inaccurate. Geiger too claimed that the origin of an idea does not necessarily determine whether or not it is true; on the contrary, a specific social position may enable a person to achieve an understanding that is unattainable for the outsider. In order to obtain a maximum of objectivity, Geiger suggested that the individual tries to become conscious of his socially determined beliefs and biases through intellectual exchanges with other people who have different social backgrounds and through an attempt at intellectual self-analysis.

42 4.

German sociology

1883-1933

THE 'DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FÜR

SOZIOLOGIE'

It was the intended purpose of the Society to establish sociology as an independent autonomous scholarly enterprise, in order to define its scope, and give its members an opportunity to exchange ideas and to engage in collective projects. The first meeting took place in 1910 in Frankfurt. Ferdinand Tönnies, the first president, gave the opening speech: 'The goals and directions of sociology' (Wege und Ziele der Soziologie). His programmatic paper turned out to be a rather accurate preview of the activities of the society. He defined sociology as a 'philosophical discipline' whose goal is to study the social realm, what he considered as the essence of society: Sociology is primarily a philosophical discipline. It is much older than its name; it was not created by its name, nor was it called into existence by the inventor of that name. At all times, speculations regarding the essence, substance, nature, character of human society, and political associations in particular, have been closely connected with the ideas pertaining to decent human conduct and a civilized organization of life. (Anon., 1910: 17.)

He urged the members of the society to disregard their ideological orientations and political goals for the time being, because no scientifically based prescription could be worked out until sociology had arrived at an objective analysis of society. That analysis would have to include the clarification of concepts as well as the development of an appropriate methodology: We will leave out all considerations of future programs, i.e., all social and political tasks; not because we despise them, but rather in consequence of the scientific idea. At the present, we consider the difficulties involved in seeking a scientific foundation for such ideas insurmountable; we expect those persons who think differently on this matter, i.e., those who advocate 'scientific socialism', that they agree on setting the field of sociology apart from such controversies and on demarcating it, in order to limit it to the more easily solvable asks of objective understanding of phenomena (Erkenntnis). (Anon., 1920: 23.)

Tönnies acknowledged that the goal of absolute objectivity may not be possible, but he felt that people could pursue it with all their devotion and energy. Sociology, in his view, concerns itself with what is, rather than with what should be. The analysis of current social reality in all its complexity necessarily means that the sociologist has to study the past, the origins of existing and extinguished institutions. The starting point, however, is the clarification of concepts (reine Soziologie). The next step is to

The 'Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie'

43

establish the relationship between sociology and the related disciplines. Finally sociology has to develop its own methodology. Max Weber's conceptualization of the purpose and function of the Society differed slightly from that of Tönnies, and it seems possible that, had Weber lived longer, his influence might have moved the Society in a somewhat different direction. Weber saw the Society primarily as a 'workshop' (Arbeitsgemeinschaft), in which groups of individuals would join forces and carry out large projects. He also planned to involve philanthropists and large corporations in the financing of these projects. (The problem of financing and joint enterprises was never raised again in any of the subsequent meetings.) Weber suggested three topics: 1) the sociology of voluntary associations, i.e. every social aggregate which is neither institutionalized power such as the state, communities, and the church, nor a natural grouping, such as the family. This includes bowling clubs as well as literary circles, political parties as well as religious sects; 2) the second topic might be called the elements of social mobility (Soziale Auslese), i.e. the variables which affect the extent to which individuals in any given society can attain rank and status; 3) the third topic which he suggested, and for which he had already secured some funds, was the sociology of the media, i.e., the newspapers. He envisioned a quantitative content analysis as the starting point. Concretely, he suggested that the investigators start with a pair of scissors and a measuring tape in order to quantitatively determine how much space was devoted to the different newscategories, advertising and the like. Unfortunately, Weber, who had planned to head this investigation, had to withdraw from the project for personal reasons (see Weber, 1926). When he looked for a successor in 1912 no one volunteered and the project died. Only in 1930 was the topic treated again, in a paper by Brinkmann, which was purely theoretical in its approach. He did not mention Weber's ideas about the topic, and in subsequent discussion, nobody referred to them. In 1910 both Weber and Tönnies advocated the use of empirical methods; Weber pointed this out in his suggestion concerning the newspaper investigation and Tönnies in a discussion of his general view of the role of empirical methods in sociology. Throughout his opening speech Tönnies referred to sociology as being empirical; however, the term has several different meanings. Primarily, it means factual in the sense of historical facts, but he also used it in the context of empirical research. He stated that sociology needed statistics, but he added that he did not accept von Mayr's definition of statistics as the 'science of the social agglomerations' (Wissenschaft von den sozialen Massen) (Mayr, 1895, 19. , 1917). Instead he saw statistics as a method to be used for obtaining demographic data, for which he suggest-

44

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1883-1933

ed the terms Demographie and Demologie. With respect to the problem of empirical verification he stated: Even more, however, pure sociology needs empirical verification; it must constantly revise its concepts, and re-examine and verify its deductions. It will always keep in mind that critically verified experience constitutes the only source of all actual cognition (Erkenntnis) and that reality is much too complex. That it is subject to influences too manifold to allow that deduction from individual, isolated, or even from several interrelated causes could suffice and could result in an adequate explanation (...). An empirically corroborated sociology, however, can be put together only out of countless research findings derived deductively (...). Sociology's attitude towards the individual sciences which devote contributions to it, will be one of receptiveness and studiousness. (Anon., 1910: 27-28.) His attitude towards empirical social research shows some ambivalence, but it certainly is not negative. However, in 1922 his attitude towards empiricism had undergone a subtle change. He suggested separating pure sociology from applied sociology, since he felt that the attempt to integrate all parts of sociology, as he had suggested in 1910, was premature.10 In 1922, he defined 'empirical sociology' as: the science concerned with the real phenomena of social life at any time and in any country, built on inductive investigation of the state of society and, therefore, also of social conditions, etc.; a science in which it always should be remembered that observation can bear, for the present and immediate future, only on the particular time and the particular country in which we live; so that here, more than anywhere, one has to be aware of generalizations which are not sufficiently substantiated by experience. (Anon., 1922: 4-5.) This definition is much more vague than the one given in 1910; it includes virtually every study, that is, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft as well as his statistical analyses of crime in Schleswig-Holstein.

A. The 'Methodenstreit' Generally, the papers delivered at the meetings of the Society (1910-1930) consisted essentially of four types: 1) Systematic sociology exemplified by specific topics, as for example, 'competition'; 'Intellectual production as 10. His distinction between pure sociology and applied sociology is not clear in his paper given at the meeting of the Society in 1922; however, a clear definition of pure, applied and empirical sociology can be found in 'Einteilung der Soziologie' (Tönnies, 1926).

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45

a sociological area of inquiry'; 2) Historical sociology, e.g., 'the historical development of the notion 'fatherland'; 'the sociological concept of culture'; 3) Methodological papers, i.e. the search for the most appropriate method for sociological theory construction, known as the Methodenstreit; 4) A small number of papers dealing with, among other things, the role of empirical methods in sociology. In this context we will only deal with the Methodenstreit and the Society's attitude towards empirical methods. We feel that the weight of the former pushed that of the latter into the background. At the 5th meeting of the Society in 1926, Sombart delivered the main paper in the section on 'Methodology'. He started the paper with a set of basic definitions of sociology as a subject matter and then deduced from them his methodological propositions. Sociology was defined in the following way: 1. Sociology (the science of the organization and functioning of human society), is an (empirical) science, i.e., it aspires to knowledge which is of general relevance (demarcation with respect to social philosophy). 2. Sociology is a cultural science, i.e., is part of the humanities and therefore, is an interpretive (verstehende) science (demarcation with respect to natural sciences). Psychology is an auxiliary, not a basic science. 3. Sociology consists of two parts: a) a general — always theoretical — sociology containing a formally pure typology of social relations, and a number of special sociologies: the sociologies pertaining to particular civilizations, which may be either theoretical or empirical (historical). b) any form of dogmatic (historical) general sociology is to be rejected; the synthesis of the special sociologies is the task of philosophy (of history). c) the distinction between sociology as an autonomous discipline and a sociological attitude is settled by thesis 3a; besides, it is just a controversy about words. (Anon., 1926: 119.) He concluded the discussion by stating: The ideal of scientific precision characterizing the pure sciences is unattainable for sociology. There always have to be personal controversies. After all, in the final analysis, the scholar's entire personality asserts itself more strongly than the scientist per se, because at the bottom we always find artistic and philosophical views. We depend on active creators. They are absolutely essential. (Anon., 1926: 143.) Sombart's paper was followed by a rather heated discussion primarily among von Wiese, Spann and Oppenheimer. The debate focused on the second thesis: sociology as a Geisteswissenschaft. It was argued that, if

46

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that is indeed an accurate definition, then sociology must first determine what constitutes the nature and essence of Geist (spirit). That determination will then point to the appropriate methodology for its study (eine spezifisch geisteswissenschaftliche Methode). Othmar Spann argued that Geist cannot be conceptualized as consisting of elements or atoms. Thus, it is not something mechanical which can be studied in its parts, but only as a totality. Since the whole is prior to the parts, no special sociology is possible. Spann exemplified his point by stating that it is absurd to ask: 'What is the purpose of the frog?' The answer 'The purpose of the frog is to catch flies' is irrelevant. After all, it is impossible to exactly know the purpose of the frog within nature. The definition that its purpose is to eat flies, remains in the realm of the primitive. The 'concept' of organic totality (Ganzheit und Gliedhaftigkeit), encompasses the concept of purpose (also that of the normative and the value!). The functional role of the frog, of frogkind, if we may use that expression, within nature can, however, be easily determined in its totality. (Anon., 1926: 124.) Von Wiese, on the other hand, argued that, given the necessity (or desirability), of the universalistic approach, it might still be possible and useful to study the social behavior of the frog, his relationship to other animals, etc., and that this type of inquiry would yield relevant and useful knowledge. No general agreement was reached in the debate and Sombart concluded that if the Society, at a later date, would discuss the notions of interpretation and causality, real progress would be made. The Methodenstreit did not start in 1926; it began with Dilthey and it was part of the entire debate concerning the legitimacy of sociology as an autonomous field; it continued to occupy German sociologists even after World War II. The same holds true for the basic problem of 'value-free sociology' as conceptualized by Max Weber. There seemed to be general agreement among the members of the Society that these broad and general questions had precedence over the specific ones, as for example, the exact role of statistics and Soziographie.

B. The attitude towards empiricism The attitude of the Society towards empirical quantification was rather ambivalent throughout its existence. From the beginning, a separate section on statistics was planned and von Mayr was supposed to head it. It was conceptualized as an autonomous body having separate meetings. In

The 'Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie'

47

1912, the last meeting before World War I, this section became a reality. But since Max Weber was the main driving force behind the incorporation of this section, it was not reestablished after the war. It was only in 1930, at the last meeting before World War II, that a separate section for sonography was established. The following incident seems rather prototypical of the Society's attitude towards quantification before World War I. At the meeting in 1912, Oppenheimer delivered a paper on racism as an ideological device of oppression (pertaining primarily to anti-semitism). In the subsequent discussion, it was the general consensus that racism could be discussed, but that no part of the problem could be proven empirically. It was not until 1931 that the problem was treated empirically by the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research. The third meeting of the Society was planned for 1914, with the main topic to be the concept of 'population'. However, because of the war, the meeting was never held; it is not possible to find out what kinds of papers were planned. As we indicated earlier at the third meeting in 1922, Tönnies redefined his definition of empirical sociology in such a way that it included any type of factual material. Aside from Tönnies's remarks, the problem of empiricism was mentioned only once more during the meeting. In the discussion of the papers on 'The revolution', the main topic of the meeting, the Austrian economist Adolf Günther pointed out that some of the points in the debate might be proven statistically. However, he made no specific suggestions. At the 4th meeting, in 1924, Adolf Günther and Ludwig Heyde (also an economist), presented two papers on Soziologie und Sozialpolitik (sociology and social legislation). After an involved discussion of the subject matter of the two fields and their respective philosophical foundations, Günther proposed that statistics and Sozio-Geographie are the connecting link between sociology and social legislation. He pointed out that statistics could not possibly infringe upon the area of pure sociology since the latter was concerned with problems which statistics could not deal with at all because quantity had to be distinguished from quality. While he basically agreed with Dilthey's arguments, he pointed out that the methods of the pure sciences could at least occasionally be applied to sociology. Then he added: The science dealing with pure quantities (statistics) enters into all branches of social sciences and is combined with all special methods. If pure sociology aims at elevating those relationships and formations, which originally were only qualitatively identifiable, to the height of quantitative ones, then, without becoming a part of statistics, it comes as close to it as is true for any socio-

48

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political theory. Even though it proceeds directly from the qualities prevailing in society, it remains, for obvious reasons, dependent on the recording of quantities, since quantity turns into quality. (Anon., 1924: 36.)

The discussion of the papers did not focus on the problem of empirical quantification. It was concerned with the problems of Wertfreiheit and the definition and subject matter of sociology vs. that of social legislation. The most remarkable aspect of Giinther's paper was the caution with which he approached the problem of empiricism. He sounded almost as apologetic as someone who was trying to sell pornography at a church meeting. At the meeting in 1926 the Dutch sociologist Steinmetz delivered the first paper, which dealt directly and predominantly with the role of empirical methods in sociology. Its title was Soziographie und Soziologie. The main point he was trying to convey was that sociology was running the risk of losing contact with reality unless it depended on sociography for its supply of empirical data. He pointed out that sociography was particularly capable of fulfilling that function, because it was not familiar with the subject matter of sociology and, therefore, would not be likely to be biased in the collection of the data. It is the sole purpose of sociography to collect and order empirical data and to hand them over to the sociologist for analysis and interpretation. The general response to this paper, particularly by von Wiese, was quite positive. It seems to us that this positive response was not accidental, because sociography, in effect, offered its services and therefore relieved sociology itself of the necessity of having to deal with something so mundane as figures and formula and direct contact with the field. It seems that Steinmetz's paper appealed to the sociologists' sense of superiority by putting sociography and statistics in a subservient position. Finally, in 1930, in the section on Soziographie, Tönnies delivered the main paper in which he essentially adopted Steinmetz's view of the role of sociography as that of a helpmate or auxiliary field for sociology. It was the general consensus of the subsequent discussion that sociography thus defined, was indeed helpful. The only sociologist who opposed this idea was Heberle, one of the few young German sociologists who had already undertaken an empirical study on social mobility. He argued that sociology and sociography constituted a unity and should not be separated.

C. Conclusions From the numerical distribution of the 45 papers delivered at the meetings

The 'Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie'

49

of the German Sociological Society between 1910 and 1930 we can safely conclude that the Society was primarily interested in sociological theory and the philosophical foundations of sociology (42 papers). Only three papers dealt predominantly with the role of empirical methods in sociology, and two of these papers were given by non-sociologists. It is important to note though, that the empirical methods seem to have been finally accepted by the majority of the sociologists, in the form of 'sociography' which consists essentially of the use of statistical data for the purpose of substantiating sociological theories. This definition of empirical methods is so noteworthy because of the highly sophisticated research procedures, such as contextual analysis, construction of indicators, scales and typologies that were employed by psychology and psychiatry - none of which was ever mentioned at any of the meetings of the society. Generally, the observations made in our chapter on the role of socioloy in the university with respect to the way in which sociology defined its subject-matter and its methodology, are reflected in the concerns and attitudes of the Sociological Society. In 1910 Tönnies urged the Society to postpone all efforts at dealing with concrete social and political problems, since, in the case of sociology, such an effort would be premature. This statement was still true in 1930 as far as the conceptualization of sociology on the part of the members of the German Sociological Society was concerned.

5. THE ' K Ö L N E R V I E R T E L J A H R S H E F T E FÜR S O Z I O L O G I E '

The Vierteljahrshefte were founded in 1921 under the editorship of Leopold von Wiese, Hugo Lindemann, Max Scheler and Christian Eckert. Its original title was Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Sozialwissenschaften. It consisted of two separate series and two separate editorships. Leopold von Wiese was editor-in-chief of the two sociological volumes and Hugo Lindemann was in charge of the two issues on social legislation. However, in 1923 the Vierteljahrshefte were separated into two autonomous journals: The Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie and the Kölner Sozialpolitische Vierteljahrshefte. The editors remained the same. The Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie was the leading German sociological journal until 1934, when the Nazis closed it down, and it was also the official organ of the German Sociological Society. Aside from the sociological essays, it also had a large review section which included book reviews, articles from other social-science journals and related fields, as well as the major foreign publications (books and journals), and it attemp-

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ted to keep track of the various courses that were taught in the different universities. Leopold von Wiese, in the first volume, defined the task of the journal. First of all, it was supposed to be instrumental in resolving the 'still existing crisis' of sociology, i.e. the problem of its social and academic acceptance as a field of inquiry as well as the internal conflicts about the nature and methodology of the discipline. Thus the orientation of the Vierteljahrshefte was supposed to be primarily theoretical. Sociology will be treated as a purely theoretical discipline, to the exclusion of its practical, especially political, application, in contrast to Social Policy (Sozialpolitik) whose most characteristic feature consists precisely of this application of the social sciences to practical life, (von Wiese, 1921: 5.)

With respect to the development of sociology itself, von Wiese stated: 'We would, however, only slow down the process of growth expanding the understanding (Erkenntnis) of the field, if we were to confuse and entangle theory and application' (von Wiese, 1921: 8). Until its last issue in 1934 the Vierteljahrshefte almost exclusively published theoretical articles, with the exception of the reports on the 'field-studies' (see Ch. III, Sec. 1) conducted by the Cologne Institute, and four other empirical studies, one of which was conducted by Sorokin. The theoretical part was divided into two sections, a general one and the Archiv für Beziehungslehre. In terms of the topics covered, the papers in the Vierteljahrshefte were not very different from those delivered at the meetings of the society, except for the fact that more emphasis was given to the elaboration of Beziehungslehre, von Wiese's brand of systematic sociology. Von Wiese expressed his attitude towards empricism and quantification in what he called his Dogma, namely that the method had to fit the subject-matter under investigation (a statement which merely puts the Methodenstreit into a nutshell). As far as the question of quantification is concerned, I believe that I can summarize the 'dogma' that I have arrived at in one sentence (.. .). Whatever can be quantified without 'destruction of the spirit' (Entgeistung), of the subject matter should be quantified, because the comparative method, consisting of and depending on measurement, is the prerequisite of mutual understanding. The purely qualitative judgment is, too frequently, a source of misunderstandings. This means, however: the thesis which proclaims that research in the social sciences should only be concerned with quantifiable phenomena, must be emphatically rejected.11 11. Kölner

Vierteljahrshefte

für Soziologie

12 (1934): 400.

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51

This attitude also explains why von Wiese reacted so negatively to Theodore Abel's Systematic Sociology in Germany (1965). Abel judged von Wiese's system by a criterion which von Wiese himself rejected. It was not the purpose of the field trips to validate or invalidate the Beziehungslehre, but rather to test its applicability to a given empirical reality. Thus, due to the structure of the Beziehungslehre, the field studies were descriptive. The four empirical studies published in the Viertelfahrshefte were: 1. P. Mombart's study on the social origins of lawyers in 1921. His source was the statistical section of the Ministry of Justice of the State of Baden. He compiled the professions of the fathers of 1653 candidates who applied for the bar-exams between the years 1898 and 1921. Mombart presented his findings in table-form but he did not present percentages for the different categories. Only in the analysis of his findings did he present percentages for some of his results. For comparative purposes he introduced a similar table about the social origins of teachers. 2. Kurt Schneider's study of prostitutes in 1927. This investigation was much more sophisticated than that of Mombart. In 1913/14 Schneider, had collected all the available official records (police, health, school, and welfare) of 70 registered prostitutes. Furthermore, he had interviewed each of them in depth and then categorized them according to personalitytypes. In a follow-up study eleven years later (62 subjects), he compared the original psychological variables as well as work patterns and intelligence with subsequent social adjustment, i.e. civil marriage, and he found that the personality variables and intelligence were the most important variables in social adjustment. Unfortunately, Schneider focused primarily on his results, and he was not very explicit about the methodological aspects of his study. Schneider's paper was a summary of a study conducted in collaboration with the political economist, Luise von der Heyden, who worked as a social worker for the police department in Cologne. We found it surprising that such a provocative paper was published in this journal; however, it was the only one of its kind and did not stimulate any sociologists to do similar studies. (The actual study on which this paper was based was Schneider (1926).) 3. In 1928 Pitrim Sorokin did an experimental study of the relationship between productivity (in work) and material rewards in children. He used the design of the classical experiment and the results were presented in percentages in well-structured tables. 4. Nothaas conducted a study on social mobility in 1931. His sources were the statistical data compiled by the 'Statistical Bureau of the Sate of Bavaria'. He ascertained the social origins of people now occupying the

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different social classes in order to determine to what extent social mobility was possible in Germany. With respect to the methodology, Nothaas simply stated that the study was statistical in nature, but that he saw no point in presenting the specific methods which he had used in determining the concept of class, and how he arrived at his computations. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the presentation of the empirical studies by Nothaas and Schneider is the fact that they are both summaries of studies published elsewhere, and that they felt that for this particular audience it was not necessary or desirable to include in their paper a discussion of their methodology. We assume that they felt that the readers of the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte would only be interested in their findings, an attitude which is consistent with that expressed in the review section of the journal which we discussed earlier. Over the years, the sociological and methodological orientation of the Vierteljahrshefte hardly changed. It expanded its scope, adding additional special fields such as industrial sociology, Biosoziologie (the sociology of generations), and sociology of education and literature. Also the review section: books, journals, sociological meetings and institutes increased considerably, covering every major German and foreign social science publication.

6 . THE ' J A H R B U C H F Ü R

SOZIOLOGIE'

The Jahrbuch für Soziologie (Yearbook for sociology) appeared in three volumes, 1925-1927, under the editorship of Gottfried Salomon. He belonged to the historical school of sociology. Even though the yearbook called itself 'an international collection', the vast majority of the papers published in it were written by German-speaking social scientists. Salomon, in his introduction, defined the purpose and scope of the yearbook in the following way: it was supposed to give an overview of current sociological studies, methods and problems. Even though he indicated that the inclusion of works by foreign sociologists, particularly those from the Anglo-Saxon countries, was especially desirable because of their strong empirical orientation, only one of the eight American or English papers in the first volume was indeed empirical. In the first volume, the largest number of papers dealt with the scope of sociology, its boundaries and its relationship to other fields, such as, psychology, philosophy, ethnology, etc. As in the case of the papers of the German Sociological Society and the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte, the problem of methodology, with all its philosophical implications, was discussed at length.

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53

The second volume concentrated on 'psychological sociology' and economic sociology. Heavy emphasis was placed on the clarification of social-psychological concepts: the relationship between individuals, groups, crowds, etc., as well as the different forms of individual and collective consciousness in the tradition of Beziehungslehre. As in the first volume, the vast majority of papers was theoretical. The third volume was devoted to political sociology, i.e. the problems of power, the state, ideology, etc. Eleven out of 17 papers were empirical in their approach, mainly using existing statistical data with little or no theoretical conclusions drawn from them. From a methodological point of view, the most outstanding paper was that of Adolf Günther, on the sociology of the border-people, as exemplified by the people of the Alps. This paper was a summary of Günther's book Die Alpenländische Gesellschaft (1930). Here again we have the same phenomenon which we encountered in the empirical papers published in the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte. Günther summarized his findings without discussing his methodology. In his book he described how he had combined existing statistics and his own survey data to support his theoretical framework. The fact that the yearbook contained primarily theoretical papers is a curious phenomenon in view of the fact that Salomon had stated in his introductory chapter that the development towards empiricism (die Richtung auf die Tatsachenforschungf2 was, in his view, the order of the day. However, as we indicated earlier, the historical school of sociology considered history as its immediate and proper empirical material. Salomon's main interest was political sociology in the tradition of Lorenz von Stein; his major work was a sociological general Staatslehre, i.e., large scale theory.

7 . THE ' A R C H I V F Ü R A N G E W A N D T E

SOZIOLOGIE'

The Archiv was founded in 1928 by Karl Dunkmann, and it was published until 1932, when the editor died. The Archiv is particularly interesting because of Dunkmann's conception of angewandte Soziologie (applied sociology), which is very different from the contemporary usage of the term. Dunkmann had been a theologian by training and had turned to sociology primarily out of social concern. Sauermann, in his obituary in the last volume of the Archiv, stated that World War I had convinced Dunk12. Jahrbuch für Soziologie, Vol. I (1925) iv.

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mann that theology lacked the resources to cope with the problems posed by the war and its aftermath. In contrast to his colleagues, Dunkmann felt that sociology should be normative, i.e. provide maxims and guidelines. It should be useful. His concept of usefulness referred to sociology which would be ethically and socially useful, but not in the tradition of the Verein für Sozialpolitik, i.e. for the purpose of supplying the state with information. Applied sociology, which may be empirical or theoretical, is also not meant to be the scientific basis for any given political ideology, nor is it supposed to be a social troubleshooter (pragmatische Sozialpolitik). It was more a combination of sociology and social philosophy with a strong but vaguely defined ethical basis. Dunkmann was clearly an outsider who accepted some of the definitions of the nature of sociology and rejected others. It seems that his colleagues did not take him too seriously ; Leopold von Wiese in his obituary characterized him as: 'Ein Wegschreiter mit starkem sittlichen Willen'. (A pioneer with a strong ethical will) (von Wiese, 1932: 470). The majority of papers published in the Archiv were not empirical.13 They dealt with topics such as the scope, role or methodology of sociology; social-philosophical considerations and specific sociological problems, as, for example, the question of occupational planning in society. The empirical studies published in the Archiv were: 1. G. Ipsen's two papers on the contemporary German village (1928/ 29). The first paper only used historical data while the second one attempted to compare idealtypes of rural and urban settlements with actual statistical figures. He asked the question of how many people, who, for example, were listed in the statistical yearbook of 1925 as living in small towns, actually lived in small-town conditions. Since he found many discrepancies, he reworked the material in terms of agglomerations, i.e. actual living units as opposed to political units. Unfortunately, it is not clear from his presentation exactly what methods he employed in his computation. 2. B. Horvath's study on prohibition in the USA and G. Schneider's paper on political corruption in the USA (1931). Both papers used documentary data, i.e. statistics, surveys, etc. but neither author collected his own data. 3. A documentary study on the role of the German physician by the Brazilian sociologist, Emil Willems (1931). He too did not collect his own data but used existing statistics as empirical evidence. The Archiv did not publish any of Adolf Giinther's empirical studies, 13. I saw Vol. II-V. Vol. I was not available.

The 'Archiv für angewandte Soziologie'

55

but it included two of his papers on the role and method of sociography, statistics and ethnology. In general, Dunkmann's conception of sociology, and, specifically, that of applied sociology, was not adverse to quantitative empirical social research except, perhaps, because of its strong philosophical orientation. On the other hand, it is remarkable that the actual empirical studies published in the Archiv are not representative of his concept of applied sociology. It seems that the predominantly theoretical orientation of the journal has to be explained in terms of the inability - or unwillingness on the part of the authors to translate the problems they were dealing with into empirical terms.

C H A P T E R II

German sociology and German social research

The fact that German sociology had defined itself primarily as a theoretical discipline constitutes only part of the explanation of why so few sociologists engaged in empirical studies. After all, in principle, theory and empirical validation are not mutually exclusive. However, in the case of German sociology, theory and empiricism were often alien to each other and those sociologists who did engage in empirical studies often showed a lack of integration between the two approaches or had no theoretical orientation at all. Even though the empirical studies of Tönnies have been covered elsewhere (Oberschall, 1965) we will analyse them again, but from a different angle. It seems that in the case of Tönnies and von Wiese the instances where they did not use an empirical approach are as important for our analysis as those where they did. The same holds true for the quality of the work done, i.e. the intellectual effort that went into the studies. Even though we do not propose to answer all the questions which such an analysis poses it appears important to point out what we consider to be discrepancies. We will exclude Max Weber's empirical studies from our discussion, in part because they have already been analyzed in great detail (Lazarsfeld & Oberschall, 1965). Even more important is the fact that in the context of this study we would have been primarily interested in the question as to what Max Weber would have been able to accomplish with respect to the development of empirical methods after 1910. It is precisely during this time-span where we would have had to essentially speculate because of Weber's involvement with such a large number of academic and political organizations, the war and his early death in 1920. The questions that have to be asked about the scholars under investigation are the following: a) What was their general attitude towards empiricism; b) To what extent did they actually carry out empirical studies; c) What is the relationship between their theory and empirical validation. Obviously some theoretical problems do not lend themselves to empirical verification. In other instances we find that even though the

German sociology and German social research 57 two approaches would have been compatible and complimentary, no attempt was made to integrate them, or the subject matter of the theoretical works differed from that of the empirical studies actually conducted. Finally we have to explain why some sociologists did not apply the same amount of ingenuity to their empirical enterprises as they did to their theoretical studies. We intend to show that only if a noted scholar was interested in empirical verification and if his main theoretical work was such that it lent itself to an empirical approach, and if he succeeded in integrating his theoretical and his empirical work, the result would have been the kind of social research which could have established a solid empirical tradition in German sociology. It seems to us that Max Horkheimer and his colleagues at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt were the only German sociologists who met all of these criteria. Even though German sociology devoted almost all of its effort to the pursuit of sociological theory, that does not mean that there were no empirical studies done by sociologists. Several of the younger sociologists did conduct a number of empirical studies, but most of them were rather unimpressive in terms of 1) research design, 2) data collection and analysis, 3) the theoretical framework. The two most prominent exceptions were Theodor Geiger (Geiger, 1932) and Hendryk de Man (1928), both of whom conducted a rather involved and sophisticated empirical study, but both studies were published after 1928 and they were not integrated with the basic theoretical framework of their authors. Theodor Geiger, for example, who was known for his theoretical contributions to the sociology of knowledge, did his empirical work in the area of social stratification. Most of the other empirical studies we found were either very simple secondary analyses of statistical data, the analysis of which merely involved some crosstabulations or percentaging, or they were simply monographs which included some statistical material in order to substantiate some points. In addition to that, in several of the studies which were translated in the series of 'Columbia Translations of Foreign Social Science Monographs',1 we were unable to find the name of the author in any of the academic directories, thus we often do not know whether these social scientists were actually sociologists.

1. Published by the State Department of Special Welfare and the Department of Social Science, Columbia University, as a report on Project 465-97-3-81 conducted under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration.

58 1.

German sociology and German social research LEOPOLD VON WIESE AND K A I S E R S W A L D A U ,

1876-I968

It is an interesting fact that von Wiese, one of the leading spokesmen for empirical research, wrote his scholarly autobiography (Fischer et al., 1929) - the story of his intellectual development - without ever mentioning his field studies. We indicated already (Ch. I, Sec. 4) that von Wiese's attitude towards empiricism and quantification seems far from clear. First, he felt that empirical studies were necessary for the study of subject matters that lent themselves to empirical investigation. Secondly, he bypassed the opportunity to acquaint himself and the readers of Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie with the empirical methods which were developed in Germany and abroad. Thirdly, he and his students conducted a large number of 'field studies' but he made no attempt to change or improve their original research design. He had great hopes that his student Plenge would do so. Instead, Plenge concentrated on an increasingly complex elaboration of the concepts of Beziehungslehre which ultimately resulted in an exercise in linguistic futility (Plenge, 1930). Von Wiese's Dogma on quantification which we quoted earlier (Ch. I, Sec. 5) in many ways really holds the key to the understanding of his attitude, because when he states that those things which can be quantified without Entgeistung should be quantified, one may, depending on one's subjective evaluation of what constitutes Entgeistung, exclude everything except straightforward demographic and statistical data. Von Wiese and his students conducted a number of fieldtrips in which they studied subjects such as the village, the ghetto, the small town, a summer camp, the Halligen, etc. The first and most famous one was 'Das Dorf als soziales Gebilde' (von Wiese, 1928). Von Wiese, together with his students, spent two weeks in a small village on the Rhine as what we would call today participant observers. The researchers lived with the native population and studied the economic structure and the social relationships between the different groups and individuals in the village. They made every effort to live with and get close to the villagers, each member of the team lived separately and was assigned a different aspect of group life. The result was a descriptive study of the interactive processes in terms of the reciprocal relations of approach and withdrawal within the different social spheres (Social Space), and the different social formations, formal and informal. None of his findings were tabulated or even quantified. In the village study the participants had nothing but a general orientation to guide them in their investigation. It was only in the Niederrheinische Kleinstadt, conducted by Willy Latten, that the participants were given a questionnaire for the purpose of structuring and

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ordering their observations. That way the results acquired a greater degree of uniformity but as in all the other field trips none of the findings were ever quantified.

A. Von Wiese's life and professional career In order to get a better understanding of von Wiese's conception of sociology and its relationship to empirical social research, we examined his life history and some of the most important aspects of his Beziehungslehre. Von Wiese's education and professional activity before he started teaching in the University brought him in close contact with empirical studies. He had been a student of Schmoller and was therefore familiar with the activities of the Verein für Sozialpolitik. Since he had hardly any financial means of his own (his father had died when he was a child), he worked while he was writing his dissertation. In 1901 Wilhelm Merton, a wealthy Jewish industrialist in Frankfurt, commissioned him to travel to various mining towns in Germany and in Belgium and to report regularly about their financial, political and social conditions.2 In order to do so, von Wiese had to acquire some elementary knowledge about the mining industry and he recalled: For the most part, I studied working conditions. Quite frequently I would descend into the coal mines. Through continual comparison, through at first awkward, and then routine questions, through the utilization of what I had just learned and experienced, and which I would then exchange for new information, I made progress in the accumulation of knowledge of an important segment of the economic life of our nation. (Fischer, 1929: 204.)

With a bit of regret he remarked almost 20 years later in his autobiography, that he forgot whatever knowledge he had acquired almost as quickly as he had learned it and that he doubted that anybody ever took the trouble of reading these reports. After acquiring his doctorate in 1902, he continued to work for Merton since he could not find a sponsor for his habilitation, apparently because he could not find anybody who was interested enough in the work Herbert Spencer. He got the post of a Secretary of the Institut für Gemeinwohl, which was some sort of coordinating institution for the various corporations headed by the Merton Family. Again his main area of activity was the Mining Industry. Aside from his public relations work he started to 2. Unfortunately, none of this material is available.

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write a monograph on the 'mining workers of the world'. He never finished the study; with time his statistical material became outdated and he decided not to publish any of his material. The story about his studies of the mining industry at first sight appears rather odd for several reasons: 1) Von Wiese had stated that he really could not remember why he abandoned that project; 2) Even though the similarities between his travels through the mining towns of Belgium and Le Play's earlier activities in the same area are striking, von Wiese made no reference to that effect; yet it seems inconceivable that he was not aware of Le Play's work; 3) At this time he desperately wanted to obtain his habilitation in order to teach, but he could not find a sponsor. Given these circumstances, it seems strange that von Wiese did not consider the possibility of getting his habilitation by doing a study in the tradition of Le Play, which only fifty years earlier had made Le Play famous. We do not know whether the fact that von Wiese did not make any reference to Le Play's work in his autobiography constitutes merely a lapse of memory or a lack of interest. We tend to believe that the latter was the case. Put differently, we would interpret the whole episode as an indicator for how little von Wiese was interested in or attracted to empirical social research at that time; how much he wanted to devote himself to the works of Spencer, and how determined he was to get his habilitation with a theoretical treatise in sociology, as he defined it. Given von Wiese's general intellectual orientation and interests, to do a study on the mining industry for a habilitation would have been totally out of character. First of all, he intensely disliked the work he did for Merton, and he continually tried to convince his employer that he was not suited for work that was related to the practical side of life. Secondly, he was familiar with the work of the Verein für Sozialpolitik, and in his view it constituted the exact opposite of what he himself wanted to do. Thirdly, one of von Wiese's more outstanding characteristics was his determination. Once his mind was made up, he would not change it easily. His childhood and youth demonstrate this clearly. His family had wanted him to follow the family tradition and become an army officer. Even though his guardian had excellent connections, which enabled him to put von Wiese into the best military academies, he simply could not work up any enthusiasm for that line of work. After his graduation from military high school his mind was made up; he was going to be a scholar, a decision which he carried out even though it meant overcoming several major obstacles. It seems to us that the most reasonable explanation for his half-hearted attempt to study the 'mining industry of the world' lies in the fact that at

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the time it simply was a more challenging task than the public relations work he did for Merton, and we would further suspect that he never took his study on the mining industry very seriously. He finally convinced Merton that he was simply not suited for a career in the world of commerce and industry, and Merton in 1905 gave him a job as a delegate of the Institut für das Gemeinwohl to the Bureau für Sozialpolitik (Fischer, 1929: 63) in Berlin in order to enable him to get his habilitation at the University of Berlin. Even though his main job consisted of running the financial part of the publication of the journal Soziale Praxis, he involved himself in the organization of adult education courses for the unions, some of which he taught himself. And he stated that what he enjoyed most was to read poetry to the female workers (Fischer, 1929: 210). Finally at the end of the summer of 1905 he got his habilitation in Sociology with a work on Spencer, with Dilthey and Schmoller as his sponsors (!). With obvious relief he accepted a position as a Privatdozent at the University of Berlin for one year. He continued to work for the Bureau für Sozialpolitik for financial reasons, but it was essentially during this time that he acquired a thorough distaste for the entire area of social legislation, its general ideology, its civil servant mentality and what he referred to as the ' "dehumanization and mechanization" (Verapparatung) of man by modern social legislation' (Fischer, 1929: 229). In retrospect he felt that it was during that time that he began to long for the opportunity to create sociological theory. In Berlin he lectured primarily on Spencer and taught a course entitled 'Contemporary social problems - with the exclusion of the social question' (Soziale Probleme der Gegenwart unter Ausschluss der Arbeiterfragen). The title itself constitutes a clear-cut rejection of the tradition of the Verein für Sozialpolitik. After having taught in several minor institutions, he finally got a double-chair at the University of Cologne for economic political science (wirtschaftliche Staatswissenschaften) and sociology. In 1906 von Wiese published his Zur Grundlegung der Gesellschaftslehre, (von Wiese, 1906), in 1924 his Allgemeine Soziologie Vol. I (von Wiese, 1924) and in 1929 the Allgemeine Soziologie Vol. II (von Wiese, 1929), which constitute his Beziehungslehre.

Β. The 'Beziehungslehre' The descriptive nature of the field trips, despite von Wiese's experience with quantitative empirical social research, has to be understood in the framework of Beziehungslehre, which constitutes one branch of Pure or

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Formal Sociology. Like Simmel's approach, it constitutes essentially a 'geometry of social life', independent from its specific contents. It aims essentially at a general system of the forms of human interaction. The basic concept is that of Beziehung (reciprocal interaction), which can be positive or negative and varies according to the social distance between its elements. Society, in essence, is simply a huge network of different types of interrelations. Almost all social institutions, including the manifestations of culture, are ultimately the product of interactive processes. Von Wiese acknowledged that people also have relationships to nature and inanimate objects and that there are intrapsychic forces or processes which are operative, but they do not constitute the subject matter of sociology which concerns itself primarily with the interactive processes between individuals and groups. There are three possible forms of Beziehungen: approach, withdrawal (association or disassociation), or a combination of both. It is psychology which concerns itself primarily with the motivations which determine the choice between approach and avoidance, i.e. the mental processes, and von Wiese acknowledged that there are areas where the social and the psychological areas overlap. For those areas he adopted Stoltenberg's (1924, 1922) distinction between 'socio-psychology', which concerns itself with the states of mind of the individual that are determined by the presence of, or relations with others, and 'psycho-sociology', which is synoptical in its approach, dealing with collective psychological phenomena as, for example, crowd-psychology. It is not entirely clear whether the concept of a relationship between people necessarily implies that it has to manifest itself in action. Social processes have to be distinguished in terms of degree, intensity, and distance. Thus social relationships or processes have to be conceptualized in terms of social space in which individuals or groups approach or avoid each other along a hypothetical scale. For example, the distance between persons A and Β may be 100. As long as either of them has a motivating force of 100 or more (providing one of them remains passive), A and Β will meet. If their combined motivating force adds up to less than 100, then they will not meet. If on the other hand there is a combined force of 120, and the obstacles to be overcome amount to 30, A and Β will be separated by 10 of these hypothetical units. The study of social processes sets a five-fold task: 1) the cataloguing and description of social processes; 2) the organization of social processes into a comprehensive scheme; 3) the measurement of social processes as to frequency of occurence, duration, degree of association or dissociation; 4) analysis of each social process in order to determine its con-

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stituent parts and the contributing factors for its actualization; 5) determination of the function of the social processes in the life of society (Abel, 1965: 65). The basic processes of approach and avoidance are successively broken down into various categories of subprocesses on the basis of their generality, e.g., the concept of conflict supersedes that of war, which in turn is on a higher level of generality than an argument between two people. Another ordering principle is that of degree and intensity and type of relationship. In other words, the system of Beziehungslehre is a comprehensive logical construct, derived deductively, which results essentially in a classificatory system of the behavioral atoms and conglomerations of social life. The field trips then represent the attempt to test not the validity of the system which is logically impossible, but its applicability to the study of concrete social phenomena such as a village. In its very conception, Beziehungslehre defies quantification, since von Wiese's processes can only be measured in terms of more or less along a hypothetical scale. It could be argued that one might count or compare the frequencies of certain types of processes, but that too would constitute a pseudo-quantification. For example, exactly how much more hostile a slap in the face is than a kick in the shin is impossible to determine. In other words, Beziehungslehre does need empirical social research to test its usefulness, but it can neither be validated (or invalidated), nor quantified, without violating von Wiese's dogma about quantification. C. Von Wiese's students Thus it is only logical that the students of von Wiese engaged in the following studies: 1. Willy Latten participated in and partly conducted the following field studies: Das Dorf, in 1924; Die Niederrheinische Kleinstadt, in 1929; Die Halligen, in 1926; and Gruppenleben in einem Ferienlager, in 1927. For the Niederrheinische Kleinstadt he set up a questionnaire, but only for the observers, to order their observations. He did not quantify the results. All his accounts on the field trips in the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte are purely descriptive. This seems to be in accordance with his general opinion on quantification which he expressed in some of his reviews of empirical studies in the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte. In his review of Robert Michel's Sittlichkeit in Ziffern, he stressed emphatically that human behavior which is motivated by complex psychological impulses is unsuited for statistical analysis.

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2. Willy Gierlichs conducted the field trip: Zwischenmenschliche Probleme des Ghettos, in 1931, which does not differ from Latten's methodological approach and general attitude towards quantification. 3. L. H. Geek, an ex-priest with a degree in social psychology, became a student of von Wiese's in 1926. In 1928 he wrote Sozialpsychologie im Auslande (Geck, 1928) which dealt primarily with American social psychology. Geek focused almost exclusively on the theoretical framework of the scholars which he discussed and on their specific findings. His comments on the methodological aspects of these studies are rather vague and cryptic. For example, in his discussion of Ellswood he merely indicated that Ellswood had stated that it is one of the basic principles of social psychology to find 'ascertained laws and principles'. 4. Johanna Meuter tried to apply Beziehungslehre to literature, by trying to show the processes of ascent and defeat in Rougon Marquart by Zola (Meuter, 1933). She participated in the study Das Dorf als soziales Gebilde, but she did not undertake any field trips on her own. Her study on geographic displacement (Meuter, 1925) led her reviewer in the Allgemeines Statistisches Archiv (Vol. 16, 1925) to conclude that problems of this kind were by their very nature unsuitable topics for a non-empirical and non-quantitative (i.e. sociological) approach. 5. The most empirically-minded among von Wiese's students seems to have been J. Nothaas, who did several empirical studies on social mobility, all of which were secondary analyses of government statistics and the statistical data kept by several veterans' organizations for former army officers. Before joining the faculty of the University of Cologne, Nothaas had written his dissertation on veterans' disability insurance after the war (Nothaas, 1921), with the noted statistician Friedrich Zahn as his sponsor. His dissertation was a meticulous statistical analysis without any theoretical framework whatsoever. His training in statistics very distinctively determined his general approach towards his later studies. In his introduction to one of his social mobility studies he stated: With respect to social mobility, social ascent and descent is not significant as an isolated incident but rather as a mass phenomena. For this reason, statistics as a method of exhaustive mass observation (Massenbeobachtung) is especially appropriate for the investigation of a given class structure. Statistics must, of course, by its very nature, be limited to the consideration of the characteristics of class affiliation and class structure which are external and which can be precisely defined, characteristics such as profession and social position, property and income, social origin and education. (Nothaas, 1932: 63.) The findings of the study are presented in some crude cross-tabulations and some percentages are given without summarizing all the results in a

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table. Also, the source of his data was not given. In 1930 he studied the social ascent and descent among former officers in the German army and navy after the war. The results, presented in neat tabulations, were an analysis of data obtained through associations of ex-officers, not a direct inquiry. Even though this study exhibits definite methodological advances over the previous study, it still has a number of shortcomings. It does not seem to be accidental that, among the students of von Wiese, it was only Nothaas who definitely turned towards quantification. He is the only one who abandoned in his studies the framework of Beziehungslehre, and he chose topics which can be easily studied with empirical methods, or even call for them.

D. Conclusions The conclusions which we can draw from the above are: 1. Von Wiese's mixture of indifference and ambivalence towards quantitative empirical social research lies essentially in the structure rather than the shortcomings of his Beziehungslehre, which means that in order to study specific sociological problems empirically and quantify the results, von Wiese or his students would have had to either abandon his general framework, or to rework the system in such a way that the development of concepts is not based on logical deduction but rather on subjective experience of the individuals involved in the social process. That, however, would have been contrary to the spirit of von Wiese's sociology. 2. The question of why von Wiese moved from his involvement with concrete problems of economics and social legislation to his abstract system cannot be explained exhaustively in this context, but we can gather from his own account (Fischer, 1929); the fact that he developed a very distinct distaste for the stifling climate of the institution he came in contact with, the reification and calcification of the apparatus together with his growing interest in theoretical sociology seems to have been one of the main reasons. Furthermore, from early childhood on he had a very pronounced dislike for what he called the practical side of life. After his trips to the different mining towns he recalled: Mr. Merton, who, during strolls along Lake Como or in the Taunus Mountains, would have me talk about Spencer and sociology, was, by that time, completely convinced that I was a lost cause as far as praxis was concerned and that I was born only for science (Wissenschaft). (Fischer, 1929: 209; emphasis mine.)

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And Wissenschaft in von Wiese's view meant the highest possible level of abstraction.

2. FERDINAND TÖNNIES,

1855-I9363

Tönnies perhaps more than any other German sociologist devoted himself to empirical studies, even though in terms of quantity his theoretical works by far outnumbered the empirical ones. In the introduction to the Festschrift given to him at his 80th birthday, Jukart commented: In clear awareness of the limitation and inadequacy of human cognition, you have continually kept aloof from speculations and, being increasingly selfcritical, you have utilized a precise scientific method. For this reason your special pet was the statistical method, which you made particularly fruitful for sociography. (Jukart, 1936.)4

In view of this statement it is surprising that not one of the German contributions to the Festschrift was empirical. Despite the appraisal of Jukart and despite the fact that Tönnies continuously emphasized the necessity of empirical validation it seems to us that his attitude towards empiricism and the relationship between his theoretical work and his empirical studies contains many contradictions. First of all, Tönnies did not always use 'the strictly scientific method' which Jukart had credited him with; quite on the contrary, speculation, unsubstantiated value judgements and scientific rigor can be found in his work depending on which of the countless books and papers one examines. Before we are going to elaborate and substantiate this point we want to emphasize that in the case of Tönnies there is no correlation between the degree of objectivity with which he approached a given topic and advancing age. His sociographic studies which he did in the early thirties are as free from speculation and political propagandizing as those done in the 1890's. His Geist der Neuzeit (Tönnies, 1935) published in 1935 essentially constitutes a revised edition of Community and Society which was written 50 years earlier. It seems that there exists a relationship between the topics which he studied and his general intellectual and methodological approach. The first phenomenon which we have to explain is the fact that Tönnies 3. For a detailed account of Tönnies's empirical studies, see Oberschall (1965). 4. The introduction is not signed, but since Jukart edited the volume, we assume that he wrote the introduction.

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restricted the use of empirical methods to certain subject matters. In one of his major works, the Kritik der öffentlichen Meinung (Tönnies, 1922), he used no empirical material at all. A large chapter of the book is devoted to public opinion in America with no mention of any empirical data whatsoever. In his analysis of James Bryce, Modern democracies, he comments on Bryce's methodology in the following way: The method that Bryce employs in his study of the spirit (Geist) of the United States is overwhelmingly empirical-inductive (empiristisch-induktiv). But now and then he also bases his considerations on general theses, in order to deduct from them phenomena as they would be expected and as they are actually found. (Tönnies, 1922: 355.) This description of Bryce's methodology is certainly cryptic and Tönnies did not elaborate what he meant with the curious term empiristisch. Tönnies treatment of his own data is equally strange with respect to scientific rigor. For example, in discussing German public opinion before, during and after World War I, he made no effort at all to substantiate his statements about what constituted the major trends and shifts of public opinion. Furthermore he freely graded the judgements of the public in terms of sensibility intelligence and accuracy about such matters as 'the outrageous lie of German war guilt', the 'horrible humiliation of Versailles', etc. In other words, his sociological treatise on public opinion at times degenerated into simple unsubstantiated propagandizing. On the other hand, when the 'Association of Ship-owners' blamed the strike of dockworkers in Hamburg in 1896/97 on 'outside agitation', Tönnies set out to prove empirically in a very sophisticated and meticulous study that it was not the socialist agitation which was responsible for the strike but the working conditions on the waterfront in general; a finding which was subsequently confirmed by the senate investigating committee of the City of Hamburg (Tönnies, 1897). Tönnies had studied the working conditions among the different occupational groups in terms of working hours, distribution of day and night shifts, income, accident rates, unemployment, life and accident insurance, etc. In the selection of his respondents for his study he made every effort to take into account the predictable occupational biases based on the respondents' relation to the management. The contrast between the treatment of the two matters is so striking that it seems hard to believe that both works are the product of the same mind. Thus we have to look at Tönnies's life and his work for a possible explanation.

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A. Tönnies's life and professional

research

career

Almost any aspect of Tönnies life, his education, political orientations, home life, academic career and his character were unusual. The overall picture that Tönnies presents is on one hand of intellectual brilliance and total devotion to scholarship and on the other hand of unusual stubbornness and prejudice about certain topics. His home life seems to have been an unhappy one which presumably accounts for the fact that he was rather brooding, withdrawn, shy and stubborn (Lorenz, 1964; Schmidt, 1922); Tönnies was one of seven children born to an upper-middle-class family in a small village in Schleswig Holstein. As a youngster in Friesland he spent practically all his time reading voraciously and taking long walks along the shore. All his life he remained fiercely loyal to his native Friesland and maintained a deep disdain of urban life. That feeling might have been intensified by the fact that almost invariably when he tried to live in a large city he suffered such excruciating headaches, resulting in fainting spells, that he had to leave town. He graduated from the Gymnasium at the early age of 16 and received his doctorate in philosophy at the age of 21 despite the fact that he attended 5 different universities and never engaged in any systematic course of studies. He flunked his doctoral exams the first time around because he never took the trouble of finding out what exactly was required of him in the examination. After receiving his doctorate at the University of Tübingen, Tönnies returned home to live with his parents, where he spent the next 7 years 'writing day and night' on his major work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Tönnies, 1884). At the age of 26 he became a Privatdozent for philosophy at the University of Kiel where he stayed for the rest of his life. But the Prussian Minister of Education opposed his appointment as a full professor, for the next 30 years, despite the fact that Tönnies became increasingly famous, because he was erroneously suspected of left-wing leanings. In 1933 he was dismissed by the Nazis. In his unsystematic course of studies, Tönnies pursued a wide range of ideas and studied a large number of fields. He eventually concentrated in philosophy and after having spent the summer of 1878 in London in order to study the writings of Hobbes, he decided to write his habilitation on that subject. From then on he pursued his study of the social sciences rather haphazardly on his own. It was only much later that he regretted not having changed fields and not having studied the social sciences systematically. He studied statistics in the seminar of Ernst Engel and Adolph Wagner

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and he wrote his first statistical monograph on the socio-economic conditions of ancient Greece. He traced his interest in sociology to his readings of the works of Henry James, Spencer and Comte. He was particularly fascinated by Comte's and Spencer's classificatory systems of the different sciences. Even though Tönnies spent most of his life in Schleswig Holstein, he travelled extensively and was in contact with many of his foreign colleagues and professional associations. In 1894 he became a member of the 'International Institute for Sociology' and he attended its first meeting in 1894 in Paris and a later meeting in London in 1906. In 1904 he visited the USA and travelled to St. Louis, New York and Cambridge. In 1905 he became a contributing editor of the American Journal of Sociology and he was a charter member of the British and Japanese sociological societies. With respect to his personal life, his autobiography contains an interesting reference to his personality. He stated that it had always been his goal to follow the tradition of the proud philosophical loners (philosophischer Hagestolze) but that he was not always sure that he would be able to pay the necessary price for his most valued goal of absolute independence, namely celibacy. He then mentioned his marriage at the age of 40 and the birth of his 5 children in one of the clauses of a long sentence dealing with some of his professional affiliations which leaves the reader wondering what one subject has to do with the other. His political orientations were characterized by a deep concern for the working classes and the farmworkers and a passionate, and in many ways blind, nationalism. In 1914 he joined the war effort enthusiastically and throughout the Weimar Republic he emphatically fought the 'lie of German war guilt' and the 'humiliation of the peace treaty'. He wanted to see Germany restored to its former dignity and strength. In sum, Tönnies was a complex and highly educated man with singularly strong opinions and preferences and he acted upon them without ever yielding to any pressure from either above (the Minister of Education) or below, the students (his audience at times consisted of one student).

B. Tönnies's concept of 'Erfahrung' and 'social ethics" As we mentioned earlier, Tönnies consistently insisted that sociology needed empirical verification.. Even though his definition of empirical included any type of factual material ranging from historical facts to statistical data. (See Ch. II, Sec. 4.)

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In this context it is interesting to note that his interest in statistics focused originally on moral statistics {Moralstatistik), but merely for detached scientific reasons. He stated that in 1891 he conceptualized the outline for a major study in moral statistics because he had come to the conclusion that for the foundation of a philosophical system of social ethics (Sozialethik im philosophischen Sinne) the use of inductive empirical research was even more important than it was for a theological system of social ethics. It was his interest in the former system which motivated him to start collecting statistical data on the 'scum of the earth' (Auswurf der Menschheit), i.e. criminals. With respect to his statistical (or sociographic) studies there is another point which has to be mentioned. Even though Tönnies repeatedly indicated that his relationship to the field of statistics was one of passionate interest and involvement he strangely enough never managed to acquaint himself with the statistical techniques that would have been appropriate for his studies, even though they had been developed and were widely used by other scholars. This fact tends to support our feeling that Tönnies attitude towards quantification was not altogether consistent. In order to understand Tönnies' conceptualization of the role of empiricism, we must first examine his general view of the definition and structure of sociology. We will take Tönnies' key term Erfahrung (experience) as our starting point. We shall attempt to trace his basic ideas on how knowledge about the social world is obtained and relate them to his conception of the role of theory and empirical social research, respectively. Loomis, in his introduction to the American edition of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Tönnies, 1884), pointed out that Tönnies distinguished between pure-applied and empirical sociology. However, he did not mention that Tönnies continuously revised this typology with their many subcategories and their different relationships to each other. The fact that he devoted so much time and energy to these constant redefinitions must also be examined. Since we are primarily interested in the question of how Tönnies conceptualized the difference and relationship between theoretical and empirical sociology, both in terms of subject-matter and methodology, we have to start with a brief definition of the three parts of sociology and their corresponding methodology. Sociological theory, i.e. 'pure sociology', consists in the formulation of concepts which are rooted in experience and at the same time independent from it. The concepts pertain to concepts of our thought-processes which should serve as yardsticks for our experiences in the real world. (Tönnies,

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1926: 123). Applied sociology is the application of the concepts which constitute pure sociology. Empirical sociology is the collection of factual information or evidence (Tönnies, 1926: 442). However, whenever the reader tries to determine, on one hand, the precise difference between the three parts of sociology, and, on the other hand, how, exactly, they are supposed to be related and integrated, he is likely to find himself at a loss. This is not merely a problem of sorting out Tönnies's involved (and often confusing) semantics. One of the difficulties lies in the fact that, according to Tönnies, sociological theory construction is not based on deductive reasoning alone. Conversely, empirical sociology is not exclusively based on inductive reasoning either. There seems to be a third category which permeates the two approaches and which explains the full meaning of his term Erfahrung, but it is not spelled out in his writing. Erfahrung contains both: logical reasoning and intuition. We found a clue to the nature of that missing link in his autobiography. In discussing the essence of community, Tönnies was talking about 'prerational' thinking and willing (Wollen), a concept which is perfectly consistent with Weber's notion of the emergence of rationality as one of the key factors in the development of modern Western society. On the other hand, Tönnies also introduced the term 'suprarational thinking' (überrationalistisch) as a basic characteristic of a community. This form of thought apparently synthesizes rational and prerational thought on a higher level by transcending them both. Only suprarational thought is capable of integrating intuition and rationality without reverting to 'prerationality'. If our interpretation is correct, then one begins to understand why his distinction between theoretical (i.e. pure) sociology and empirical sociology remains so vague, and why he spent so much time redefining his categories. Suprarational thinking connects the empirical and the theoretical approach and constitutes Erfahrung. Furthermore, if pure sociology consists merely of concepts which pertain to our thinking processes, and if applied sociology is the application of these concepts to our experiences in the real world, then only applied sociology can be tested empirically. In order to verify propositions or theories in the area of applied sociology, which is based on Erfahrung, the rational forms of reasoning, i.e. induction and deduction, are insufficient without the added intellectual tool of 'suprarational thought', a category of thought which he did not (or, as we would suspect, could not) define. To carry the argument one step further, given his normative starting point, i.e., the attempt to establish an empirical base for a philosophical system of ethics (which could be equated with the goal of applied soci-

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ology), he could not rely on rational thought alone, since, in his view, it does not lead to an ethical evaluation, which was his ultimate goal.

C. Tönnies's empirical studies We must also consider another point. A perusal of Tönnies's collected works shows that over and over again he stressed the necessity for empirical verification. But, if we consider Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft as Tönnies's major theoretical work we have to conclude that none of his empirical studies concerned itself with the validation of the content of his magnum opus. Instead, Tönnies's main topics of investigation were crime in Schleswig Holstein, suicide and working conditions (Oberschall, 1965). Tönnies in his many studies on crime and suicide tried to ascertain the relationship between crime and a multiplicity of other variables over time, such as urban and rural origins of the subjects, living conditions, illiteracy, income, illegitimacy, etc. in relationship to the different types of crime and criminals. He worked out his own type of correlation procedure, for the analysis of rank-order associations, which could only deal with two variables at a time. In his studies on suicide (Tönnies, 1927) he attempted to correlate suicide rates and economic fluctuations. His choice of indicators for these fluctuations was rather ingenious; aside from figures for industrial output he used such variables as number and value of stamps sold by the Post Office and number of promissory notes in circulation. However, in all his studies Tönnies never satisfactorily resolved the problem of handling several variables. Instead of the cumbersome computation of associations resulting in countless tables he would have needed statistical techniques such as correlation between time-series, multiple regression and factor analysis. He also never found a satisfactory solution to the problem of weighing and combining his indicators into one quantitative variable to be correlated with his rates for crime, suicide and population growth. Basically, his empirical studies are characterized by a discrepancy between effort and result. He himself complained about the countless hours which he spent computing and he often wondered whether the result was really worth the effort (Klose, 1961: 294). However, the methodological problems were not the only ones which characterized his empirical studies. His analysis of the data resulted in very meager theoretical gains, since he did not integrate his empirical concepts and findings with his general theoretical framework of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. There simply was a gap between his theoretical work and his empirical one. Neither through induction nor deduction did he ever relate the two.

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This fact is particularly puzzling since Tönnies defined the general principles of both approaches quite clearly (Tönnies, 1926), unless the reader accepts our earlier proposition that he searched for a conceptualization and definition of 'suprarational' thought processes which could mediate between or transform the relationship between induction and deduction. It is also hard to understand why Tönnies never consulted a statistical expert either from the field of mathematical statistics or psychology since either one of them could have provided him with the methodological tools not only to analyse his time series properly, but also to save himself a lot of time. In view of Tönnies's many connections with German statisticians and British, American and French sociologists we can only conclude that Tönnies for reasons only known to himself simply did not care to ask anybody for advice. D. 'Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft' Before we are drawing any further conclusions we have to ask the question to what extent Tönnies's theory of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft lent itself to empirical verification. He had stated that Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft did not constitute either purely logical concepts nor empirical entities (Tönnies, 1884). Community and society as well as rational will and natural will constitute ideal types which of course taken as such are not testable. But since Tönnies connects them with historical developments and social behavior (i.e. applied sociology) their relationship could have been translated into testable hypotheses (Bellebaum, 1966). Tönnies himself provides enough indicators for his concepts. Furthermore as Wang Shufen (1932) pointed out his concepts are psychologically based but do not constitute 'psychologisms' (Psychologismen) which means that individual motivation and sociological (collective) reality are integrated and yet distinguishable, which means that at least some of the elements of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, in principle, have the prerequisites of a testable theory. To illustrate our point, Tönnies had stated that if for some reason the natural bonds of Gemeinschaft are suddenly loosened, the resulting intense insecurity for its members tends to produce a high incidence of brutal and egoistic forms of behavior. In the case of chronic insecurity, the manifestations of egoism become more subtle and cunning. Even without a war and a revolution in his own place and time, the above proposition could have been tested empirically without too much difficulty. The same holds true for many of the basic propositions about motivations (i.e. the two forms of will) and social behavior and social structures.

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One of the reasons why Tönnies never set out to empirically test his theory of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft lies in his definition of the subject matter of sociology. He distinguishes between the positive relationships between people and the negative ones and he felt that the positive and peaceful relations were the actual subject-matter of sociology while the negative ones were the subject-matter of social psychology. Indeed, insofar as mutual affirmation and acceptance always refers to sociology, although new elements are added to it, then mutual negation, bickering and discord, war and strife, is the special and independent subject matter of social psychology ( . . . ) the sociological view of human social regulations is concerned exclusively with social data, in a more strict and narrow sense, namely with the data pertaining to 'social', i.e. at least peaceful relationships between people. (Tönnies, 1926: 240-241.)

Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, then, constitutes sociology par excellence since it concerned itself primarily with positive relationships. One might even wonder as König (1955) did to what extent the Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft framework is capable of adequately accounting for the meaning and function of negative relationships. Thus it is interesting to note that practically all of Tönnies's empirical studies deal with negative relations, i.e. social pathology. He never studied any positive relations empirically. Therefore one could conclude that contrary to Tönnies' emphatic claim that sociographical studies were a necessary tool of sociology, his own sociographical studies according to his own definition were really 'social psychology' or 'social biology' (Tönnies, 1926: 432). That means that even with respect to the subject-matter, theory and empiricism in Tönnies's sociology are not integrated; his theory results in a 'system' while his empirical studies result in theorems (Lehrsätze) about the relationship between variables. In other words, empiricism in his sociology remains a secondary and distinct enterprise. We have to consider one final observation, which of course is a purely speculative one; we do not suggest that it provides the conclusive explanation of why Tönnies tested negative relations empirically and positive ones theoretically. But it cannot be overlooked that, despite Tönnies's claim to the contrary, his preference for Gemeinschaft in contrast to Gesellschaft is quite obvious. In his conceptualization, he attributes to Gemeinschaft essentially harmony and peacefulness: Strife and discord (were), even in the territories and states of the Middle Ages, not at all unknown but, nevertheless, were relatively rare, because, after all, many bonds of blood-ties and relationships with neighbors were, at that time,

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naturally stronger. These reasons for friendship have become noticeably weaker, consequently the not only possible but probable hostilities between individuals have become stronger. (Tönnies, 1935: 66.) Here Tönnies's bias, i.e. the tendency to romanticize community-type life as represented by the Middle Ages, becomes quite obvious. Actually there is no historical evidence that the historical forms of community were in any way more peaceful or humane than society at the turn of the 20th Century. As a matter of fact his notion that blood-ties and friendships tend to cut down on hostilities is an odd contrast to the empirical fact that the highest evidence of homicide occurs among relatives, friends and lovers. It seems to us that if Tönnies would have put some of his basic assumptions about the nature of historical manifestations of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (as well as the question of German war-guilt) to an empirical test, they might not have held up. In other words it may not be accidental that those areas' of sociological and political inquiry in which Tönnies had a considerable ideological and emotional investment are treated theoretically while those which essentially evoked his scientific curiosity are treated empirically.

E.

Conclusions

It seems to us that there is no way to conclusively explain Tönnies's attitude towards empiricism. But we feel that his ambivalence is basically due to the following facts: 1. His ultimate goal seems to have been a normative one, i.e. to develop a philosophical system of social ethics based on empirical evidence; 2. He was unable to define the thought process which would on one hand do complete justice to his concept Erfahrung and on the other hand provide a basis for an ethical judgement; 3. His assumption that social relationships are essentially peaceful and that social pathology was a sign of degeneration due to industrialization and urbanization; 4. His distinction between the subject matter of sociology and psychology (i.e. positive and negative relationships); 5. He was unwilling to consult a mathematical statistician or psychologist to provide him with the statistical procedures that would have been appropriate for his empirical studies. Thus we can only conclude that Tönnies's sociological work is not an

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integrated whole but that he pursued several trains of thought simultaneously without being able to synthesize them.

3 . THE ' I N S T I T U T FÜR S O Z I A L F O R S C H U N G I N F R A N K F U R T '

Since the work of the Institut represents the broadest and most advanced effort in the Weimar Republic of German sociology to establish quantitative empirical social research, we will cover this work in great detail. The uniqueness of the Institut lies in several areas, all of which have to be discussed in order to understand why the work that had begun in Frankfurt and continued in the USA was so radically different from work done in other German universities. 1. First of all, Max Horkheimer, the second director of the Institut, had a very unusual conceptualization of the nature of sociology and the relationship between Social Theory and empiricism. 2. For its work, the Institut succeeded in attracting the cooperation of some of the most outstanding scholars in a variety of fields. To name just a few, Hendryk Grossmann, Friedrich Pollock, Theodor W. Adorno, Paul Tillich, Erich Fromm, Gottfried Salomon, Leo Lowenthal, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Franz Naumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Karl August Wittvogel. 3. Because of the conceptualization of the relationship between theory and research, and the continuous intellectual exchange with so many outstanding scholars, the methodology developed by this group was characterized by an ever increasing sophistication. 4. The Institut succeeded in obtaining enough money to sponsor empirical studies in several countries. The crosscultural comparisons enabled them to separate the general from the specific and to focus more sharply on the essence of the problem area.

A. The 'Institue 1924-1931 The Institut was founded in 1924 under the direction of Carl Grünberg. In his lecture inaugurating the founding of the Institut, Grünberg made it quite clear that the purpose and orientation of the new Institut was intended to be a 'revolutionary' one (Grünberg, 1924). By that he meant a break with the German university tradition of primarily training loyal professionals for the State - mandarins - as he called them. Instead he proposed to train students to study the state and society critically, since

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only critical analysis would bring about change. Furthermore, he intended a greater degree of separation between teaching and research since a full teaching schedule makes intensive research almost impossible. In defining his role as director he pointed out that he would have full autonomy and independence from the faculty of the Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften, the State, and the sponsors of the Institut. With respect to the internal structure of the Institut itself, he assumed near dictatorial power with respect to the choice of projects and their execution. His outline of plans of the Institut was rather remarkable, considering that his inaugurating address was a public lecture. He stated that society was obviously in a state of transition and that he was neither one of those lamenting the passing of the good old days, nor did he believe in the 'decline of the West'.5 Instead he was anticipating the advent of Socialism: There are many — whose number and importance is continuously increasing — who do not only believe, wish and hope, but are firmly convinced as a matter of scientific determination that the growing new order will be the socialist one, that w e are in the midst of a transition period between capitalism and socialism and that w e are driving towards the latter with an ever increasing speed. I assume that it is generally known that I subscribe to that conception. (Grünberg, 1924: 9.)

He stressed the fact that his Marxist orientation was not bound to any political party line but referred to a: 'characterization of a comprehensive system, consistent in itself, a certain Weltanschauung and a clearly defined research method' (Grünberg, 1924: 10). The subject area the Institut was going to investigate would be the history and development of the working class movement questions of contemporary social legislation and the development of general sociological theory. Until 1931, when Max Horkheimer became the director of the Institut, it had essentially devoted itself to the tasks proposed by Grünberg and had set up a most remarkable collection of literature on the history and practice of socialism and the working class movement.4 5. Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West had made a very profound impression on the German intellectuals of the 1920's. 6. The main publications of the Institut during this time were the following monographs: Hendryk Grossmann, 'Das Akkumulations- und Zusammenbruchsgesetz des kapitalistischen Systems'; Friedrich Pollock, 'Die Planwirtschaftlichen Versuche in der Sowjetunion' (1917-1927); Karl A. Wittvogel, 'Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Chinas'; Franz Borkenau, 'Der Übergang vom feudalen zum bürgerlichen Weltbild', Schriften des Instituts für Sozialforschung (Vol. I-IV; Leipzig: C. L. Hirschfdd Verlag, (1925-1932).

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Under the direction of Max Horkheimer, a philosopher by training, the Institut moved into a different direction.

B. Horkheimer's conception of the role of the 'Institut' Horkheimer, who had obtained his habilitation with a study on Schopenhauer had a very unique conception of philosophy, his role as a philosopher, and his role as a scholar, which explains his truly revolutionary ideas with respect to the role and function of the Institut for Social Research. He stated recently that it was the work of Schopenhauer which had first evoked his interest in philosophy, but that his intensive study of Hegel and Marx had shaped his concept of the purpose of philosophy, namely to understand social reality in order to change it (Horkheimer, 1968: xiii). One of his earlier works, a treatise on the philosophy of history (Horkheimer, 1930), provides among other things a preview of his later conceptualization of the role of social philosophy (or sociology). In examining the work of Machiavelli for example he pointed out that all his theories were based on an untenable position, namely the assumption of the unchanging nature of human psyche. At that time, Horkheimer argued that any theory about 'human nature' (philosophical anthropology), would have to study the problem within the context of empirical research data in the area of psychology and specifically, psychoanalytic theory, which according to Horkheimer had certainly challenged the notion of the constancy of human nature and had pointed out the importance of the family as a socializing agent (Horkheimer, 1930: 33). Furthermore, philosophical anthropology would also have to consider the relationship between general social conditions and personality structures and the interaction between the political, economic and cultural spheres. Horkheimer also argued that the separation between scholarship and political praxis in the humanities, i.e. the attempts to understand social life and the efforts to change it, is not an intrinsic one but a historical artifact. It is due to the predominance of the conception of the Geist (spirit), i.e. the cultural sphere as an autonomous entity among German intellectuals. He pointed out that, on the contrary, any study which deals with 'culture' which does not examine it within the context of concrete social processes is not only pointless, but also reduces scholarship to a position of social and political impotence. While Horkheimer generally advocated the role of philosophy as an

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agent of social change, he was particularly alarmed by the social and political conditions in German towards the end of the Weimar Republic. He stated in retrospect 'that in the early twenties the assumption that a coalition between organized labor and the intellectuals could have prevented the rise of National Socialism was not just an empty speculation' (Horkheimer, 1968: ix). In other words, it was Horkheimer's goal to lead philosophy back to its ancient goal of trying to make the world a better place to live in, and he realized that in his day and age philosophy could not work speculatively but had to integrate empirical data pertaining to the concrete social world and the human psyche. (For further details, see Adorno, 1956a, 1956b, and Horkheimer, 1962.) Thus, Horkheimer proposed that the Institut, instead of the historical and theoretical studies which had been conducted up to that point, devote itself to pursuit of empirical investigations in order for sociology to become effective. The social scientist, by understanding reality, would become a subject of history rather than an object. This statement does need some elaboration. Horkheimer felt (Horkheimer, 1968: 411-412) that the ability of prediction was the Prüfstein, i.e. a test of the validity and usefulness of any science dealing with reality. He distinguished between the processes of prévision and prédiction (Voraussicht und Voraussage). A prévision is a statement which resembles the law in the pure sciences, i.e. given the conditions χ plus y, ζ will inevitably result. A prédiction, on the other hand, states that in a concrete time and place conditions χ and y are indeed present, and will thus lead to condition z. The social sciences aim at predictions in order to be able to gain control of social processes. He countered the argument of the unpredictability of social life by stating: As social life proceeds to lose its character as a blind natural phenomenon to the extent that society makes arrangements to constitute itself as a rational entity, the more social processes become positively predictable. The present uncertainty with respect to the ability of sociology to make predictions about the future with any degree of certainty, is only a reflection of the present social uncertainty in general. (Horkheimer, 19337)

Thus, it is not too surprising that Horkheimer moved the Institut away from the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences and established it as part of the faculty of Philosophy and that he considered quantitative empirical social research the prime task of the Institut. However, his empirical orientation and the scope of his research project was intricately 7. This article was an elaboration of a point raised by Horkheimer at the 11th International Congress of Sociology in Geneva, October, 1933.

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connected with his concept of philosophy, or more accurately, his social philosophy. In the address which he delivered when he took over the directorship of the Institut, he spelled out the relationship between the contemporary conditions of Social Philosophy and the task and purpose of an Institute for Social Research (Horkheimer, 1931). Since the title of his inaugurating address must appear strange to the American reader as its purpose was to define his conception of sociology, we will have to spell out in greater detail how Horkheimer conceptualized the relationship between philosophy, social philosophy and sociology. In his view they are largely identical in their goal. Its ultimate objective therefore, is the philosophical interpretation of human fate, insofar as it pertains not only to individuals but to individuals as members of society. Therefore it has to be primarily concerned with those phenomena which can only be understood in connection with the social life of men; with social institutions such as law, economy, religion; in short with all the material and cultural manifestations of mankind in general. (Horkheimer, 1931: 3.) Horkheimer started out by putting the problem of social philosophy in its historical perspective. He stated that it was Hegel's great accomplishment, in contrast to Kant and Fichte, that he did not take the autonomous subject as its ultimate starting point but those structures which supersede the subjective efforts of the individual, which Hegel envisioned as the products of the absolute and objective spirit (Weltgeist). The senseless fates of individuals, all the misery, stupidity and futility found in history only make sense if they are seen as fatalities in the struggle of the spirit to come into its own. The authority of Hegel's idealism vanished with the emergence of a society with individualistic values, an increasing optimism about the future and man's ability to shape the development of history through the development of rationality, on one hand, and on the other, the opposite development, namely the emergence of a pessimistic philosophy, antagonistic to history which fatalistically accepts human misery as an inevitable human condition. Schopenhauer's philosophy is a prime example for that school of thought. What both directions have in common is the fact that they found themselves unable to find comfort in the notion that human misery was a byproduct of the 'cunning of reason' as Hegel had conceptualized it, and the result was the slow disappearance of social philosophy as Horkheimer had defined it. But he argued, a sociology which is not rooted in social philosophy (without submerging in it), is doomed. It is precisely the problem of contemporary social philosophy:

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Basically, the situation of contemporary social philosophy can be explained within the framework of the dissolution and disappearance of Hegel's system and the possibility to reconstruct it in theory without falling behind the present state of conceptual and factual knowledge (Erkenntnis). (Horkheimer, 1931: 5; emphasis mine.) On the other hand: If it is permitted here to speak in slogans, one might put forth the thesis that social philosophy today meets the yearning for a new meaning of life, one which is no longer frustrated in its longing for individual happiness. It appears as a part of the philosophical and religious efforts to reimplant the hopeless individual existence into the womb, or — according to Sombart — into the Goldgrund of meaningful totalities. (Horkheimer, 1931: 12.) But, Horkheimer continued, contemporary Social philosophy has been unable to oppose positivism as a philosophy with anything more than polemics. It therefore cannot deal with the social theories of men like Comte, Marx, Weber, and Scheler concretely, but only in terms of Weltanschauung, i.e. different concepts of reality. To separate the task of sociology from that of social philosophy is no solution because it presupposes an unacceptable concept of the nature of sociology and philosophy. According to the traditional conception the scientist tends to regard philosophy as an exercise that may be edifying but one which is inaccessible to verification, and therefore, scientifically unproductive; whereas the philosopher separates himself from the scientist. When elaborating his far-reaching concepts he feels unable to wait for the findings of the scientists. This conception is presently superseded by the idea of producing intellectual growth and development on the basis of a constant dialectical interchange between philosophical theory and the practical advances of the different disciplines. (Horkheimer, 1931: 10.) What is then called for is to take on the large philosophical questions (and by that he means large-scale social philosophy), in permanent cooperation with philosophers, sociologists, historians, economists and psychologists, and to investigate these problems empirically. In doing so Horkheimer felt they would only perpetuate the tradition of 'great scholarship': That means: to take problems which pertain to broad philosophical questions and to investigate them with the most precise and subtle scientific methods available; to redefine the specific questions at hand in the process of inquiry in order to make them more precise in their focus and to invent new methods for their solution without losing sight of the overall framework in the process. That way we will not obtain simple yes or no answers to our philosophical

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questions. What will happen instead is that these questions will be included in a dialectical manner — in the scientific empirical investigations. Put differently, the answers to our philosophical questions, as well as the questions themselves, will in part be determined by the progressive accumulation of factual knowledge. (Horkheimer, 1931: 11.)

In such an enterprise the scholar cannot work alone, because of the breadth of the investigation which requires the intellectual exchange and help from other fields. C. Horkheimer's concrete research objectives Since we indicated earlier that it was one of the outstanding characteristics of the Institut to try to approach large-scale theory with empirical social research, we have to spell out the overall theoretical framework of their proposed study. Otherwise, it will be impossible to evaluate the purpose and meaning of the empirical studies and their shortcomings. The central question which Horkheimer wanted to approach (and which he viewed as one of the oldest and most important philosophical problems), was the relationship between the economic development in society, the psychological development of individuals, and the cultural sphere. The latter includes not only science, art and religion but also law, mores, fashions, public opinions, sports, etc., i.e. everything which Marx had subsumed under the notion of superstructure. (For details, see Marx & Engels, 1947). Horkheimer chose qualified workers and white collar employees in Germany as his first subjects and he planned to expand his studies to other European countries. In order to study these three abovementioned variables in their concrete manifestations in living subjects, he proposed a very wide range of methods and materials, e.g. the use of published statistics, monographs prepared by existing organizations and political parties, a study of the press and fine literature writing about and being read by these two groups; questionnaire surveys of the subjects and informant interviewing, etc. Horkheimer felt that direct questionnaires were particularly important for two reasons. They provided a constant source of new ideas and questions (in the sense of Merton's concept of 'unanticipated findings' (Merton, 1958) and they enable the scholar to constantly verify his theoretical propositions. In contrast to von Wiese, Horkheimer felt that empirical methods developed in the USA would be of great help and he intended to draw heavily upon the American experience with surveys. As a matter of fact, Horkheimer explicitly stated that Robert Lynd's Middletown had served him as a model (Horkheimer, 1936).

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By the time Horkheimer submitted his outline of the plans of the Institute, he had already secured the cooperation of Mr Thomas, the director of the Internationales Arbeitsamt in Geneva, in order to establish a branch of the Institute in Switzerland. Later on, they established branches in France and England and after being forced into emigration, the Frankfurt group continued its work in the USA. The speed with which the members of the Institute proceeded to realize their huge research project is truly astounding. The development of a theoretical framework, the research of existing literature, the writing of monographs and the empirical investigations all took place simultaneously. As we will show later, the constant réévaluation of theory and empirical findings resulted in an ongoing re-evaluation of both approaches as well as a continuous redefinition of the nature and properties of the subject matter. In describing the research conducted by the Institute, we will rely primarily on Autorität und Familie which is a first and preliminary summary of the research done between 1931-1935. Even though much of the theoretical conceptualization and some of the historical background-studies were first presented in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung,8 we will only occasionally refer to these earlier papers in order to present the final result more clearly. Autorität und Familie was written in 1935 when the Institute had found a temporary home in Columbia University. Much of the raw empirical material had gotten lost on its way to the States. Of the available questionnaires, many were not analyzed quantitatively due in part to the fact that their number was too small for generalizations and partly because the time pressure prevented the authors from doing so. Autorität und Familie constitutes a preliminary account of the theoretical framework, the empirical studies, the monographs and a preview of future studies.

D. Authority and the Family This vast and preliminary account of the studies of the Institute, published in 1936, represents the collective effort of a large number of scholars. Those responsible for the general theoretical framework which guided the investigations were, aside from Horkheimer, primarily the psychologist Erich Fromm, the pedagogue Leo Lowenthal, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse and the economist Karl August Wittvogel. The conceptualization 8. The Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, founded in 1932, was the official organ of the Institut. It meticulously reviewed empirical studies from all over the world. The reviews always discussed the methodology employed.

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of this study, which ultimately resulted in the well-known work The authoritarian personality (Adorno et al., 1967), has to be understood both in theory and method - as an emergent.' The original problem, as Horkheimer presented it in 1931, was the question of the relationship between socio-economic variables, and their general cultural manifestations among the qualified blue-collar workers and white-collar employees, i.e. the stable lower middle class. The investigators were not only interested in the question of how the external conditions affected the subjects, but also how the subjects reproduced and perpetuated the existing conditions. In other words, the subjects of social conditions are also viewed as its active agents. It became quickly obvious that the problem of 'authority' would have to play a central role in their studies. Two central questions would have to be asked: 1) What is the nature of existing authority, how extensive is it, how is it exercised, etc.; and 2) To what extent and why is authority accepted (or rejected), and perpetuated. The researchers were afraid that even the workers, organized by the Socialist Party, would submit to the totalitarianism of the right.10 In order to understand the interactive factor, i.e. the dialectic, between man as the individual subject and as an actively supportive agent of his victimization, the project needed a social-psychological theory. Social psychology in this context, however, means something other than its current American connotation; it refers to a psychological theory which lends itself to an analysis of the psychological characteristics which specific socio-economic groups have in common, and which explain the way in which these groups react to the pressures and demands of their environment. E. The social-psychological

framework

Erich Fromm (1932a; See also 1932b) felt that Freudian psychology was singularly suited to fulfil this function, particularly within the framework 9. From the sources available it is not always possible to give a precise account of the step-by-step development that led to the volume under discussion. Whenever necessary, we will have to rely on papers published in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung and on the verbal recollections given by the authors 30 years later. Other than that, we have to use our own inferences drawn from the material available and our acquaintance with the research methods of the Institute in the 1950's, where endless staff discussions were devoted not only to the phrasing of questions and the pre-testing of the questionnaire and its parts, but also to the validity of the underlying theoretical considerations. 10. Since no direct reference to this specific question could be found, we have to rely on the account given by Paul F. Lazarsfeld (1959).

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of historical materialism. According to Fromm, "Analytical Social Psychology, thus, means the attempt to understand the libidinal structure of a group, together with its largely unconscious attitudes, out of the socioeconomic position or structure of that group' (Fromm, 1932a: 34). Conversely, those groups of people who share a common psychic structure influence society, and depending on the degree of existing social stability and general fulfilment of needs, the members of society will either help to stabilize the existing social order, or disrupt it. Freud's general concept of libido and libidinal forces can be seen as the connecting link between existing social conditions and their corresponding ideology.11 To Fromm, it was obvious that the existing power structure in society and rational self interest on the side of the members of civil society alone would not guarantee its functioning unless society succeeds in meeting the unconscious libidinal needs of its members. These needs or rather their concrete manifestations in turn, are shaped by the needs of society. If the society meets the unconscious needs of the individuals, then these individuals have a deep emotional investment in the guiding ideas which characterize and justify the socio-economic and political structure of society; an investment which is rooted in the unconscious and which may bypass rational considerations of the self-interests of the individual. In other words, psychoanalytic theory, unlike any other model, is capable of explaining the way in which individuals' unconscious needs give 'ideologies' their tremendous social force, a fact which cannot be explained by defining ideology simply as 'reflections of real life processes' (Marx & Engels, 1947). Furthermore, as Adorno later recalled, 'the research team was impressed with the intensity with which individuals pursued ideological goals - even if to the observer this pursuit involved the denial of pleasure and self-defeating behavior'.'2 Fromm13 (1932a) recognized the force of sexual drives and their transformability as the primary explanatory factor, i.e. the notion that the sexual drives of the masses can be postponed and channeled into directions which are seen as more profitable by the ruling classes;

11. Here 'ideology' means 'false consciousness', as defined by Karl Marx in The German ideology. 12. Theodor W. Adorno, 'Interpretation und Darstellung Soziologischer Forschungsergebnisse' (author's classnotes of a course given at the University of Frankfurt, winter semester 1959/60). 13. The outline of the psychological framework is a sketchy one. For further details see Fromm (1936, 1941).

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The transformability of the sexual drives (also) constitutes a social phenomenon of highest importance. Because of it, it is possible that only those satisfactions are offered to and accepted by the masses which happen to be available in a given society or rather, those whose gratifications seem desirable to the ruling classes. (Fromm, 1932a: 30.) And he added; Of particular importance (in this context), is the process of unleashing and deliberate intensification of sadistic impulses: a process which usually takes place when, due to socio-economic conditions, instinctual gratifications of a more positive nature are not available. Sadism constitutes an enormous libidinal reservoir which serves a dual role: It is usually mobilized if society cannot offer any other - and usually more expensive - gratifications to the mass of people. Furthermore, it is at the same time a force with which one can eliminate one's enemies. (Fromm, 1932a: 30 footnote.) This aspect, the conceptualization of the nature and manifestations of large-scale sadism, became particularly relevant for the understanding of German antisemitism, or in general, what the authors later called 'ethnocentrism' (Adorno et al., 1967). The first question which had to be answered was why people submit so easily to arbitrary, and even hostile, authority, and Fromm ( 1 9 3 6 ) concluded that such submission must be experienced as pleasurable. From this basic assumption Fromm proceeded to construct the structure of the sado-masochistic character. According to Freud (1953), the infantile psyche splits into three psychic agents, the id which is essentially unconscious, the super-ego which represents the internalized social demands and which is only partially conscious, and finally the ego which mediates between the id and the superego. If the ego is weak and many of the id impulses are considered socially unacceptable, the individual has to depend on the strength of the superego in order to repress undesirable id impulses in order to (and thus) maintain self-esteem and the love of others. Thus the sado-masochistic character, i.e. the character structure which is characterized among other things by a weak ego and a correspondingly strong superego, is driven by an irrational and unconscious fear of, and hatred for, authority, and the desire to be loved or approved by it. Thus, since the unconscious hatred for authority is in conflict with the need to be loved, it produces anxiety and guilt which in turn strengthens the punitive powers of the superego. The existing authority ranging from the family to the state reinforces this process by the threat of punishment and the withdrawal of love which further hinders the development of the ego. Furthermore, the experience of existing authority is also serving as

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a role model. Since the sado-masochistic character experiences himself as exceptionally weak and impotent, he finds safety (and relief from anxiety), by relying on and identifying with those above. Since 'those below', i.e. all those who (correctly or incorrectly) are perceived as weaker, represent a mirror-image of the despised self, they thus become an obvious and safe target for the expression of sadism which cannot be directed towards the oppressive authority. Since the sado-masochistic character is essentially guided by his superego, rather than his ego, we have to expect a great amount of repression, not only with respect to aggression, but with all id-impulses including those hetero- and homosexual impulses that are considered socially unacceptable, i.e. 1930 mores concerning masturbation, pre- and extramarital sex, and overt homosexual acts. As the empirical and theoretical studies progressed (see Ch. III, Sec. f), the authors found many characteristics which correlated with the sadomasochistic character structure, e.g. inability to make autonomous decisions, conventional beliefs, tastes and behavior patterns, homosexual tendencies, general rigidity, etc.

F. The relationship between the cultural sphere and the socioeconomic base The original question had been the relationship between the sphere of culture and its relationship to the social and economic structure, i.e. the form and process of production. The cultural sphere as a social force has to be viewed as distinct from that of the process of production. The ideologies which govern social institutions like the schools, churches and political systems, or which are reflected in literature, philosophy and art, tend to conform to Marx's notion of superstructure and base; i.e., if consciousness is indeed essentially 'conscious existence', then the items listed above can only reflect the social and economic reality. According to Horkheimer (1936, 'Allgemeiner Teil'), any intense or prolonged antagonism between the two spheres will result in open conflict between authorities. An example would be the struggle between church and state. For any socio-economic system to function and to grow, it needs the support and accommodation of the cultural sphere. They can take several forms. For example, both religion and philosophy have found different ways to reconcile the conflict between man's desire for freedom with the external demand for self-denial and servitude. Perhaps the best illustration for such a reconciliation is Luther's concept of the inner freedom of the

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Christian. It divides human existence into two spheres: the inner man who is free in his thoughts and only governed by the demands laid down in the Bible. The outer man conforms to the demands of the existing political and economic authority. But in this submission he remains a free man, because by submitting to the external demands of Society and the social and political necessities, he is simply adapting himself to neccesities which are viewed as a 'natural given'. It is a conscious decision on his part. But no tyrant can force the individual to abandon his belief in God, and since his inner sphere, his soul, is the only part which matters, he is really a free man. The self-delusion about freedom, the acceptance of economic injustice, and the power of the state are part of the philosophies of men like Locke, Fichte and Kant. In their philosophies the state and the economic system are treated like 'fetishes' as defined by Feuerbach and Marx (Feuerbach, 1957; Marx & Engels, 1947; Marx, 1960). The most important of the supportive factors in the cultural realm is the family. The patriarchal family is a true reflection of the bourgeois society. The father subordinates every member of the family since he is viewed as superior in ever respect: size, strength, wisdom, and power. The severity of parental control, the free exercise (or threat), of punishment, the emphasis on self-control and hard work are indispensable mechanisms to produce individuals who will support and further the existing bourgeois social, economic and political order. There is a direct correspondence between the extent to which a society is generally oppressive, the patriarchial structure of the family, and the child-raising practices which are employed, which determine the degree of sado-masochism produced among the children. It is the family then as a socializing agent which serves as the connecting link between the cultural and the socioeconomic spheres.

G.

The empirical studies

The purpose of the empirical studies, aside from the gathering of factual information, was the development of a typology of character structures. The surveys tried to ascertain the attitudes towards authority in the family and the society. The informant interviews and monographs were conducted to accumulate general background information about the different groups of interviewees. The first exploratory survey in 1930/31 consisting of 3,000 questionnaires, was sent to printers, roofers, foremen and lower-level civil servants and white-collar employees. 1,150 questionnaires were returned. Only

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700 questionnaires were available for the preliminary analysis. The questionnaire contained over 252 questions many of which were openended. They covered the following topics: general living and working conditions, political opinions, tastes (literature, architecture, etc.), and leisure lime activities and attitudes towards authority in society and the family. The questionnaire also included some questions having to do with somatic complaints and some projective questions14 such as 'Who do you consider uie greatest men who ever lived?' (Horkheimer, 1936: 245). With selected answers from 4 questionnaires, they developed three typical character structures: 1) the authoritarian character; 2) the revolutionary character; 3) the ambivalent character which on the surface appears progressive and optimistic but on a deeper level is really authoritarian. The authoritarian character in this context means essentially the sado-masochistic character structure, as described by Fromm. Great emphasis is put on his passive acceptance of existing authority and his reactionary tastes and attitudes. The revolutionary character (in contrast to the democratic character developed later) (Adorno, 1967), is characterized by his Marxist orientation, progressive tastes and sexual attitudes and the belief that existing social conditions can be changed. However it must be noted that in many ways the so-called revolutionary character is quite authoritarian too, since many of the answers given appear as simply a reflection of the socialist party-line, i.e. the substitution of one authority for another. The typology was not completely uniform But the degree to which the different variables are associated was such that in the case of most questionnaires, the researcher, from the answers to one half of the questions, could predict the answers given to the other half. To take one of the simplest examples: a respondent who decorated his home with family photographs and paintings pertaining to work-scenes and war, who considered modern architecture to be ugly and felt that only the individual himself is to be blamed for his particular misfortunes, usually defended the position that children should not be given any information concerning sex and that one could not successfully bring up children without the use of corporal punishment. (Horkheimer, 1936: 271.)

Since no specific information with respect to the methodology was given, we assume that the typology was developed, essentially intuitively, i.e. by ascertaining the extent of the internal consistency of the answers, and by 14. The use of projective questions in Germany was an almost completely new development. It had been employed for the first time by Adolf Levenstein in 1912 in his study Die Arbeiterfrage, a survey the authors were familiar with. But we assume that the main impetus for the use of projective questions came from Horkheimer's and Fromm's familiarity with psychoanalytic techniques.

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interpreting variables such as artistic tastes as an expression of a conventional world-outlook, which in turn, was taken as an indicator for a specific personality trait. Only in their later study, The authoritarian personality, did the authors validate the accuracy of their intuitive evaluations and interpretations. The same holds true for the typologies developed in the studies discussed below. Having recognized the importance of sexuality in the human psyche, i.e. necessity of repression of all unacceptable id-impulses for the sadomasochistic character, the researchers in 1932 set out to supplement the first study with a survey on the changes in sexual morality in the postwar years; they reasoned that a loosening of the repressive standards governing sexual behavior in society could be interpreted as an indicator for the degree of authoritarianism in the general population. They sent 360 questionnaires to physicians who could be expected to have expert knowledge in this area: 68% of the lengthy questionnaires were returned, but at the time of the analysis, only 70 questionnaires were available. The questionnaire contained 12 factual questions and 3 opinion questions. The term factual here means whether in the experience of the physician, changes in the sexual behavior had taken place. Examples are: 'Do the majority of young people abstain from sexual activity before marriage?' or 'Do the majority of unmarried women live in abstinence?' (Horkheimer, 1936: 273). Obviously, the answer to these questions was influenced by the attitudes of the physicians. The three opinion questions were included to measure the subjective factor involved in the factual question. The physicians were asked to state their opinion with respect to premarital sexual activity but most important was the final question 'Why is masturbation harmful?' which appears to call for a professional opinion, but because of its factual base is really the most telling indicator of the physician's attitude towards sexual morality. Obviously, the harmlessness of masturbation was scientifically well-established in 1932, and any physician who still clung to the notion that it was harmful, could not be seen as an objective informant. Thus the survey of physicians was evaluated in two ways: as an indicator for the changes of moral standards with respect to sexuality in the general population, and to form a typology of the attitudes of physicians. Three types were developed: 1) conformity with conventional standards; 2) critical conventional standards (but not revolutionary); 3) explicitly conservative. The researchers realized that this typology was helpful in evaluating the factual questions, but they also realized that this method was far from perfect and merely a very promising beginning.

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The first two surveys encouraged the institute to investigate more specifically the exercise of authority in the family and, particularly, the relationship between the role of the man as the breadwinner and his authority in the family in Switzerland, Belgium, France, Holland and Austria. Altogether 589 questionnaires were sent out to professors of psychology and education, juvenile judges, social workers, priests, teachers, and leaders of youth groups and orphanages and youth homes; 251 questionnaires were returned. It was the intent to include experts who had experience with youth of all classes from both rural and urban backgrounds. The main topics of investigation were 1) the authority of father, mother and older siblings; 2) structural changes in the exercise of authority in the family; 3) the relationship between the earning power of the different family members and the exercise and acceptance of authority; 4) the relationship between the methods of education and the character of the children. The survey was subsequently enlarged with a supplementary questionnaire of 5 questions about the effect of unemployment on sexual standards which was sent to the same respondents. The methods of analysis were similar to those employed in the earlier studies, i.e. the attempt of forming a typology and the evaluation of the objective answers by studying the subjective factors. The main shortcoming of this survey and its supplement was the wording of the questions which were simply too broad to lend themselves to a systematic classification of the answers and the formation of a typology. For example, question 4 of the supplementary questionnaire read: 'Have you noticed any important changes with respect to sexual standards among the young due to prolonged unemployment? If yes, what kind of changes?' (Horkheimer, 1936: 345). Obviously, such a question should have been broken down into several separate parts, and it should have been left to the respondent whether or not he felt any changes in sexual standards were directly attributable to prolonged unemployment. Since the next survey on authority and the family among the young was analysed in the States by P. F. Lazarsfeld and Käthe Leichter, and since Lazarsfeld wrote an extensive analysis and critique of the methodology and its shortcoming, we will merely give an account of the research design. The questionnaire contained 6 parts. The first 5 sections tried to ascertain the economic conditions of the family and relatives living in the household. The investigators wanted to know what members of the family were employed and to what extent they contributed to the family-income. Section six, 'investigation of the family life', concerned itself with the

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relationship between the parents and the children. Questions 1, 2, 3 and 7 were supposed to determine the respective position of the father and mother towards the children. They covered the following areas (Horkheimer, 1936: 361): 1) what members of the family were most instrumental in determining what amount of the income the youth had to contribute to the household; 2) who was mostily responsible for the education and occupational choice of the child; 3) to whom does the youngster confide his troubles; 7) who sees to it that the youth goes to church regularly. The remaining questions were: 4) 'Do you confide in persons other than your parents?'; 5) 'Were there any recent changes with respect to questions 2, 3 and 4?'; 8) 'How do you spend your free time, and do your parents agree with it?'; 9) 'As a child, did you receive corporal punishment?'; 10) Once you have children of your own, will you punish them physically and educate them sternly or mildly?'; 11) 'Are there differences between your general world outlook and that of your parents; if so, what are they?'; 12) 'Which outstanding men in present life do you admire most?'; 13) 'What do you consider the purpose of life?'; 14) 'Additional comments?' It is obvious that the questionnaire was trying to ascertain the exercise of authority by the father and mother respectively in the family, acceptance by the children and the relationship between those two variables, and the extent to which the father is the main breadwinner. But in order to get a satisfactory result it would have been necessary to greatly enlarge the last part of the questionnaire in order to accurately measure the different variables. Furthermore questions 12 and 13 are too ambiguous and too broad to be answered and analysed uniformly, and to draw any general conclusions from them. H. Summary Perhaps the most outstanding characteristic of the general approach of the Institute are the facts that: 1) Since the investigators only had a very general idea of what they wanted to know, they let the findings of one study determine the direction of the subsequent one, even if it meant significant shifts in their approach. 2) They never compromised the breadth of their theoretical conceptualizations in view of the practical difficulties of translating them into empirical terms. Put differently, Authority and the family has to be viewed as pilot study, consisting of many different parts, and with its nearly 1000 pages it may well be the longest pilot study ever published. It was meant to be exploratory even though we assume that Horkheimer did not envision how long it would take to get reliable and tangible results.

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The whole volume should really be analysed in three ways: 1) The development of the theoretical framework in terms of the progressive reformulation and expansion of the different research objectives (however in the published edition we are only given the final product, not its history); 2) The range of topics and populations that were studied, both empirically and historically; 3) The development of the methodology, i.e. the general research design and the survey techniques. We will only discuss the theoretical framework and some of the methodological aspects because we simply do not have enough information about the management and execution of the studies in order to exactly reconstruct how the formulation of a theoretical question was translated into a specific empirical design, and precisely how the findings and methodological problems that emerged were utilized for the subsequent studies. The fact that so much of that information is missing must be attributed to the investigators' hasty summarization of their preliminary results in 1935. We would further assume that if the Institute would have had the opportunity to stay in Germany and to systematically pursue their studies without external pressure to publish results, that many parts of Authority and the family would have never gotten into print, or at least not in the form it was presented. As we indicated earlier, the original question had been to study the relationship between 'superstructure and base' (Marx, 1960) in a specific socio-economic group. The research team approached the problem on several different levels: 1) the elaboration of the general sociological theory, and an analysis of the history of social thought as it pertains to this problem; 2) Minute historical studies of the actual living and working conditions of this group in relation to and comparison with that of society as a whole; 3) Comparisons with similar groups in different societies. It was the problem of ideology in general, and that of the response to the rise of fascism in particular, which called for the inclusion of the socialpsychological theory in the overall framework. The attempt to understand the phenomenon of the rise of Nazism revealed that the study of authority in society and authoritarianism as a psychological phenomenon had to be the key-factors of the study. From there, it quickly became clear that it was the family, the connecting link between the individual and society which had to be studied, i.e. the mechanisms which make the family the reflection of the authority structure in society and how it succeeds in producing individuals who will perpetuate and continue existing social conditions. The different research projects and their shift of emphasis are a reflection of the gradual development of the theoretical conceptualization of the problem. Conversely, the empirical findings themselves heavily

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influenced the emergence of the theoretical framework, i.e. the realization that in order to deal with the original problem, it was necessary to find the x-factor (sado-masochistic character-structure), which turned out to be the prerequisite for the understanding of the relationship between superstructure and base. In other words, when the Institute began its studies in 1931, the researchers had only a general conception of what they wanted to know, the specific topics that had to be studied, the progressive reformulation of the research design was the result of material which accumulated and the questions which emerged from it. It seems safe to assume that in 1931, Horkheimer had no idea of the methodological difficulties that they would encounter in their empirical studies which were indeed formidable. A substantial part of the empirical material turned out to be inadequate or irrelevant for their purposes. Yet, instead of limiting their empirical studies to problems that were in step with their methodological know-how, they spent a great amount of time and energy to improve their methodology. Horkheimer, for example, was particularly pleased at the prospect of working in the States and learning from the American experience with survey research, since the Institute had continuously been hampered by the reluctance of the respondents (and their parents), to answer personal questions. The most important empirical methods which were conceptualized, but only partly developed by the Institute, were the following: 1. The structural or typological analysis of the data. From the beginning, the researchers were aware that they were not dealing with isolated opinions and attitudes, but with personality structures which would manifest themselves in general traits, such as fatalism, which would result in a general acceptance of the 'meanness of this world' or the inevitability of hard times. If a person possessed such a trait he would be expected to express it in a wide range of areas, a fact which enables the researcher to make accurate predictions from one set of opinions to another. In other words, they discovered and established that attitudes 'hang together' because they are expressions of the same trait. (See Lazarsfeld & Leichter, 1936; Lazarsfeld, 1959.) 2. Closely related to the previous point, is the usage of indicators and projective questions. Instead of asking the respondent directly of what he thought about Hitler, he was asked to name the greatest men in history. Or instead of asking direct questions about the power of the father in the family, the respondents were asked to indicate how specific decisions had been made. However, in using this technique, the researchers were unable to overcome two difficulties. First of all, the wording of some of the projective questions turned out to be too ambiguous to permit any general

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conclusions. Secondly, the researchers did not succeed in combining their indicators into usable indices. 3. Since in the expert interviewing, many of the areas under investigation were heavily charged emotionally, it appeared necessary to establish the extent to which subjective orientations of the respondents had influenced the factual answers. Thus, the questionnaires included some questions which were supposed to indicate the presence of prejudice. This technique proved to be very valuable, but it did not tell the investigators the exact extent of the prejudice and the degree to which it had influenced the professional judgment. In other words, the so-called opinion questions merely indicated whether or not, and in what direction, an individual was biased, but there was no way of quantifying the size of the prejudice. Despite their shortcomings, the methodological efforts of the Institute are quite impressive, particularly in view of the fact that their techniques were efforts in the right direction. Furthermore, the investigators were aware of the fact that their methods needed refinements in order to be used not merely as an aid in the development of a typology, but as a means to arrive at statistically valid verifications of hypotheses. The subsequent studies, carried out by the Institute, prove that this goal was indeed realistic (Adorno, 1967; Habermas, 1960). The question has been raised whether the different surveys, if they had been properly analysed, could have yielded valid information. This question has to be answered positively, but only of we evaluate the surveys as exploratory studies of attitudes, socio-economic conditions, life styles, and as attempts to try out the general feasibility of certain methodological techniques. In sum, it seems accurate to conclude that in Germany the work done by the Institute constitutes the most sophisticated empirical sociology during the Weimar Republic. In contrast to the empirical efforts of Tönnies and von Wiese, there was a high level of integration between their general theoretical orientation and their empirical work. If we were to speculate about the impact of the work of the Institute as the development of a substantial empirical tradition in Germany, it seems to us that the Frankfurt school would have had an extremely high chance of succeeding if the members of the Institute had not been forced into emigration. This prediction was based on three facts: 1) They managed to integrate large-scale social theory with empirical methods without compromising the complexity of the theoretical framework in view of the methodological difficulties; 2) They eagerly tried to enlarge their knowledge of empirical methodology by consulting colleagues in different fields

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and countries, despite ideological differences; 3) Their conviction that the questions under consideration had to also be treated empirically was so convincing that they succeeded in recruiting T. W. Adorno for their empirical studies, a man whose main interest and education had been in the fields of music, art, literature and philosophy and who had conceptualized his scholarly orientation in the following way: Ί considered it my fitting and objectively proffered assignment, to interpret phenomena - not to ascertain, sift and classify facts and make them available as information' (Fleming & Bailey, 1969: 339). One might add that Adorno's participation in The authoritarian personality was not a temporary diversion, since he continued to involve himself in the empirical investigations of the Institute when it was re-established in Frankfurt after World War II.

CHAPTER

III

Non-sociological social research

Empirical social research as we define it today, existed in abundance in Germany in the period between 1914 and 1933. However, as we indicated earlier, it was conducted almost exclusively by non-sociologists. The commitment to establish and continue an empirical tradition in medicine, psychiatry, education and psychology on one hand, and economics and statistics on the other had been made prior to World War I. There was one notable difference though, between the fields mentioned above. The first four disciplines were clearly determined to conduct social research, often of an interdisciplinary nature, while statistics pursued essentially data-collection and economy, and together with political science and the sciences of the state used statistical data not as a goal in itself, but to give a factual base to their monographs. Sociology as an academic discipline existed essentially in isolation, even though sociology and statistics once made a concerted effort to cooperate, but this attempt resulted in a dismal failure. If we compare sociology with the other fields under discussion we get some clues as to why sociology did not establish an empirical tradition and why, if they conducted empirical studies, they did not take advantage of the advances made in other fields. Particularly Max Weber and Ferdinand Tönnies could have benefited immensely from the methodology (in the modern usage of the term), developed by psychology, psychiatry, medicine and education. It is astounding how aware the psychologists were of the few attempts sociology made to conduct empirical studies, but we found no evidence that the sociologists were aware of the studies done by psychology or any of the other fields. It seems to us that the fact that sociology existed essentially in isolation and did not develop a tradition of empirical social research comparable to that of the other fields is largely due to two interrelated facts: 1. As far as coverage of problem areas was concerned, sociology as an empirical discipline was essentially superfluous. Most of the problems which constitute the substance of modern sociological social research

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were already being approached before 1914 by the fields of psychology, education, psychiatry, medicine and economics. One might, of course, argue that this constitutes reverse reasoning, i.e. that these fields studied social problems because sociology failed to do so. But this argument is not altogether plausible since medicine and psychiatry had a tradition of social research going back to the middle of the 19th century. 2. With respect to the willingness to engage in empirical social research, the self-identification and label 'sociologist' seemed to have worked as a deterrent against the use of empirical methods. This phenomenon seems to have been due to the fact which we pointed out earlier, namely that sociology had to prove that it constituted, indeed, a separate and autonomous field, rather than an extension of the existing disciplines. Furthermore, sociology had to defend itself against the accusation that it was simply trying to swallow up all the existing and established social sciences in order to create some sort of super-science (see Ch. I, Sec. 2). Our 'identification of the sociologist-as-a-deterrent' hypothesis finds some support if we examine the life history of Oppenheimer (1929), one of the leading sociologists of the 1920's. Oppenheimer had been a practicing physician in Berlin for many years before he decided to become a sociologist. However, during his years as a doctor he was struck by the fact that many diseases appear in clusters and blossomed particularly in the poorer parts of town. In other words, he became increasingly aware of the social aspects of illness, i.e. the relationship between physical disease and the social and living conditions of the patients. When Oppenheimer travelled through the eastern provinces of Germany he made fascinating observations about the effects of what we today would call the 'culture of poverty'. In fact, Oppenheimer increasingly grew into a medical sociologist, and as such, he~could have easily made an academic career by pursuing that particular type of research, which fitted nicely into the tradition of the medical reform movement.1 Instead, Oppenheimer chose to become a sociologist, which meant he had to go back to the university in order to obtain additional degrees, a decision which resulted for him in much economic hardship and which seems to have contributed to the dissolution of his first marriage. Once he had become a sociologist, he devoted himself almost exclusively to theoretical-historical studies without ever using empirical research methods (Oppenheimer, 1931). Another example is the career of Othmar Spann, who had conducted several rather sophisticated empirical studies on poverty and illegitimacy. (Spann, 1908). Once he had become a sociologist, he refuted in principle 1. For a history of the medical reform movement, see Fischer, 1933.

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the method of inductive empirical reasoning as an appropriate tool for sociological inquiry (Spann, 1914). As we pointed out earlier, Leopold von Wiese had also been engaged in a rather extensive empirical study of the mining industry (von Wiese, 1929a). But he thought so little of it, that he never even published it. As a sociologist he considered it his foremost goal to develop sociological theory, and his only concession to empiricism was his attempt to test the applicability of his theory in reality.

1. P S Y C H O L O G Y , P S Y C H I A T R Y , M E D I C I N E A N D GENERAL

EDUCATION:

INTRODUCTION

From 1900 on, the problem of nature vs. nurture, or 'milieu' vs. heredity was perhaps the most important common denominator generating a most impressive research effort in all of these fields. The amount of empirical research conducted in the first three decades of the 20th century is so vast that it is impossible to give a systematic account of it. Instead we will examine only the major trends. We will analyse in greater detail specific scholars or studies which are meant to serve as indicators for the general development. The emergence of vast numbers of social problems was seen as a scientific challenge affecting all of the fields mentioned above. The general attitude was very concisely summarized by William Stern when he stated: Abnormal children have become, just in the last few decades, a center of pedagogical, socio-political, and medical interest. The whole pedagogy of the subnormal, the schema of auxiliary schools and special classes, the juvenile courts and the various protective and corrective institutions are, indeed, matters of very recent development, but they are demanding a more exact study of the individuality of the child, both for purposes of mental diagnosis and for 'psychotechnic' purposes: training, treatment, punishment, etc. (Stern, 1914: 7.) The four fields discussed in this chapter, in contrast to sociology, had several characteristics in common which together seemed to have been singularly beneficial for the development of an empirical tradition which was most impressive both in quantity as well as in quality: 1) A deep concern over social problems; 2) Lack of 'resort-envy' and a willingness to draw upon the experiences of other fields; 3) An untroubled acceptance of the methods of the pure sciences; 4) Integration between theory and praxis and the possibility and willingness to cooperate with government institutions.

100 Non-sociological social research Finally, as we mentioned earlier, German scholars, administrators and bureaucrats were generally obsessed with social and institutional bookkeeping which produced a vast amount of data for secondary analyses. Every social agency kept minute records of all of its operations and every German citizen was required by law to register with the local authorities when he moved into a community and notify them when he intended to move. Thus, at any given time, it was possible, usually through the office of the mayor, to obtain an exact account of the population and its composition in terms of sex, age, profession, and residence of any given village or town. The most important areas of investigation studied by the fields under discussion were: the origins of crime and delinquency, and the consequential impact of correctional measures; alcoholism; child-neglect; living and working conditions of the proletariat and the agricultural population; general learning problems and school-performance; and the general effect of poverty and unemployment on physical and mental health, vocational choices and life style, and finally, the ideational world of the different social classes. Before going into details, it appears desirable to spell out in greater detail the different variables which we feel contributed to the establishment of an empirical tradition in the four disciplines under discussion.

A. The concern with social problems In the four academic disciplines mentioned, the concern with the specific problems created by the industrial revolution, had different origins and did not begin simultaneously. Thus we will discuss the different disciplines separately. a) Medicine} The social concerns of medicine constitute perhaps one of the oldest and most direct expressions of collaboration between the academic discipline, its praxis, and the working class movement. It was based on the discovery that illness was not the results of divine will or the state of the atmosphere, but that there existed contagion through definite disease carriers which in many instances were related to the lack of hygiene. This discovery originally led to an improvement of sanitary facilities in general, i.e. sewer systems, water supply, etc., but these innovative reforms were not applied to the slum areas. Thus the demand for better hygienic conditions in the working-class districts became an explicit 2. For details see Fischer (1933) and Ackerknecht (1953).

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battle cry in the revolution of 1848. It was based on two premises which made these demands acceptable for the revolutionaries as well as the opposition: 1) that the existence of physical disease was a reflection of social ills; 2) that the physical well-being of the working class was inseparable from the general state of health of the entire nation. These two ideological presuppositions have to be distinguished because the first one represents a leftist revolutionary demand, while the second one affected the middle and upper classes in three ways. They were concerned with the quality of the labor force, the pool of the unemployed, and the army. For example, the first laws of 1839 limiting the use of child labor in Prussia were based on the recognition that the physical health of the recruits from the working class was such that majority of them were indeed unfit for military service (Ewig, 1952). Thus, what was known as the medical reform movement in its initial stages, 1840-1890 gained an enormous momentum because it was seen as desirable by the right and the left. Perhaps the most famous representative of that movement in Germany was the noted pathologist Rudolf Virchow. He summarized the problem by stating: 'The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and social problems should largely be solved by them' (Ackerknecht, 1953: 44), and 'If medicine is to fulfil her great task, then she must enter political and social life' (Ackerknecht, 1953: 46). Virchow was quite knowledgeable in statistical methods and he was familiar with the works of Quételet, a fact which enabled him to demonstrate the correlations between infant mortality and poverty in Berlin (Virchow, 1879). His social-medical study of a typhus epidemic in 1848 (Ackerknecht, 1953) received nationwide attention. Of equal fame was his anthropological study of school children in the 1870's, after the Franco-German war in which he demonstrated that the Prussian nation, like any other European nation, constituted by no means a 'pure race' but a composite of several 'races' (Ackerknecht, 1953). After the reign of Bismarck, who had co-opted many of the existing social reform movements through his extensive social legislation, the revival of socio-medical research was based in part on the recognition that despite social legislation, the general health of the poor had hardly improved. Furthermore, the increasing acceptance of the presupposition that soul and body (Leib und Seele) were inseparable, meant that successful medicine had to deal with the entire person, i.e. his living and working conditions and personal problems. b) Psychiatry. Until the 18th century, the mentally ill had been looked upon as freaks whose madness was explained essentially in terms of posses-

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sion of spirits or moral failure, and were accordingly treated by relegating them to the status of subhuman beings, either to be dumped in confinement, reminiscent of leper-colonies, or to be chased from one village to another. Often they were also put on ships with no crew and left to their own destiny.3 In the 17th and 18th century they were usually put in 'hospitals' together with criminals, prostitutes and the unemployed. The Hôpital Général in Paris, perhaps the most notorious of these institutions, was a combination of a penal institution, insane asylum, workshop and, only marginally, a hospital. Jean Colombier, general inspector of French hospitals, summed up the situation in 1785 by stating: Thousands of lunatics are locked up in prisons without anyone even thinking of the slightest remedy. The halfmad are mingled with those who are totally deranged, those who rage with those who are quiet; some are in chains while others are free in their prisons. Finally, unless nature comes to their aid by curing them, the duration of their misery is life-long, for unfortunately the illness does not improve but only grows worse. (Semelaigne, 1930: 85.)

From roughly 1800 on, insanity was generally recognized as a true illness and consequently the search for its causes began. Very early physicians became aware of a connection between social conditions and the incidence of mental disorders. The question was also of political interest for two ideological reasons. First, if social factors are operative in the development of mental illness, then these very factors have to be eliminated either through progressive social reform or through a return to simpler forms of social life, in contrast to those created by the industrial revolution. Secondly, since mental illness is costly to society, particularly if it manifests itself in criminal and socially disruptive actions, then it is in the interest of the state and society to search for preventive measures and effective forms of treatment. As in the case of general medicine, the issue of studying mental illness was, from an ideological standpoint, a bipartisan affair. Another factor which contributed to the interest in the social causation of mental illness was the recognition of the fact that there existed the phenomenon of psychic epidemics, to wit; the rash of suicides following the publication of Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Ludwig, 1923). Virchow had applied his view of the social nature of illness also to mental illness, psychic epidemics and sudden increases in mental illness rates by stating: 'If disease is an expression of individual life under unfavorable conditions, then epidemics must be indicative of major disturbances of mass life' (Virchow, 1849: 45). He added: 3. See chapter on the historical sociology of mental illness; Rosen (1969).

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The artifical epidemics are physical and mental, for mental diseases also occur epidemically and tear entire peoples into a mad psychotic movement. Psychiatry also enables the historian to survey and understand the major fluctuations of public opinion and popular feeling, which on the whole resemble the picture of individual mental illness. (Virchow, 1849: 47.)

Thus the observation that the frequency of mental illness increased during major social upheavals such as the French Revolution and the German Revolution of 1848, added substantially to the research on the etiology of mental illness (Rosen, 1969). Another factor in this context was the question whether mental illness was generally on the increase. During the 19th century in Europe it was generally assumed that this was the case (Rosen, 1969). This assumption added fuel to the arguments of the cultural pessimists and prompted the reform-minded group, men like Griesinger (1861), to substantially increase their efforts to study the problem of mental illness in terms of incidence, prevalence, trend, causation and community action (Hellpach, 1906). Hellpach, for example, demonstrated the relationship between social class and certain forms of mental illness, attributing the greater frequency of the neurosis in the middle class to the mentality of the bourgeoisie and its degenerative tendencies and greater prevalence of psychotic breaks among the proletariat to the misery of working class conditions. Generally, at the turn of the 19 th century, empirical psychiatry slowly shifted its focus towards the relationship between mental illness and its various forms and social pathology such as crime, delinquency, incorrigibility, alcoholism, prostitution, etc. Another area of increasing interest was that of the role of environment vs. heredity in the development of mental illness and social pathology. It is a question which had important implications not only for the field of eugenics and the policies governing the administration of mental and penal institutions, but also for the whole area of criminal justice. c) Psychology and education. Psychology and education will be treated together since they addressed themselves largely to similar problem areas and often cooperated in their research efforts. The concept of higher education had been treated intensively in the 18th and 19th century by men like Pestalozzi, J. Moser, Herder, Fichte, W. v. Humboldt, Johannes and Adalbert Falk, Fröbel, Ziller, Oberlin, Kolping and Bodelschwingh. But these treatises were essentially of a general humanistic orientation. They addressed themselves almost exclusively to the question how the high ideals of humanism could be transmitted to the young and what the general goals of education should be,

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i.e. 'the ideals of humanism and education' (das Menschheits- und Erziehungsideal). But practically no attention was paid to the question as to what actually took place in the classroom, how social conditions affected learning, and how effective the existing schools actually were, not just for the priviliged, but also for the poor. The first progressive schools, founded by Hermann Lietz and Paul Geheeb (1904 and 1910), were still based on these general humanistic ideals: To educate the children to become full human beings and to guide them towards humanism — this is the permanent task in view of which the Odenwaldschule was founded, and which it shall serve forever, independent of changing political and social conditions. (Geheeb, 1960: 3.) Scientific pedagogy and psychology, geared towards application to practical social problems, only started to be conducted in a systematic fashion at the turn of the 19th century. William Stern, in 1911, commented quite accurately: That side of culture, however, which deals with the human psyche - and where, even in the most exterior spheres of life, would psychic phenomena not be involved? — had to do without this kind of scientific foundation. Wherever the problem was to understand the psychic behavior of people in everyday life, and to evaluate, direct, and influence that psychic behavior, scholars contented themselves with a naive popular psychology or with amateurish systems which had to do without all the advantages and consequences of scientific knowledge. Up to the present day, education and instruction, people's choice of a profession, public relations, the administration of justice and the penal system, mental hygiene and therapy, and several other areas of everyday life have suffered, and are still suffering from this. (Stern, 1921: 5-6.) In other words, psychologists and educators became increasingly aware that speculations about Menschheits- und Erziehungsideale were rather irrelevant in the context of a society which presented them with tremendous social problems which also required systematic scientific study. The emergence, or rather recognition, of the existence of widespread school problems, particularly among working class children, delinquency, truancy and child neglect generated a vast amount of origin-prevention-treatment studies, which were geared towards immediate implementation. Stern was very aware of the fact that the industrial revolution had produced enormous changes, and with it, problems which had to be taken from a psychological standpoint in order to be solved. For examples he cited: 1) the failure of the existing school system to meet the needs of the different types of students; 2) the emancipation of women, i.e. how and to what extent women could be integrated into the existing occupational structure;

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3) criminal behavior: the question to what extent psychological variables functioned as contributing factors to the criminal activity. Thus Stern (1914) defined the goals of psychology: to know man in order to treat him (Menschenkenntnis zur Menschenbehandlung). Equally important was the increasing awareness of the emergence of youth as a separate social entity which demanded to be taken seriously. The middleclass youth started to reject the ideologies of their fathers and the inflexible outdated educational institutions. Proletarian youth, due to unstable family lives and general economic instability represented learning and behavior problems and difficulties in their occupational adjustment. Both groups developed a consciousness of their uniqueness, a desire for a better world, and in some instances, the wish to influence the political scene. Youth groups of various ideological orientations sprang up throughout Europe and attracted larger and larger numbers of young people. Psychologists and educators responded so enthusiastically to these social changes and their resulting problems that Busemann (1932: 3) in the Handbuch der jugendlichen Milieukunde could accurately comment on this field: 'In recent years, studies of this kind have increased to such an extent that a single person would find it near impossible to survey the entire body of material'. However it would be misleading to state that psychology and education were exclusively problem-oriented. A considerable amount of research was also based on the simple recognition that in a pluralistic society each subgroup had to be studied separately. After all, in the Weimar Republic, at least formally, the socialists were in power, and it seems reasonable to assume that the political reality added impetus for the essentially middle class professors of psychology and education to acknowledge that working class people also had their own (valid) life style and Weltanschauung and that they had to be studied.

B. Resort-envy and the willingness to draw upon the experiences of other fields At the turn of the 19 th century the four fields under consideration had clearly established themselves as autonomous academic enterprises with a clearly defined subject matter. Presumably, for this reason, we were unable to find any polemics where one field accused another of academic trespassing. Instead, we found that as a rule scholars in one field would draw upon the methodology and the findings of another as well as those of their foreign colleagues. This is particularly true for the various 'handbooks', such as jugendliche Milieukunde (Busemann, 1932), Fürsorge-

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erZiehung (Gregor, 1924) and Medizinischen Psychologie (Birnbaum, 1930). The same holds true for a field which has not yet been mentioned, namely criminal law. It largely covered the area which we today refer to as criminology. But whenever a psychologist used psychiatric variables in his studies, he would use them exactly in the way in which they had been defined by psychiatry. The same holds true for other professional interchanges. In other words, it seems that these fields considered themselves autonomous and secure enough with respect to their respective methodology and subject matter; that they felt comfortable with the idea that they were also interrelated. However, as we will demonstrate later, they did rarely if ever integrate the sociology which existed at the time into their studies. In their empirical studies they almost invariably considered sociological variables, but they were almost always referred to as social factors. Furthermore, if the studies which we investigated constitute a representative sample, then it seems fair to say that the four fields under discussion simply ignored sociology by referring to it only in rare instances; usually these references pertained to the historical school of sociology. On the other hand, statistical sources were used constantly, but very often with the comment that the statistical treatment of a given problem was helpful, but insufficient, and that it was the purpose of that specific study to go beyond the statistical approach and to penetrate a problem more deeply. One additional fact has to be pointed out: by the time sociology had reached the point where it was accepted as an autonomous, more or less accepted, academic discipline, the other social sciences had already established a solid tradition of systematic empirical social research. By the time sociology had come to grips with its philosophical and methodological (as we defined it earlier) problems, the four fields under discussion, together with economics, history, and criminal law had pretty much covered those areas of sociological inquiry that could be investigated by what one might call empirical studies of the middle range. In other words, for sociology to distinguish itself empirically as something other than psychology, or education, etc., under a different label, it would have had to combine largescale theory with empirical methods; as for example the studies in authority and the family done at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt (Horkheimer, 1936). C. The acceptance of the methods of the pure sciences That medicine and psychiatry accepted the methodology of the pure

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sciences is self-evident as far as psychiatric and medical research is concerned, and it is not surprising that they adhered to it in their more sociological studies. According to Stern (1921), psychology, too, at the turn of the century had become a fully scientific discipline. The same holds true for education. However, psychology by far developed the most sophisticated methodology. This orientation was not seen as a problematic decision since it did not imply an alienation from the cultural sciences. Perhaps the best illustration of this attitude is found in Lipps (1906). It is essentially a very sophisticated handbook of the statistical method (in the modern sense of the term) employed in experimental psychology, however the author also explained the underlying basis for this kind of methodological reasoning. His ideas are particularly fascinating in comparison to the epistemological arguments conducted in the field of sociology. His starting point is the relationship between the philosophical and the scientific world-view: a problem, which according to Lipps goes back to Heraclitus and has preoccupied philosophy ever since. Lipps distinguished between the parts which make up the objective reality and the contents of our consciousness (Bewusstseinsinhalte). The latter have to be viewed as judgments - on the basis of comparisons - and the former as the carriers of relationships (Träger von Beziehungen), which enter our consciousness; but neither one of them can exist in isolation. On the contrary, they constitute — in a genuine, unseparable unity — the only real and existing world, which only for analytical purposes and on the basis of thought can be separated into, on the one hand, a world consisting of the contents of consciousness (Bewusstseinsinhalte), and, on the other hand, a world of objective reality. (Lipps, 1906: 4.)

This immediate or direct relationship between the elements of the objective world and those of our consciousness is the main characteristic of the empirical world-view. However, in order to create a comprehensive view of all the elements of our reality, we need the philosophical world-view instead of the empirical one. But since the objective reality only exists through thought judgment and comparison - and since only thought leads to insight (Erkenntnis), an analysis of the thought process has to constitute the starting point for any reflections about the philosophical world-view. Stated differently, the thought process as he defined it, namely as the synthesis of the elements of objective reality and the contents of our consciousness, thus constitutes the connecting link between the empirical and the philosophical world-view.

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Lipps argued further, that unless the scholar is aware of these relationships he is likely to search for some kind of supra-empirical reality in order approach the empirical world. Similarly he will try to understand thought processes by extrapolating them from that same supra-empirical reality. This approach is as misleading as the one which only accepts the empirical world view. On the other hand, if one only accepts the concrete knowledge of reality as valid, one then runs the risk of reducing the given condition to the distinctions immediately at hand in one's consciousness; thereby, accepting only coexistence and succession of the contents of one's consciousness (Bewusstseinsinhalte), instead of the real world. Thus one finds, on the one hand, a one-sided, world-view proceeding on the assumption of a supra-empirical reality, and, on the other hand, a not less than one-sided world-view (which only accepts the contents of one's Bewusstseinsinhalte as an empirical given. (Lipps, 106: 5.)

To see the empirical and the philosophical world-views as mutually exclusive is not only false but renders a disservice to both of them. He concluded that since experimental psychology, whose subject matter is the subjective linked to thought, consequently constitutes no opposition to the philosophical world view. It seems that these ideas were generally accepted or even taken for granted in medicine, psychology, psychiatry and education since, the studies in which we examined the sections dealing with methodology never questioned whether the methods of the pure sciences should be employed, but only asked how they should be used and possibly refined and improved. D. The integration of theory and praxis and the cooperation with government agencies We indicated earlier that German administrators and bureaucrats in general were obsessed with social bookkeeping. For example, any correctional or social institution such as jails, homes for neglected children, mental hospitals and orphanages would give a detailed intake-interview, very similar to those administered by today's social work agencies. They usually covered family background in terms of socio-economic variables, education, incidence, and frequency of physical and mental pathology, type of family life and family dynamics, etc., and the life history of the inmate or patient which was usually very detailed. Throughout his stay, periodic progress reports were made out, culminating in a record of the final disposition of the case. The vast majority of these institutions were state run. The directors in

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many cases were medical doctors, psychiatrists and sometimes educators, psychologists or jurists. In many instances the directors of such institutions were headed (or employed) professionals from the fields mentioned above, and many of them taught in the universities. But the majority of university professors who conducted research in the area of crime, delinquency, mental illness, incorrigibility, learning problems, etc., were academicians who in one way or the other were affiliated with a social agency or institution. A considerable amount of research in these areas was also undertaken by non-academicians, but the point we are trying to emphasize is the fact that the professors in the four fields under discussion were quite likely to have extensive contact with the practice of their profession. Therefore it is only logical that these people would be interested in the origins of the particular social problem they were dealing with, the effect of the curative, correctional, or preventive measures taken, and its impact on the further life history of the individuals under their care. The government, for obvious reasons, had similar interests. Thus when the attempt was made to collect data about individuals who at some point or other had been public charges, the government would make every conceivable effort to supply the investigator with the needed records, from courts orphanages, employment agencies, etc. The extent of this cooperation is illustrated by the fact that when Adelheid Fuchs-Kamp did a follow-up study on former inmates of a home for incorrigible children 12 years after their discharge, she was able to enlist the aid of the head of the Erkennungsdienst of the state of Baden (a mixture of missing persons bureau and local FBI), in order to trace down the current addresses of these individuals (Fuchs-Kamp, 1929). Thus a professor of psychology who was engaged in empirical social research on juvenile delinquency for example would not only be likely to stimulate his students to do similar studies, but he would also be able, through his connections with government agencies to provide his students with the necessary access to the data they would need. An example are the two studies on juvenile delinquency conducted in the home for delinquent children in Flehingen which we will discuss later. Similarly, studies in psychology and education could count on the cooperation with the ministry of education, and other federal, religious and social work agencies. Busse, for example, received active help from the head of the federal association of youth organizations in his psychological study on the literary understanding of proletarian youth (Busse, 1923), and his book was published with an introduction by a professor of social work, who stated that studies of this sort provided precisely the type of knowledge which the practising social worker needed.

110 Non-sociological social research One final point has to be added. Since all universities were state institutions, every professor, if he was on reasonably good terms with his respective minister of education, would have had an additional link with other government agencies, in order to obtain data he needed.

2. P S Y C H O L O G Y AND E D U C A T I O N

It seems advantageous to treat these two fields together since there was a great deal of overlap of subject matter of personnel. In 1911 for example, progressive educators founded an association for the pedagogical reformmovement, the Bund für Schulreform (Anon., 1911). At its first meeting in Dresden in 1911 they devoted most of their discussion to problems of intelligence, intelligence measurement and proposals for school reform. In order to determine the effectiveness of existing and experimental educational measures they had to closely cooperate with educational psychology. The area of childhood produced a considerable amount of interdisciplinary research in other areas as well. In the second decade of the 20th century psychology, education social work and pediatrics cooperated in their research efforts on the problems of childhood, both under the aspect of immediate problem solving as well as the more general theme of milieu vs. heredity (Anlage). These studies were published in the Zeitschrift für pädagogische Psychologie, Zeitschrift für Kinderforschung and Zeitschrift für Kinderheilkunde. The most influential psychologist during this time was William Stern. It was his accomplishment: 1) to fully establish psychology as a scientific discipline; 2) to develop the branch of differential (or individual), psychology; 3) to develop an empirical methodology which remained unsurpassed for almost two decades. Guy Montrose Whipple in his introduction to the American edition of Stern's The psychological methods of testing intelligence, which was written in 1912, stated: 'This book affords to what is so far as I know, the best, and in fact the only authoritative, critical and compact survey on the literature of intelligence testing' (Stern, 1914: 10). We will discuss Stern's differential psychology which was published originally in 1900 under the title, Über die Psychologie der individuellen Differenzen and rewritten in 1911 under the title, Differenzielle Psychologie (Stern, 1921) in great detail for essentially three reasons: 1) Judging from the subsequent studies by other authors, it seems that his branch of psychology was the most decisive shaping force in the first three decades

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of the 20th century; 2) His general orientation provided an excellent base for any kind of social research, i.e. it was not restricted to psychological research alone; 3) His research methodology was infinitely superior to those employed by the other social sciences, a fact which poses the question why men like Tönnies for example, did not simply utilize his methods in his empirical studies. Our analysis of the book-review section of the Kölner Vierteljahrshefte showed that the German sociologists regarded empirical social research as a typically American phenomenon. William Stern's evaluation of American survey techniques and his attitude towards the role and advances of German survey methods is strikingly different. By 1911 he had already considered the attitude survey as an established research procedure despite the fact that its application in the United States in his opinion left much to be desired. He stated: How deserved an attitude German specialized psychology did assume with respect to the attitude survey method is demonstrated in my own comments in the first edition of this book where (pp. 29-31), stirred by certain shortcomings of the American inquiries, I wanted the method to be avoided altogether, if possible. The last decade has taught us better. We now have in Germany applications of the survey method whose scientific value must definitely be regarded as on a par with the results of other methods, and which, at the same time, are capable of tackling problems that cannot be handled by means of other methods. (Stern, 1921: 123.)

Another point which is of interest in this context is the fact that even though Stern stated that psychology had only recently started to become scientific and systematic, his 1911 bibliography included references to 1535 works both German and foreign. In the second edition of 1921 he added 381 'most important works' that had been published in the interim. Instead of the 19th century psychology which searched for general laws and 'last psychic elements', differential psychology intended to systematically investigate individual differences. Stern defined his goals in the following way: Differential psychology at first sight seems to be just like general psychology, a science aiming at the generally valid findings; yet the generally valid findings it seeks are of a different kind. Thus, first of all, it has to investigate those formal laws which are inherent in the general facts of psychic variation itself. The category of psychic variability requires an exact investigation; concepts must be developed as to the extent of the variation, the variation index and covariation. As to the kinds of variation, a distinction has to be made between

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types and degrees; the essence of the normal, the supernormal, the subnormal and the abnormal has to be determined. (Stern, 1921: 2-3.) Furthermore, differential psychology attempts to establish causal relationships, as for example, the differential impact of hereditary predisposition, environment, and education on specific traits and behavior (Psychologische Merkmale). Also a differential symptomatology, has to be established with a spezielle Psychologie, i.e. the psychology of temperaments, character structures and talents. Finally, Psychographie is the analysis of individuals in terms of their emotional structure. As we mentioned earlier - even though Stern wanted to establish psychology as a scientific discipline - he argued that psychology would not lose any of its scientific character by focusing on existing social and cultural problems. After all, Stern pointed out, physics did not degrade itself scientifically by also developing such practical advances such as the microscope, the telephone and X-ray therapy. Similarly, he countered the argument that it is useless to empirically study phenomena whose nature is not known, as for example intelligence by stating: The objection is often made that the problem of intellectual diagnosis can in no way be successfully dealt with until we have exact knowledge of the general nature of intelligence itself. But this objection does not seem to be pertinent. In science there is no such precise sequence of the different research problems. We measure electro-motive force without knowing what electricity is, and we diagnose with very delicate test methods many diseases the real nature of which we know as yet very little. Indeed it may be asserted quite on the contrary, that progress in testing intelligence may shed light from a new angle upon the theoretical study of intelligence and thus supplement the psychology of thinking in a valuable manner. (Stern, 1914: 2.) In other words, the symptomalogical approach, searching for observable differences and their intercorrelations will contribute to a fruitful reciprocity between the applied and the theoretical approaches to phenomena such as intelligence and mental illness.

A. 'Differenzielle Psychologie' Stern structured the field of differential psychology methodologically, rather than in terms of problem areas, by distinguishing four different parts: variation and correlation studies on one hand and psychographic and comparative studies on the other. This distinction is based on the four

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logical possibilities of combining individuals and psychological characteristics (Merkmale). A study of variations examines a given characteristic in a large number of individuals and determines its norm and variations. A correlation study examines two or more psychological factors in a number of individuals in order to determine whether and what kind of correlations exist between these psychological factors in a specified group of people. Psychographic and comparative studies take individuals as their starting point. A psychographic study examines one individual with respect to a large number of psychological variables and their interrelations; while a comparative study examines two or more individuals with respect to a large number of psycho-social variables and their interaction. With equal care, he distinguished between the different psychological phenomena and actions in terms of how the they manifest themselves and whether they are objects of direct or indirect observations. After having defined his basic concepts such as individuals, acts and phenomena etc., he devotes the remainder of the book to methods and techniques appropriate for the four basic types of empirical studies mentioned above. In other words, differential psychology is essentially a method rather than a theory about the nature of the human psyche. He stated explicitly that even those who did not share his basic psychological assumptions could hardly argue about the value of his methodology. The difference between his approach to psychology and the arguments conducted in the field of sociology with respect to the relationship between theory and research is nowhere expressed more clearly than in his introduction to Differenzielle Psychologie; where he pointed out: 'It goes without saying that my conception of the structure of the human individual and physic differentiations is not uninfluenced by my basic philosophical convictions. Since, however, the purpose of this book is to lay the foundation of an empirical science, I have reduced the philosophical references to a minimum' (Stern, 1921: v). His philosophical orientations were published separately and at a much later date (Stern, 1923, 1935). Stern's methodology4 consists of three parts: 1) statistical methods such as formula for computing averages, means, medians, distribution and variation, coefficient correlations, rank-order coefficient, standard deviation, probable error, correlation of time series, etc.; 2) data collection; 3) data analysis. Since the purpose of our discussion of his methodology is not to give a summary, but to illustrate his level of methodological sophistication, particularly with respect to those methodological devices 4. In our discussion of Stern's methodology we will draw upon his Differenzielle Psychologie as well as his Psychological measures of testing intelligence.

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social research

that would have been useful for sociology, we will only discuss his sections on testing and scaling, survey research (Umfrage), index-formation and typologies. a) Testing. According to Stern the prerequisites for the development of a comprehensive test are the following: the experimental setting has to be such that both the tester and the subject are comfortable. Every test should be a composite of several tests (or as in the case of intelligence testing, scales). Every special test should have a high symptomatic value (hohen Symptomwert), which should be a clear expression of the trait under consideration (psychischer Beschaffenheit), i.e. validity. The symptomatic value should be as broad as possible (breiter Symptomwert), i.e. it should cover the entire range of the trait (Eigenschaft). For that reason, it is usually necessary to combine several different tests. The test should furthermore enable the researcher to place the subject on a scale (preferably with equal intervals), in order to compare him with other subjects. Tests should also be easy to administer, without too much strain on the subject (in terms of time-consumption and complexity of the items), and it should also not require the researcher to handle complex and heavy equipment. Finally, tests should have a very broad range of applicability so that they can be used for a wide range of different populations without losing its validity and comparability. b) Survey methods ('Erhebungsmethode oder Umfragemethode'): Stern considered the usage of questionnaires as absolutely essential for psychology, provided they are constructed and applied intelligently. One of the most important problems confronting the scholar in the usage of questionnaires in his survey is the fact that a survey really constitutes a conglomerate of a chain of stimuli. The most simple chain is that of: researcherquestionnaire-respondent (Beantworter). What he is referring to is the contamination through subjective elements: In addition, there are, of course, still other aspects which are inherent only in the survey method; they all have their common origin in the fact that instead of being in direct contact with each other, the investigator and those who are the objects of his research are separated by an intermediary element which may just consist of a piece of paper (the questionnaire), or, in addition to the latter, in a special group of persons (the field workers). Undeniably, this entails a special problem. If the stimulus/reaction pattern is adopted for our psychological investigation, then the inquiry involves a chain reaction: the stimulus has to pass one or several media prior to reaching the person who is the target of the investigation; and that person's reaction no longer constitutes the direct

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answer to the question set forth by the investigator, but rather to the penultimate element of the chain. (Stem, 1921: 128-129.) Each of the external factors, i.e. the interviewee and his disposition or mood, the questionnaire, its wording, instructions, format etc., and the interviewer, i.e. his skill, impact on the interviewee, his ability to communicate, etc., will have an influence on the final outcome of the survey. That influence can never be fully eliminated, but the goal should be to reduce it to a minimum. Consequently, the first general prerequisite for a survey is to adapt the questionnaire to the types of respondents (or vice versa), and to make sure that in any given survey the respondents constitute a largely homogeneous group. Of equal importance is the wording of the questionnaire in terms of the general instructions (how the questions are to be answered, what the purpose of the questionnaire is, explanations of the terminology employed, etc.), because the general instructions are the first contact with the subject and they are designed to create a specific mood or attitude (Einstellung) towards the survey, which largely determines the way in which the subjects respond. The phrasing of the actual questions and the art of interviewing are equally important. Questions should be clear and unambiguous, terms used should have the same meaning for the interviewer as well as the interviewee, and if alternative categories for the answers are offered the categories should be exhaustive and mutually exclusive, and neither the wording of the questions nor the approach of the interviewer should lead the respondent to give answers which he thinks are expected of him (Vermeidung von Suggestivfragen). Stern also discussed the length and level of complexity of the questionnaire; that children tire easily and both children and poorly educated respondents have distinct limitations with respect to their ability to make objective statements about themselves. Depending on the types of respondents and the subject matter of the survey the researcher has to determine very carefully whom he asks to administer the questionnaire, i.e. whether to use professionals who already have a natural relationship to the respondents such as teachers in surveys among school-children, medical doctors for surveys among patients, or whether it is desirable (and financially feasible), to specially train interviewers for a specific job. Furthermore, Stern discussed the respective merits of direct interviews vs. the mailing of questionnaires, and finally he stressed the desirability of combining quantitative and qualitative data, i.e. broad large-scale studies with a small number of in-depth studies. c) Typologies. In order to construct typologies, such as typical character structures, temperaments, types of career patterns, attitudes (Einstellun-

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gen, Urteile, Ideale, Interessen), etc., it is necessary to combine several variables which have to be quantitative in nature. Or, if they are not, they have to be transformed into a quantitative form, i.e. into a numerical index. Stern explained in detail the statistical procedures that have to be utilized in that process. With respect to the different aspects of intelligence he stated: Positively, three things are evident: first, series of tests must be arranged that will set into play the various constituent functions of intelligence; secondly, for this purpose there must be a wise selection of tests; out of the immense number of possible tests only those should be chosen that afford a decided and reliable symptomatic value, general applicability, and possibility of objective evaluation; thirdly, there must be created a system by means of which the several particular results can be united into one resultant value, i.e. a value that shows the grade of intelligence of the subject objectively in an inclusive formula in which performances of different degrees of value shall in some way be compensated. (Stern, 1914: 22-23.)

The above clearly indicates that psychologists, educators and social workers had been provided with almost all the necessary methodological tools to engage in a vast number of research areas: perception, learning, schoolperformance, and the relationship between environment and personality traits, intellectual achievement (or failure), delinquency, incorrigibility, etc., and a perusal of the Zeitschrift für angewandte Psychologie und Charakterkunde and its Beihefte, the Zeitschrift für Psychologie, and Psychologische Forschung, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und ihre Grenzwissenschaften, shows that these problems were indeed studied in great detail, employing the methods described by Stern.

B. Empirical research

1920-1932

Education and psychology during the Weimar period conducted an enormous number of empirical studies. Several trends are outstanding. In terms of the subject-matters that were investigated, we find an increasing concern with disadvantaged and deviant groups and working-class people. Even more important is the shift from the individual approach, i.e. the study of psychological or behavioral characteristics of individuals to an investigation of the characteristics of the environment and how it affects the different groups and strata in society. Intensive efforts were made to conduct what today would be called 'contextual analysis' of the living and working conditions of the individuals under investigation (Milieukunde). That means that psychologists and educators increasingly devoted them-

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selves to the type of research which today would be conducted by sociologists or by research teams consisting of representatives of all three fields. Typical examples are Busse's study on the literary understanding on the part of proletarian youth, completed in 1921 but published in 1923 (Busse, 1923), and Adolf Busemann's Handbuch der jugendlichen Milieukunde (Busemann, 1932). We found the same trend in the studies undertaken by medicine and psychiatry. The idea that the impact of the environment could be measured had already been set forth by Gruhle (1912), but it was Busemann's accomplishment to explicate the research procedure and to develop a general methodological model for studies of this type. The increasing interest in the influence of environmental factors was even more pronounced among some of the Austrian psychologists, particularly the students of Siegfried Bernfeld and Karl and Charlotte Bühler which we will discuss in a separate chapter. In order to exemplify the empirical social research conducted by psychology and education in Weimar Germany, we decided to examine Busse (1923) and Busemann (1932). We made this choice for several reasons: 1. The approach of picking two respresentative examples for the general development seems to be more fruitful than the attempt to tabulate what kinds of topics were studied by how many scholars; using what kinds of research techniques, which would be a nearly impossible enterprise anyhow; 2. We chose Busse's survey because it is truly interdisciplinary and it constitutes one of the best examples for an approach for which we coined the term: 'Consciousness study' in contrast to concept of the modern attitude survey;5 3. We selected Busemann's handbook because it represents a general summary on the research done in the area of youth and environment and because it is a comprehensive textbook on the rationale and research procedures for the contextual analysis and inventory of milieu factors.

C. Hans Busse: 'Das literarische Verständnis der werktätigen Jugend' Busse's research objective was to measure the nature and extent of the literary understanding of working class youth between the ages of 14 and 18 and to determine whether, and to what extent, environmental and 5. The difference between these two approaches will be discussed after our summary of Busse's study.

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psychological factors were operative in that process. Furthermore, he wanted to know whether prolonged exposure to literature and a regular discussion of it would affect the level and type of the interpretative capacities of proletarian youngsters. In terms of subject-matter and methodology, Busse's study represents a cross between four interrelated research trends which were rapidly increasing during the 1920's: 1) 'consciousness studies'; 2) the attempt of measuring the differential impact of pedagogical measures on children from the different social strata and the adverse effect of social and cultural deprivation on the learning process; 3) studies of youth and childhood in general; 4) explorations of the general conditions of working class life. Busse's survey, like many other studies of this type, was the result of the author's active involvement with the youth movement. For three years Busse had been the leader of the literary section of a catholic workingclass youthclub whose 140 members ranged from age 14 to 18. The literary section of the club, which had 60 members, met once a week for two hours to discuss books that the young men had read, or Busse himself would read to them and then they would discuss the material together. At other times Busse would take them to the theatre together and discuss the play afterwards, or they themselves would take a play, reading it aloud by assigning the different characters of the play to the different clubmembers. At some point Busse also arranged a prize-winning contest which involved an essay entitled 'Good and poor literature'. What Busse wanted to know was not only what and how much his subjects read and understood, but also their different levels of understanding, in terms of: 1) formal aspects such as vocabulary, sentence structure, the poetic image used, the details of the work and the development of the story as a whole; 2) interest and understanding of the different types of literature such as fairy-tales, sagas, adventure stories, educational books, social realism, religious and erotic works; 3) high-level art forms, i.e. aesthetic elements, the concept of harmony, drama, the tragic, the comic, etc. That meant that in order to conduct the meetings of the literary section of the club, Busse had to thoroughly research the current literature of the library of the youth club as well as those borrowed from the local libraries in order to develop the categories mentioned above. He then posed the question how much understanding on the different levels existed among his subjects in general and to what extent his findings were related to psychological variables as well as the facts of proletarian existence itself. Furthermore, he also tried to ascertain whether the understanding of literature improved with age and through the regular attendance of his section meetings. In this context it is interesting to note that

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Busse, who was a psychologist, justified the inclusion of sociological variables, i.e. social background data, as an obvious necessity with a reference to Stern's Differenzielle Psychologie (1921). Busse's material consisted of 1000 statements (Aussagen) made by 60 subjects while discussing about 200 literary works. These statements were collected from the diary which he kept of these meetings of the literary section, the essay contest, some letters and diary excerpts, and the newspaper published by the youth club. He supplemented his data with intensive interviews of 30 subjects (using a general outline, not a fixed questionnaire), to ascertain background data and to draw up a personality profile (Psychogramm). Furthermore, he collected lending data from five different public libraries and compared them with five similar statistics from other cities which had already been collected by other researchers, in order to see how representative his own statistics were. In the discussion of his methodology, Busse stated quite explicitly his awareness of the possible pitfalls in the attempts of middle-class adults to ascertain objective response from working-class youth. Thus, he tried to make every effort not to take on the role of an authority and not to give any indication that he was studying the club-members, and most important, to listen rather than to lecture in order to avoid influencing the spontaneous responses from his subjects. Having collected all his data he then proceeded to crosstabulate and correlate the different levels of understanding with each other, and with the various social background and personality variables. His comparison over time enabled him to conclude that there are definite developmental stages in the ability to understand and evaluate literature among workingclass youth. The most important aspect of Busse's study in the context of our analysis is his attempt to use the different types of data which he had collected to reconstruct the 'consciousness' or general world-outlook of his subjects. As we mentioned earlier we coined the term 'consciousness studies' in order to differentiate it from the modern attitude survey. The former differs from the latter essentially in its starting point. Instead of taking an issue or facts and asking the subjects what they think about x, y, or z, the consciousness study takes as its starting-point the recognition that there are many different groups in society about which very little is known. Thus the questions arise: 'What is on their mind?' 'How do they see themselves and the world?', rather than what their attitude is towards a given universe of issues. This orientation explains Busse's rather indiscriminate collection of statements whose weight he did not measure or differentiate. That very open approach towards the world-view of different

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groups is best exemplified by Busemann's conception of his study Die Jugend im eigenen Urteil: Youth as portrayed and judged by itself — that is the subject of this book. A new idea: we will let youth speak itself and will content ourselves with listening, now and then making a critical or approving remark, but leaving aside everything we think we know about youth. And what is most important, we will not compare this picture that youth paints of itself to how youth is in reality — which would be a difficult task, indeed — but rather we want to see its selfportrayal and the manner in which youth depicts itself. (Busemann, 1926: 11.) It seems that this conceptual difference between the consciousness study in contrast to the attitude survey accounts for the fact that whenever survey methods were used, they tended to be structured interview outlines rather than tight questionnaires. On the other hand, if a defined entity was measured such as intelligence, specific test batteries were employed. The notion that subjective attitudes by themselves constituted a valuable source of material in itself was not yet fully discovered. On the other hand, the recognition that so little is known about the consciousness of youth of the different socio-economic groups for example, also explains the wide range of data that were examined. Diaries or school-compositions were typically used in studying middle class youth, while studies on proletarian youth had to rely upon more spontaneous expressions, such as the publication of newsletters of the different youth groups or the material obtained from voluntary discussion groups, or informal interviewing. These materials were often analysed together with non-verbal expressions such as paintings. In general, the studies dealing with non-middleclass or upperclass populations as well as those with deviant groups relied very heavily on participant observations, informal interviewing in conjunction with a wide, and often ingenious, range of data gathering devices.

D. Adolf Busemann: 'Handbuch der jugendlichen

Milieukunde'

Around 1930, the effort to study the observable mental phenomena and life-styles of all the different socioeconomic and age groups and their relationship to environmental factors had progressed to such an extent that it practically constituted a new field, Milieukunde. Adolf Busemann's conceptualization of the field contains many ideas which were quite revolutionary at the time. Some of them have only recently been rediscovered in the framework of studies dealing with 'cultural deprivation', 'program-

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headstart' and 'the culture of poverty'. Two basic concepts are particularly important: 1. In the 19th century it was generally believed that Kultur, i.e. the accumulated body of knowledge, art, and literature, constituted a 'constant' as an educational influence which means that it can be administered like medication to everybody and would have the same edifying results. Educators had taken it for granted that a sufficient dose of Goethe and Schiller would have a humanizing effect in and by itself for every pupil. Little attention was paid to the way in which the material was taught and how various environmental factors determined whether and how a given group of pupils would respond to the stimulus Kultur. Therefore, the teaching process itself had to be studied in relationship to the socioeconomic background of the pupils; 2. Once the idea had been accepted that the milieu in which a student lived together with his hereditary predispositions determined not only the extent of his general learning ability, but also his interest in and understanding of the various materials taught in school, psychologists and educators set out to examine and systematically measure a vast number of environmental and hereditary factors, their interaction and their combined effect on the child. This general concept was not only applied to the area of education but also to other problems such as juvenile delinquency, occupational choices, etc. Busemann's handbook constitutes an attempt to summarize the existing studies in the area of Milieukunde and to give an overview of the existing research techniques that were appropriate for studies in this field. He defined the concept 'milieu' in the following way: 'As opposed to the concept of "environment" which cannot deny its biological origin, the concept of "milieu", as used by us, includes the more than biological relations, that is to say, the socio-psychological and even spiritual between men and human culture' (Busemann, 1932: 115). Even though milieu has to be understood as an integrated whole, none of its parts are too small or too unimportant to be studied separately because 'Whereas in the case of the living organism, the whole frequently depends on the minutest part, there is no element whatsoever which does not warrant separate investigation' (Busemann, 1932: 6). Milieukunde, as Busemann defined it, is a 'personalistic anthropology', i.e. the attempt to reach general conclusions about the differential impact of hereditary and environmental factors on human development which provides the basis for a theory of socialization and its application in terms of education and correction. It is not enough to know that certain talents are inborn since they will not develop without the proper stim-

122 Non-sociological social research ulation; experiences for example only become a reality if the child has to its disposal conceptual categories which give meaning to the experience. On the other hand, those psychological or behavioral predispositions which are hereditary and socially undesirable cannot be erased by pedagogical measures but Milieukunde can find correctional procedures that will enable educators, probation officers and social workers to help the child in dealing with them. The substantive content of the handbook consisted of a collection of essays, most of which constitute a general overview of the material on the relationship between milieu and heredity in the areas of intelligence, learning, incorrigibility, and juvenile delinquency; the impact of institutional upbringing, family dynamics and constellations, poverty on the general development of the child, and finally, three specialized areas of investigation: children in rural environments and female and male proletarian youth in the city. E. Research methods in the field of 'Milieukunde' However in the context of our investigation, the most fascinating chapter of the book is its methodological part. Busemann argued that due to the complexity of the subject-matter, which by definition is interdisciplinary, Milieukunde had to develop its own methods or, rather, integrate the research methods of various fields for its own use. The different data which are obtained through the various methods do not only complement each other, they also serve as controls, i.e. by using several methods to study the same problem area, findings are verified and corrected. Whatever method is used, however, it must be based on the observations of real life. Busemann listed the following six general methods: 1. Kasuistik, i.e. the detailed case study, which has been derived from medicine. Its models are psychoanalysis, research on incorrigible children and childhood-psychopathology. Kasuistik is an irreplaceable method since it is the only way in which it can be proven whether, and under what circumstances, certain environmental relationships actually exist in the life of a given subject; 2. The development of typologies which originated in differential psychology (W. Stern), characterology and humanistic (geisteswissenschaftliche) psychology (W. Dilthey, E. Spranger). Its purpose is to develop the type of the rural child, single child, proletarian child, etc., disregarding possible exceptions and variations. In other words this method focuses on the common characteristics of the environment on one hand and on the corresponding personality types on the other;

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3. The method of the classical experiment which has been borrowed from experimental psychology and physiology. It also enables the researcher to establish causal relationships. However, since the subject is man, its applicability is limited and animal experiments have to be used whenever an experimental setting could be harmful to human subjects; 4. Natural experiments are provided by sudden incisive political or social changes such as wars, inflations, and famines. It has the advantage that comparative statistical data, covering large groups of people, can be collected, which enable the researcher to study specific large-scale environmental factors. However the scholar has to be aware of the many additional operative variables which have to be held constant in order to obtain comparable data. It is very useful in such a situation to combine statistical methods with Kasuistik which results in Amphiestatistik (a term which Busemann borrowed from Hellpach), whereby the single case-study is used to illuminate the quantitative data; 5. Statistical methods are not only useful for the quantitative measurement of personality traits (Persönlichkeitsmerkmale), but also for the qualitive objectivations of the psyche, such as children's drawings, handwriting samples, essays, etc. This method, because it presupposes an accurate interpretation of the material on hand, requires a great degree of empathy on the side of the scholar; 6. Participant observations of typical (or selected) situations. In order to gain useful knowledge the scholar has to have considerable knowledge beforehand as to what might constitute typically beneficial 'or' 'harmful' environmental factors or situations, so that the researcher knows what to look for. Some situations of this type can be produced artificially and thus be studied as a live-experiment. Busemann devoted a separate chapter to the techniques for studying a given milieu. The most obvious starting-point is a detailed observation of the child itself. For example, the extent of parental care, neglect, standard of living are evidenced by the child's physical health, dress, cleanliness, condition and appearance of the child's briefcase (Schultasche), manners, etc. However all these observations, and the conclusion drawn from them, have to be supplemented by a detailed interview. His recommendations for interviewing techniques of children and their parents were very similar to those made by Stern (1921). Finally, the findings obtained from the observations and interviews should be verified through a home visit. (Here we have an example of Busemann's suggestion that the different methods used to study a problem should compliment each other and serve as controls.) The investigator who does the homevisit should have a clear

124 Non-sociological social research idea as to what variables he should look for. For that purpose Busemann gave a very detailed schema for an inventory of milieu variables, covering the family of the child, living and working conditions and what he called special educational influences or conditions (Besondere Erziehungseinflüsse), such as: does any adult supervise the homework, does the child have to ask when it wants to go out on the street to play, does the child see the father at work, what kinds of punishment are employed and how often, memory of particularly joyful or sad events in the child's life, etc. Busemann's inventory of milieu factors deserves particular attention. Even though he had indicated that the schema he had developed was only a rough outline, and that it only covered the most basic variables, it still is enormously comprehensive. A closer inspection of the schema reveals that it is based on a highly sophisticated theoretical framework. One example will illustrate this point; his investigation of the family as an economic and social unit combines a battery of questions pertaining to the earning capacity of the parents, continuity of employment, exposure of the child to the type of work and place of employment of the parents, whether gainful work is conducted in the home, and how the working hours of the parents determine the amount of time which the child can spend with his father and mother. The answers to those questions obviously would reveal a great deal about the extent and the way in which the child is exposed to the world of adult employment and what attitudes and expectations the child is likely to develop with respect to his parents occupations in terms of job-security, working conditions and income. Furthermore, the questions pertaining to the working hours of the parents and the amount of time they spend away from home serve as indicators for the extent to which the family forms a close interactive unit and thus enables the parents to transmit their attitudes, experiences and expectations to their children. Busemann's handbook represents not only an excellent illustration of the methodological progress made in psychology and education - and one might add social work - and the breadth and truly interdisciplinary nature of the research efforts of his time, but it also indicates the general tendency to review existing research material for a general overview and to 'pull it together' into a more comprehensive body of knowledge.

3. THE DEVELOPMENT IN A U S T R I A

The reason that we are including some of the research done in Vienna is because it represents additional evidence for our contention that the

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demand for empirical social research clearly existed and that again it was psychology which moved in to fill the void.4 The most interesting aspect of that development from our point of view is the fact that as far as we can gather from the material available, it happened without any extensive soul-searching on the side of the scholars involved, as to whether that was professionally or academically proper. In terms of research topics the starting-point was youth and childhood. An increasing interest arose in the differential factors operative in the development of middle class and proletarian youth, and finally began to deal with the most dismal aspect of proletarian existence in general: prolonged unemployment. Furthermore it was in Vienna where we also found the beginnings of market and consumer research. Viennese psychology as well as the socialist and protestant youth groups developed a sound empirical tradition during the second decade of the 20th century. The methods they employed ranged from questionnaires to participant observation and what S. Bernfeld called 'all the indirect expressions of spontaneous youthful activity such as drawings, collections, poems, diaries, letters, notes, conversations and the periodicals published by the various youth organizations' (Bernfeld, 1915: 61). It seems that some psychologists in Austria, more so than their German counterparts, were deeply involved in socialist politics and socialist youth groups. It did not take long for them to recognize that objective sociopolitical factors determined the 'psychological space' in which youth can develop. Siegfried Bernfeld set out to attack the ideology contained in the notion of 'carefree youth' (Bernfeld, 1915: 61), and in 1918 he proposed the development of an institute for the study of the sociology and psychology of youth (Rosenmayr, 1962). Bernfeld also recognized that puberty is by no means a fixed developmental stage but subject to considerable variations depending on whether the adolescent came from a middle class or proletarian background; an observation which Paul F. Lazarsfeld studied in great detail and for which he later introduced the term 'shortened puberty' (verkürzte Pubertät) (Lazarsfeld, 1911: 19). Otto Felix Kanitz and Anton Tesarek demonstrated that the proletarian family and the secondary school-system were really breeding grounds for the future submissive subject (Untertan) and the factory slave. They pointed out that the family and the school succeeded in forcing the child to thoroughly internalize the authoritarian aspects of these institutions as well as those surrounding them. 6. The history of Austrian research on the problems of youth has been studied in detail in Rosenmayr (1962). Further material can be found in Lazarsfeld (1969).

126 Non-sociological social research An even clearer example for the more sociological and political orientation of the Vienna group is Lazarsfeld's recollection: 'In Jugend und Beruf there was special pride in showing the effect of objective factors upon individual reactions. Various tables indicate that the occupational structure of German cities, as well as fluctuations of the business cycle, are reflected in the occupational plans of young people of working-class youth' (Lazarsfeld, 1969: 278). He also indicated that 'the discussion of a "proletarian youth" was tied up with a socio-psychological reinterpretation of the notion of "exploitation" ' (Lazarsfeld, 1969: 277). Since it is not our intention to reiterate the development of youth studies in Austria or the work done in the psychological institute run by Karl and Charlotte Biihler but to demonstrate the emergence of empirical sociology out of psychology, we will merely discuss some of Lazarsfeld's intellectual pursuits. Even though Lazarsfeld stated in his memoir (Lazarsfeld, 1969: 277) that most of the things that he did would have come about anyhow, it seems to us that his own account demonstrates rather clearly that rather than a 'carrier' of ideas he was an active agent. When he joined the staff of the psychological institute in 1925 with a doctorate of mathematics, he had already developed a seismographic mind for the possible complexities and range of application of empirical research methods in general and sociological research in particular. In his case, the combination of his involvement with socialism and its youth groups, his interaction with the scholars of the psychological institute, plus his pronounced interest in putting data together in a systematic numerical fashion seems to logically explain the fact that he became most instrumental in the development of empirical sociology as for example Jugend und Beruf. Even though it was written under the auspices of the psychological institute and Lazarsfeld in his introduction referred to it as Jugendpsychologie, it constitutes to a large measure empirical sociology. Lazarsfeld's starting-point was among other things the Weberian notion of the development of rationality in western society and its impact on the occupational structure and occupational choices. Also in his interpretation of the relationship between religious preferences and occupational choices he saw a confirmation of Weber's theory that Catholics are more likely to pick the more traditional professions while Protestants prefer professions more closely related to capitalism, e.g. commerce and technology. Generally the main emphasis of the study is to demonstrate the enormous extent to which objective factors, i.e. socio-economic and political ones, supersede the psychological factors in the area of occupational choices, particularly in the case of adolescents from proletarian backgrounds. 'The more socially oppressed a

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group is, the less far-reaching, and the more restricted and modest, from the start, is the occupational choice of its children.' (Lazarsfeld, 1931: 19.) In contrast to that clear sociological observation he then speculated further that there might also be interesting connections and differences between the range of occupational choices available to adolescents from the middle class and those of the upper class, but that the pursuit of that question would lead too deeply into sociology. The reason for this curious distinction between that constituted psychology and what was sociology is not clear. But at this point Lazarsfeld apparently intended to further pursue the analysis of the structure of 'motives' in terms of internal factors such as interest and desire, and external factors such as opportunity and exposure and the temporal interaction of these factors until a decision is reached. Thus when a student accidentally mentioned to him that she was doing interviews for an American market research expert on why people bought certain kinds of soap, he immediately saw the connection between consumer-choices and his problem of studying the more complex problems of occupational choices (Lazarsfeld, 1969). Thus, the area of marketing provided an ideal training ground to study the area of motivation and choice, an area of interest which he pursued for many years after he left Austria. Yet as soon as Jugend und Beruf was published in 1931, Lazarsfeld also continued the other line of thought, i.e. the dominance of the social structure over personal inclinations Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal (Jahoda et al., 1960) was a study of a village in which the closing down of a factory initiated unemployment as a way of life. This survey, even more than Jugend und Beruf from a modern point of view, was purely sociological in its conception and approach. It also represents an outstanding example of the combined use of quantitative and qualitative data and an ingenious use of indicators. In 1960 this study was reprinted as part of a series entitled Klassiker der Umfrageforschung (Classics of Survey Research). It was the purpose of this 'sociographic' investigation: To convey an idea of the psychological situation of an unemployed village using the methods of modern survey-research. From the very beginning two tasks were important to us. With regard to the contents: to contribute data on the problem of unemployment - and with regard to the methodology: to attempt to show, objectively and comprehensively, a social psychological state of affairs. (Jahoda et al., 1960: ix.)

The Marienthal study focused on the unemployed village rather than on the unemployed individuals, i.e. how prolonged unemployment affects

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the social unit, its interactional patterns, the health of the population, the school performance of the children, the villagers world outlook in terms of hope, resignation, apathy and life style. In short, Marienthal - aside from constituting a powerful indictment of a socio-economic system which produced such large scale unemployment and its resulting misery - is a sociological study which in its combination of advanced research techniques and its specific goal of studying a small social system in a state of distress, occupies a unique position in the history of empirical psychology. It represents a turning-point since it no longer takes the individual as its main concern or even starting-point, but as a social unit.

4. MEDICINE AND P S Y C H I A T R Y

Even though in the 19 th century and in the first three decades of the 20th century the research efforts and social concerns of these two fields had a great deal in common, it seems advantageous to examine their development in the beginning of the 20th century separately. Both fields dealt with the relationship between pathology and environment but in our discussion we will focus on different aspects of the empirical studies that were undertaken. In the case of medicine, we are primarily interested in discussing the subject-matters that were studied (rather than the methodology), and the general attitude towards research problems because: 1) we want to show the extent to which German medicine between 1910 and 1930 developed a discipline which today is known as medical sociology and which constitutes a sub-field of sociology; 2) it was only in the area of medical research that we fully realized how unusual the role and attitude of the German sociologists was during this time, even within the German university system of that period. In the case of psychiatry we will deal primarily with the studies of social pathology which revolved around the questions of to what extent pathological and criminal behavior was truly pathological in the sense of a biologically determined sickness, and to what extent it was the result of adverse environmental influences. In examining these studies we will pay particular attention to the methodology employed since it was truly pioneering. A. Medical social research In analysing the sociologically oriented medical research we will focus on

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two more or less distinct trends: 1) the concern with the cost of illness both to society and the individual; 2) the area which today would be called medical sociology, i.e. the relationships between doctor, patient, environment and illness, and the emergence of medizinische Psychologie (medical psychology), which in our view provides one of the most important clues for the understanding and evaluation of the role of sociology in the university. a) The concern with the cost of illness. The problem of the cost of illness, infant mortality, health of the labor-force, life expectancy and age stratification became increasingly acute with the advancement of the industrialization and the growth of the socialist party. These questions were by no means merely of interest to the socialists and the medical profession but to the state as well. Henry E. Sigerist (1960) pointed out that in Germany the idea of compulsory health and life insurance was generally accepted even before the reign of Bismarck. Bismarck's extensive social legislation, implemented during the 1880's had both a political, as well as an economic purpose. Politically, it was supposed to serve as a weapon against the socialist party, and economically it was considered a sound financial investment. Already by 1873 Max von Pettenkofer demonstrated that if the city of Munich would succeed in reducing the death rate from 23 per 100 clinic patients to that of the city of London, i.e. 22 per 100 clinic patients, the city of Munich would increase its wealth by over 25 million florins (von Pettenkofer, 1873). From 1880 on, studies of that nature were conducted in Germany in an increasingly large number by individuals who where opposed to, or who wanted to defend and expand the existing social legislation. This body of knowledge was continuously expanded and updated so that when the Nazis came to power, they could immediately present the public with exact figures about the cost of social welfare legislation in the area of inherited (and incurable) diseases (Erbkranke), in order to justify their measures taken against individuals deemed 'biologically undesirable.' In 1934 the head of the German Medical Association could demonstrate that there existed 555,000 people in Germany who were born either blind, crippled, deaf-mute, insane or retarded due to hereditary factors (giving exact figures each group), and that the yearly cost of institutionalizing or supporting these individuals averaged 1000 marks per person. That meant that keeping these people alive would cost the public 555,000,000 marks per year (Wagner, 1934). Needless to say, most of the studies conducted before the Nazi takeover were not conducted for the eventual purpose of justifying sterilization

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programs and euthanasia, but many members of the medical profession as well as some statisticians (Zahn, 1935) were interested, for a variety of reasons, in studying the economic effects of the changes in the health, life expectancy, and age stratification of the population as well as the financial returns (or losses) resulting from compulsory health and life insurance. In 1937 the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hygiene conducted a prizewinning contest for an essay on the topic: 'What kinds of interrelations exist between the medical-biological and the cultural value of man, on the one hand, and the material economy of a nation, on the other hand' (Anon., 1940). Kurt Holm, a practicing physician, was one of the four winners in this contest. His treatment of the topic contains a very detailed summary of the empirical research in the area of the cost of life and health. We picked Holm's study as an example, even though it was written in 1937, because of its comprehensiveness and because it carried the attempts of measuring the economic value of human life in dollars and cents to one of its possible logical extremes. Holm started out by computing the average income of a healthy, gainfully-employed male over a life span. He further demonstrated the fluctuations of that sum and its purchasing value in relationship to the changes in the economic structure during the pre-war years, the war, and the economic upheavals of the 1920's and early 1930's. He then presented similar computations for the economic contributions of women and the cost of raising children in relation to their life-time earnings. On the basis of these computations he was then able to determine the exact financial contribution of the average family to the Gross National Product. After having established the economic value of an average family, he could then demonstrate the economic gains and losses due to changes in the age-composition of the population, infant mortality, birth rates, etc., the economic impact of the different parts of past and present social security legislation. He demonstrated that in a population with a normal age distribution, federally administered life insurance does indeed pay off. The same does not hold true for a population which is considerably overaged. Furthermore, he showed how the decreasing death-rates for tuberculosis and typhoid fever since 1821 corresponded to the development of public hygiene measures and the advances of medicine and how these changes in death rates contributed to National Income (Volkseinkommen). He presented similar findings for the fluctuations of infant mortality since 1780, broken down according to legitimate and illegitimate births, and the causes of death: poor nutrition, diseases of the respiratory tract and general weakness.

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In a similar fashion, Holm presented the cost or economic implications of the rates of venerai diseases, industrial accidents and heart-disease; rural and urban living conditions, hygienic conditions of the home, population density and diet, i.e. relative consumption of fat, carbohydrates, protein and vitamins. Holm even applied his reasoning to the treatment of criminals by arguing that the sentencing of criminals should be oriented towards economic restitution, not by trying to reintroduce the criminal into the labor force, because of the high rates of recidivism, but rather, through long sentences of hard labor. b) Medical sociology and the emergence of 'medizinische Psychologie'. In our discussion of the studies dealing with the social and psychological aspects in medicine we will focus on: 1) the general development of the field with special emphasis on those studies and ideas which represent early examples for our modern concept of medical sociology; and 2) the decision of a number of psysicians and psychologists in 1930 to join forces, data and research experiences and to create - almost by decree the field called medizinische Psychologie, without worrying about academic boundaries and without any attempt to include any sociologists into the new venture. The basic idea which underlies the entire research effort is as old as medicine itself, namely that the physician, in order to be effective, has to treat the entire person. It is not enough to know the biological, physiological and chemical aspects of illness; the practicing physician has to have some knowledge of psychology and psychopathology in order to adequately treat the patient. Furthermore, he has to know something about the real-life situations out of which the patient comes and into which he will return. Also the extent to which a patient's milieu contributes to his illness has to be taken into consideration in determining curative measures. Furthermore, as Erich Stern pointed out, from 1910 onwards medicine became increasingly aware that illness is not just a state of the organism but that it also has a profound impact on the psychological state of the patient. A patient's reaction to his condition and the kind of treatment (other than medical) he receives will in turn influence the course of his recovery, or, in the case of an incurable disease, the length of time he manages to stay alive. In other words, the psychological characteristics of the patient as well as general and specific social conditions were acknowledged to be operative in man's desire and ability to cope with and overcome physical illness.

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The fact that today's life has lost its meaning for so many people, that they are drifting along with neither goal nor direction, may very well constitute one of the deepest causes, not only for the increase in neurotic disorders, but also in the lack of resistance against so many of the influences which produce physical sickness in man. Especially in the case of severe chronic diseases this basic attitude plays a vital role; Thomas Mann stigmatized it in The magic mountain (Zauberberg), his imposing novel on pulmonary disease and the flow of time. In many people the will to be healthy is weak. (Birnbaum, 1930: 299.)

Another area of inquiry which increasingly concerned physicians was the question whether or not, and in what instances a patient should be informed about his diagnosis, particularly in the case of cancer and tuberculosis, and how that knowledge would affect the coping capacities of the patient and his subsequent interaction with the doctor and nurses (Schilder, 1924). Other topics within that general development were the discovery, and increasing acceptance of the concept of psychosomatic illness which led to several studies tracing the predisposing environmental and psychological factors in the different disease categories, particularly gastric ulcers and heart ailments (Schilder, 1924). After World War I, the question whether or not shell-shock and accident-neuroses (Unfallneurose), constituted real illnesses, became particularly acute, because of the number of veterans claiming veteran's disability insurance. This debate, together with the question to what extent people were willing to fake that condition in order to be eligible for disability payments, generated a considerable amount of theoretical and empirical studies (Stier, 1926). Two scholars who are particularly typical examples for innovators in the area of medical sociology (in the modern sense of the term), were Sigerist and Grotjahn. In the early 1930's, Sigerist analysed the various characteristics of the role of the sick person in a framework which is very similar to that of Talcott Parson's paper on the same subject (Parson, 1964). Sigerist pointed out that the role of the patient, entailed important economic ramifications because the patient was, in effect, placed outside of the economic order and relegated to the rank of the unemployed for the duration of the illness; a fact which affects the poor much more than the well-to-do (Sigerist, 1929). Sigerist therefore speculated, even though he did not study the problem empirically, that the 'escape into illness' would be primarily a phenomenon among the very poor or the very wealthy strata. Grotjahn, who regularly attended the meetings of the German Sociological Society, was particularly interested in doctors as patients. He col-

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lected the subjective accounts of doctors, pertaining to their own illness, in order to determine whether the subjective experiences of the physicians, i.e. the professionally trained persons, differed from that of laymen (Grotjahn, 1929). Until 1930 research in the areas of the relationship between doctor and patient, the psychological and environmental factors affecting the course of illness, and the role of the patient had been studied essentially by physicians as a byproduct of general medical research, and to a lesser extent by psychologists. However, nobody considered it a separate field until Karl Birnbaum, a professor of medicine, decided in 1930 to turn it into a separate field, by putting it into a historical and intellectual framework (which he himself created), and by defining its scope. In comparison with the involved debate about the autonomy and legitimacy of sociology as an academic discipline, it is interesting to note how Birnbaum introduced 'medical psychology'. He stated simply that medical psychology in no way constituted an academically established discipline and that it was neither possible nor feasible to determine its exact boundaries, but that it nevertheless existed and that it had a distinct focus and subject matter. In other words medical psychology came into being on the basis of a conscious decision of one scholar and the joint effort of a large number of distinguished physicians. They were knowledgeable in psychology and had some special training in medicine. They proceeded to collect and analyze all available knowledge (other than medicine proper), which might be helpful for the practicing physician. Their findings were presented in the vast and comprehensive Handwörterbuch der medizinischen Psychologie (Birnbaum, 1930: 299). According to Birnbaum the origins of medical psychology are twofold: the psychological aspects in medicine and the medical aspects of psychology. The first research trend goes back to Lotze's Medizinische Psychologie, published in 1852, in which the author suggested that the physician should study empirically how the psyche (Seele) manifests itself physiologically. Later examples are Klemm's and Wundt's systematic attempts to establish the interrelationships between psyche and body. The second research trend concerns itself with the medical or biological origins not only of psychopathology, but also of personality traits in general. Typical examples are Kretschmer's study of body types and the corresponding character-structures and Lombroso's study of criminals.7 The two 7. Birnbaum's conceptualization of the field and history of medical psychology which constitutes the introduction to the Handwörterbuch, quotes Lotze and the other scholars without giving any precise references.

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trends taken together according to Birnbaum result in a medizinischpsychologischen Gesamtdisziplin (medicopsychological joint discipline) (Birnbaum, 1930: 3). Thus, all things considered, an unusually rich and multifarious mass of material flows together in medical psychology, directed by the two principles singled out above, the sources of which, in part, are to be found in scientific fields so far removed from each other as clinical medicine, neurology and psychiatry, on the one hand, the social and cultural sciences, on the other hand, . . . and by applying to medicine and psychology t h e . . . principle of the unity between body and soul, the scientific uniformity of psychological medicine is assured at the same time without any need for leaving the ground of empiricism proper to the pure sciences in favor of some tendency pertaining to natural philosophy. (Birnbaum, 1930: 9.) Even though the Handwörterbuch contains an extremely wide range of medical, psychological and sociological entries, not one of the contributors was a sociologist. Nevertheless the sociological entries, i.e. those which today would be written by sociologists, ranging from Arbeit (work), to Verwahrlosung (delinquency), were, as far as the content is concerned, treated sociologically. The following two examples will make this point clearer. The entry Berufsberatung und Eignungsprüfung (vocational counseling) included the standard questionnaires administered in the school system of Berlin as well as those from the vocational section of the state bureau of employment (Berufsamt des Landesarbeitsamtes). The value and purpose of these different questionnaires, to be filled out by teachers, school physicians and the pupil himself, were discussed in the context of existing studies on occupational mentality, occupational preferences, and occupational careers and structures. The administration of the questionnaire and its internal structure were discussed with respect to the clarity of the questions, the validity of the items and the atmosphere in which the questionnaires should be administered to the pupil. It was also discussed how the results of the evaluation of the pupil on the side of the teachers and schoolphysicians should be integrated with the stated preferences, interests and self-evaluation of the pupil himself. Finally the existing occupational stratification was discussed in terms of the direction occupational counseling should take. As another example, the entry on milieu, one of the longest entries in the book, covers the topic from a psychological, educational, sociological, economic, criminological, political and biological standpoint. The sociological considerations were based on the theories of Simmel, Sombart and Troeltsch, i.e. the interrelation between religious factors and economic

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structures, the impact of industrialization, technology and urbanization on social structures and social cohesion and, finally, the relation between poverty, life style and deviant and pathological behavior. What is so remarkable about medical psychology as a field is, on the one hand, the way in which it came into being and, judging from the number of contributors, the enthusiasm with which it was accepted. On the other hand, we interpret its very nature and existence as the recognition on the part of physicians and psychologists that there was no reason to believe that sociologists would be very likely to contribute any empirical or theoretical studies in that area. There is enough evidence that the contributors to the handbook were interested in sociological problems since the utilized almost everything that sociology had produced that was of relevance for Medizinische Psychologie, including Tönnies's studies on crime and suicide. One final point has to be emphasized emphatically: the emergence of medical psychology demonstrates how easily two fields could suddenly cooperate even within the rigid structure of the German university system, provided the representatives of those fields felt secure with respect to their academic and social position.

B. Research in psychiatry a) The concept of 'social-psychiatry'. German psychiatry at the beginning of the 20th century was quite aware of the importance of sociological questions - as we define the term today - for the understanding and treatment of social pathology. Psychiatrists were not only interested in the relationship between mental illness, the various forms of social pathology and social conditions, but also how sociological factors determined the phenomenological structure of a given disease category. Karl Jaspers in his famous Allgemeine Psychopathologie (Jaspers, 1913) devoted a long chapter to the Soziologischen Beziehungen des abnormalen Seelenlebens. He pointed out that the psychiatrist has to study three areas: 1) how social conditions are related to abnormal psychic conditions; 2) how mental illness affects society; 3) how social and cultural conditions determine the psychopathological symptomatology. Karl Jaspers's treatment of the topic is particularly interesting in this context for two reasons. Firstly, it shows that psychiatry like medicine and psychology pursued ideas which only recently have been rediscovered and researched by the field which we now refer to as social psychiatry. Secondly he further substantiates our earlier contention that psychiatrists

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and psychologists were infinitely more familiar with the work done in sociology than the sociologists were about the work done in psychology, psychiatry and medicine. Jaspers's starting-point is the contention that, even though mental illness is organically based, man by definition is both a cultural entity (ein Kulturwesen) and a biological entity (ein Naturwesen), and that both cultural and social factors have a direct bearing on man's biological and hereditary make-up. Furthermore, even if we have two people with an identical biological (or hereditary) predisposition, the milieu in which they live will be most influential in determining how the biological predisposition will manifest itself psychologically. Jaspers applied his basic concept to normal and abnormal phenomena alike since he - in contrast to the conventional concepts of 'insanity' - did not see them as separate entities, but as constituting a continuum. Consequently, Jaspers argues, the psychiatrist has to be quite knowledgeable about general psychology and about the structure of society in general, and the specific characteristics of the living and working conditions that characterize the particular social class to which the patient belongs. In his section on the role of the social structure and the impact of milieu factors Jaspers discussed the works of Vierkandt, Simmel, Le Bon, Schmoller and Levenstein (1909, 1912). Jaspers then proceeded to point out that in order to study the relationship between social, cultural and economic variables and psychological phenomena systematically, the psychiatrist has to be familiar with statistical techniques. He acknowledged 'descriptive statistics' as being of some value, but he argued that the most important task consists in a careful analysis of the quantitative relationship between variables. Thereby it is very important that the researcher carefully examines the accuracy of his data, i.e., how they were collected, what categories were used, and how they were defined, whenever existing statistical data are being used. His brief compendium on the use of statistical techniques, in which he referred the reader to the works of Schnapper-Arndt and von Mayr (1912) for further reference, was followed by a discussion of specific studies in the area of social psychiatry, such as fluctuations of mental illness rates, crime, suicide, psychic epidemics, etc. He used these studies essentially as examples of what should be studied not as sources of reliable empirical information since as he continuously indicated (without spelling out the specific details) that the data collection and the statistical techniques employed were of doubtful quality. In the last section of the chapter, Jaspers made some fascinating observations on how social norms, values and intellectual climates can 'breed'

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or contain certain forms of pathology simply because certain personalities or personality traits do not 'fit' into a given society or, because certain forms of pathology are socially acceptable or even socially prescribed and thus pose no problem for either the individual or society. He also demonstrated the relationship between psychopathology and social and technological change with respect to the type of pathology, such as the increase of the 'accident neurosis' after the implementation of Bismarck's social legislation, and with respect to the symptomatology, such as paranoid delusions and hallucinations in which the devil is the torturing villain are replaced by delusions in which technological devices are torturing the patient, i.e. telegraphic devices and other electrical appliances. Jaspers concluded this section with a discussion of the positive and negative effects of psychopathology on society in which he distinguished between forms of pathology which are harmless, those which are socially disruptive, i.e. asocial or criminal and instances in which the pathology manifests itself essentially in creativity, which of course is most beneficial for society, even though it might be quite painful for the individual involved. The most immediate examples that come to our mind are men like Heinrich von Kleist and Vincent van Gogh. Karl Jaspers's book represents by no means an unorthodox approach to the field of psychopathology at the time. Allgemeine Psychopathologie, which was first published in 1913, became one of the leading textbooks; it went through countless editions and revisions and is still being used as a standard reference. b) Empirical research in the area of social pathology. The studies which are of greatest interest to us in this context are the empirical investigations of social pathology.8 Between 1910 and 1930 we were able to find empirical research on the following groups: male and female delinquents (Gregor, 1918), mentally ill prison inmates (Homburger, 1912), mass murderers (Wetzel, 1920; Gaupp, 1914), registered prostitutes (Schneider & von der Heyden, 1926), alcoholics, (Dresel, 1921), adult criminals (Aschaffenburg, 1906), psychopatic delinquents (Gregor, 1926), vagrants (Homburger, 1910), army deserters (Stier, 1905), men and women who had murdered their mistresses or lovers (Wetzel & Wilmanns, 1913), and alcoholic arsonists (Gruhle, 1914). 8. Most of these studies were published in a series of monographs entitled Abhandlungen aus dem Gesamtgebiete der Kriminalpsychologie, which was edited by a group of psychiatrists and criminologists from the University of Heidelberg. As far as we were able to determine, almost all the authors were psychiatrists.

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The topic which produced the greatest amount of research was that of crime and juvenile delinquency. In order to demonstrate the general development of psychiatric social research we will examine Gruhle (1912), Gregor (1924) and Fuchs-Kamp (1929). This selection of studies seems to be particularly appropriate for several reasons. All three studies deal with juvenile delinquency; the data were all collected in the same correctional institution, the Grossherzogliche Badische Zwangserziehungsanstalt Flehingen, later renamed Badische Fürsorgeanstalt Flehingen. The three scholars under discussion were all affiliated with the institution and alle three of them also taught at the university. Furthermore, these three studies illustrate the general trend of the research effort during this time span. The first step was the 'causation study', i.e. what kinds of environmental and hereditary variables are associated with a specific phenomenon. The next step was to ascertain the life history of a given group and investigate whether and to what extent interventive or correctional measures affected these individuals. The third step was the 'follow-up' study, the attempt to locate individuals who had been studied at an earlier time in order to see how they had adjusted to life since they were first studied or confined. Finally, in terms of research design and research techniques employed, these three studies are very similar to those mentioned above. c) Gruhle's study on juvenile delinquency. It appears fruitful to examine Gruhle's study in greater detail since: 1) it provided the general methodological format for most of the subsequent studies; 2) it seems that Gruhle's investigation, because of its thoroughness and its focus on how each individual case, was affected by the variables under investigation, i.e. their different configurations within the individual case constituted a radical departure from previous studies in the social psychiatry of deviance which merely focused on the correlations between environmental and hereditary factors within a given group; 3) as far as we were able to determine his study represents the first effort to construct a research design for what we earlier called the contextual analysis of a given social environment or milieu. Both, Busse and Busemann were familiar with Gruhle's work. d) The collection of data. Gruhle's study had the subtitle: Studie zur Frage: Milieu oder Anlage. It was the author's intention to study the 'average male delinquent' and he felt that the inmates of Flehingen (η = 105) were representative in that respect. With that, he explained, he did not mean that they represented a representative sample in the statistical

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sense but that in comparison to other delinquents, in terms of type of delinquency, social background etc. the Flehingen group was rather typical. The only two variables which differentiate his population from the average delinquent were religion (almost all of his subjects were catholics) and degree of incorrigibility (the majority of his population according to the courts were unfit to return home and be supervised by a probation officer or social worker). On the other hand, 62.7% of his subjects had never been in jail. Gruhle collected his data in 1907 and he stated that he relied essentially on his own findings and official statistics since he felt that many of the data that had been collected previously by other scholars could not be relied upon for comparison because either the methodology employed had not been spelled out adequately, or the terminology i.e., the definition of concepts, was too vague. Gruhle's sample consisted of 105 individuals above the age of 14. He did not want younger children because he felt that their character structure was not yet firmly developed and because they were less suitable for interviewing; they might be influenced too easily by the interviewer. 'Sometimes they let information be pulled from them with such great difficulty that the interviewer can scarcely be sure of how much of it is spontaneous and how much consists of ideas that he has put into their heads' (Gruhle, 1912: 2). The author obtained his data from three sources: interviewing, participant observation, and the official records kept at Flehingen. For his interviews he had a structured interview outline and he tried to modify it in such a way that it served essentially as a guide to an informal conversation, lasting between 1 1 / 2 and 4 hours. Only when the conversation did not cover some of the variables contained in the outline did the author resort to more direct forms of questioning. Gruhle's general remarks about research methods and the detailed discussion about his own research techniques deserve to be mentioned because they were highly sophisticated and it is quite conceivable that studies like his convinced William Stern that interviewing techniques in Germany had reached such a degree of perfection that they had become an invaluable tool for social research (Stern, 1921). Gruhle was particularly concerned with the problem of reducing the subjective elements in the collection of his data to a minimum. He made every effort to conceal from his subjects the fact that he was systematically studying them, thus he did most of his informal interviewing in the different craft shops or on walks in the hope that this causal and seemingly unsystematic approach would reduce the extent to which the subjects discussed the interviews among each other. Furthermore he tried to avoid phrasing the questions

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in such a way that they could influence the spontaneity of the answer, and he never asked direct personal questions which might be too embarrassing to the subject such as 'Is your father or mother an alcoholic?' He also pointed out that a 'no answer' response does not mean that the interviewee does not know the answer or is unwilling to supply the interviewer with the information requested, it usually means that the researcher has to rephrase the question or approach the topic from a different angle. In order to minimize his own prejudgments of the subjects, Gruhle did not examine any of the official records until he had completed his interviewing and he examined these records with skepticism and caution, noting that the professional judgment were often colored by middle-class values. e) The research design. It was Gruhle's research objective to determine the respective influence of hereditary and environmental factors in the etiology of juvenile delinquency in the hope of finding out what preventive measures could be taken to stop the increase of this phenomenon. Altogether, he investigated 70 variables. He argued that in order to determine the causal relationships between the various hereditary and environmental factors the researcher can choose essentially two approaches: the comparison between delinquent and non-delinquent populations, and the individual case study. With respect to the first approach he commented: If it is shown that in two groups, which are completely identical either with respect to their social or their biological structure, and differ only in the one aspect of delinquency, a condition that, in one group, is conspicuously present, is, in the other group, almost entirely absent, or attains a far more negligible degree, then one would be inclined to ascribe causal significance to either one of these structures. (Gruhle, 1912: 206.) This approach however does not indicate whether parental alcoholism for example is a hereditary or a milieu factor unless we are able to demonstrate the way in which, if at all, parental alcoholism is a contributory factor in the etiology of delinquency. In other words we have to study the configuration of variables within each given individual. The fact that the father of a subject is an alcoholic is meaningless unless we know: a) Was the father already an alcoholic when the child was born, or at what time during the life of the youngster did the father start drinking, and was there a relationship between the onset of the father's alcoholism and the child's delinquency; b) Is the father the natural father or a step-father; this question is so important because only if it is the real father, and if he

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was an alcoholic before the child's birth can we suspect that the father's alcoholism might be a hereditary factor; c) How disruptive was the parental alcoholism for the cohesion of the family life and its financial wellbeing, etc. Gruhle made a similar point with respect to the question whether prolonged parental illness of one or both parents means that the child suffered from neglect and lack of individual attention. He argued that this question largely depends upon family income, since a family which is better off can afford outside help. Thus in order to test that relationship he crosstabulated income and illness and he used the following indicators for parental care: number of times per week that the child got breakfast at home, number of meals eaten together with the parents and supervision of school work. While Gruhle's argument for the configurational approach is very convincing, it is not quite clear why he saw the two approaches, i.e. the configuration study and the comparisons between delinquent and nondelinquent groups, as mutually exclusive, since the latter would have substantiated the findings of the former. Only occasionally did Gruhle compare his population with the general population, for instance with respect to school-performance, illegitimacy, number of orphans and selected variables pertaining to living conditions. (See below, variables in section B.) The author frequently compared his delinquent groups with other delinquents, such as frequency of alcoholism, illegitimacy, and criminal history of the parents. In order to provide the reader with some general background information, he included some statistics about the ecological distribution of crime in Germany in terms of the type and frequency of crime and delinquency in the different regions of the country and the differential distribution in rural and urban settings. But somehow these data appear unconnected with his research. f ) The variables under investigation. In his own sample, the author investigated the following three types of data: 1. The background variables included: place of birth of parents and child; illegitimacy of parents and child; age of each parent when the child was born; occupation of parents; police records of the parents; alcoholism of the parents; types and frequency of mental disorders among parents (separating those types of mental disorders which are due to alcoholism); prolonged physical illness of either parent; family income; indicators for parental care such as number of breakfasts taken at home, etc.; criminality and mental illness among relatives. 2. The data pertaining to the life history of the delinquent included:

142 Non-sociological social research whether the child was illegitimate, orphaned, and whether they were raised in the family, orphanage, relatives, etc.; geographical mobility of the family; school performance, intelligence and knowledge; education and occupation of the subject; living conditions of the home (number of persons per bedroom, sanitary facilities, heating facilities, number of boarders), particularly 'shifty elements', reading material in the house (access to pornography), general topics of conversation or dispute in the family; the criminal career of the subject, i.e. type and frequency of delinquent or criminal acts, number of arrests and convictions, type of punishment, effect of each of these correctional measures such as fines, jail sentences, institutionalization, etc. 3. The data on mental and physical health included: physical abnormalities, acquired and inborn; mental abnormalities, acquired and inborn; personality traits; intelligence and talents; temperament and disposition. g) The data analysis. Gruhle then analysed his data in three different ways: 1. He presented his findings in a 7350-fold table, vertically listing his 70 variables listed in sections A, Β and C, and horizontally his 105 subjects. Then for each of his 105 cases he determined the composition of what he considered to constitute 'favorable' and 'unfavorable' environmental influences and hereditary predispositions. As we mentioned earlier he continuously evaluated one variable in the light of two or three others; for instance, how and whether parental alcoholism contributed to the etiology of the child's delinquency and if so whether it influenced the child primarily as a milieu factor or as a hereditary factor. Thus, through a process quite similar to what today is called 'arbitrary numerical reduction of a given property space' (Lazarsfeld & Rosenberg, 19 ? : 46), he developed the following typology for the causation of delinquency: M = exclusively milieu (9.52%) of his sample; M + a = predominantly milieu, some hereditary predisposition (Anlage) (8.57%); M + A = milieu and predisposition equally important (40.95%); A + m = predominantly predisposition, some milieu (20.00%); A = predominantly hereditary predisposition (20.95%). Unfortunately Gruhle did not spell out directly how precisely he computed the typology, i.e. how he weighted the different factors and what the exact meaning of predominantly means (more than 50% ?). He merely stated that after a careful examination of each case he was able to add up the predominance of the Milieu and Anlage factors and then group his cases accordingly. 2. Through literally hundreds of cross-tabulations, he determined the

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distribution of the different variables in his population and their interrelationships. On the basis of these cross-stabulations he developed several other typologies, such as: types of criminal or delinquent careers, according to acts predominantly comitted as well as delinquent mentalities; home atmosphere: intact, disintegrated, pathological; characterological and behavioral structures: rude, brutal, scheming, etc. 3. In order to destroy existing stereotypes concerning juvenile delinquency such as 'well, the kid's father is an alcoholic, consequently there is a bad genetic strain and that "explains" the kid's delinquency', Gruhle then took the cases in his M and A typology to demonstrate how many subjects in each of the five groups had alcoholic, criminal or insane parents, were born illegitimate, fell into the different delinquent and criminal career patterns, etc., in order to demonstrate that there were no clear-cut correlations and 'obvious' explanations. Finally, in a separate table he listed his subjects in terms of the age at which (and how long) they had been: 1) given a reprimand of the court; 2) given a fine; 3) kept in detention; 4) jailed; 5) committed to a mental hospital; 6) confined to a home for delinquent children; 7) subjected to supervision by a probation officer or social worker while living at home; 8) raised in an orphanage. He also noted in the same table which of the subjects had been born illegitimate and he indicated with an asterisk all those cases which were either clearly pathological or indicated definite signs of a probable criminal career. We examined Gruhle's study in such detail in order to demonstrate that from a methodological standpoint his procedure was really a radical departure form previous studies and vastly superior to the studies on crime conducted by Tönnies, since he managed to develop from his extremely complex multivariate analysis a simple typology. His analysis, including the mammoth-tables, served as a model for almost all the subsequent studies on social pathology. The drawbacks on his analytical procedure, i.e. the fact that he did not give some sort of formula which explains how he determined the cumulative effect of the different M and A factors will be discussed at the end of the chapter since the other two studies under discussion share the same characteristic. h) Adalbert Gregor and Else Voigtländer: 'Leitfaden der Fürsorgeerziehung'. An analysis of Gregor's book is difficult since it is on one hand a summary of a large study done in Flehingen, and on the other hand a reference book on the treatment of juvenile delinquency. The two aspects of the book are not clearly separated. We will only examine Gregor's study.

144

Non-sociological social research

It was the purpose of Gregor's book to demonstrate that correctional institutions can be effective provided they are able to understand the nature and origin of delinquency of each subject under their care in order to determine the correct educational measures which are appropriate for each child. Furthermore, the author argued that an institution should be able to determine what kind of delinquent is likely to profit from institutionalization and what cases are hopeless. Even though Gregor started out grouping 216 inmates of Flehingen into an Anlage-Milieu schema and to obtain similar data for the inmates of other homes which enabled him to demonstrate the differences in distribution among males and females, older and younger delinquents, he argued that at this point the assignment of individuals into an A and M typology has to rely to quite some extent on intuition and subjective evaluation since psychiatry was not yet capable of exactly determining how milieu and heredity affected a given individual, i.e. what in each case constituted cause and effect. Instead he proposed to refine the analysis of the nature and origin of delinquency by gathering additional material about the life history of the child and his personality structure, and to focus the research effort on the measurement of improvement among the different types of delinquents in an institution, rather than to pursue the attempt of determining with a greater degree of precision the difference between hereditary and environmental influences. Therefore, Gregor started out by taking the intake evaluation forms which were compulsory for all homes for delinquents in the state of Baden, and he expanded the existing categories in two ways: a more detailed life history, particularly in the area of the exercise of parental authority and the physiological and psychological developmental history of the child, and a more detailed analysis of the delinquent's personality structure, character-traits and behavior patterns. This enlarged profile (Personalbogen), he argued, should be standardized and reapplied regularly in order to determine systematically how the correctional measures appied by the institution affect the different psychological traits among the different inmates. Gregor collected his data on the basis of the criteria listed above for three successive years. On the basis of his material he constructed a large number of new typologies with respect to personality characteristics, types of delinquency, and psychopathology, etc. There is no need in this context to discuss his typologies since they are mostly outdated and don't tell us much. One example will suffice. The concept moral fiber, based on the combination of ego-strength (Willensstärke), and value orientation resulted in the following categories: morally intact,

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morally weak, immoral (moralisch minderwertig), and morally indifferent. Gregor then introduced the variables sex, age, type of delinquency, and age at which the delinquent behavior first manifested itself. He determined for each group the degree of improvement per year in the institution by differentiating between good improvement, some improvement, uncertain and no improvement, and he compared his findings obtained in Flehingen with those obtained in other institutions. On the basis of his data he was able to demonstrate that certain cases for example youngsters suffering from 'hereditary retardation' or exhibiting 'asocial and psychopathological personalities' are unlikely to benefit from institutional treatment no matter how long they remain institutionalized, while youngsters who are morally intact and intellectually normal are most likely to steadily improve until they can be fully resocialized. However Gregor discussed his pedagogical measures only in general terms without systematically correlating educational procedures with personality types. Neither did Gregor determine exactly how he arrived at his evaluations of 'improvement' other than in general terms. His study represents essentially a shift of focus, i.e. from causation to treatment effectiveness. Methodologically, Gregor did not refine Gruhle's techniques. All his findings are presented in the form of crosstabulations, which makes it rather difficult for the reader to determine what kinds of variables in any given individual is likely to respond more or less favorably to correctional procedures. What is also missing is a formula which combines the cumulative effect of the different internal and external factors on the possible degree of resociability among the different types of delinquents. i) Adelheid Fuchs-Kamp: 'Lebensschicksale und Persönlichkeit ehemaliger Fürsorgezöglinge'. This survey is a follow-up study of former inmates of Flehingen which was conducted at the suggestion of Adalbert Gregor. Her sample consisted of 65 men who had entered Flehingen in 1910 and who during the time of the data collection (1925-1928), were between 33 and 39 years of age. We indicated earlier that the Badischer Erkennungsdienst helped her to trace down the current addresses of her subjects, an effort which was enormously successful: of the 68 subjects which were still alive only 3 (!) persons could not be reached. It was the purpose of her study to determine what types of delinquents were more or less likely to successfully adjust to life after release from the institution. Fuchs-Kamp's data were quite detailed and varied. She used the following material: 1) the official reports made in Flehington, court-records,

146 Non-sociological social research records from social work agencies; 2) statements made by third persons, e.g. judges, social workers, psychiatrists, etc., which were contained in the files of Flehingen and personal inquiries made by the author among social-work agencies, clergymen, mayors; family members and neighbors and employers of the subjects; 3) personal documents, i.e. letters to district attorneys and other members of the court, relatives, girl-friends and fellow-inmates all of which were contained in the official files; 4) personal visits of the subjects (only 38 cases). These informal home visits had to be conducted with a great deal of tact since in many cases the wives of the subjects did not know that the husbands had once been in a home for delinquents. In order to disguise her purpose she usually pretended that she happened to be in town and that she wanted to deliver greetings from a former employer of the subjects. On the basis of her material, Fuchs-Kamp divided her sample into non-criminals, minor criminals, and hard-core criminals (Leicht- und Schwerkriminelle), and she categorized each group according to characterological subcategories very similar to those used by Gruhle. She then cross-tabulated each of these categories with the following variables: 1) types and frequency of criminal acts after the release from Flehingen; 2) occupational adjustment and; 3) family life, i.e. stable marriage relationships, and she reached the conclusion that the failure to adjust in one area (family, society, occupation), is usually directly related to the failure in the other areas due to the same underlying personality traits. With respect to her methods of quantification and typology formation her techniques did not differ from those used by Gruhle and Gregor. j) Summary. The three studies discussed in this chapter are typical examples for the types of psychiatric social research conducted between 1910 and 1930. The most important characteristic shared by all of these studies is the continuity of the research effort and the interrelatedness of the findings. Fuchs-Kamp for example throughout her study compared her findings on former juvenile delinquents with other studies on the same subject and similar studies on different subject-matters, such as former prostitutes, alcoholics, etc. The methodology that was generally employed, however, raises some doubts. We indicated earlier that Gruhle's methodology developed for the study of social pathology was quite pioneering and inventive. On the other hand we also pointed out that he had failed to provide the reader with a formula which would have spelled out the weighing procedures which served as the quantitative basis for the construction of his typologies, i.e. the cumulative effects of the different Milieu and Anlage factors. Instead

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the reader had to trust Gruhle's intuition and that of those who adopted his methodology and work himself through hundreds of cross-tabulations which could have been presented in a methematically tighter form, i.e. correlations rather than cross-tabulations; quantitative indices rather than qualitative typologies. However the real drawbacks of this type of methodology only reveal themselves in the hands of others, i.e. less intuitive scholars. By taking over Gruhle's methodology without some mathematical refinements, the researchers developed new typologies rather freely, which makes precise comparisons between the different findings rather difficult. However all the studies in this area which we examined contained almost all the raw data either in the text or the appendix or in the mammoth tables on the end, thus enabling anybody who would have wanted to make precise numerical comparisons to rework the material in such a way that it would have fitted into his or her own categories.

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