Neoevolutionism

As a social science Neoevolutionismus flow is called that attempts to explain the development of societies based on the biological theory of evolution, but settles from the basic assumptions of classical social scientific evolutionism. Neoevolutionismus deals with long-term, directed social change and recurring patterns of development that can be observed in different cultures. An overview of related theories found in the article Socio-cultural evolution.

Development

Origins in classical evolutionism

See main article: evolutionism

The social science evolutionism of the 19th century was part of a then popular mindset of European or Western intellectuals who were interested in exploring long-term changes of nature and people since the 18th century. A sociological interpretation sees this widespread interest as an expression of the competitive struggle between nobles and commoners, in which the bourgeoisie, because it wanted to improve his own social position, the mutability of social (and natural) conditions took in the view.

In biology, it sprang from the biological theory of evolution by Charles Darwin, which is a central element in the theory building of biology with supplements in the form of synthetic theory of evolution today. In the social sciences tried the classical evolutionists, with general evolutionary principles to describe the development of societies and explain. They took a linear ( "linear" ) to form the long-term development, in which all societies would go through the same stages of development. Frequently, their own Western civilization was considered as the most advanced stage. In some cases (for example by Karl Marx) were also made progressive believers forecasts for further development.

These theories were rejected at the beginning of the 20th century from the historical particularism as unscientific, who insisted that each culture has its own history and development have. Evolutionary thinking, whether of political right or left side, got in the social sciences for decades generally into disrepute. Also due to this criticism formulated various social scientists theories about the long-term social change new, so they sufficed contemporary scientific claims.

Differences from the classical evolutionism

The beginnings of Neoevolutionismus go back to the 1930s, after the Second World War neoevolutionistische theories have evolved considerably, until they found their way into ethnology, anthropology and sociology in the 1960s. The Neoevolutionismus has with its development models back many ideas of classical evolutionism. Here tend neoevolutionistische theories to a set of common assumptions that are not shared by all in equal measure:

• He primarily challenges the widely unreflective notion of social progress which dominated previous evolutionary concepts. Deterministic positions that assume a complete predetermination of events by given causes, are replaced with reference to the influence of chance and free will by the category probability. The Neoevolutionismus similar to the counterfactual history, which raises the question of what might have happened if determine would not, or else arrived. The Neoevolutionismus sees thus its non-deterministic approach is that companies with similar conditions holds open the possibility to develop in different ways and in different steps. Instead of line-shaped evolutionary ideas more sophisticated models have been developed.

• Closely related to this call for Neoevolutionisten to hold back with reviews of the research subject. Also prophetic predictions are rejected.

• Instead, the empirical verifiability of their theories is crucial for Neoevolutionisten. In contrast to the classical approaches, which were based largely on value judgments and assumptions, the Neoevolutionismus based on measurable and verifiable information to analyze the process of cultural evolution. Empirical basis of the development models and theories are evidence eg from anthropology, history, archeology and paleontology.

Representative

• Ferdinand Tönnies (1855-1936) - Tönnies himself was not Neoevolutionist. His works are but as an important prerequisite of Neoevolutionismus. He was one of the first sociologists, who pointed out that social evolution, progressive thinking and determination not necessary mean the same thing. Social development is neither goal-oriented nor ever completed. Modern societies could be described in the evaluative sense, even as regressive if they can guarantee the satisfaction of needs of the individuals only at high cost.
• Leslie White (1900-1975) - author of "The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome " (1959). With the release of White's writing the interest of sociology and anthropology was revived on evolutionism. White tried to develop a theory that would explain the entire history of mankind. The main idea of his approach is the aspect of technology: Social systems would be determined by technological systems, wrote White, referring to the early work of Lewis Henry Morgan. A measure of social progress is the energy consumption of a given society. White differentiates between five stages of development. The first people used the power of their muscles. The second is determined by the use of domesticated animals. In the third step, the energy of plants used come. The man, learn Fourth, the use of natural energy sources: coal, oil, gas. In the Taming of nuclear energy, he saw come the fifth step. White's approach to energy has a certain resemblance to the Kardashev scale later astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev formulated by the Russian.
• Julian Steward developed the theory of social change. In "The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution" (1955, reissued 1979), he formulated the theory of a multi-linear development. He examined this case, as assimilated into societies to their environment. His approach was more sophisticated than Whites unilinear development. He introduced the possibility of a comprehensive theory of human development in question, but also stressed that anthropology is not limited to the purely descriptive presentation of individual existing cultures. He assumed that it was possible to develop theories that analyze the typical, everyday culture, which is representative for specific periods or regions. Steward sees technology and economy as the determining factors of the development of a society, but emphasizes the influence of secondary factors religion, ideology and political system. The multi- linearity is that a society in the interaction of these factors develop in different directions simultaneously.
• Marshall Sahlins - author of " Evolution and Culture" ( 1960). Sahlins a different general and specific development of society. The general trend is to increase the complexity, organization, and adaptation to the environment, the tendency of cultural and social systems. Since the different cultures and societies are not isolated from each other, there is a mutual influence and penetration of their properties. This leads to the specific development of society as a concretization of the general development in a single specific and einizigartigen way.
• Gerhard Lenski - "Power and Prestige" (1966) and "Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology " (1974) Lenski expands the work of Leslie White and Lewis Henry Morgan. He looks like his thought leaders in the technological development the decisive factor and an indicator of the evolution of society and culture. Unlike White, who looked at technology as the ability to generate and use energy, Lenski focuses on the scope and use of information. She was on the more information and knowledge, especially for the design of the natural environment, disponer a given society, the more advanced. Lenski emphasizes four stages of human development. First, information was only passed on through genes. In the second stage, people learned to learn through experience and information to share the learned. The next phase has been characterized by the development of characters and logic. In the fourth phase, finally, learn humanity, to use symbols, they developed written language and advances in communications technology, put in the development of the economic and political system, in the distribution of goods in which social inequality and other spheres of social life continues. In parallel, classified Lenski companies according to their level of technology, communication and economy: 1) hunters and gatherers, 2 ) Easy agriculture, 3) Intermediate Agriculture, 4) Industrial production and 5) special shapes, such as, for example, based on fishing companies.
• Talcott Parsons - The author of Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives (1966) and The System of Modern Societies (1971 ) distinguished in the development of society four sub-processes: 1) The division generating within a society from the overall system functional subsystems. 2) In the adaptation, the individual systems develop greater efficiency in the management of their specific tasks each. 3) The inclusion of a specific system to reintegrate formerly excluded elements. 4) generalization of values ​​enhances the legitimacy of the now more complex system. Talcott Parsons illustrates these processes in three stages: Archaic societies differed from primitive societies by the ability to write. Modern societies have beyond knowledge of the law. Parson sees the Western civilization as the pinnacle of modern societies, the United States of America, he declared the most developed among Western civilizations.
• Shmuel N. Eisenstadt - Eisenstadt starting point is conceptually close to Talcott Parsons. However, his research overcome the prevailing Parsons Euro -centric interpretation of social development. Developed in the West cultural program is no longer viewed as a natural model of development of all societies, but merely as the temporally earliest model of the development of a modern society.
• Norbert Elias - with his main work, On the process of civilization laid Elias first present a model of the development of social and personality structures in Western Europe from the 9th to 19th century. This published in the 1930s, work was due to the war rezipiert wide until the 1970s. His claim was to open up a new social science research, which overcomes the limitations of existing paradigms. Subsequently, he worked primarily from the philosophy of science and sociology of knowledge bases of his new approach. Elias rejects static theory concepts as they criticized about Parsons, in favor of dynamic models. His basic assumptions used include that reality is constantly in motion, which affects all levels of the "big evolution": the physico- chemical evolution, biological evolution and sociocultural evolution. These levels differ in the increasing level of complexity, each new laws and structures, including each of the strongly increasing development speed. In particular, the social sciences are therefore directed his view to the analysis of social phenomena limited to a model of long-term social change. With the model of the "big evolution" is to justify why different methodological approaches are for these different subject areas each different sciences necessary - as well as their cooperation: As each new step builds on the previous one, but at the same time something new is created, is can not be explained, for example, the development of people with no recourse to biological evolution, but not to reduce it. Therefore Elias calls on the social sciences, is methodologically to emancipate themselves from the natural sciences, but at the same time to take their results to differentiated knowledge.