Lewis A. Coser

Lewis Alfred Coser, originally Louis Cohen, sometimes deviating Ludwig Cohn (born 27 November 1913 in Berlin, † July 8, 2003 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) was an American sociologist.

The son of a wealthy and educated family (his father was a stockbroker in Berlin) emigrated as a 20 -year-old, Left ' before the persecution of the Jews in 1933. He studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, from where he continued fled to Portugal in the United States. 1944 PhD at Columbia University, 1951-1968 Professor at Brandeis University, then at the State University of New York; 1974 to 1975 he was president of the American Sociological Association. His wife was the sociologist Rose Coser foliage ( 1916-1994 ).

Theoretical Approach

Coser turned against harmony and equilibrium models, which he thought was inappropriate, and sought to capture today's political and social issues with his concept. His theoretical approach - in critical half-distance to the structural functionalism - is based on the argument of Georg Simmel and played in the international debates on conflict sociology in the 1960s a significant role (see Ralf Dahrendorf, John Rex, Hans -Jürgen Krysmanski etc.); He is also constructed with regard to its suitability for empirical analyzes. Coser emphasized the benefits of conflict for the society and for many social situations. Social conflicts have him condition for social change; its terms of realistic and unrealistic conflict have been widely used ( available in German translation, somewhat misleading, for real or spurious conflict).

Writings

• Sociological Theory, 1964 (Eng. ) theory of social conflict, 1965