Norbert Elias

Norbert Elias ( born June 22, 1897 in Breslau, † August 1, 1990 in Amsterdam ) was a German sociologist origin, mainly living in England and the Netherlands since his emigration in 1933.

For a long time unnoticed, his work is rezipiert wide since the 1970s. With his name, the terms " figuration " and "Process and figuration sociology " connected, indicating a methodological Neuprägung sociology, building on Karl Mannheim. His most important work is the study about the process of civilization from 1939 (new edition: 1969/1976 ).

Life

Youth, family, military service

Norbert Elias was born on June 22, 1897 in Wroclaw, in a family with Jewish religious tradition. His father Hermann Elias had there a textile factory. Norbert grew up as an only child and attended from 1907 to 1915, the humanist Johannes School Breslau. After graduation in 1915 he served as a volunteer in a radio operator unit military service. From 1917 he was no longer fit for duty field and was a medical orderly in Breslau.

Study

1918 Elias began studying philosophy and medicine, the latter only until Physikum 1919, at the University of Breslau. He interrupted his studies by study at the University of Heidelberg in the summer semester 1919 and the University of Freiburg in the summer semester 1920. Throughout his studies, until 1925, Elias was a committed member in the Zionist youth movement " blue - white". It was 1915/16 also a member of the Breslau connection of Jewish Students in the " Cartel Jewish connections" (KJV) since the beginning of the winter semester. Already in those days, he knew many of the same age German - Jewish intellectuals such as Erich Fromm, Leo Strauss and Leo Lowenthal.

From 1922, Elias worked in a factory for the production of small iron parts as head of the export department, so as to pay for college. 1924 was his PhD. at the University of Breslau. The title of his dissertation is the idea and individual; his doctor father was Richard Hönigswald.

In 1924, Elias moved to Heidelberg where he continued his studies in sociology. By Alfred Weber, he was accepted for a habilitation. The work on the importance of Florentine society and culture for the development of science was the birth of modern science. 1930 Elias broke off his habilitation project and followed Karl Mannheim to Frankfurt am Main ** ( cf. Blomert 1999). He worked as his assistant at the university and began his habilitation with Scripture The courtly man.

Emigration

The habilitation thesis was already filed and Mannheim determined as expert, as at the beginning of the Nazi regime, the Institute of Sociology closed in March 1933 and thus Elias ' habilitation procedure was aborted. The writing was not published until 1969 in a different form under the title The court society. Elias went into exile in 1933, first to Paris in 1935 to Britain, whose citizenship he later adopted.

During his eight -month internment German as Elias did in 1940 at the detention center a self -authored drama The Ballad of poor Jacob to the performance.

University of Leicester & University of Ghana

From 1954 to 1962 Elias had a teaching position at the newly founded Department of Sociology, University of Leicester ( students were, inter alia, Martin Albrow and Anthony Giddens ) holds. Previously, he worked for a long time in adult education. 1962 to 1964 he was professor of sociology at the University of Ghana in Accra ( student was Willie B. Lamousé - Smith), after which he returned to England, where he lived as a private scholar.

Late recognition in Germany Since 1975 he had his permanent residence in Amsterdam and visiting professorships in several German cities held. Only now - and in particular the success of the paperback edition of About The Civilizing Process (1976 ) - was perceived work in Germany and generally accepted Elias '.

Approach and services

The central motifs of his approach come to term imprints figuration sociology or process sociology expressed:

  • Figuration sociology: In order to map social processes in reality just theories, theories are inadequate, the "Company" think of the individual here, but also those theories that ignore the individual and come from the "whole". Rather, each sociological research must focus on the people and the dynamic social ties are that they form with each other: "The ' circumstances ' that change, are nothing to speak of, outside ' approach comes to the people; those circumstances ' that change, the relationships between the people themselves " (Elias in: About the process of civilization, Vol 2 ). Under figuration Elias understands a picture of human societies, which avoids the one-sidedness of "part" or " whole " by mapping the connection between the individual and society, that is a mutual dependence at various levels of society. Here, companies can become more complex in the course of their development, have nested levels. The same people can make different figurations. For example, he explained on the basis of the interdependence between incumbents and outsiders a figuration that can be further differentiated into the relationship between residents and nonresidents.
  • Process Sociology: Sociological theories in which social processes thought static, are thus reduced to states and social change is viewed as a series of seemingly stable states between which there are stages of change, may not be actual facts according to Elias. This example, he criticized the school of sociologists Talcott Parsons. A realistic assumption is instead that reality (and companies ) do not recognize states, but is constantly in motion. It is therefore necessary to always describe processes to form sociological theories. One of his conclusions is, is that no single social phenomenon, without a theory of long-term change to understand or explain. It calls for the development of an empirically based theory of sociocultural evolution and sees himself only as a precursor for it.

Elias breaks through his theory with the long tradition of thought in which "the Company" which was compared with " as self- imaginary individual." His thoughts on the relationship between " society" and "individual" that are found in nearly all his work which ultimately lead to a redefinition of terms such as " identity" and " self-worth " and one in the history of sociology relatively novel way of looking at people as actors with a certain margin of freedom within the figurations they form with one another in social processes. In addition, Elias thereby overcomes the traditional separation between scientific psychology, sociology and history.

In particular, the science of history Elias has opened new perspectives in his investigations: the development from feudalism to territorialisation in Germany, the formation of the Kingdom mechanism, the study of mentalities, which has expanded the French historian School to Georges Duby and the journal Annales, and many other findings are due to him.

Elias shall state explicitly value in an understandable language of science, which he increasingly developed himself after completing his doctoral thesis (which he later saw skeptical in this regard ). His concern was about the creation of concepts that can represent the new way of him as appropriate, so precise serve " language tools ".

Frequently Elias is referred to as the founder of Zivilationstheorie. However, this titling does not do justice to the achievements of the social scientist. Does he questions contemporary societies but to very different questions of sociological theory and relative position:

  • To the science and history of science
  • To specific social situations in which one finds oneself as a sociologist or sociologist
  • For social change and inconsistency
  • That has become a historically ' structure ' of world society
  • As to which sociological concepts and tools you need today in order to gain a comprehensive perspective on the development of humanity and the human

Awards

Writings

  • About the process of civilization. 2 vols, Basel 1939. Reprints: Bern / Munich 1969, Frankfurt am Main, 1976 ( paperback ).
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