Research work of Antonov Alexey Innokentievich. Gloomy afternoon XXI century

F. Tönnies and G. Simmel are considered representatives formal sociology. They attached particular importance to the form, structuring, classification of social phenomena and processes. Social processes and relationships were considered within the framework of a variety of detailed classifications of social forms, incorporating a wide variety of social structures, actions and trends.

Ferdinand Tönnies was born on April 26, 1855 in the village of Rip near the town of Oldensworth (Schleswig-Holstein). His father was a wealthy farmer, and his mother came from a Protestant family of priests. As a student at the gymnasium, F. Tönnies begins to be interested in philosophy, studying the works of Plato, F. Nietzsche, A. Schopenhauer. After graduating from high school, F. Tönnies entered the University of Strasbourg, where he studied philosophy, history, and philology. In 1877, F. Tönnies defended his dissertation on classical philology.

He studied political economy and pedagogy in Berlin, as well as psychology in Leipzig. In 1881 he received the position of private assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Kiel with work on the topic “Community and Society.” In the 1880-90s, his academic activity was not very intense. F. Tönnies preferred the life of a free scientist. At this time, he wrote articles about T. Hobbes, G. Leibniz, B. Spinoza, G. Spencer, K. Marx, etc. Also in the early 1880s, his interest in social statistics (problems of crime, poverty, suicide) appeared. Since 1895, he has specialized in empirical research. In 1909, F. Tönnies, together with G. Simmel, W. Sombart and M. Weber, founded the German Sociological Society and was elected its first chairman.

From 1913 to 1933, F. Tönnies worked as an ordinary professor at the University of Kiel. In 1930, he joined the Social Democratic Party as a sign of protest against the flaring up of nationalism in the country. In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, he was removed from office. The German Sociological Society was abolished. F. Tönnies spent the last years of his life in poverty and oblivion. He died on April 11, 1936 in Kiel.

The main work of F. Tönnies is “Community and Society” (1887).

F. Tönnies tried to build his sociology as an analytical discipline. He considered the task of sociology to be the study of the most general features of the social process, various forms of social existence, as well as the development of a system of general concepts and types necessary for describing and understanding specific phenomena. Based on this, F. Tönnies proposed building the structure of sociology as follows. The first level (pure, or theoretical, sociology) involves the study of society in a state of statics (the study of social forms). The second level (applied sociology) is the study of society in a state of dynamics. The third level (empirical sociology) is the study of the facts of life in modern society based on statistical data.

In his work “Community and Society,” F. Tönnies notes that all social phenomena must be considered as volitional relations. The will itself is divided into two types: organic(instinctive) will and rational will, which presupposes the possibility of choice and a consciously set goal of behavior. Depending on the nature of the will, two types of social relations are distinguished: intimate, inter-individual relations correspond community(spiritual closeness, people’s affection for each other, personal experiences), and everything external, social refers to society(exchange, trade, choice), where the principle of “every man for himself” operates, there is tension between people. In the community, instinct, feeling, organic relationships dominate, in society - calculating reason, abstraction.

The main types of communal (community) relations, according to F. Tönnies, are tribal relations, neighborhood relations and friendship relations. The community is a strong and stable social system, since blood and friendship relationships are highly stable and long-lasting. The most striking example of a social type of relationship is the state. It is created to achieve a specific goal. Peoples and ethnic communities enter into this union consciously, purposefully, but break it off when they lose interest in the goal. The logic of the historical process, according to F. Tönnies, lies in the gradual transition from community-type sociality to public sociality, from idealized patriarchal-feudal relations to capitalist ones.

Community and society appear in F. Tönnies as the main criteria for the classification of social forms. Tönnies divides the main forms of social life into three types: 1) social relationships; 2) groups, aggregates; 3) corporations, unions, associations.

Social relations- the simplest social form, which at the same time has the deepest social roots. Social relationships are based on mutual dependence and mutual affection of people, on deep human needs. F. Tönnies emphasizes that social relations can be based either on partnership, or on dominance and submission, or it is a mixed type.

The totality of social relations forms group. A group arises if the association of individuals is considered necessary by them to achieve some goal. Groups can also be based on relationships of fellowship and dominance (caste).

Corporation arises when a social form has an internal organization, i.e. certain individuals perform certain functions in it. A corporation can arise from natural relationships (blood ties - clan), from a common relationship with the land, from living together and interacting. Here the division according to the criterion of “companionship - domination” is also used.

Sociology of F. Tennis.

1) Theoretical background of the sociological views of F. Tönnies

1. To the origins of German sociology. F.Tönnies

At the turn of two centuries, the position of classical positivism experienced significant theoretical and methodological difficulties in explaining social life. Tendencies to provide a philosophical (logical-epistemological) basis for the denial of the principles of naturalism of natural scientific methods of cognition of socio-historical reality, and to find specific methods of cognition of the socio-humanitarian sciences are becoming more and more persistent and thorough.

Sociology, as the embodiment of positivism in the social and humanities, has been seriously criticized for losing its true object of study; ignores the specifics of social phenomena. As can be seen, already within the framework of the psychological direction it was emphasized that in the field of social phenomena we are not dealing with mechanical causality inherent in nature, but with the laws of human existence that are teleological in nature, which are not strictly connected with unconditional necessity. Thus, a new epistemological paradigm was realized and formed, which begins to draw a sharp line between the natural world and the world of sociocultural existence, and society begins to be viewed not as an organism, but as an organization of a spiritual order.

The anti-positivist tendency received a broad philosophical basis primarily in Germany. This tendency went beyond the scope of philosophy itself and had a huge influence on the formation of the German sociological school and sociology as a whole. In general, German sociology had specific conditions and origins that determined its special position in history of this science.

If sociological thought in England, France, and the USA was mainly associated with positivist methodology, then German sociology maintained a close connection with the principles of knowledge developed in the humanities. The epistemological traditions of German classical philosophy were significant in it. In addition, sociology was not taught at all for a long time, and the problems, which by that time had begun to be recognized as sociological, went under the rubric of either “national economy” or “philosophy.” Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) even dedicated a special work (consciously , however, subsequently as an alternative to positivist sociology) to prove the impossibility of the existence of sociology as a science. According to Dilthey, the natural sciences trace how the course of natural events affects the situation of man, while the socio-humanitarian sciences are the sciences of the spirit, studying the free activity of a person pursuing certain goals. The physical things studied by natural science are known to us only indirectly, as phenomena. On the contrary, the data of the sciences of the spirit are taken from internal experience, from a person’s direct observation of himself and of other people and the relationships between them. Consequently, the primary element of the mental sciences is, according to Dilthey, direct inner experience in which idea, feeling and will are fused together and in which man is directly aware of his existence in the world. This direct experience is purely individual in nature. Therefore, Dilthey considered it fundamentally impossible and illegitimate for the existence of sociology claiming to be a generalizing science of historical development. Dilthey set as his task the preservation of the uniqueness of the spiritual world. Man, according to Dilthey, as a historical being cannot be understood through his inclusion in the universal interconnection of the world as nature.

Dilthey's main question is the question of the concept of “life”. To ask about the concept of life is to ask about the understanding of life. Moreover, first of all, it is necessary to make life accessible to its original understanding, in order to then comprehend it conceptually, rationally. Dilthey tries to solve his problem by bringing life under the heading of psychology - the science of the soul, of experience. For Dilthey, experiences are a reality that does not exist in the world, but is accessible to reflection in internal observation, in the consciousness of oneself. Consciousness characterizes the entire realm of experience. And in this regard, psychology as a science is the science of the interconnection of experiences, of consciousness.

In understanding psychology, Dilthey dissociates himself from the positivist natural science interpretation of psychology, which was gaining strength at that time. His psychology is descriptive, not explanatory; it dissects, not constructs. 1 Natural science psychology transferred the methods of physics to psychology and tried to understand patterns by measuring what was regularly repeated. 2 Such psychology, as Dilthey believed, has no chance of becoming a fundamental science for the spiritual sciences.

In contrast to such trends, he sought first of all to see mental interconnection, mental life given in its value, namely with three fundamental definitions: 1) it develops; 2) she is free; 3) is it determined by an acquired relationship, that is, is it historical?

He defines mental life as a purposeful relationship. Moreover, such a definition is proven primarily by individual life. Insofar as life is life with others, it is necessary to create structures of life with others.

As an epistemological question, it arises as a question about the knowledge of someone else's consciousness. Dilthey, as researchers of his work believe, did not go into it, because for Dilthey, life is always primarily already life with others, there is always already knowledge about co-living others and that the structural interconnection of life is acquired, that is, that it is determined through its historian . 3

Dilthey's ultimate interest lay in historical existence, which he associated with the main means of humanitarian knowledge, “understanding,” opposed to natural-causal explanation. Hence Dilthey's main thesis - “we explain nature, but we understand spiritual life.” 4

Dilthey's provisions on the specifics of historical reality were translated (and to a large extent formalized) into a logical-gnoseological language - associated for the most part not with the justification of the specifics of historical existence itself, but with the knowledge of history and its presentation.

This was done by the main representatives of the Baden school of neo-Kantianism, W. Windelband (1848-1915) and G. Rickert (1863-1936).

Defining philosophy as “the doctrine of universally valid values,” they viewed history as a process of awareness and embodiment of values and therefore saw in philosophy the main task of developing a specific method of historical sciences. Unlike Dilthey, they distinguished sciences not by subject (“sciences of nature” and “sciences of spirit”), but by the method of their research. They distinguished between “nomothetic” (nomos - gr. order, law) sciences, which consider reality from the point of view of the universal, expressed through natural science laws, on the one hand, and on the other, “ideographic” (figurative) sciences, describing the individual in its empirical uniqueness. According to the new attitude, general laws are incommensurable with a single concrete existence. It always contains something inexpressible in general terms and recognized by a person as “individual freedom”, therefore both methods cannot be reduced to a single basis.

As the subject of knowledge of the ideographic method, Rickert, in particular, identifies culture as a general sphere of experience, where individual phenomena are correlated with values. According to Rickert, it is values that determine the magnitude of individual differences. Developing the concept of values, he identified six main categories of values: truth, beauty, impersonal holiness, morality, happiness and personal holiness. Rickert emphasizes the “supra-subjective” nature of values that determine fundamental changes in being, cognition and human activity. According to Rickert, in the process of cognition, an object appears as a “transcendental 5 obligation” and takes the form of “transcendental rules and norms that require recognition.”

According to Rickert, value manifests itself in the world as objective “meaning.” Unlike value, meaning is associated with a real mental act - “judgment”, although it does not coincide with it. Only an assessment in which meaning is manifested represents a real mental act, while meaning itself goes beyond the limits of mental existence, pointing to value. Thus, he seems to play the role of an intermediary between being and values and constitutes a separate “realm of meaning.” 6

The scientific foundation of German sociology was largely built on this logical and methodological basis. At the same time, it should be noted that Rickert himself denied sociology, which he understood as “a purely natural-scientific interpretation of human social and spiritual life,” the right to be considered a historical science. And paradoxically, it was his philosophical student M. Weber who put forward a program for the development of sociology as a “universal historical” science. It was as a result of methodological self-determination in line with Rickert’s formulation of the question of the logical foundation of sciences involved in the study of “man in history” that the emergence of M. Weber’s “universally understanding” sociology arose.

If we further trace this line of sociological direction, we cannot help but note that the understanding sociology of M. Weber with its methodologically developed concepts played a significant role in the development of American sociology, which received a certain conclusion from T. Parsons. In general, through Weber's understanding

sociology, Rickert’s posing of the question of the specifics of the methodology of historical sciences continued and continues to influence the development of sociological thought.

The revision of the theoretical and methodological premises formulated by early positivism took place in a variety of directions. Emphasizing the reorientation of the sociological vision of the world, it should be noted that this reorientation was largely caused by both the crisis of natural scientific thinking itself and significant changes in the socio-cultural situation in Europe at that time.

One of the founders of sociology in Germany was F. Tönnies (1855-1936). He tried to build sociology as an analytical discipline, which, according to his plan, should contribute to the study of the most general features of the social process, various forms of social existence, and also develop a system of general concepts and types necessary to describe and understand specific phenomena. This goal, in Tennis’s terminology, was served by “pure” or general (theoretical) sociology. Tennis substantiated his ideas in the famous work “Community and Society” (1887). He considers all social phenomena as volitional relations, and divides will itself into two types: organic (instinctive) will and rational will, which presupposes the possibility of choice and a consciously set goal of behavior. Depending on the nature of the will, he distinguishes between two types of social relations: intimate, inter-individual relations correspond to the community, and everything external, social belongs to a society where the principle of “everyone for himself” operates and there is tension between people. In the community, instinct, feeling, organic relationships dominate; in society, calculating reason, abstraction.

Unfortunately, in the history of sociology, information about f. Tennis is sometimes limited to this, and some researchers attribute it to the “classics of the second echelon”. 7 As R. Shpakova writes in this regard, the last decade in German sociology has been marked by a persistent trend of active interest among sociologists in the ideological heritage of F. Tönnies. The activities of the Society in his name consistently receive support in scientific circles, and the number of publications directly or indirectly related to Tönnies’ theoretical concepts and his empirical work is growing. And the fact that not a single sociological congress of the last decade was complete without special reports on Tennis serves as strong confirmation of the new trend. 8

At the same time, there is a paradox here: on the one hand, the indisputable renaissance of Tönnies, his ideas are compared and fit into modern processes, and on the other hand, he is still perceived as an unclear fragment of the history of sociological knowledge, where his theoretical heritage is reduced to two categories: “community” and “society” (Gemeinschaft und Gessel - schaft). It is interesting that even F. himself did not deny this conclusion. Tennis. Thus, in his final book, which he called “Introduction to Sociology” (1931), bringing together his main ideas, he wrote: “Until now, the concepts of “community” and “society” are accepted as my sociology. I defined them as its basic concepts, and I still think so.” 9

In accordance with these categories, F. Tönnies pursued his main idea, which was that sociality is predominantly “communal” in the course of history, increasingly replaced by sociality that is predominantly “public.” Its central concepts appeared in a variety of “forms” or “types” through which historical and contemporary sociological data could be fruitfully classified and interpreted through comparison. Therefore, Tennis was considered the founder of the “formal” school of sociology.

The problems that Tönnies tried to clarify with the help of his basic concepts were the following: what is the nature of human associations, through what processes change occurs and there are different types of human communities, etc. As already noted, in Tönnies’s interpretation, associations (social communities) of people reflect various manifestations of two analytically identified distinct social connections: community and society. Moreover, community for him is synonymous with hearth, family, and traditional community. On the contrary, Tennis synonymously denotes “alien” society, based on commerce and capitalist calculation.

As one of the leading modern sociologists in Germany, Rene König, who was a student in the 1920s, notes, “community” was the magic word that united the then humanitarian elite. “All sociology,” he wrote, “was built around the concept of “community” and against the concept of “society.” Such an interpretation of the main categories, cultural and pessimistic ideas that flowed from his views gave at one time an indirect reason for accusing Tönnies of being partial to the state ideology of National Socialism, although Tönnies himself saw tyranny in fascism, and his victory in 1933 at the same time openly called it “a victory for madness and limitation.”

Tönnies's sociological tools, the most important part of which he considered scientific concepts, claimed to be new and was considered by Tönnies himself as a methodological equivalent of M. Weber's ideal types. However, as researchers note, he could not effectively substantiate their epistemological functions and recognized the development of Weber’s ideal types as more successful and fruitful.

Growing interest today; ^to Tennis and his works is caused by the spiritual atmosphere that is becoming decisive these days. The fact is that Tennis put “creative unity achievable by a common will” at the forefront of people’s social life. In this sense, the sociology that studies interaction is, according to Tönnies, “an integral part of general philosophical ethics,” and the central category of this sociology is the category of “consent.”

In this regard, Tennis was one of the first to present a comprehensive system of sociology, including in the totality of its categories not only the concepts of “struggle”, “competition”, but also “consent”, “trust”, “friendship” and other ethical standards of behavior as fundamental categories - categories unthinkable in the sociological systems of M. Weber and K. Marx.

As evidenced, Tennis was fond of Marxism in his youth and retained an interest in socio-economic analysis, but did not accept the idea of a one-dimensional connection between economics and spiritual life. Moreover, Tennis, in his own way, “without the attacking, class-focused pathos of Marxism,” came to an understanding of commodity fetishism and alienation. In his theoretical research, he built man as a subject of social existence, who, by his standards, is higher than “society and the state.” The ideal of personal development in Tennis is closely related to the concept of freedom. Moreover, in the ideas of Tennis, this freedom matures only gradually as a result of the complex and contradictory dynamics of social reorganization, in which “evolution is under all circumstances more beneficial” than revolution.

In conclusion of this brief analysis of the sociology of F. Tönnies (and as some authors believe, “the time of F. Tönnies’s sociology is just beginning”), it should be noted that he was also widely known as an empirical sociologist, the organizer of major social surveys.

2)F. Tennis on the subject and structure of sociology.

empirical sociology tennis

F. Tennis develops the problems of formal sociology, but proceeds from the assumption that the “national spirit” (common creativity) has genetic priority over the individual: the first link in social life is the community, not the individual. He pays his main attention to the social group as a whole (gelstatt), whose strength is determined by the interconnection of parts (individual members). The stronger the gelstat, the more the position and behavior of its members depends on intragroup relations. Thus, in primitive societies, where family ties are very strong, breaking with the group leads to death. Tennis especially emphasizes that the cardinal point of his theory is the subjective justification of interactions in society: the human spirit as will and reason shapes historical processes. The “social entities” formed in the course of interpersonal interactions, which are directly experienced, are of a socio-psychological nature.

According to Tennis, the subject of sociology consists of all types of sociality, communities and society; they are based on the interactions of people driven by will.

The concept of sociology of Tennis is based on variously oriented methodologies in solving specific problems, and the model he proposed predetermined discussions about the structure of sociology that have not lost their relevance today.

Tennis divides sociology into general and special.

General sociology, according to Tennis, should consider all forms of human existence (including mutual negations), including bioanthropological, demographic and other aspects, including those common to the forms of social life of animals. However, he does not consider it in detail.

Special sociology has only its own subject - the social, which is formed through the interaction of people. Special sociology is divided into “pure” (theoretical), “applied” and “empirical” (sociography).

3) The doctrine of forms of social life

“The social relationship,” says Tönnies, “is the most general and simple social essence or form. But it also has the deepest roots; for it is based in part on the original, natural, actual circumstances of life, as the causes of mutual connection, mutual dependence and mutual attachment between people, partly - on the deepest, most general, most necessary human needs" [Ibid. P. 219]. Social relations are objective in nature. They exist when they are not only felt and recognized by the people participating in them, but also recognized by them as necessary for the implementation of mutual actions. Tennis emphasizes that one should distinguish between social relations of the companionate type, social relations of the dominance type and mixed relations. Each of these types of relationships takes place both in the organization of a community and in a social organization.

The set of social relationships between more than two participants constitutes a “social circle.” This is the stage of transition from social relations to a group or aggregate. The totality is the second concept of form (after social relations); “the essence of a social aggregate lies in the fact that the natural and mental relationships that form its foundation are consciously accepted, and therefore, they are consciously desired. This phenomenon is observed wherever folk life takes place, in diverse forms of communities, for example, in language, way of life and customs, religion and superstitions..." [Ibid. P. 223]. A group (collection) is formed when the association of individuals is considered necessary by it to achieve some specific goal.

Then Tennis continues: “The concepts of community and society are also applicable to the aggregate. Social aggregates have a communal character insofar as those who enter into them think of them as given by nature or created by supernatural will; this is expressed in the simplest and most naive way in the caste structure of India "[Ibid. P. 219]. To this second form (collection, group) also (as in the case of social relations) the classification of human relations according to the criterion of “dominance - partnership” is applied.

The third form considered by the scientist is the corporation. It arises when a social form has an internal organization, i.e. certain individuals perform certain functions in it. “Its (corporation - G.Z.), - writes the sociologist, - its distinctive feature is the ability to unite volition and action - an ability that is most clearly represented in the ability to make decisions..." [Ibid. P.224]. A corporation can arise from natural relationships (Tennis gives the example of consanguinity), from a common relationship to the land, from common residence and interaction, both in rural areas and in cities. In relation to a corporation, the same procedure for considering human relations according to the criterion of “partnership - domination” takes place, with the subsequent division of types of social connections into communal (community) and public.

As you can see, the proposed classification of social forms, including three intersecting “groupings” of concepts (first: social relations, aggregates, corporations; second: partnership, domination; third - community (community), society), is quite complex for understanding and explaining historical development and the current “slice” of social reality. It only allows us to describe from the standpoint of sociological “formalism” (preoccupation with form, sometimes to the detriment of content) some changes in the social reality being studied.

Another classification of Tennis concerns the social norms operating in each type of social organization. All norms, according to the German sociologist, are divided into: 1) norms of social order; 2) legal norms; 3) moral standards. The first are based on general agreement, they are determined by the normative force of facts. The latter are created either on the basis of formal legislation or arise from customs. Still others are established by religion or public opinion. All three of the above types of norms, in turn, are divided into communal (inherent only to the community) and public. Thus, in the interpretation of the problem of norms and their types, the same rules apply as in the classification of basic social forms.

Based on the differences in social forms, Tönnies argues that as they develop from the original basis of communal life, individualism arises, which is the harbinger of the transition from community to society. One of the options for describing such a transition associated with the emergence of individualism is as follows: “... not just social life is diminishing, but communal social life is developing, acquiring more and more power, and, finally, another, new interaction taking place takes precedence from the needs, interests, desires, decisions of acting individuals. These are the conditions of “civil society” “as a radical form of various phenomena that are covered by the sociological concept of society and, by their tendency, are limitless, cosmopolitan and socialist” [Tennis. 1998. P. 226]. This society - essentially we are talking about capitalist society - is a collection of families and individuals of a predominantly economic nature.

The doctrine of social forms is the subject of consideration of pure, or theoretical, sociology. This should be specifically mentioned, given that Tennis tried to create a unified and logically coherent system of concepts in sociology, to present this science as multi-level. He distinguished between pure (theoretical), applied and empirical sociology. The first analyzes society in a state of statics, the second - dynamics, the third examines the facts of life in modern society on the basis of statistical data. Therefore, he called empirical sociology sociography.

Tönnies himself conducted empirical (sociographic) studies concerning crime, suicide, industrial development, demographic changes, the activities of political parties, etc. As can be seen, the range of interests of the German sociologist in empirical problems was quite wide. Moreover, some of his research was very meticulous.

Osipov G.

1. Life and work

Tennis was born on June 26, 1855 near the town of Oldensworth, Schleswig, into the family of a wealthy peasant. In 1872 he entered the university in Strasbourg and completed his university education in Tübingen in 1875 with a dissertation in classical philology.

Subsequently, his scientific interests covered a wide range of problems in a variety of social and scientific disciplines. The eighties and nineties were devoted to the study of social philosophy of the 18th-19th centuries. The result of these studies was a book about Hobbes, published in 1896 and subsequently reprinted several times, a number of important articles on Leibniz, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Spencer, Marx, etc. These studies were not interrupted later. Their result was, in particular, the book “Marx. Life and art".

The study of Hobbes's legacy prompted Tennis to become closely involved in the philosophy of history and philosophy of law. His own concept was formulated in the work “Community and Society (a theorem of the philosophy of culture)” written in 1881, which was then published many times under the same title in a revised and in-depth form. It was this work that formed the basis of the sociological concept of Tennis.

Also in the early eighties, Tennis showed interest in social statistics, in particular in the problems of crime, poverty, suicide, etc. (the book “Crime as a Social Phenomenon” was published in 1909). Along with empirical work, Tennis constantly carried out theoretical work in the field of sociology: the books “Morality” (1909), “Critique of Public Opinion” (1922), “Property” (1926), “Progress and Social Development” (1926), “Introduction to Sociology "(1931).

Despite his extensive theoretical, empirical, and journalistic activities, academic recognition came to Tennis rather late. Only in 1913 did he become a freelance professor at the University of Kiel. In 1910, the founding meeting of the German Sociological Society took place in Frankfurt, one of the founders of which was Tönnies. In 1921, he was elected its president and remained in this position until the actual dispersal of society by the Nazis in 1933. In the spirit of social democratic politics, he advocated the Weimar Republic and fought against National Socialism, warning the public about the danger of “falling into into barbarism" and being attacked by Nazi demagogues. Tennis died in Kiel on April 11, 1936.

2. The main problem of sociology

The formulation of the main problem of sociology followed from Tennys's study of the main contradiction in the development of socio-philosophical thought of the 18th - early 19th centuries. from the contradiction between rationalistic and historical approaches to the problem of the emergence and existence of the state, law and social institutions.

Supporters of the rationalistic way of thinking, based on the ideas of the Enlightenment, were characterized by the recognition of natural human rights and, accordingly, the recognition of the autocracy of the people, their inalienable right to establish reasonable laws and a reasonable social structure corresponding to human nature.

Adherents of the historical approach, most clearly expressed in the works of the historical school of law and the historical school of national economics, on the contrary, emphasized the importance of traditional norms and principles of human coexistence and, accordingly, the need for the existence of historically established forms of state and legal regulation of public life.

Tennis set out to link together the rationalistic and historical worldviews, to combine the advantages of the rational scientific method with a historical view of the social world. Its sources were the works of the founder of the historical school of law F. von Savigny (primarily the ideas formulated by Savigny in the small but highly acclaimed book “On the Calling of Our Time to Legislation and Jurisprudence”), the book of the Englishman G. Maine “Ancient Law” (in which reflected the fundamental ideas of Savigny and in which, in the opposition of status and contract, Tönnies found a conceptual basis for a pair of antinomic concepts that ultimately determined the entire content of his own sociological concept), the works of Morgan, Bachofen and other ethnographers, historians, and jurists of that time.

In the economic thought of Germany in the 19th century. The historical school of national economics dominated. The dispute that actively developed at the end of the century between the head of the historical school G. Schmoller and the mathematician, philosopher and economist K. Menger led to a weakening of the influence of historicism in favor of the deductive method emphasized by Menger, and, consequently, rational-conceptual thinking in general. Tennis found the foundations of a rational approach to social life in the heritage of European philosophy of the 17th century, primarily in the rationalistic philosophy of Hobbes and Spinoza.

In one of his first historical and philosophical works devoted to the work of Hobbes, Tennis formulated the theoretical content of the concepts that later formed the basis of his sociological theory. The most important (concluding) paragraph of this work from the point of view of the development of Tennis ideas reads:

“With Hobbes, some of his followers... sought support in the concept of the absolute sovereignty of the communal will. In the historical reality of that time, this corresponded to the phenomenon of an unlimited monarchy. Others, based on optimistic ideas about human nature, rejected even this new authority that eclipsed everything else; They did not consider the community itself necessary at all, believing that the highest possible happiness of humanity can be achieved in a pure society through a social state, that is, through equal, two-way relationships of individuals to each other that can be established and dissolved. The first successful representative of this idea was Locke. He won victory mainly thanks to his work in the field of the young science of political economy. The real basis of such views came in the form of liberal constitutionalism.”

This fundamental opposition between the two types of society was consistently carried out by Tönnies in a small work, “Community and Society,” written, like the article cited above, in 1881 and subtitled “The Theorem of the Philosophy of Culture.” This work subsequently brought Tennis world fame.

3. Community and society

Its main idea was to contrast the concepts of communal (gemeinschaftliche) relations and connections, on the one hand, and social (gesellschaftliche) on the other. Relationships of the first kind are rooted in emotions, affection, mental inclination and retain their own self-identity, both consciously due to following tradition, and unconsciously due to emotional ties and thanks to the unifying influence of a common language. “I distinguish,” Tennis later wrote, “the following types of social relations: 1) tribal relations.

Naturally, these are primarily considered to be the actual tribal or blood-tribal relations; 2) neighborhood relations, characterized by living together, characteristic of marriage and in the narrow sense of the word family life, but in the concept having a broader meaning; 3) friendships based on the consciousness of spiritual closeness or kinship, since such consciousness is postulated or formed the basis of any kind of life together; they acquire special social meaning when they are recognized as a common religious affiliation, as a “community”.

Relations of the second kind, or social relations, have a different character. Their principle and basis is rational exchange, the change of things in possession. These relations, therefore, have a material nature and are characterized by the very nature of the exchange by oppositely directed aspirations of the participants. These relationships are partly based on the communal type described above, but they can also exist between separated and alien individuals, even between enemies, thanks to the conscious decision of the individuals participating in them. Various types of groups, collectives, or even communities and states, considered as formal “persons,” can act as individuals in this kind of relationship. “The essence of all these relations and connections lies in the consciousness of utility or value which one person has, can have or will have for another and which that other discovers, perceives and realizes. Relations of this kind therefore have a rational structure."

These two types of relationships and connections - communal and public - characterize not only the relationships of people to each other, but also the relationship of a person to society. In a community, the social whole logically precedes the parts; in society, on the contrary, the social whole is made up of a collection of parts. The difference between community and society is the difference between the organic and mechanical connection of the parts that make up the social whole.

4. Two types of will

The foundation of these two types of organization of social life are two types of will, designated by Tönnies as - Wesenwille and Kurwille (originally Wilkuer). Wesenwille is the will of the essence, that is, in a sense, the will of the whole, which determines any, even the most insignificant aspect of social life. Kurwille means a different type of action of the integrating factor, a weakening of the social will, its division into many private sovereign wills, mechanically combined into the whole of social life.

The primary importance given by Tönnies to the concept of will has given the majority of researchers the basis to attribute his ideas to the psychological direction in sociology. This is hardly fair. Tennis understands will to a very small extent as a purely psychological factor. Although Tennis constantly writes that without will there is no human behavior, will in his concept is a very abstract concept, devoid of direct psychological meaning.

“Any spiritual activity,” Tönnies wrote, “being human, is marked by the participation of thinking, so I distinguish between will, since it contains thinking, and thinking, since it contains will.” Elsewhere, Tennis expresses himself even more clearly: “The will in its human quality is determined by the power of human thinking,” and the Latin epigraph from Spinoza, which Tennis prefaced to one of the sections of his main work, is “Voluntas atque intellectus unum et sunt” (“Will and reason are one and the same” (lat.)), allows us to clarify the origin, and therefore the rationalistic meaning of these ideas about the human will.

The rationalistic nature of Tennis's justification of sociology was also evident in his interpretation of the social behavior of individuals. Analyzing social behavior, Tennis used the typology introduced by Max Weber, according to which goal-rational, value-rational, affective and traditional forms of social behavior are distinguished. In the first of these forms, Tennis believed, Kurwille is realized, in the last three (only one of which assumes a psychological factor as a determining factor) - Wesenwille. The rational work of the mind is, therefore, a criterion for distinguishing between two types of will and the two types of social structure associated with them. Tennis's analysis of social behavior was based on an analysis of the relationship between means and ends, i.e., an analysis of rationality, while the nature of the social turned out to be determined through “self-awareness” by individuals of themselves and others as members of society.

Since Tennys actually (following Spinoza) identified will and reason, this meant that the impulse for joint social life, social interaction, “socialization” in Tennys (as well as the formation of the state in Hobbes) does not come from the tradition sanctified by the church, as the political one claims. the philosophy of reactionary romanticism (and not from God, as Hobbes’ opponents, the scholastics, argued), but from reason.

In the doctrine of the types of will of Tönnies, his opposition to historicizing romanticism and the desire for a rationalistic explanation of the nature of social life were clearly manifested.

It is no coincidence that Tennis gave his main work (in its first edition) the subtitle “The Theorem of the Philosophy of Culture.” The concepts of “community” and “society” developed in it became the first step towards the development of a formal, in a sense “geometrized” concept of sociology, which Tönnies himself called pure sociology (later in the works of historians of social thought it began to be considered as formal sociology, and he himself Tennis was considered the founder of the corresponding “school”).

In his historical and philosophical works, Tennis analyzed in detail the concepts developed by thinkers of the 17th century. ideas about the features and characteristics of social cognition. Thus, according to Hobbes, he wrote, pure, that is, a priori demonstrative science is possible: a) about mental things, abstract objects (geometry); b) about “political bodies,” i.e., about the principles of social institutions derived from human thinking, which cannot be perceived sensually, but “the type of which we construct.” Exactly the same principle formed the basis of Tennis’s own scientific teaching. Just as Hobbes and Spinoza were convinced of the limitless possibilities of knowledge mode geometrico, so Tönnies believed that a formal deduction of various forms of social life, unclouded by the interests and inclinations of individuals, as well as the self-interest and goals of groups and classes, would allow us to achieve universal and generally valid social knowledge. That is why the word “theorem” appeared in his work as an assertion of the rights of conceptual, constructive thinking as opposed to the growing trends of empiricism and irrationalism. The primary requirement of the method of rationalistic methodology was the requirement to objectify social phenomena in the sense of ensuring a logically rigorous study and achieving universally valid knowledge. The tools of objectification were abstraction, idealization, and the construction of ideal types. The resulting types were not absolutized, reality was not attributed to them; on the contrary, these types themselves - conceptual “measures” - were applied to the living reality of social life, opening up the possibility of its proper sociological study. The latter is especially important, because, emphasizing the impossibility of identifying constructed concepts and empirical reality, Tönnies sought to put sociology on a scientific footing and broke with the centuries-old tradition of arbitrary philosophical and historical speculation.

Abstractions thus became the beginning of sociology. It is clear that this approach was directed against the historical school and the subjective empiricism of the philosophy of life. It is also clear that the rehabilitation of rationalism of this kind should have led to the rehabilitation of the Enlightenment idea of natural law and, consequently, to ignoring history and development.

Tennis, however, managed to avoid this danger. The fact is that the initial idealization on which Tönnies based his sociology included not one (as, for example, in Hobbes, or Locke, or other Enlightenment thinkers), but two abstract concepts. The basis of Tönnies's sociological thinking is the principle of conceptual antinomy: just as any specific manifestation of social will is simultaneously a phenomenon of will and a phenomenon of reason, so any social formation simultaneously contains the features of both a community and a society.

Community and society thus became the main criterion for the classification of social forms. In general, Tennis sought to develop a detailed and orderly system of such criteria. Thus, social entities or forms of social life were divided into three types: (1) social relations, (2) groups, (3) corporations or associations. Social relations exist when they are not only felt or recognized as such by the individuals participating in them, but their necessity is also recognized, and to the extent that mutual rights and obligations of the participants arise from them. In other words, social relations are relationships that are objective in nature.

The set of social relationships between more than two participants constitutes a “social circle.” The social circle is a stage of transition from relationship to group. A group is formed when the association of individuals is consciously considered by them as necessary to achieve some goal. Further: any social form is called a corporation or association if it has an internal organization, that is, certain individuals perform certain functions in it, and their acts are acts of the corporation.

The division into relationships, groups and associations “crosses” with the classification of human relations according to the criterion of “dominance - partnership”. Only then the types obtained as a result of classification are divided according to the most general criterion into “community” and “public”.

In the same way, Tennis’s classification of social norms is complex, which are divided into: (1) norms of social order, (2) legal norms and (3) moral norms. The first is a set of norms of the most general order, based primarily on general agreement or convention. The norms of order are determined by the normative force of facts. Law, according to Tennis, is created from custom or through formal legislation. Morality is established by religion or public opinion. All of these normative norms, in turn, are divided into “community” and “public”. The differences between all types of norms are of an “ideal-typical” or analytical nature. In reality, they do not occur in their pure form. The normative systems of all social forms without exception turn out to be composed of a set of norms, order, law and morality.

Tennis's typology of social values is less complicated.

6. Formalism and historicism

All these detailed and branched typological constructions would be of an absolutely ahistorical and abstract nature, if not for the constantly carried out division into communal and social manifestations of literally each of the identified forms. The application of this principle to the analysis of specific social phenomena made it possible to capture and conceptually reflect the phenomena of historical development. This was the applied significance of the described classifications in general and the concepts of community and society in particular.

Tennis called the analysis of social phenomena from the point of view of their development applied sociology. Applied sociology is seen by some of Tönnies's followers as a "scientific philosophy of history". Tennis itself initially defined its goals much more modestly. “If pure sociology,” he wrote, “is limited to the comprehension and description of social entities in a state of rest, then applied sociology deals with dynamics, that is, considers them in motion.” Tennis's method of applied sociology is the principle of conceptual antinomy. The dialectical interaction of will and reason, which lies at the foundation of social relations, develops, according to Tönnies, towards the predominance of reason, that is, social development is a process of increasing rationality.

This determines the direction of social development: from community to society. “The formation of rationality,” writes Tönnies, “is the formation of a society that develops in harmony with the community as the original, or at least an older form of cohabitation, partly in flagrant contradiction with it.” From this point of view, Tennis analyzes, using significant factual material, the dynamics of the development of various kinds of social structures, explores the social problems of his contemporary society, thereby demonstrating examples of the implementation of his own prescription “to apply the method of reasoning underlying this approach to the analysis of any historical state, as well as the development social life as a whole, at least insofar as this development goes from communal to social forms and contents."

In this way, Tennis solves the main problem of his sociological work, posed by the very course of ideological development of the 19th century: the problem of synthesizing the positive aspects of educational and romantic trends. His sociology (pure plus applied) equally reflected the statics and dynamics of social life, the mechanical and organic structure of social “bodies,” as well as rational and historical approaches to the study of society.

In the sociology of Tennis, a step was taken from the socio-philosophical speculations characteristic of the previous period to the development of an objective, scientific sociology, alien to preconceived value positions, political attitudes, alien to the moralizing tendency inherent in the philosophy of history. Of course, the “scientific” nature of Tönnies sociology was oriented toward a very specific, namely, positivist image of science. Tennis considered the advantages of his sociological concept to be, firstly, objectivity, secondly, its inherent naturalistic tendency, and thirdly, its independence from value preconditions and practical social activity.

7. Sociology and politics

Freedom of science in its positivist understanding presupposed freedom from politics. The question of the relationship between sociology and politics in general was posed by Tönnies in an extremely broad manner: as a question about the relationship between social theory and social practice, or, in the language of some of the latest authors, knowledge and interest. Avoidance of value information is not, according to Tennis, a refusal to study social values; on the contrary, only a sociological, scientific, objective study of values can give politics a reliable basis and develop scientifically based forms of political activity. “It must be scientifically demonstrated,” writes Tennis, “what a person must do in order to achieve certain consequences. Such teachings are not included in the sciences. They are not science itself, but crafts and technologies.” Politics is precisely one of these crafts that uses the data obtained by the sciences. The difference between them is that science makes values the subjects of research, and politics the basis of activity. “From a scientific point of view, it is completely unimportant or even harmful to observe whether the achievement of any given goal is desirable. The practitioner proceeds precisely from desirability; he strives for this goal and wants to know, if it is at all possible to know with scientific certainty, by what means this goal can be achieved. As a researcher, he deals with cause and effect. A man of science knows, and that’s all. The practical man wants to act."

The thesis of the freedom of science from politics was also directed against the political philosophy of romanticism, which was consciously and purposefully oriented toward justifying the political actions of reactionary regimes in Europe.

But, separating science from politics, Tennis, however, did not at all set out to separate politics from science. He sought to “teach” politics, and did not want to build an impenetrable wall between these two types of activity. As is clear from the passage quoted above, Tönnies’s description of the cognitive positions of a scientist and a practical figure is in fact a description of two different cognitive attitudes practiced by the same person, who acts either as a politician or as a sociologist. This form of description is not accidental, and this description can easily be attributed to Tönnies himself, who, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, combined the features of a dispassionate scientist with the passion of a political constitutionalist, social reformist and democrat.

Tennis's practical activity as a politician, the directions he chose, the goals and means of social work really corresponded to the basic tenets of his sociological teaching.

The position of increasing rationality in the course of social development, formulated within the framework of applied sociology, naturally led to the need to fight for democratization, against class and feudal prejudices. Considering the enlightenment of the proletariat to be a stage that must follow the bourgeois enlightenment of the 17th-18th centuries, Tennis actively participated in the social democratic and labor movement, defended freedom of speech and the right to form trade unions, and took the side of the strikers during the famous Kiel strike of 1896-1897 .

8. Criticism of the Tennis system

Tennis's sociological activity lasted more than fifty years, and his theoretical constructions reflected the features of the social changes taking place in Germany at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

These changes were generated by the strengthening of capitalism in Germany, its transition to the imperialist stage of its development. If on the European continent this process occurred more slowly than in England, which made its bourgeois revolution back in the 17th century, then the process of social transformations was even slower in Germany, which until that time was a remote “province” of Europe. Territorial fragmentation, the absence of a strong statehood, the preservation of many feudal and class remnants - all this delayed the formation of German imperialism, which began to actively develop only in the 70s and 80s of the last century.

Based on the works of English and German ethnologists, lawyers and government scientists, Tennis recorded in the basic concepts of his sociology the main characteristic features of changes in the state-legal and value-normative spheres of society, characteristic of this transition period.

The real material basis of the changes was not revealed by Tennis: The reason for this was his idealistic understanding of the very nature of the social process. “It is the factor of thinking and, therefore, reason,” wrote Tennis, “that is the dynamic element of any cultural development, as well as the spiritual development of an individual person. This means,” Tennis continued, “that it increasingly determines the behavior and the very thinking of individual people... as well as individuals who make up groups and unions in their joint activities and common will.” This kind of interpretation of the nature of the social process naturally included the possibility of understanding the real socio-economic processes underlying historical changes. It should be noted that Tennis was well acquainted with the works of Marx devoted to the analysis of the capitalist mode of production. Moreover, his interest in Marxism was stable and constant. By his own admission, his interest in the problem of the “crisis of culture” was awakened in him not least by reading “the admirable work of Karl Marx” (meaning the first volume of Capital), although, as Tönnies adds, Marxism had no direct influence to develop his own ideas.

Indeed, not only the fundamental conclusions, but also the Marxist formulation of problems itself turned out to be alien to Tennis. In the article “Historical Materialism,” written for the International Trade Union Dictionary, he defined the essence of Marx’s teaching about society in the spirit of the abstract theory of factors: social reality is the interaction of the three most general factors - economics, politics, spirit; The development of each of these areas proceeds independently of each other, but economic life represents “relatively the most independent variable.” This kind of dogmatic division into factors and variables is alien to the spirit of Marxism, as is the abstract idea of “economic life.”

Tennis repeatedly contrasted the strict scholar Marx, the Marx of Capital with the Marx of the Communist Manifesto.

In the end, Tönnies came to assess Marxism as “certainly a false doctrine.”

The refusal to see material laws and the value-normative sphere of society in the foundation of social life significantly reduces the value of Tönnies’ sociological ideas.

Thus, it is for this reason that the source of the existence of communities and society as the main forms of human life together remains essentially unclear. Where, for example, does it come from and how is the communal will formed - Wesenwille, cementing and connecting individuals into the whole of their common life? How, under the dominance of private will - Kurwille - does the mechanical interaction of individuals result in some kind of social integrity? What is the general factor that establishes this integrity in each specific case?

Often both types of social relations are explained as products of the realization of individual mental aspirations - instinctive and rationally determined impulses. This interpretation, introduced by Wundt, distorts the meaning put into the concept of social will by Tönnies. Firstly, in this case, will and intellect are absolutely separated (Tennis’s rationalistic interpretation of will was discussed above); secondly, the will begins to be interpreted as a purely mental formation, the socio-political meaning of this concept (cf. the will of the people, the will of the voters), which plays almost the primary role in the Tennis system, is lost.

Marxism came to the conclusion that social will embodies the will of the dominant class in society, structuring and determining the structures and forms of specific manifestations of human interactions. Tennis, on the other hand, develops detailed definitions, gives detailed descriptions of community and society, but is unable to reveal the nature of will, that is, social power, the power of the social whole over an individual in each specific case. Both basic concepts of Tennis sociology remain postulated and not derived from an analysis of the reality of social life.

It was the lack of interest in reality, namely in the reality of interaction, conflicts, clashes of interests of social groups and classes that determined another of the shortcomings of Tennis's typology of societies - an inadequate characterization of the community. Social relations within the community are depicted by Tennis as relations of consent and mutual understanding, friendship, cooperation, emotional affection, etc. Tennis ignores all kinds of “negative” relationships in an emotional sense, as well as those that are conflicting in nature. He refuses to see elements of coercion in the community, R. Koenig rightly notes.

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Ferdinand Tennis(1855-1936) are considered as one of the founders and classics of German sociology. The very process of institutionalization of sociology in Germany was quite difficult and it did not have support from both government circles and university professors. Professional hostility to sociology was based not only on the theoretical and methodological differences between the traditional humanities (and above all philosophy and history), which consider it as the embodiment of positivism, but also on the fact that it was often associated with the socialist movement. Even with the creation of the German Sociological Society in 1909, led by Tönnies, the recognition and institutionalization of sociology in the scientific community was still quite far away.

The scope of F. Tennis's scientific interests was extensive and multifaceted. In addition to his activities related to writing theoretical works on sociology, he was engaged in conducting large-scale empirical studies using social statistics. He turned to the analysis of such problems as: crime, poverty, suicide, etc. Tennis was interested in the history of philosophy and social thought, and he wrote a number of works on Leibniz, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Spencer, Marx, etc.

Tönnies's main contribution to sociology is associated with the development of a system of theoretical concepts, which began with the publication of the book “Community and Society” (1887) - in the original “Gemeinschft und Gesellschft”. This work also formed the basis of his sociological concept. It has been reprinted and changed several times. Tönnies's ideas received their final form in his last work, “Introduction to Sociology” (1931). The sociological heritage of Tennis also includes the following works: “Morality” (1909), “Critique of Public Opinion” (1922), “Property” (1926), “Progress and Social Development” (1926).

His sociological concept represents a unique synthesis of rationalism, rooted in the Age of Enlightenment and the ideas of the historical school of law and national economics, which is characterized by recognition of the importance of traditional norms and principles of human coexistence. Tennis set out to link together the rationalistic and historical worldviews, to combine the advantages of the rational scientific method with a historical view of the social world. It was here that Tennis found the conceptual basis for his pair of antinomian concepts " community " And "society", determined the content of his sociological views.

Tönnies's idea of contrasting "community" relations and connections with "social" connections was the first step towards the development of a formal concept of sociology, which he himself called pure sociology. Subsequently, in works on the history of sociology, pure sociology began to be considered as formal sociology, and Tönnies as its founder.

Tennis tried to build sociology as an analytical discipline, which, according to his plan, should contribute to the study of the most general features of the social process, various forms of human society, as well as develop a system of general concepts necessary to describe and reveal the specifics of specific manifestations of social life.

Tennis proceeded from the fact that formal scientific deduction of various forms of social life, unrelated to the interests and goals of individuals and various groups, will make it possible to achieve the universal and generally significant in social cognition. His epistemological guidelines in this regard were aimed at asserting the primary role of conceptual thinking as opposed to the growing trends of empiricism and irrationalism.

The initial requirement of rationalistic methodology is the requirement of objectification of social phenomena, ensuring the logical rigor of the study, and hence the general validity of the cognition process. The mechanism of such objectification for Tennis was abstraction, the construction of ideal types, which for him were the dichotomous pair “community” and “society”. In general, we can say that the sociology of Tennis in its cognitive principles was guided by the positivist image of sociological science, since it sought to create a sociology that was alien to preconceived value positions and political attitudes, and also placed rational methods of cognition at the forefront.

Tennis considered all social phenomena as the result of interaction, which is based on volitional relationships. He divides the will itself into two types: organic (natural), where the will of the whole determines the entire spectrum of social life, and rational will, which presupposes the possibility of choice and a consciously set goal of behavior, which leads to a weakening of the general social will and its division into many private sovereign wills . This interpretation of the types of will and the resulting characteristics of social relations leads to certain analogies with the idea of organic and mechanical solidarity developed by E. Durkheim. However, here it is hardly appropriate to establish any scientific priorities, since both versions are largely a reflection of the concept of social development, expressed in terms of “traditional” and “industrial” society.

The social load carried by the concept of “will” in the sociological concept of Tönnies gave grounds for many researchers to attribute his ideas to the psychological direction in sociology. However, as L. Ionin rightly notes, “will is understood to a very small extent by Tennis as a purely psychological factor. Although Tennis constantly writes that without will there is no human behavior, will in his concept is a very abstract concept, devoid of direct psychological meaning.”

If we follow Tennis’s statements about will, then it rather appears for him as a direct component of the thinking process. “Will in its human quality,” he writes, “is determined by the power of human thinking.” That is, we can talk about the rationalistic meaning of his ideas about the will, and hence the fact that the level of rationality of the will was the basis for dividing social life into two types of relations:

- firstly, communal relations, where unity of will is determined by instinct, habit and memory, and on the basis of which kinship, neighborhood, friendship are formulated, and which are characterized by intimate, interpersonal connections based on emotions, affection and spiritual inclination;
- secondly, social relations, which are based on rational exchange and where the principle of “everyone for himself” operates and there is tension between people.

The essence of the latter connections and relationships lies in the consciousness of the utility or value that one person has for another and which this other discovers and realizes, that is, relationships of this kind have a purely rational structure. The prerequisite for the transition from communal to social ties is modern individualism. The modern society of equal egoistic rational individuals corresponds to the current political association - the state. In general, connections of the “community” type, according to Tennis, correspond to nationality and culture, and “society” corresponds to statehood and civilization, where the way people think is increasingly determined by science rather than religion.

As you can see, Tennis strives to formalize sociological knowledge, to find a certain universal system of characteristics that can be applied, abstracting from the substantive side of the subject under study, and applied to the analysis of the most diverse spheres of society. At the same time, in the concept of Tennis, the source (factors) of the existence of communities and society, presented by him as the main forms of joint human life, remains largely unclear. The nature of will, and in fact social power, on which he relies when distinguishing between “community” and “society”, which express the specifics of the social existence of people, remains simply postulated and is not derived from an analysis of real life.

One of the shortcomings of Tennis's typology of societies is also the inadequate characterization of the community. As already mentioned, social relations within the community are depicted by him as relations of consent and mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation. He simply excludes any negative aspects in this structure of relations and actually “paints” an idealized image that carries a certain ideological subtext, rooted in German romanticism. In this regard, despite Tönnies's objections, his conceptual scheme was used for a conservative critique of capitalism, and hence the establishment of the ideology of Nazism.

In sociology, information about F. Tönnies is sometimes limited to stating the dichotomy “community” and “society” he introduced, and some researchers classify him as a “classic of the second echelon.” As R. Shpakova writes in this regard, the last decade in German sociology has been marked by a persistent trend of active interest among sociologists in the ideological heritage of F. Tönnies. The activities of the Society in his name consistently receive support in scientific circles, and the number of publications directly or indirectly related to Tönnies’ theoretical concepts and his empirical work is growing. And the fact that not a single sociological congress of the last decade was complete without special reports on Tennis serves as strong confirmation of the new trend.

At the same time, there is a paradox here: on the one hand, the undeniable renaissance of Tennis, his ideas are compared and fit into modern processes, and on the other hand, he is still perceived as a fragment of the history of sociological knowledge, where his theoretical heritage is reduced to two categories: “ community” and “society” (“Gemeinschft und Gesellschft”). It is interesting that this conclusion was not denied even by F. Tennis himself. In a book called “Introduction to Sociology,” which brought together his main ideas, he wrote: “To this day, the concepts of community and society are accepted as my sociology.” I defined them as its basic concepts, and I still think so.”

In accordance with these categories, F. Tönnies pursued his main idea, which was that sociality is predominantly “communal” in the course of history, increasingly replaced by sociality that is predominantly “public.” Its central concepts appeared in a variety of “forms” and “types” with the help of which historical and modern sociological data could be classified and interpreted through comparison.

The problems that Tönnies tried to solve with his basic concepts were: what is the nature of human associations, through what processes change occurs and there are different types of human communities, etc. As already noted, in Tennis’s interpretation, associations (social communities) of people reflect various manifestations of two analytically identified distinct social connections: community and society. Moreover, community for him is synonymous with hearth, family, and traditional community. On the contrary, the society of Tennis is synonymously designated as “alien”, based on commerce and capitalist calculation.

As René König, one of Germany's leading contemporary sociologists, notes, “community” was the magic word that united the humanitarian elite. “All sociology,” he wrote, “was built around the concept of “community” and against the concept of “society.” Such an interpretation of the main categories, cultural and pessimistic ideas that flowed from the views of Tönnies, at one time gave an indirect reason for accusing him of being partial to the state ideology of National Socialism, although Tönnies himself saw tyranny in fascism, and his victory in 1933 then he openly called it “a victory of madness and limitation.”

Tönnies's sociological tools, the most important part of which he considered scientific concepts, laid claim to novelty and was considered by him as a methodological equivalent of M. Weber's ideal types. However, as researchers note, he could not effectively substantiate their epistemological functions and recognized the development of Weber’s ideal types as more successful and fruitful.

The growing interest in Tennis and his works today is caused by the spiritual atmosphere that is becoming decisive these days. The fact is that Tennis put “creative unity achievable by a common will” at the forefront of people’s social life. In this sense, the sociology that studies interaction is, according to Tönnies, “an integral part of general philosophical ethics,” and the central category of this sociology is the category of “consent.”

Although Tönnies viewed sociological science from an objectivist point of view, he saw in it a science that does not depend on value preconditions and practical social activity, nevertheless, he did not remain indifferent to political issues. Here he continued the line that was laid down by O. Comte - a line aimed at introducing scientific foundations into politics. In this sense, Tennis considered politics as a certain technology built on data obtained by science. Distinguishing between politics and science, he did not set out to simply separate politics from science, since he proceeded from the position that “unlike the man of science, the practical man wants to act.” As researchers of Tennis's work note, he combined the features of a dispassionate scientist with the passion of a constitutionalist politician, social reformer and democrat. He actively participated in the social democratic and labor movements, as well as in the education of the proletariat.

In his beliefs, Tennis proceeded from the fact that man, as a subject of social existence, is above “society and the state.” The ideal of personal development is closely connected with the concept of freedom. Moreover, freedom matures only gradually as a result of the complex and contradictory dynamics of social reorganization, in which “evolution under all circumstances is more beneficial than revolution.”

Tennis put forward a number of ideas that were further developed and implemented in Western sociology of the 20th century. This is, first of all, the desire to build sociology as an analytical science, which is reflected in the dichotomy “community” - “society”. Such an ideal typologization made it possible to attract and compare both historical and modern material on the widest range of human relations. He essentially gave a theoretical impetus to the study of social problems, which will subsequently be associated in sociology with the concept of “primary” and “secondary” groups.

Under the direct influence of his ideas, the formal sociology of G. Simmel took shape, which was then developed by L. von Wiese, A. Vierkandt and a number of other European and American researchers. Not without the influence of Tönnies, the concept of “rationality” and the typology of social action by M. Weber were formed.

Tennis's typology of social relations, in its various variants, is still used today by many representatives of the socio-humanities to explain the contradictions of historical development and the current state of social life.

Questions for self-control

1. What was the crisis of the methodological principles of classical positivism in sociology?
2. What is the main idea of V. Dilthey’s “understanding sociology”?
3. How does V. Dilthey interpret the concept of “life”?
4. What, according to V. Dilthey, is the understanding of “social phenomena” based on?
5. How did G. Rickert understand the difference between the concepts of “assessment” and “value”?
6. What, according to G. Rickert, is the main purpose of culture in the life of society?
7. How did F. Tennis define the subject of sociology?
8. What is the name of the main sociological work of F. Tönnies?
9. How did F. Tennis see the difference between community and public relations?
10. What are the shortcomings of Tennis's typology of societies?

History of sociology in Western Europe and the USA. M., 1999. P. 107.
See: Shpakova R.P. Ferdinand Tennis. “The Forgotten Sociologist” // Sociological Research. 1995. No. 12.

Alexander Stepanovich Antonov

Antonov Alexander Stepanovich (1888-1922). Participant of the Tambov uprising. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in the city of Kirsanov, Tambov province, studied in Tambov, at a real school, from where he was expelled for distributing revolutionary Socialist Revolutionary literature. After being expelled from a real school, he entered the Tambov car repair workshops as a carpenter's apprentice. At the age of 16 he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party and took part in expropriations during the revolution of 1905. He took part in the robbery of a mail car in which money was transported. Arrested and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor. He served his sentence in Tambov, Moscow and Vladimir Central. Released by the Provisional Government in 1917, he returned to Tambov. The first chief of the provincial police. During Soviet times, in 1918, he remained at his post, later the chief of police in Kirsanov, where he was transferred on his own initiative in March 1918. After the transfer to Kirsanov, he left the Socialist Revolutionary Party, created a partisan squad and opposed the Soviet regime. Chief of the main operational headquarters of the 2nd Insurgent Army of the United Partisan Army of the Tambov Territory. He died in an unequal battle with security officers together with his brother Dmitry in the village of Nizhny Shibryai, Borisoglebsk district on June 24, 1922.

Biographical information from the appendix to the book: Sennikov B. Tambov uprising 1918-1921 and de-peasantization of Russia 1929-1933 . Series "Library of Russian Studies". Issue 9. – M.: Posev, 2004.

A.S. Antonov is a student at the Tambov Real School.

Antonov Alexander Stepanovich (1889, Moscow - 1922, Nizhny Shibryay village, Tambov province) - leader of the peasant uprising in Tambov province. in 1920 - 1921. Antonov was the third child in a poor family of a retired sergeant major and a dressmaker. In the 90s The family moved to the town of Kirsanov, Tambov province. In 1905, Antonov was supposed to graduate from Kirsanovskoe Mountains. three-year school where they studied Russian. language, arithmetic with geometry and the law of God, but, being an intelligent person, for some reason he studied poorly and whether he completed the course is unknown. In 1905 - 1907 he became close to the Social Revolutionaries, participated in expropriations, and already in the beginning. 1908 wanted by the police. At the station Inzhavino seized the cash register, which became known to the authorities, and then came to Saratov, where he agreed to kill Lieutenant General A.G. Sandetsky, sentenced to death by the Social Revolutionaries for the brutal suppression of the peasants of the Volga region during the revolution. He informed the police about the impending assassination attempt. E.F. Azef , and in February 1909 Antonov was arrested. He appeared before the Provisional Military Court in Tambov and was sentenced to hang, but P.A. Stolypin replaced the death sentence with hard labor "without time". After two unsuccessful escape attempts, Antonov was sent to the Shlisselburg fortress in 1910. He was amnestied in March 1917 after the February Revolution, returned to Tambov and from April. started working ml. assistant to the head of the mountains. police, and then the head of the Kirsanovsky district police. With only a hundred police officers, he managed to significantly moderate crime on an area of 6 thousand square meters. km with 350 thousand inhabitants, disarm several echelons of the Czechoslovak expeditionary force heading east, for which Antonov was awarded a Mauser. The Communists tried to install Bolsheviks in leadership positions, getting rid of representatives of other parties. The security officers fabricated evidence of the impending counter-revolutionary rebellion of the Socialist Revolutionaries. In July 1918, while Antonov was away, his assistants were captured and shot. Having learned about what had happened, Antonov went to Samara, where he was going to fight the Bolsheviks in the People's Army of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), but the latter moved to Ufa, then to Yekaterinburg and was dispersed A. V. Kolchak . After 3 months of aimless walking around the civil war-ridden Volga region, Antonov secretly returned to Kirsanovsky district, but on the eve of his return, spontaneous peasant uprisings began, caused by the robbery of food detachments and the arbitrariness of local authorities. Local communists declared Antonov the leader of the rebels and sentenced him to death in absentia. At the end of 1918 - beginning. 1919 Antonov gathered a fighting squad, consisting of 10 - 15 people, and dealt with the communists who wanted to carry out the death sentence. Along with terror, he carried out expropriations and by the summer of 1919 Antonov had 150 well-trained and equipped people. Aug 21 peasants from Kamenka defeated the food detachment. They were supported by Antonov. Thus began the “Antonovschina”, - according to Antonov’s biographer, “the last peasant war in Russia.” By 1920, Antonov, having overcome partisanship, created about 20 rebel regiments, organized into two armies (about 50 thousand people). In the leaflet, Antonov wrote: “I dedicated my whole life to the fight against the usurpers of people’s power and will fight them to the end. Power was not torn from the hands of the tsarist executioners in order to transfer it into the hands of a handful of communist executioners. Power must be transferred people..." In Feb. The 1921 uprising reached its climax, but after the abolition of the surplus appropriation system, hated by the peasants, it began to decline. By the summer they began to take hostages and shoot them if the peasants did not hand over their weapons to the Antonovites. As always, in a civil war there were cruelties on both sides. To defeat Antonov, troops under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky . A big role in the defeat of Antonov belonged to V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko . By the summer of 1921 the uprising was liquidated. Antonov was tracked down by security officers and died in a shootout.

Book materials used: Shikman A.P. Figures of Russian history. Biographical reference book. Moscow, 1997

Literature:

Samoshkip V.V. Alexander Stepanovich Antonov // Questions of history. 1994. No. 2.

Sennikov B. Tambov uprising 1918-1921 and de-peasantization of Russia 1929-1933. Series "Library of Russian Studies". Issue 9. – M.: Posev, 2004. – 176 p. 22 ill. ISBN 5-85824-152-2

Personalities:

Averyanov P.E. (?-1921). Lieutenant of the Russian Army. Participant of World War I and the White movement in the South of Russia. Commander of the Semenovsky regiment of the United Partisan Army of the Tambov Territory. Since March 1921 - Chief of the Army Main Staff under Commander-in-Chief I.M. Kuznetsov. Died in July 1921

Agapkin Vasily Ivanovich (1884-1964). Author of the march "Farewell of the Slav" (Tambov, 1912). Headquarters trumpeter of the 7th Dragoon Tambov Regiment. Colonel. He served in the Soviet army, on November 7, 1941 he conducted the orchestra on Red Square during the parade. The march composed by Agapkin is the anthem of Tambov.

Antonov Alexander Stepanovich (1889-1919). Anarchist. Cheka employee, participant in the suppression of the Tambov uprising. Since 1905 - anarchist. He was brought to trial by the gendarmerie department in 1908 and sentenced to hard labor. Before the revolution, he was a teacher in the city of Syzran. In 1918-1919 - served in the district Cheka, killed by rebels in 1919. Buried in his homeland, in the village of Rzhaksa, Tambov province. The grave and monument have survived to this day. Often the biography of Antonov the anarchist is confused and mixed with the biography of an active participant in the Tambov uprising A.S. Antonov.

Antonov Dmitry Stepanovich(1893-1922). Participant of the Tambov uprising. Brother of Alexander Stepanovich.

Antonov (German) Mikhail Davydovich (1893-1944). From the philistines. He graduated from a four-year city school and is a printing worker by profession. Participant in World War I. In 1917 he led a detachment of the Red Army in Belarus. Member of the RSDLP(b) since 1917. In 1918-1921. - at work in the Cheka agencies in Petrograd and Smolensk, in special departments of the Red Army on the Southern and Western fronts. In 1921 - chairman of the Tambov provincial Cheka and GPU. Member of the Tambov provincial executive committee and the provincial committee of the RCP (b).

Belyaev Ya.F. (?-1921). Russian Army officer. Participant of World War I, the White movement in the South of Russia and the Tambov uprising. Commander of the Tambov partisan regiment of the 1st Insurgent Army. Died in 1921

Boguslavsky Alexander V. (?-1921). Colonel of the Russian Army, Knight of St. George. Participant of the Tambov uprising. Born into a landowner's family. In 1918, he served in the military commandant's office of Tambov, and later left the city, possibly in hiding due to his participation in the June anti-Soviet uprising. In November 1920 - June 1921 - commander of the 1st Insurgent Army, later chief of staff of the United Army of the Tambov Territory. Killed in battle in the summer of 1921.

Virta (Karelsky) Nikolai Evgenievich (1906-1976). Writer. A native of the village of Bolshaya Lazovka, Tambov province. He studied at the Tambov real school. Author of the novel "Loneliness" (1935) about the peasant uprising in the Tambov region, the novel "Evening Bells" (1951) and other works.

Gubarev Ivan Arkhipovich. Captain of the Russian Army. Member of the White movement in the South of Russia. During the Tambov uprising, chief of the main operational headquarters of the 1st Insurgent Army, later commander of the 1st Army.

Erofeev Vasily Trofimovich(1884-?), associate of Antonov.

Kolesnikov Ivan Sergeevich (? -1921). From the peasants of the Voronezh province. Participant in World War I, sergeant. He served and deserted from the Red Army. In 1920-1921 commander of a rebel detachment operating in the Voronezh province and Donbass. From January to July 1921 he acted in the ranks of the Tambov rebels. Commander of the Mounted Mobile Army of the rebels. Killed in battle in the summer of 1921.

Kuznetsov Ivan Makarovich. Captain of the Russian Army. Participant of World War I, the White movement in the South of Russia and the Tambov uprising. Commander of the Volche-Karachaevsky partisan regiment. After the death of the Commander-in-Chief of the United Partisan Army P.M. Tokmakov in March 1921 was nominated to the post of Commander-in-Chief.

Matarykin P.I. Don Cossack, cornet. Participant of the Tambov uprising. He made his way from the retreating units of the white armies to join the rebels with a detachment of Cossacks. Chief of Staff of the Rebel Mounted Mobile Army.

Mitrofanovich. Staff captain of the Russian army. Participant of the Tambov uprising. Commander of the 2nd Insurgent Army of the United Partisan Army of the Tambov Territory.

Pluzhnikov Grigory Naumovich (approx. 1887-1921). Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalist. One of the leaders of the Left SR STK. Born into a peasant family. Until 1909 he lived in the village of Kamenka, engaged in farming. In 1909 he was arrested with a group of fellow villagers for participating in agrarian terror. He served his sentence in Tambov prison and in Olonets province. One of the organizers of the peasant uprising in the villages of Kamenka and Khitrovo, Tambov district in August 1920. In the autumn of 1920 - summer of 1921 - the de facto leader of the provincial committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Union. In the summer of 1921 he died under unclear circumstances.

Selyansky V.F. (?-1921?). Sergeant. Commander of the Pakhotno-Ugolsky Regiment of the United Partisan Army of the Tambov Territory. Presumably died in 1921.

Tokmakov Petr Mikhailovich(?-1921), Commander-in-Chief of the United Partisan Army of the Tambov Territory.

Tyukov F.P. (?-1921?). Captain of the Russian Army. Participant of the Tambov uprising. Chief of Staff of the 1st Insurgent Army of the United Partisan Army of the Tambov Territory. Replaced I.A. in this post. Gubareva. Presumably died in 1921.

Shamov S.A.(?-1921?). Russian Army officer. Participant of World War I, the White movement in the South of Russia and the Tambov uprising. Commander of the Savalsky partisan regiment of the United Partisan Army of the Tambov Territory. Presumably died in 1921.

Shatrov Ilya Alexandrovich(1879-1952). Military conductor, major. Participant in the Russo-Japanese War. Author of the famous waltz "On the Hills of Manchuria" (1906). He was buried in Tambov, at the Holy Cross Cemetery.

Shendyapin(?-1921). Participant of the Tambov uprising. Descended from peasants. Commander of the Bityugovsky regiment. Head of the Tambov Partisan Republic. Commander of the Bityugsky partisan regiment of the United Partisan Army of the Tambov Territory. He died in battle in 1921 (he shot himself, not wanting to be captured after his horse was killed under him).

Ektov P.D. (?-1937). Staff captain of the Russian army. He came from Tambov peasants. Wartime officer. Worked at the headquarters of the 2nd rebel army. During the suppression of the uprising, he went over to the side of the Soviet regime. Shot in 1937 in Tambov.