The question of the social commitment of the sociologist, and the scientist in general, has become a burning issue facing the sociology of East and West alike, — though it may take different forms. (P. C. Ludz, “Sociology”, in C. D Kernig (ed.), Marxism, communism, and Western society (New York, 1973), vol. viii, p. 46.)
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References
1.
Note about transliterations: English transliterations of Russian names are used in the text (e.g., Leontief, Yaroschevsky). German transliterations have been retained in references and bibliography (e.g., Leontjew, Jaroševskij).
2.
Cf. Brožek, 1975, on European historiography of psychology, which covers a larger geographical terrain. Smith, 1973, and Young, 1966, also complement my subject, as they raise issues at the biological and philosophical ends of the spectrum of social scientific knowledge. They focus largely on the English language secondary literature, whereas I am concerned with the German literature and its translations into English. For psychology in East Germany, see Klix, 1978; in English, one may consult Kussmann and Brožek, 1972, although the emphasis there is on the Soviet Union. In previous essays I have tried to characterize dominant tendencies in North American and European historiography of psychology. The first essay (1980) was aimed toward teachers and students. I emphasized how to do critical historical thinking and writing. The second (1981) reported archival and library sources, and it suggested that European scholarship is more decentralized in institute publications than is the case with peer-reviewed journals in North America. The third article (1982) was a commentary on the use of history by social scientists in their teaching, drawn from an invited symposium by the Committee on Undergraduate Education of the History of Science Society. A fourth article (in press) sketched the philosophies of science peculiar to some exponents of German psychology. Finally, a collaborative project (Woodward and Ash, 1982) argued that European psychology had not come of age as a discipline in the nineteenth century, while the sequel (Ash and Woodward, in preparation) will demonstrate the professionalization and public diffusion of psychology in the twentieth century.
3.
I expect objections to my loose translation of this term. In my defence it seems fair to say that the term Geisteswissenschaft, with its taint of German idealism, has given way to the positivist-sounding Sozialwissenschaft in many quarters of the German-language area. While the older term included philology, comparative literature, and theology, I take the new term to have narrowed somewhat to include primarily history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology. The term ‘science of society’ (Gesellschaftswissenschaft) is preferred in East Germany, apparently because it connotes the integrative function of science. Cf. Ludz, 1973, and note the subtle distinction between societal (gesellschaftliche) control in the East (which includes the political factor) and social (soziale) control in the West (which makes little allowance for any inclusion of the political factor).
4.
Two examples of the province of Wissenschaftstheorie are the Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie (1969ff.) and the Enzyklopädie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie, i (1980ff.), ed. by MittelstrassJ. A spokesperson for theories of bourgeois society and the society-community distinction is RiedelM., “Gesellschaft, bürgerliche”, and “Gesellschaft, Gemeinschaft”, in Brunner, ii, 719–800, 801–62. In general, Brunner, Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, is the authoritative West German treatment of historical concepts from the point of view of Gesellschaftstheorie. For general philosophical background, see Bubner, 1981. In East Germany, the chief organ is the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, both for theory of science and theory of society.
5.
The recent founding of a European Society for the History of the Social Sciences promises to link the scattered institutions more closely. The first meeting occurred in Amsterdam in October 1982; the second, in Heidelberg in September 1983. Proceedings are available from the Secretary, van RappardJ., at the Free University of Amsterdam. The centres for history of psychology, as far as ‘archives’ and Seminars are concerned, are West Berlin, Heidelberg, Oldenburg, and Passau. Some centres for history of sociology and sociology of knowledge, respectively, are Cologne and Bielefeld. These will be discussed below. Constance also has a Sozialwissenschaftliches Archiv and an active programme of meetings. In the GDR, East Berlin is the centre for history of experimental psychology, Jena for the history of social psychology, and Leipzig for the history of psychophysiology. The centre for sociology and historical materialism is East Berlin. For GDR archives, see Staatliche Archivverwaltur.
6.
I mention this example chiefly because it is perhaps the most accessible, and therefore most familiar, example for non-German readers. See especially the summary of his system by McCarthyThomas A., 1976, and Habermas's own book on a “theory of communicative action” in 1981. An East German example of comparable eminence, which richly deserves translation, is Hermann Ley, 1966ff., who views history as an enlightenment toward atheism, yet shows remarkable sympathy for religious motifs in science. In a more familiar vein, see Mendelsohn, 1977.
7.
This point could be reformulated in terms of debates about ideology. An East German scholar, Martine Thorn, wrote an account of “ideology and epistemology” in Kant, in which she took exception to Theodor Adorno's interpretation of Kant as a too-narrow interpretation of crisis as ideology (1980, p. 194). For Adorno (1966, p. 32) the crisis is the existential fear of the philosopher about the rejection of traditional human knowledge and values; for her the crisis is the recognized impossibility of continuing in the traditional social relationships of feudal law, absolutism, and church. In both cases, ideology has shed its pejorative meaning in Marx's analysis of bourgeois consciousness; it has become the show-window of East and West German ‘critical theory’. From the West, see for example Lieber, 1977, reprinting classic essays on ideology by PlessnerH.TillichP., M. Horkheimer and others; see also DierseU., “Ideologie”, in Brunner, iii, 131–69. From the East, see E. Hahn's book on ideology and his earlier essay on Marxism and ideology (1964). “Ideologie”, in Philosophische Wörterbuch (1972), 504, recognizes two meanings: False consciousness, as designated by Marx and Engels, and social consciousness, as a collective term.
8.
This is a recurrent theme on FRG television. For the GDR, see Ludz, 1979. Critique of culture, and the women's view in particular, are superbly represented in the English-language Studies in GDR culture and society. The journal may be obtained from University Press of America or from the editor-in-chief, Margy Gerber, Dept of German and Russian, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403, USA. See ref. 80 below.
9.
The plight of the universities is a frequent editorial issue in Die Zeit and the Deutsche Universitäts-Zeitung.
10.
The uniqueness of the ‘German idea of history’ has been treated by Americans Krieger, 1957, Iggers, 1968, and Ringer, 1969. Each traces certain concessions on the part of the educated classes to the exigencies of political alignment. In 1980, the British historians Blackbourn and Eley published in German a controversial critique of this separate way (Sonderweg) position. Faulenbach, 1981, offered a German version. Jarausch is the most recent of this genre in 1982.
11.
GebhardtFruno (1858–1905) was a teacher at a Realschule, or vocational high school, who published this book in 1891–92. The second to seventh editions were edited by HirschF.MeisterA., and HoltzmannR., drawing successively closer to the university and its research. Herbert Grundman was the editor of the post-World War II eighth and ninth editions, comprising contributions of some fifteen historians in four volumes which have been republished in twenty-two paperback volumes.
12.
Dr Horst Gundlach stimulated my awareness of this issue. Lothar Gall and Dirk Blasius, in their article “Einheit” in Brunner, ii, 117–52, note a shift from a static to a dynamic concept of unity since the Middle Ages, with terms like ‘unification’ and ‘class unity’ coming to signify a chiliastic hope for political and social change ever since the Romantic Period. For the story of the price of unity in recent German history, see CraigGordon A., 1978. An historical atlas of this emerging geographical unity is KinderH. and HilgemannW., 1966.
13.
The method of this work is worth noting in the editor Koselleck's preface: “The actual plan, however, remains conceptual history, which analyzes linguistically the epochal change from the threshold to our own time”, iii, p. v. He also notes that their chief predecessor, the Grimm dictionary, relied on quotations from literary sources, whereas this work makes principal use of political and social sources.
14.
It is ironic that the three generations of founders of the Annales belonged in many cases to the European resistance movement against Germany, and that this is one reason for their acceptance in Germany since World War II. Some representative founders were Marc Bloch, the historian of rural France; Lucien Febvre, who wrote on the earth and human evolution; and Philippe Ariès, author of Centuries of childhood. Their concern with clarification of the vague and everyday aspects of history, and the avoidance of great men, great ideas, and great events, deeply affected the historical profession. See Le GoffJacques, 1978, and the review by DeutschR.
15.
Two rather hypercritical East German historians, for example, view the “imperialistic ruling class” of the Wilhelmian Second Reich in 1870–71 from the perspective of its suppression of the “working class movement”. See Seeber and Wolter, 1981. More good-natured by far is the five-volume catalogue of the Prussia-Exhibition in West Berlin. See Preussen — Versuch einer Bilanz, 1981, which is even available on cassette tapes.
16.
Several anthologies are in preparation by historians of medicine, psychologists, and sociologists of science. The public has been consuming this fare with avidity since the 1960s at least. An early film from the ‘new cinema’ was Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (The tin drum), directed by Volker Schlöndorff; the latest was the American film “Holocaust”.
17.
The Fries edition is of special interest to historians of science because of its critical introductions by GeldsetzerL. and KönigG. The editors situate Fries with respect to his philosophical context, drawing upon an extensive secondary literature. The final volume contains an introduction of over one-hundred pages, as well as the letters to and from Fries. Other valuable reference works by the same editors include bibliographies of the international periodical literature: HogrebeKamp, and König, 1972; Geldsetzer, 1985; Geldsetzer, in preparation. In the same series of the Philosophia Verlag is a catalogue of the unpublished papers of German-speaking philosophers; see Sass, 1974.
18.
A prominent philosopher and editor of the Hegel edition, PöggelerOtto, 1981, took critical aim at the glut of editions, remarking on their thirst for “not only the articles from the Bamburg Newspaper edited by Hegel, but the newspaper as a whole; not only what Hegel said to the Nurnberg high school students, but also the various ways in which these students wrote down Hegel's word in their notebooks (albeit pedagogically important)…”.
19.
As prospective general editor, experience has taught me that international German-German business relationships are more sought in East Germany than in West Germany. There are sound reasons on each side; for the West German, the bureaucratic management of business enterprise in the GDR is daunting; for the East German, the desire for FRG foreign currency is compelling. In addition to this is the mutual political regulation of information exchange and co-operative work; scholarly activity must be approved by the East German Ministry of Education and it must advance the cause of the State. The West German is likely to be impatient with this degree of official control. An American or other national has an easier time of it in that he or she is freer to travel and collaborate than a West German. Conversely, prominent East German scholars are increasingly seeking, and being granted, permission to accept travel fellowships and attend conventions abroad (but rarely in West Germany).
20.
Baumgartner and Sass, 1978, give a succinct comparison of post-war FRG and GDR philosophy.
21.
Oiserman, 1969–72, p. 114, citing DeweyJ., Philosophy and civilization (New York, 1963), 4.
22.
Métraux, 1980, and Fogt, 1981. For modern founders, see Pongratz, 1972, 1977.
23.
Lepenies, 1976, 1977. His anthology in 1981 nevertheless consists to an extraordinary extent of articles translated from the Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences.
24.
See Ash, 1980.
25.
Ash, in press.
26.
See Geuter, 1979. 1980a, 1980b, 1984.
27.
Klix, p. 51. Cf. Woodward, 1983.
28.
Malinowski, passim, and p. 118. The curricula and careers of students in psychology were recorded by Amelang and Tiedemann (1971, 1972), and by Amelang and Schröder (1979). Contrast their sympathetic attitude toward applied psychology with that of Irle (1979, p. 17), who writes of “a strong danger that the science of psychology will degenerate to the teaching of techniques of behaviour modifications [sic]”.
29.
Quotations are from Holzkamp, 1972, pp. 113, 119. Citation of Habermas, 1969, is on pp. 176–7.
30.
A leftist journal in which Holzkamp defended his views is Das Argument: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Socialwissenschaften, 1958ff. Cf. K. Holzkamp, 1974. The publisher, Argument-Verlag, specializes in historical books on work, women, culture, literature, ideology, environment, and health. These topics suggest an audience of students and young persons with sympathies toward ‘alternative life styles’ and the radical Green Party in politics.
31.
The critics soon began to outnumber the supporters. One group of former students published their critiques privately in a book called The break up by Holzkamp-KritikA.G. This was followed by a reworked edition by BuschT., 1979, called Toward a critique of critical psychology.
32.
Cf. Nolte and Staeuble, 1972. See also Jaeger and Staeuble, 1978, which examines historical uses of psychology in society of the eighteenth century. Finally, consult the pocket encyclopedia of the “Critical psychology” group, comprising some one hundred and twenty scholars, edited by RexiliusGrubitsch, 1981.
33.
MaibaumW., “Geschichte und Geschichtsbewusstsein in der DDR”, in Ludz, 1971, p. 196. Notwithstanding this ideological control of the social sciences, there are many avenues to insight about contemporary political and social life in the GDR, many of them offered by the GDR itself. Art and literature are a prime example of veridical (and critical) description of Alltagsleben (everyday life). At the Akademie der Wissenschaften in East Berlin, Manfred Bierwisch studies “current approaches to text linguistics in the GDR”. In the history department (Sektion Geschichte) at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Irene Runge has studied the elderly and Jewish life in the GDR. These and related articles may be forthcoming in the Studies (ref. 7).
34.
In West Germany, GDR research has been described by Ernst Lange, 1984; this book is not available through the book trade but may be ordered from the Gesamtdeutsches Institut, Bundesanstalt für gesamtdeutsche Aufgaben, Adenauerallee 10, D-5300 Bonn 1, FRG. At Cologne, Heinz Timmermann does comparative studies of East and West European communism at the Institut für ostwissenschaftliche Forschung. In West Berlin, Manfred Melzar has studied the GDR housing construction programme, among other economic topics, at the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung. Also at this institute is Jochen Bethkenhagen, who recently researched “the place of oil and gas in GDR-Soviet foreign trade”. At the Ruhr Universität Bochum, Dietmar Waterkamp is an expert on school and family life in the GDR. At the Freie Universität in West Berlin, Christian Meyer specializes in economic growth, Christiane Lemke does political socialization, Barbara Dooley studies marriage advertisements, Gero Neugebauer researches the military in GDR policy, Volker Gransow is responsible for popular culture, and Michael Engelhardt is concerned with literature — all GDR topics. At Wuppertal, Karl Eckart has published several books on changes in the agricultural structure and at Frankfurt and Mannheim universities, respectively Horst Dieter Schlosser and Manfred W. Hellmann study linguistic ‘forms of existence’ and ‘attitudes’ in newspaper texts. Finally, the Erlangen Universität has Rainer Hohlfeld in modernization theory in industrialized socialist societies and the Universität Bremen offers civilization-critique in mythology by Wolfgang Emmerich. Again, I am referring to papers delivered at the New Hampshire Symposium on the GDR, which are presumably forthcoming in the Studies (ref. 7).
35.
ThomasR., “Materialien zu einer Ideologiegeschichte der DDR”, in Ludz, 1971, pp. 47–65. Cf. Leiber and Bütow, “Ideology”, 1972.
36.
Kuhn, 1980, pp. 136, 147, 172.
37.
ibid., 147.
38.
ibid., 172.
39.
ibid., 174.
40.
Ludz, 1979, pp. 264–93. On boundary maintenance, see Kuklick, 1980.
41.
Fricke, 1968, i, p. v.
42.
Ludz, 1968/1972, p. 44. His use of Popper is discussed on pp. 23 and 57–58. Cf. Ludz, 1980. An American study may usefully be consulted: Baylis, 1974.
43.
von BeymeK., “Political science”, in Kernig, vi, 362–6.
44.
Albert, in Adorno, 1969/1980, pp. 193f.
45.
Habermas, 1981, ii, 584.
46.
Bübner, 1981, p. 128. See his valuable discussion of the positivism dispute and value issues on pp. 121 ff. I take the rhetorical question which ends the preceding paragraph from Bübner as well.
47.
KosingA., in Hörz, 1978, p. 748. Contrasting this official statement, however, are the welter of sociopolitical indices mentioned in ref. 32 above. In addition to the East and West German institutes and persons listed there, one may also consult institutes in other lands. In the USA, the Center for European Studies at Harvard University publishes the German studies newsletter, and the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies was recently founded at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Robert S. Leventhal edits the GDR bulletin, which may be obtained free by writing to him at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Campus Box 1104, Washington University, St Louis, MO 63130. Political scientist Anita M. Mallinckrodt is collating a bibliography and register of scholars doing English language researches on the GDR. She invites scholars to send her a name, academic address, discipline, research context (single-country GDR studies, GDR/FRG comparative, or GDR/East European comparative), research methodology (historical, empirical, functional — for instance), works published in the past five years (bibliographic citations), works pending (awaiting publication or in dissertation), and long-range planned research (a book about…). Her address is 2937 Macomb St NW, Washington, DC 20008.
48.
In Great Britain, the contact person is Gisela Shaw, Department of Modern Languages, Bristol Polytechnic, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol. In Holland at the Free University of Amsterdam, Gerd Labroisse has published widely on GDR literature. In Belgium at the Université de Liège, Anneli Hartmann studies the same. At the Université Statale di Torino in Italy, Anna Chiarlani researched “entgrenzen” or the fall of the frontiers in the GDR literature of the 1980s. Addresses of the above persons may be obtained from the Reverend Christoph Schmauch at the World Fellowship Center mentioned in ref. 81.
49.
Leontjew, 1975/1964/1959, p. 243.
50.
Ibid., p. 235. He cites MarxK. and EngelsF., Das Kapital, in Werke, xxiii (1962), 192.
51.
ibid., 236. He cites Marx, 1955, p. 132.
52.
Rubinstein, 1968/1958, p. 14; the German preface refers to this book as the “standard work of Soviet psychology”. Actually the first Marxist psychology test introduced was Kornilow, 1949. Cf. Klix, 1980, pp. 126, 198.
53.
Rubinstein, 1933, in Rubinstein, 1979.
54.
Leontjew, 1975/1964/1959, p. 223.
55.
Hiebsch and Vorwerg, 1975, p. 45.
56.
ibid., 32.
57.
Hiebsch and Vorwerg, 1976/1980, p. 35. Cf. Rubinstein, 1968, p. 240.
58.
See Klix, 1970; SchmidtH. D., 1980; Hiebsch and Vorwerg, 1976; and Sprung and Sprung, 1984.
59.
Holzkamp is an editor, however, of the prestigious Zeilschrift für Sozialpsychologie in Cologne. The recent pocket encyclopedia of psychology by Rexilius and Grubitzsch is evidence of a beginning presence of the Marxist viewpoint, albeit diverging from Holzkamp to a softer line.
60.
Jaroševskij, 1974/1975, has chapters on Lenin's analysis of the crisis in natural science, on Marxism and the development of psychological thought, and psychology in the period of ‘scientific and technological revolution’. In addition, he treats functional psychology, behaviourism, Gestalt psychology, Piaget, Lewin, and existential psychology.
61.
The original statement was Böhme, 1973, 1976, while the debate which ensued is well characterized in Schäfer, 1979.
62.
See especially Hübner
63.
Pfetsch, 1979, 1974. Cf. Schäfer, 1983.
64.
See Bayertz's introduction entitled “The concept and problem of scientific revolution”, 1981.
65.
See MittelstrassJ., “Historicism in recent philosophy of science”, in Bayertz, 1981.
66.
Jaroševskij is not alone; see the twenty-two other contributions to Mikulinskij, 1977.
67.
Laitko, “Thomas S. Kuhn und das Problem der Entstehung neuen Wissens”, in Bayertz, 1981; Laitko, “Der Begriff der wissenschaftlichen Schule: Theoretische und praktische Konsequenzen seiner Bestimmung”, in Mikulinskij, 1977.
68.
Wittich, in Bayertz, 1981, p. 158.
69.
Stegmüller, 1979, p. 4, “rationality gap”; p. 70, dichotomy; p. 161, “notion”.
70.
Stehr, in Stehr and Meja, p. 10, “close to the heart”; p. 13, “concerns”.
71.
Parthey and Schreiber, p. 304.
72.
Parthey, p. 19, on Mirsky; p. 30, on international comparative studies; pp. 37–38, on rank order correlation; pp. 38ff., on phase model; pp. 43–46, the questionnaire.
73.
Ludz, 1971, p. 396.
74.
Parthey, p. 30.
75.
SprungL. and SprungH., in Parthey and Schreiber, p. 198.
76.
My sources, accordingly, are philosophical rather than theological. See especially Peukert, 1978/1976; Albert, 1980/1968; and Mittelstrass, 1980. The latter has articles on Bloch, Bultmann, Erlangen School, and ethics.
77.
Cf. Schweitzer, 1951.
78.
Albert, 1980/1968, p. 186.
79.
Peukert, p. 211.
80.
See Kambartel, “Ethik und Mathematik”, in Kambartel and Mittelstrass, 1973, pp. 115–30.
81.
Cf. Ruben, 1978.
82.
Neither “theology” nor “religion” is found in the 1969 edition of Eichhorn's dictionary of sociology. The article on “sociology of religion”, pp. 386–7, tells us why. According to Marx, the church has historically been an instrument of the exploiting class. Marx's religion amounted to the categorical imperative to dissolve all relationships which dehumanize mankind. Religion must be studied in three respects by historical materialism: In its theoretical function as determined by universal historical laws; in the changing historical role of religion and church in our culture; and in its empirical facets in social life as concrete factual material.
83.
Büscher and Wensierski, 1984. For an English summary, see Wensierski, 1984. For insights on the peace movement, and for literary sources of Kulturkritik, see the above-mentioned (ref. 7) Studies in GDR culture and society, as well as the bibliography of GDR literature in English translation by Gerber and Pouget, 1984.
84.
MaconiV., in Caffarena, and “Religion”, in Kernig, vii (1973), 178–9. Continuing this social gospel tradition abroad are the joint efforts of the international scholarly community to further detente. One example of co-operative work is the New Hampshire Symposium on the GDR, hosted in mid-June for the past ten years by Reverend Christoph Schmauch at the World Fellowship Center, Conway, N.H. 03818. Schmauch is the son of a well-known Greifswald theologian who was active in the resistance movement. The Jewish community in the GDR is reported through the Nachrichten Blatt des Verbandes der Jüdischen Gemeinde in der DDR, ed. by ArisHelmut, Bautzenerstr. 20, 8060 Dresden. In West Germany, Peter Maser belongs to the Ostkirchen-Institut der Universität Münster and has a special interest in the “two peace movements” in West and East.
85.
Ley, 1978, p. 60, cited in Pester, 1983, p. 299.
86.
See the chapter by MeyerP. on “Max Webers Konzeption der puritanischen Ethik und seine Bedeutung fur die Analyse des bürgerlichen Revolutionszklus”, in Hoyer, 1980.
87.
Gurjewitsch, 1978, p. 305.
88.
SchiewekI., 1983, p. 193.
89.
DunnS. P. and DunnE., in Kernig, vii (1973), 190–1.
90.
Marx-Engels Werke, iii, 405.
91.
Pester, 1980, p. 1064. Cf. Ley, iii/i, 1978, p. 267.
92.
Mocek, 1980, p. 17, “in what senses”; p. 226, “the socialist society”; p. 243, “perceived and presented”; p. 292, value neutral sciences; p. 310, contra Marcuse.
93.
Klohr, in Hörz, p. 919.
94.
WeischedelW. lays out the theological positions of the classical philosophers. The school of speculative theology which formed around the Zeitschrift für Philosophie und spekulative Theologie actually encouraged such scientific writers as Fechner and Lotze; it is well treated in the reprint of ErdmannJ. E., 1969/1866. The rich social context of religious movements which sought to reconcile science and faith can be found in the reprint of Schnabel's classic four volumes, 1959/1929f.
95.
The quotation is from Löw, p. 302, whose rehabilitation of the teleological aspects of Kant's opus posthumum has stopped short of tracing the connection to subsequent theories of value. One major effort in the field of reinstating philosophy of action was Riedel. 1972–1974. On Fries, see especially the editors' introduction to vol. i. On Lotze, see chap. I of WilleyT., 1979.
96.
Wollgast, in Hörz, pp. 655–9.
97.
Gerlach, p. 213.
98.
Most prominent is Apel's introduction of PeirceC. S. into German thought, 1967/1975, 1973/1981.
