User:Caitmcn/sandbox

DJR Comments and Suggestions

--Djjr (talk) 17:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC): sent some references from Sociological Abstracts -- do search on Geiger's name and some of articles may be available electronically through easy links....
--Djjr (talk) 06:50, 17 November 2011 (UTC)Good solid stuff. Let's now think about how to translate into "encyclopedia-prose" (that is, how to go from bullet lists to running prose).

My Project is on Theodor Geiger

Notes

Trappe, Paul. 1968. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol#6, Geiger, Theodor. p. 83-85. The Macmillan Company & the Free Press.

• (1891-1952)
• german born
• mainly interested in social theory, methodology, social stratification and mobility, sociology of law, and ideology.
• early critic of nazism
• son of gym teacher in Munich
• studied law at University of Munich and received doctorate at Würzburg
• fought in WWI
• until 1932 was a member of the german social democratic party
• worked as tutor translator and writer
• fluent in all Scandinavian languages and Finnish
• Moved to Berlin in 1920
• worked on publication of periodical: Die Fremde Presse
• taught at volkshochschule Gross-Berlin and became a principal but left in 1928 to hold chair of sociology at Brunswick Institute of Technology
• emigrated to Denmark in 1933
• studies in copenhagen were supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.
• In 1938 he became sociology professor at Aarhus
• escaped to Sweden in 1943 to escape German Occupation
• returned to Aarhus in 1945, after being inspired by the jurists and social scientists of the Uppsala school, and founded 1st Institute of sociological research in Scandanavia.
• founded series of publications: "Nordiske studier i socologi"
• did several large scale empirical research studies on stratification and mobility
• one founder of international sociological association
• worked with D. Glass to have 1st international working conference on social stratification and social mobility
• 1951 went to University of Toronto as a visiting professor and died suddenly on return voyage.
• Geiger refined Tönnies' Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
• two articles about interest in secondary groups in modern society:""Die Gruppe und die Kategorian Geimeinschaft and Gesellschaft""(1927), ""Die Legende von der Massengesellschaft""(1951).
• Geiger outlined his sociological theory in his work: ""Die Gestalten der Gesellung""(1928)
• In 1930's he wrote ""Sociologi""(1939) which was for several decades an important textbook.
• In 1920's geiger was one of few European social scientists doing actual empirical research
• wrote several empirical articles on employees (1933a), self employed (1933b), and problems of adult education.
• geiger developed his own empirical methods that he used in studies of Danish intellectuals and changes in Aarhus social stratification.
• He published several articles in 1948 and 1949 about his theoretical considerations of methodology
• He originally agreed with Marxist view that German society had simple, explicit class structure.
• Was influenced by American sociology and his own empirical data and diverged from this conception of Marx and wrote Klassesamfundeti stobegryden (Class society and the melting pot, 1948).
• Developed a complex model of stratification and typology of social straitification published in Wörterbuch der Soziologie (1955).
• His interest in sociology of law was intensified by his contact with the Uppsala School.
• Linked Sociology of law with analysis of ideology, focusing on juristic concepts( norms, sources of law, consciousness of law).
• Interested in civil order and its nature and he looked at it in terms of habit, custom, usage, law, constituting theory of social control
• His work, Vorstudien (1947) is among the most important contributions to the Sociology of Law.
• Ideology to Geiger is "a concept in the theory of knowledge," or "atheoretical taken theoretically."
• Led to this by Uppsala school and Hägerström who he criticized along with Karl Mannheim.
• Value nihilism allows for value judgements but does not allow them to become theories.
• In his last work, ""Demokratie ohne Dogma"" published after his death in 1960, he calls for "intellectual humanism", "enlightenment of the masses," "democratization of reason," "asceticism of emotion," and "abstinence from value judgement."
• He considered this last work to be his greatest political contribution.

Mayntz, Renate. 1969. The Heritage of Sociology, Theodor Geiger on Social Order and Mass Society. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago Press.

• grew up in Bavaria
• dad was gym professor
• always had talent for Scandanavian languages
• was wounded in Russia during WWI
• received his doctorate in law
• his first major publication was about the legal position and social aspects of "illegitimate" children
• During these years, he identified as a social democrat
• Although Geiger did subscribe to some socialist thought, he was never an orthodox marxist
• In Berlin in 1920 he worked as a journalist of adult education and for The National Bureau of Statistics
• Period when he taught at Institute of adult education was when he really started publishing and became a real sociologist
• went to Denmark in 1933 to escape Nazis
• During his Rockefeller sponsorship he worked at the Institute of History and economics and gave lectures at the University of Copenhagen
• When he left Denmark during occupation he found refuge in Odense with his parents.

(pg 1)

• He was still being watched by police for his political beliefs so he left to Sweden in 1943 where he was eventually joined by his wife and children
• For the next two years he lived in Stockholm where he taught, simultaneously in Lund and Uppsala
• At this Uppsala school of philosophy he started to think about value philosophy and ideology
• after the war he returned to Aarhus
• started a publication series with Scandanavian collegues that eventually developed into a journal "Acta Sociologica"

(pg 2)

• advocated unity of methodology of all empirical sciences
• he saw no necessary difference between laws and method of natural sciences and social sciences
• sociology can only be a scientific discipline if it establishes this consistent methodology (rejection of the idiographic approach)- look up.
• sociology should not study isolated instances but rather patterns.
• this requires the use of the general
• Geiger stressed importance of supporting inductive research with empirical data.
• However, he also contends that many laws can only be provided in a probabilistic way
• saw importance of theory in analysis of empirical evidence

(pg 3)

• concepts are not to be derived from observation and experience alone but must be supported by them
• Geiger was very concerned with Value Freedom, or the difference between value and fact, and the belief that Science cannot be valid when making value judgements

(pg 4)

• Geiger's earlier years were characterized by commitment to social issues like justice, equality, and rights of the underprivileged, hence his membership in the social democratic party, however his later years were more focused on values of truth and rationality and facts.
• In Geiger's adult education, which was at the time largely a school for the working class, he took the opportunity to focus on social and political consequences of adult education, in addition to mere political aspects.
• He found it critical that the adult education promote critical thinking and intellectualism rather than just the widely accepted national culture as it pertains to academics and otherwise.
• he took a reformative approach to improving the adult education institutions.

(pg 5)

• The way in which Geiger dealt with education also mirrors his shift from social justice priorities to a purely Scientific approach.
• He studied education as a sociological concept and Scientific discipline.
• In his later years came his extreme emphasis on education in context of intellectualism and value free thought.
• Although Geiger was concerned with ensuring the validity of social Science, he believed that research questions can be legitimate when determined by the Scientist's subjective values as long as the research is carried out objectively.

(6)

• Geiger's shift to systematic and analytical sociology occurred during his time in Berlin in the 1920's
• His books: Die Gruppe und die Kategorien Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1927) und Die Gestaltender Gesellung (1928), demonstrate this shift.
• Geiger noted in these works the fact that social phenomena are not single isolated things but rather processes. He saw sociology in terms of analysis of processes.

(7)

• Geiger argues that Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are not a dichotomy of real types but of ideal types that refer to degrees of social organization that are present in some quantity in all groups.
• Class society, stratification and mobility:
• His interest first sparked in 1920's

(8)

• initially accepted Marxist definition of class but quickly developed his own theories on the subject
• In his 1930 publication about it: (On the theory of the class concept and the Proletarian class), he distinguished his view from the Marxist concept that class structure was entirely determined by ownership of the means of production.
• Geiger argued that Marxist ideology of class was a decent generalization but that it was also a "type concept" and didn't describe all reality only a partial view. He believed society to be dynamic, so although Marx was right, there are other causes and types of stratification other than what marx explains.
• Geiger saw the classes of society as undergoing stages, with estate society, preceding the class conflict of Geiger's present, and a new stage to come in which society will form both distinct and elaborate social groups

(9)

• Geiger made the distinction between subjective and objective forms of social class analysis including objective social status, and subjective class consciousness.
• Geiger thought that with the development of class into new stages, the middle class would disintegrate in the direction towards a two class society.
• Geiger did an empirical study of social stratification in Germany in which he classified the population into five groups, more complex than capitalists and proletariat, the determine the objective economic criteria of class limitations to the potential span of a given class mentality.

(10)

• He distinguishes "old" middle class of farmers, artisans,and merchants from "new" middle class of well trained professionals.
• geiger believed that the middle class was more susceptible to new extremist ideologies like Nazism because they have a defensive and vulnerable position due to their lack of secure class identity.
• Geiger saw the new salary earning middle class as an evolution of sorts of the proletarian class.
• He elaborated on these ideas in (Class Society in the Melting Pot) after WWII with the firm belief that while Marxism was correctly applicable to the beginning of capitalist society, modern industrial society is more complex
• In many ways, Geiger defended Marxism but he also concurred with arguments that many predictions made by Marxist class theory were not carried out.

(11)

• Geiger sees emergence of new means of stratification and the consequent outdatedness of traditional Marxism.
• He acknowledges income as one new criterion of stratification.
• Discusses possibility of creation of managerial ruling class
• He did an empirical study of social stratification and mobility in Aarhus based on 40,000 men in 1949, their occupations, father's occupations, and where available; father in law's occupations. The analysis he did on the empirical data yielded by this study was widely acclaimed in the field of mobility

(12)

• Instead of looking at the individual relationships for evidence in his analysis, he paid attention to group fluctuations that affect large scale changes in size and social rank of groups.
• Instead of looking at vertical mobility, he looked at mobility between generations, throughout eighteen occupational categories.
• The study was done carefully and objectively.He took all factors and variables into account to ensure validity.

(13)

• Geiger analyzed the result of a decrease in mobility over time to reflect a period of increasing stability following a period of stratification type transition. and that democratization has led to a decrease in the desire for upward mobility. Geiger's subjective choice to analyze the data this way reflects his shift away from his previously discussed disctinctly dichotomized class structure
• Ideology, rationalization and modern mass society:

(14)

• after giving lectures in Sweden in 1943 on intelligentsia at Uppsala, went back to Denmark and conducted empirical study on the origins and structure of Danish Intelligentsia based on the Danish Dictionary of Biography
• Geiger's definition of intelligentsia: "Those who create the objects of representative culture." The word objects is not to be taken purely in a literal sense.
• Geiger saw intelligentsia as a functional term distinct from intellectual which refers to a person that conceives of immaterial concepts and importance but who does not necessarily function to create.

(15)

• intelligentsia's production is dependent of the society type and position within society.
• one of intelligentsia's functions is to be critical of current and potential power structures within society due to their possible oppression of the group's ability to create. However the intelligentsia should not be confused as a revolutionary force.
• Their functional role is to destroy ideologies, not to create them.

(16)

• This points to Geiger's theory of ideology: That to claim objective truth from a creation of the imagination is an ideology and is invalid.
• One criticism of this theory of legitimate intelligentsia functions is that the legitimate functions place limits on the power of the intelligentsia to make value judgements outside of premises set by the status quo, disabling them to set social goals, leaving all ability to do so then still in the hands of arbitrary power systems.

(17)

• Geiger's theory was formulated in contrary response to Mannheim's concept of the intelligentsia political leaders.
• Geiger explains that intelligentsia fall across a spectrum of political investment and activity, with a natural Scientist on the end of indifference and a social Scientist on the side of complete investment.
• The intelligentsia do not belong to any one social class neither objective or subjectively.

(18)

• Further, he categorizes them into four social classes of gentry, bourgeois, proletarian, and democratic

(19)

• Value Nihilism: Geiger's advocacy for illegitimacy of social norms made by moral claims
• Here he stands in opposition to structural-functionalists.

(21)

• geiger's theory of ideology has a methodological basis.

(125)

• A Value-judgement is an ideological statement because it disguises a value as a statement of fact, claiming to be valid and objective.
• Definition of ideology: A statement is ideological if it has or is presented to have an apparent meaning, claiming to be theoretical and factual while maintaining elements that are not theoretical, objective, or empirically supported and/or valid.

(143)

Hughes, John. 2001. "Geiger's Sociology." Growth and Change Book Reviews. Retrieved November 4, 2011

• published more than 160 works, but only a few have been translated to English.
• Geiger's analysis of norms is unconventional

Agersnap, Torben. 2000. "Theodor Geiger: Pioneer of Sociology in Denmark." Acta Sociologica #43. Retrieved November 4, 2011.

• was honored with full professorship in 1938, a competitive position for the first full-time sociology professor in Denmark
• After he was wounded, he spent the rest of the war in military administration
• published his book on illegitimate children in 1920
• This same year he move to Berlin and worked as journalist and translator at the National Bureau of Statistics
• Here, he translated Scandinavian ethnographies and newspapers
• Also beginning in 1920, he was a teacher at the Berlin "labor college," Volkshochschule.In 1924 he became the director of this college.
• He left in 1928 to hold the a chair as Professor of Sociology at Technical University in

Braunschweig

• In 1932, he wrote an analysis of the classes in Germany
• He had to leave here and escape to copenhagen in 1933 because the Nazi's didn't like his involvement in The Social Democratic Party and his academic work.
• Next, Geiger lectured in Danish at the University of Copenhagen. While he was here, he wrote the first textbook of Sociology to be written in Danish (published 1939). In this textbook, he emphasized the importance of methodology and the understanding of processes in sociology.
• He eventually earned a Rockefeller research fellowship that he worked under until he was awarded his full professorship at the University of Aarhus in 1938.
• During his professorship in the early 1940's, he wrote two books, one: a sociological analysis of business competition forms (1941), and two: a critique of business advertising textbook ideologies (1943).
• felt that Marxist 2-class model was an accurate description of earliest forms of capitalism but that modern developments did not fulfill Marx's predictions of polarization of classes and intensified class conflict.
• geiger argued that stratification was no longer simply caused by ownership of capital. income, political power, and education became new means of strata.
• geiger's 1945 census study on empirical data for stratification and mobility analysis was conducted through the general census of Aarhus by adding a question about father's occupation and father in law's occupation
• The main result of the data: upward mobility decreasing over the years. Geiger attributed to the democratization of Denmark in the 1930's and 40's as an economic leveling device making people more content with their position in society.
• When the German troops came to Denmark, Geiger took his wife, Eline, and their small son to her parent's home in Odense.
• Later, Geiger went to Stockholm and then brought his now pregnant wife and son.
• Here, Geiger came into contact with the Uppsala legal realists including Ha¨gerstro¨m, Lundstedt, Olivecrona and Alf Ross
• Geiger wrote the book Debat med Uppsala (1946), after returning to Aarhus and after his contact to Uppsala.
• In 1947 he published his major work on Sociology of Law
• Geiger took the intention of the Uppsala school but wrote about his disagreement with many of their ideas, including that norms are ideas and thus, unreal.
• Axel Ha¨gerstro¨m was concerned with keeping values out of law and this was the part geiger agreed with.
• In Sociology of Law, geiger corrected that a norm is a real observable phenomenon and therefor cannot be seen as "unreal"
• Geiger also took the opportunity in this work to differentiate between the different types of norms and how some may be more real than others
• The professor in Philosophy at the University of Aarhus, Svend Ranulf, wrote a textbook about Social Science methodology that focused on arguing against certain social scientists' methodologies and he in particular argued against Geiger.
• It may be important to note that Ranulf was also an applicant for the Professorship position that geiger earned in 1938 and Ranulf may have been bitter about this.
• Ranulf alluded in his book that the methodologies of Geiger and other Scientists, if followed could lead to a new Nazi movement.
• In 1946 Geiger wrote and published a short book, "Ranulf Contra Geiger, an Attack and an Offensive Defense". In this book, geiger outlined very carefully what his methodologies were. He emphasized that Empirical sociology is built on concepts but is a quantitative study of social processes and phenomenon.
• He validated Ranulf's point that data should be collected in a way that avoids biases but he defended that concepts must come prior to the collection of data and although concepts may need revision after data collection is through, collecting data without a conceptual foundation to begin with is not logical.
• Ranulf was against qualitative data and interpretation
• Geiger argued that these were okay for analysis as long as the researcher has a value-free approach
• He admits in a later article that the selection of concepts for a topic of research always includes value judgements but that this is okay as long as the researcher keeps these values out of the data, collection of data, and analysis of the data.
• Geiger wrote about the Intelligentsia in society and their functions, origin and position while he was in Sweden in 1944. It was published in 1949.
• he conducted an empirical study of Intelligentsia using the Danish Biographical Encyclopedia to study the group over a 400 years span.
• Geiger saw the Intelligentsia as those that make culture through their material and immaterial creations. Intellectuals may participate in the cultural activities at hand but are not intelligentsia if they are not actively creating.
• Their functions include: fueling progression, creating works of art and knowledge that serve to make life spiritual, creating applicable science with the purpose of making life rational, and criticizing power.
• Geiger saw their function of criticism to destroy ideologies of the powerful, not to create ideologies of their own but he explains that although this is not of their functional nature, they indeed do create ideologies. He thought the intelligentsia should create art or works of imagination presented as art, and empirically backs scientific theories, but not a combination of these in the form of ideology.
• Ideology and Truth (1953) is a collection of Geiger's ideas about Ideology complied from several of his articles. Published posthumously.
• His last work, about modern mass society was also published afer his death in 1960 and again in 1963.
• In this work, he criticized the view that mass society is the problem in modern society.
• he thought that mass society was a narrow, biased view of modern society. he explained this using primary groups and "second order units."
• A primary group is small and tight knit and every member has a unique individual relationship with each and every other member.
• Then on the other end, there are social units, held together by bonds of order (ex. class, business organization, ect.) It is an organization built on relationships, but on depersonalized ones, where affections if present, are felt not for other members, but for a common cause. This has been seen as a problem of modern cultural development. Geiger advocates to acknowledge it as a fact
• Was a founder of the research Institute for Social Science (Insitut for Samfundsforskning) at the University of Aarhus in the faculty of Economics.
• The International Sociological Foundation was founded in Amsterdam after WWII in a response to the incompetence of the pre-existing one in Rome. Geiger was a founder and member of its first executive board.
• In London, Geiger and David Glass formed a subcommittee on social stratification and mobility and together they started a comparative study of international mobility and stratification.
• Geiger was very active in the interdisciplinary and interfaculty discussions at Aarhus, and participated in the foundation of the interdisciplinary Scandinavian summer University, which was very influential for Danish Sociology in the 1950's
• in collaboration with Heikki Waris (Finland), Sverre Holm (Norway) and Torgny Segerstedt (Sweden), he founded the journal Acta Sociologica, Scandinavian Journal of Sociology.
• Before the contracts with the publisher of Acta Sociologica were signed, Geiger passed away. The first issue was dedicated to him.
• geiger's contributions to methodology, class structures, law, and the intelligentsia are scholarly accomplishments of lasting importance in the field of sociology.

Crowds and Pathos: Theodor Geiger on Revolutionary Action - Borch 49 (1): 5 - Acta Sociologica

• earned his doctorate in law in 1919
• Not many of Geiger's works are translated into English
• One reason that Geiger's work may be unappreciated is that he didn't really fall under any established paradigms and didn't fully establish one of his own.
• But Borch argues that his contributions were great and many and his work is still relevant.
• Geiger's early work, Die Masse und ihre Aktion. Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie der Revolutionen from 1926 [The Crowd and Its Action. A Contribution to the Sociology of Revolutions] is about crowds and mass phenomena.
• Geiger took a sociological approach to looking a crowds, while those before him took a mainly psychological approach.
• geiger analyzes crowds by looking at them as a social group, in terms of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
• Geiger saw Gemeinschaft as the mental attachment that occurs between members of a group. In other words, it refers to the group mentality of the individual. Geiger states that this is only possible with Gesellschaft, the aspect of the attachment of order. Geiger's take on these two terms is his own revision of Tönnies' work (1963), in which Geiger revises them from Tönnies' concept of stages to instead, concepts of closely related ideas.
• In Geiger's study of crowds, for him the word comes to mean specifically revoluntionary crowds, because he finds the concept of crowds and revolution to be intertwined.

External Links

1. International Sociological Association
2. Biography In German
3. Bibliography In German (I don't think anything in German is really going to help me much).

To Do

Bold=done

1. Read International Sociological Association External Link
2. "Fill in the blanks"
3. Fill in missing info noted in above section
4. Take notes on Geiger Heritage of Sociology book provided by Dan Ryan
5. Use abstracts to find sources
6. Formulate new and improved outline/organization/sections for the article
7. fill in methodology and soc. of law sections
8. add to intro paragraph
9. add in text citations to facts already in article

DJR: Sounds like good analysis and a perfect plan.

Article

Theodor Julius Geiger (9 November 1891 in Munich, Germany - 16 June 1952) was a German socialist, lawyer and sociologist who was interested in social stratification, the sociology of law, and methodology, among other things. He was Denmark's first professor of sociology working at the University of Åarhus.

Life

Geiger grew up in Landshut, Bavaria, showing an interest in Scandinavia and a talent in Scandinavian languages from an early age.. The son of a gymnasium teacher, Geiger studied law and political science, first at the University of Munich from 1910 - 1912, then at the University of Würzburg from 1912 - 1914 where he received his doctorate in law.

In 1914 Geiger voluntarily joined the army ; he served until 1918 and was wounded. Simultaneously he wrote a dissertation on the supervision of criminals, Die Schutzaufsicht, supported by Friedrich Oetker. In 1918 he became a Doctor of Laws.

In 1920 Geiger became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the same year he also became an assistant at the Statistischer Reichsamt, the statistics office, in Munich, working in the trade statistics department between 1924 and 1933. His home, however, was in Berlin, where he published the magazine Fremde Presse (Foreign Press), with news on the Reich ministry for the army from 1920 - 1929. At the same time he edited the information magazine of the newly-founded Berlin Volkshochschule (adult education centre) where he had begun to work as a teacher.

Geiger taught at "Volkshochschule" during a time when the institution was largely for the basic academic and cultural education of working class adults. Here he took the opportunity to focus on the social and political consequences of adult education by promoting critical thinking and intellectualism in his students [1]. He eventually became principal but left in 1928 to hold the chair of Sociology at Brunswick Institute of Technology.

Geiger originally joined the Brunswick University of Technology (Braunschweig) in 1924, progressing from being a visiting lecturer, to an associate professor, and finally becoming a full professor of sociology in 1929; this was the first professorship of the department for cultural studies. Geiger's work is still kept at the "Theodor Geiger Archive" at the university. He worked there until 1933, when, due to his anti-Nazi beliefs, he had to immigrate to Denmark; here he lived until 1943, even taking on Danish nationality. In the 1939, he wrote ""Sociologi,"" which was for several decades an important textbook.

In Denmark Geiger began by gaining a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation through the Instituttet for Historie og Samfundskonomie in Copenhagen; later he gave lectures at the University of Copenhagen. From 1938 - 1940 he was professor of sociology at the University of Århus -- Denmark's first ever professor of sociology . When German troops entered the city in 1940 he was forced to leave, escaping to Odense where he lived with his parents-in-law for the next couple of years. In 1943 he fled once again to Sweden where he stayed for 3 years. Here he gave lectures at the Universities of Stockholm, Uppsala and Lund. When the war ended in 1945, Geiger immediately returned to Århus, taking up his position as professor of sociology once more. His first step was to found the university institute for research into societies, the first institute of its kind in Scandinavia.

From 1948 to 1952, Geiger published the series Nordiske Studier i Sociologie (Nordic Studies on Sociology) along with Torgny Torgnysson Segerstedt, Veli Verkko and Johan Vogt. In 1949 he was a co-founder of the International Sociological Association.

On 16 June 1952, Geiger died on the return trip from Canada to Denmark on board the "Waterman" ship.

Work

Geiger is considered the founder of the concept of social stratification, using the concept of stratification (introduced by Edward Ross) for the analysis of social structures.

According to this view, society is divided into an indefinite number of social levels or groups, defined according to attributes such as profession, education, upbringing, living standard, power, dress, religion, race, political opinion and organisation. This idea is closely connected to that of social mobility and the criteria for an industrial society.

At least in Germany, he is also seen as an important contributor to the sociology of law, by publishing, in 1947, his "Vorstudien zu einer Soziologie des Rechts" (preliminary studies for a sociology of law).

Geiger also worked on the fundamental concepts of sociology, working class education, industrial organisation, class structure, mobility, the origin and functions of the intelligentsia, critics of ideology, and the nature of modern mass-society and democracy . He also spent time studying the nature of revolutionary crowds.

Geiger analysed the institutionalisation of the class struggle, which he called democratisation, and he considered it interconnected with corporativism.

Geiger published more than 160 works, but only a few have been translated to English thus far. The Danish body of Geiger's work has been translated (commented version) to German by Gert J. Fode of the University of Aarhus, edited by Prof. Klaus Rodax (University of Erfurt, Germany).

Methodology

Geiger made many significant contributions to methodology of the social sciences.

Seeing no necessary difference between the laws and methods of the natural sciences and those of the social sciences, he advocated for unity of the methodologies of all the empirical sciences. Geiger believed that Sociology can only be a true scientific discipline if it establishes this consistent methodology and a rejection of the idiographic approach. Further, Sociology should not study isolated instances, but rather patterns. This requires the use of the general versus the specific.

Geiger stressed the importance of supporting inductive research with empirical data but also the importance of theory in the analysis of empirical evidence. He believed that concepts are not to be derived from observation and experience alone but must be supported by them.

The professor in Philosophy at the University of Aarhus, Svend Ranulf, at the time of Geiger's professorship there in Sociology, wrote a textbook about social science methodology , making arguments against some social scientists' methodologies. In particular, he argued against Geiger. Ranulf had been an applicant for the professorship position that geiger was awarded in 1938. Ranulf alluded in his textbook that the methodologies of some sociologists, among them Theodor Geiger, could lead to a new Nazi movement. In 1946 Geiger wrote and published a short book, "Ranulf Contra Geiger, an Attack and an Offensive Defense". In this book, geiger outlined very carefully what his methodologies were, emphasizing that empirical sociology is built on concepts but is a quantitative study of social processes and phenomena. He validated one point made by Ranulf, that data should be collected in a non-biased way but he also defended that concepts come prior to data collection in research, and although such concepts may need revision after collection of data is through, any data collection without a conceptual foundation is illogical. In response to Ranulf's opposition to qualitative data and interpretation, Geiger argued that these were okay for analysis as long as the researcher maintained a value-free approach.

Geiger published several articles in 1948 and 1949 about his theoretical considerations of methodology.

Thought

Social Stratification and Mobility

I will put in my edits here as you asked. All my edits will be in parenthesis and signed with "a.i." - Izbski

Social Stratification and Social mobility were included amoung Geiger's main interests and within these subfields, he made several contributions to sociology. His interest in social stratification began in the 1920's when he initially accepted the Marxist definition of class. However, Geiger quickly developed his own definition of class and several theories on the subject. In his 1930 publication (On the Theory of the Class Concept and the Proletarian Class), he distinguished his view from the Marxist concept that class structure is entirely determined by ownership of the means of production. Geiger argued that the Marxist ideology of class was a decent generalization but that it was also a "type concept" and described only a partial view of reality. Further, he felt that the Marxist Two-class model was an accurate description of the earliest forms of capitalism but that modern developments did not fulfill Marx's predictions of the polarization of classes and intensified class conflict. He believed society to be dynamic, so although he agreed with Marx, he believed that there are other causes and types of stratification other than those of the narrow Marxist definition and concept. Instead, he looked at the classes of society in terms of stages, with estate society preceding the class conflict of Geiger's present, and a new stage to come in which society will form into distinct, specific social groups. He also acknowledged income, level of education, and political power as new factors for stratification. Geiger developed a complex model and typology of social straitification, which was published in Wörterbuch der Soziologie (1955). In many ways, Geiger defended Marxism but he also agreed with arguments that many predictions made by Marxist class theory were not carried out.

In 1932, Geiger wrote an analysis of the classes in Germany. The analysis was based on an empirical study of social stratification. In his analysis of the data, he classified the population into five groups, more complex than capitalists and proletariat as used by Marx, to determine the objective economic criteria of class. Here, he made the distinction between objective and subjective forms of social class analysis including objective social status and subjective class consciousness, respectively. He distinguishes the "old" middle class of farmers, artisans, and merchants from the "new" middle class of well trained professionals. Geiger saw the new salary-earning middle class as a sort of evolution of the proletarian class. He also believed that the middle class was more susceptible to new extremist ideologies like Nazism because it has a defensive and vulnerable position due to its lack of secure class identity. He elaborated on these ideas about the middle class in Klassesamfundeti Stobegryden (Class Society in the Melting Pot), after World War II. In London, Geiger and David Glass formed a subcommittee on social stratification and mobility and together they started a comparative study of international mobility and stratification.

In 1949, Geiger did an empirical study of social stratification in Aarhus. The study was conducted through the general census of Aarhus, by adding a question about father's occupation and father-in-law's occupation, in addition to asking the subject's own occupation. The participants included over 40,000 men. The study was done carefully and objectively. He took all factors and variables into account to ensure validity. Instead of looking at individual relationships for evidence in his analysis, he paid attention to group fluctuations that affected large scale changes in size and social rank of groups and instead of looking at vertical mobility, he looked at mobility between generations, throughout eighteen occupational categories. The main result of the data was a decrease in social mobility over time. In Geiger's analysis, he took these findings to reflect a period of increasing stability following a period of stratification type transition. He attributed this to the democratization of Denmark in the 1930's and 1940's that he claims led to a decrease in the need and desire for upward mobility.

Ideology and Value-free thought

Ideology to Geiger is "a concept in the theory of knowledge," or "the atheoretical taken theoretically." His actual definition of ideology was: A statement that has or is presented to have an apparent meaning, claiming to be theoretical and factual while maintaining elements that are not theoretical, objective, or empirically supported and/or valid. His theory of ideology, resting on a methodological basis, was: "That to claim objective truth from a creation of the imagination is an ideology and is invalid". Geiger was very concerned with Value Freedom, or the difference between value and fact, and the belief that Science cannot be valid when making Value-judgements. A Value-judgement is an ideological statement because it disguises a value as a statement of fact, claiming to be valid and objective. Geiger was led to these beliefs by the Uppsala school and Hägerstrom.

Geiger's Value Nihilism refers to his advocacy for the illegitimacy of social norms made by moral claims. Here, he stands in opposition to structural-functionalism. Value nihilism allows for value-judgements but does not allow them to become theories.

In his last work, ""Demokratie ohne Dogma"" published after his death in 1960, Geiger calls for "intellectual humanism", "enlightenment of the masses," "democratization of reason," "asceticism of emotion," and "abstinence from value judgement." He considered this last work to be his greatest political contribution.

Intelligentsia

Theodor Geiger's definition of intelligentsia is "Those who create the objects of representative culture." In this context, the word "objects" is not to be taken purely in a literal sense. Geiger saw intelligentsia as a functional term, distinct from intellectual which refers to a person that conceives of immaterial concepts and importance but who does not necessarily function to create. According to Geiger, the functions of the intelligentsia include: fueling progression, creating works of art and knowledge that serve to make life spiritual, creating applicable science with the purpose of making life rational, and criticizing power. This last function: criticism of power refers to being critical of any current or potential power structures within society, based on their possible oppression of the group's ability to create. However, they should not be confused as a revolutionary force. His theory was formulated in contrary response to Mannheim's concept of the intelligentsia as political leaders. Geiger saw the intelligentsia's function of criticism as the responsibility to destroy ideologies of the powerful, not to create ideologies of their own. But while this is not their function, according to Geiger, he acknowledges that they do it anyway. He thought that the intelligentsia should create works of art or imagination, and that they should separately support Scientific theories with empirical evidence, but that they should not combine imagination with theory in the form of ideology. The intelligentsia, as a group, do not belong to any one social class, neither objectively or subjectively speaking. In fact, Geiger categorizes them into four social classes: gentry, bourgeois, proletarian, and democratic.

After giving lectures in Sweden at Uppsala school on Intelligentsia in 1943, Geiger wrote about their position in society, their functions and their origin in 1944.This work was published in 1949. Shortly after, he returned to Denmark where he conducted an empirical study on the origins and structure of Danish Intelligentsia, based on the Danish Biographical Encyclopedia, enabling him to study the group over a four hundred year span.

Publications

• 1919 Die Schutzaufsicht. Breslau (then Germany): Schletter.
• 1920 Das uneheliche Kind und seine Mutter im Recht des neuen Staates: Ein Versuch auf der Basis kritischer Rechtsvergleichung. Munich: Schweitzer.
• 1926 Die Masse und ihre Aktion: Ein Beitrag zur Sozio-logie der Revolutionen. Stuttgart (Germany): Enke.
• 1927 Die Gruppe und die Kategorien Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und So zialpolitik 58:338–374.
• 1928 Die Gestalten der Gesellung. Karlsruhe (Germany): Braun.
• (1931a) 1959 Fiihrung. Pages 136-141 in Handwbrterbuch der Soziologie. New ed. Stuttgart (Germany):Enke.
• (1931b) 1959 Gemeinschaft. Pages 173-180 in Handworterbuch der Soziologie. New ed. Stuttgart (Ger many): Enke.
• (1931c) 1959 Gesellschaft. Pages 201-211 in Handwbrterbuch der Soziologie. New ed. Stuttgart (Germany):Enke.
• (1931d) 1959 Revolution. Pages 511-518 in Handwbrterbuch der Soziologie. New ed. Stuttgart (Germany):Enke.
• (1931e) 1959 Soziologie. Pages 568-578 in Handwbrterbuch der Soziologie. New ed. Stuttgart (Germany):Enke.
• 1932 Die soziale Schichtung des deutschen Volkes: Soziographischer Versuch auf statistischer Grundlage. Stuttgart (Germany): Enke.
• 1933a Soziale Gliederung der deutschen Arbeitnehmer. Archiv fixr Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 68:151–188.
• 1933b Statistische Analyse der wirtschaftlich Selbstandigen. Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 69:407–439.
• 1934 Erbpflege: Grundlagen, Planung, Grenzen. Stuttgart (Germany): Enke.
• 1935 Samfund og arvelighed: En sociologisk unders0gelse. Copenhagen: Martin.
• 1939 Sociologi: Grundrids og hovedproblemer. Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag.
• 1941 Konkurrence: En sociologisk analyse. Aarhus, Universitet, Acta jutlandica, Aarsskrift, Vol. 13, no. 2. Aarhus (Denmark): Universitets Forlaget.
• 1943 Kritik af reklamen. Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag.
• (1944) 1949 Aufgaben und Stellung der Intelligenz in der Gesellschaft. Stuttgart (Germany): Enke. → First published as Intelligensen.
• 1946a Debat med Uppsala om moral og ret. Copenhagen:Munksgaard.
• 1946b Ranulf contra Geiger: Et angreb og et offensivt forsvar. Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag.
• (1947) 1964 Vorstudien zu einer Soziologie des Rechts. Aarhus, Universitet, Acta jutlandica, Aarsskrift, Vol. 19, no. 1. Neuwied (Germany): Luchterhand.
• (1948) 1949 Die Klassengesellschaft in Schmelztiegel. Cologne (Germany): Kiepenheuer. →First published in Danish.
• 1949 Den Danske intelligens fra reformationen til nuti-den: En studie i empirisk kultursociologi. Aarhus, Universitet, Acta jutlandica, Aarsskrift, Vol. 21, no. 1. Aarhus (Denmark): Universitets Forlaget.
• 1951α Die Legende von der Massengesellschaft. Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 39:305–323.
• 1951b Soziale Umschichtungen in einer dänischen Mittel-stadt. Aarhus, Universitet, Acta jutlandica, Aarsskrift, Vol. 23, no. 1. Aarhus (Denmark): Universitets For laget.
• 1952 Fortidens moral og fremtidens. Copenhagen: Reitzel.
• 1953 Ideologie und Wahrheit: Eine soziologische Kritik des Denkens. Stuttgart (Germany) and Vienna: Humboldt. → Published posthumously.
• 1954α Intelligenz. Volume 5, pages 302-304 in Hand-wbrterbuch der Sozialwissenschaften. Stuttgart (Ger many): Fischer. → Published posthumously.
• 1954b Ideologie. Volume 5, pages 179-184 in Handwbrt-erbuch der Sozialwissenschaften. Stuttgart (Germany): Fischer. → Published posthumously.
• (1955) 1962 Theorie der sozialen Schichtung. Pages 186-205 in Theodor Geiger, Arbeiten zur Soziologie: Methode, moderne Grossgesellschaft, Rechtssoziologie, ldeo-logiekritik. Neuwied (Germany): Luchterhand. → Published posthumously. Originally appeared in the Worterbuch der Soziologie, edited by W. Bernsdorf and F. Bülow.
• (1960) 1963 Demokratie ohne Dogma: Die Gesellschaft zwischen Pathos und Niichternheit. Munich: Szczesny. → First published posthumously as Die Gesellschaft zwischen Pathos und Niichternheit.
• Arbeiten zur Soziologie: Methode, moderne Grossgesell schaft, Rechtssoziologie, Ideologiekritik. Neuwied (Germany): Luchterhand, 1962.

External links

International Sociological Association Biography in German Bibliography in German

Notes from Izbski

What section would you like me to look over?

answer: I have added everything after the work section so anything in there would be helpful. I don't know if there is any section in particular i want advise for but the soc. stratification section is probably my biggest contribution so i guess you could look there. Thanks.