Ferdinand Tonnies
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Tönnies, Ferdinand
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences | 1968
COPYRIGHT 2008 Thomson Gale.
Tönnies, Ferdinand
System of sociology
Applied sociology
Contributions and influence
WORKS BY TÖNNIES
SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ferdinand Tönnies (1855-1936), German sociologist, spent his childhood on a prosperous farm in Schleswig-Holstein and, after his father’s retirement, in the town of Husum. In 1872 Tonnies enrolled with patriotic enthusiasm at the University of Strassburg, but making use of the German student’s freedom to move, he transferred successively to the universities of Jena, Bonn, Leipzig, and Tubingen, where he finally received his doctorate in classical philology in 1877. Even then his interests had shifted to political philosophy and social problems. His father’s means, which later made it possible for him to devote his time to private scholarship, later enabled him to pursue postdoctoral studies. Tonnies went to the University of Berlin and to London, beginning his Hobbesian studies and Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. In 1881 a draft of the latter served as his Habilitationsschrift when Tonnies became a Privatdozent for philosophy at the University of Kiel. He made but little use of the venia legendi (license to lecture). Relatively unencumbered by academic duties, Tönnies contributed extensively not only to professional journals but to political periodicals as well, commenting on the important problems of his time and often taking sides on political issues. Despite his detachment from the university, he was appointed to a chair for economics and statistics in 1913, from which post he retired in 1916. He had lived outside Kiel during most of his academic life, but in 1921 he moved into the city and resumed teaching as professor emeritus in the field of sociology.