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Geistes-, sozial- und kulturwissenschaftlicher Anzeiger ‒ Zeitschrift der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 160. Jahrgang (2025)
Das Naturverständnis und -verhältnis in der Geschichte der Soziologie
Nummer:
160
Jahrgang:
2025
1. Auflage, 2025
In welchem Verhältnis stehen die Bedingungen der Möglichkeit von Gesellschaft, soziales Handeln, soziale Ordnungsleistung und sozialer Wandel zu Naturprozessen? Seit ihrer Entstehung ringt die Soziologie mit der Frage, was „Natur“ und was „Gesellschaft“ ausmacht und ob beide Sphären als getrennt oder untrennbar zu denken sind. Die Diskussionen halten bis heute an. Verkompliziert wird jede Verhältnisbestimmung dadurch, dass nicht von vornherein ausgemacht ist, was überhaupt „Gesellschaft“ und was eigentlich „Natur“ sei. Gleichwohl war der Naturbezug für die Herausbildung und das Selbstverständnis der Soziologie prägend. Bereits Auguste Comte arbeitete mit den aus der Biologie stammenden Begriffen „Milieu“, „Organismus“ und „Leben“, um gesellschaftliche Prozesse zu beschreiben. Die Organismus-Metapher erwies sich dabei als ein nicht nur für die Soziologie, sondern auch für benachbarte Sozialwissenschaften wirkmächtiges Bild, mit dem Gesellschaft analog zu Naturprozessen begriffen und beschrieben wurde. Ähnlich verhielt es sich mit dem Konzept der „Evolution“, das durch die Rezeption Darwins prominent wurde, während vitalistische Ansätze die Lebenskraft im Sozialen betonten. Zugleich ist jeder Bezug zu „Natur“ immer schon sozio-kulturell vermittelt. Damit ergibt sich bis heute die Grundsatzfrage, ob die Soziologie eher den Kulturwissenschaften zuzurechnen oder an den Naturwissenschaften zu orientieren sei.
Das von Stephan Moebius herausgegebene Schwerpunktheft beleuchtet den historischen Wandel des Naturverständnisses und -verhältnisses in der Soziologie – von naturalistischen, materialistischen, vitalistischen, pragmatistischen, kultur-, wissens- und geosoziologischen Konzepten bis hin zu Ansätzen, die den Natur-Kultur-Dualismus zu überwinden suchen. Die ökologische Krise verleiht diesen Perspektiven neue Dringlichkeit, wenn sowohl die Handlungsmacht der Natur als auch der Raubbau an ihr in den Fokus rücken.
Mit Beiträgen von Stephan Moebius, Martin Hauff, Markus Schroer, Alexander Wierzock, Heike Delitz, Alexander Bogner und Paul Buntfuß.
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Das Naturverständnis und -verhältnis in der Geschichte der Soziologie. Einführung in das Thema
The article examines how the concept of “nature” has been understood and contested throughout the history of sociology, showing that the discipline’s approach to nature has evolved through multiple distinct discursive strands. Employing a historical perspective commencing in the 19th century, the article identifies a typology of sociological positions in connection with the nature–society/culture relationship. These range from early nature-reductive theories – such as positivist or organicist approaches that likened society to a biological organism or sought natural laws of the social order – to materialist-dialectical frameworks that foregrounded material conditions and a dynamic dialectical interplay between humans, the social, and the natural environments. Other strands include the social-morphological and body-centered perspectives of Durkheim and his followers, which integrated environmental factors and physicality into analyses of social order, as well as vitalist approaches influenced by life philosophy (e. g., Nietzsche, Bergson, and Simmel) that emphasized life forces in social processes. In the mid-20th century, integrative positions (exemplified by philosophical anthropology, US-American pragmatism, and actor-network theory) attempted to bridge or reconfigure the nature–culture divide, acknowledging both natural foundations and the emergent autonomy of culture. Finally, knowledge-sociological (reflexive) perspectives problematize “nature” as a socio-historically mediated concept, arguing that what counts as “nature” is always shaped by cultural discourse and power. Through this broad survey, the article historicizes and examines critically sociology’s shifting relationship with “nature”, highlighting how debates over the nature–culture distinction have shaped the discipline’s theoretical development and identity.
Schlagworte: organicist sociology, materialism, pragmatism, sociology of knowledge approach
Seite 5 - 64 | doi: https://doi.org/10.1553/anzeiger160-1s5
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Die Gesellschaft als Organismus? Über die Anfänge und Probleme der Soziologie im Austausch mit der Biologie
When sociology was founded as an independent discipline in the mid-19th century, it was under pressure to justify itself. The early sociologists oriented themselves towards biology, not only to benefit from the success of an empirically descriptive science but also because they identified structural and functional similarities between society and the biological organism. This article aims to reconstruct historically and systematically the specific areas in which early sociology was inspired by biology and the problems it encountered as a result. In biology itself, there was a dispute about what exactly should be understood as an organism and how holism and teleology, development and evolution, thermodynamics and functional relationships should be conceptualized. From the outset, working on these problems also drove a change in sociological theory. The work of Albert Schäffle and Othmar Spann will be discussed in particular. In this way, it can be shown in terms of the history of ideas that there are conceptual differences in how the (social) organism was perceived in 1870 and the perception of the same in 1920.
Schlagworte: history of sociology, concept of society, social organism, Albert Schäffle, Othmar Spann
Martin Hauff
Seite 65 - 92 | doi: https://doi.org/10.1553/anzeiger160-1s65
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Erde, Boden, Tier und Mensch. Anfänge einer mehr als menschlichen (Geo-)Soziologie
This article aims to show from a geo-sociological perspective that early sociology was still intensively concerned with the natural foundations of society. The consideration of nonhuman living beings is by no means an isolated case, so that in the early days of sociology, approaches to a ‘more than human sociology’ can be identified, which, although only explicitly demanded and with attempts made to develop it in recent years, certainly has its precursors. However, in the course of the establishment and institutionalization of sociology as an independent discipline with an exclusive subject area, the discussion of geological and geographical aspects, as well as the consideration of non-human beings, has increasingly fallen out of the sociological focus in favor of a one-sided concentration on purely human interactions and societies consisting solely of humans. The post-humanist, neo-materialist, and neo-vitalist approaches of our time have set themselves the goal of correcting this onesided
theoretical perspective on the social by no longer focusing exclusively on human actors but rather on the material structure and diversity of living beings as a whole, of which humans are only a part. This article aims to recall the prehistory of today's efforts to develop a more than human sociology and, using a few concrete examples, to show that there have already been numerous approaches and endeavors in the past to understand society neither as a purely abstract construct without spatial anchoring nor as a purely human affair.
Schlagworte: geo-sociology, more than human society, Geography, soil, human–animal studies
Markus Schroer
Seite 93 - 112 | doi: https://doi.org/10.1553/anzeiger160-1s93
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Inseln schaffen. Zum Naturverhältnis von Ferdinand Tönnies
Ferdinand Tönnies developed a nuanced understanding of nature – as both a theoretical category and a lived environment. His 1925 refusal to collaborate on Richard Thurnwald’s interdisciplinary journal Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Soziologie revealed Tönnies’ insistence on a clear boundary between sociology and fields such as biology. While opposing a “sociology of animals” (Tiersoziologie), he still recognized that human social life is biologically embedded, not only in cultural institutions and demographic patterns but also in nature itself. Beyond theory, Tönnies cultivated a deep personal connection to the natural world. He was a committed walker, participating in academic hiking circles and repeatedly withdrawing to peripheral landscapes – most notably North Sea islands like Sylt and Föhr – to read, write, and reflect. His admiration for the natural rhythms of these spaces informed his lifestyle as well as his scholarly imagination. Tönnies envisaged knowledge production outside the university and beyond the city: in open, rural settings that fostered dialogue, observation, and intellectual independence. His vision of situating research and intellectual exchange in natural surroundings is exemplified by his support for the founding of the “Forscherheim Assenheim”, a residential research center established at Schloss Assenheim, a castle set in the central German countryside. Tönnies’ work seeks to dissolve the modern binary between nature and culture by advancing a sociology shaped by experiential insight and sustained engagement with natural landscapes.
Schlagworte: early German sociology, ecological thought, natural landscapes, scholarly sociability, (rural) knowledge spaces
Alexander Wierzock
Seite 113 - 133 | doi: https://doi.org/10.1553/anzeiger160-1s113
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Naturen und Kulturen. Zentralthema der vergleichenden Soziologie und Anthropologie in Frankreich
The text follows the French line of sociological thought on nature–culture and nature–society, which is likewise the line of thought of French cultural and social anthropology. Three stages are discussed: the work of Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss (around 1900), that of Claude Lévi-Strauss (in the 1950s and 1960s), and that of Philippe Descola (as well as Bruno Latour) in the 1990s and 2000s. Each of these authors refers to the same non-European societies and to the respective earlier works. In following these works, successive transformations of French sociological thought emerge. While Durkheim and Mauss understood the orders of nature as symbolic projections of the social order, Lévi-Strauss suggested thinking of the (totemic) classification of nature first and foremost as the symbolic means by which the social order is constituted. With Descola, this theoretical concept was developed further into a comparative or symmetrical anthropology: several worldwide concepts of nature and culture (and also of the person, the subject, and of society) were now compared, including those on which the discipline is, or was, based. In other words, the subject of nature–culture reveals the change in French social theory as one that was actually motivated by this pair of concepts. At the same time, the special feature of this French line of social thought becomes visible, which lies in the methodological and theoretical interest in non-European societies or in the inseparability of sociology and social and cultural anthropology.
Schlagworte: nature–culture, Émile Durkheim, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Philippe Descola
Heike Delitz
Seite 134 - 160 | doi: https://doi.org/10.1553/anzeiger160-1s134
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Ökologische Krise und die Handlungsmacht der Natur. Soziologische Perspektiven
In line with its self-image as a social crisis science, sociology has long ignored nature, i.e., social relations with nature. However, in the wake of the ecological crisis, it has become clear that nature and society interact. This presents sociology with the challenge of theorizing this interaction in such a way that the project of critical reflection can be continued in a contemporary form while at the same time providing guidance for times of crisis. For this reason, we compare three influential social theories with regard to their concepts of nature: critical theory, Beck’s risk society, and Bruno Latour’s late work on climate change. Our central thesis is that social relations with nature have been increasingly criticized from a decidedly epistemological perspective over time. This critique no longer focuses on the connection between the domination of nature and social domination. However, the strong focus on the epistemic aspects of social relations with nature makes the politicization of ecological issues extremely difficult.
Schlagworte: ecological crisis, sociology of nature, critical theory, risk society, epistemization
Alexander Bogner - Paul Buntfuss
Seite 161 - 182 | doi: https://doi.org/10.1553/anzeiger160-1s161
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Ausgabe:
978-3-7001-5071-8, E-Journal, PDF, nicht barrierefrei, 24.11.2025
Ausgabe:
978-3-7001-5070-1, Zeitschriftenausgabe, broschiert, 24.11.2025
Auflage:
1. Auflage
Seitenzahl:
184 Seiten
Format:
24x17cm
Sprache:
Deutsch
DOI (Link zur Online Edition):
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