Between Literature and Science: The Rise of Sociology

by Wolf Lepenies, R.J. Hollingdale (Translator)

A conflict arose in the early nineteenth century between the literary and scientific intellectuals of Europe, as they competed for recognition as the chief analysts of the new industrial society in which they lived.

Sociology was conceived as the third major discipline, a hybrid of the scientific and literary traditions. The author chronicles the rise of the new discipline by discussing the lives and works of the most prominent thinkers of the time, in England, France, and Germany.

The book presents a penetrating study of idealists grappling with reality when industrial society was in its infancy.

Genres: Sociology

389 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Wolf Lepenies (born in Deuthen bei Allenstein, Ostpreußen - now Olsztyn-Dajtki, Polen) is a German sociologist, political scientist, and author.

Reviews

[Andrew]

It's fun to read this kind of thing: relevant enough to my intellectual interests to keep my attention, but tangential enough that I don't need to worry about fully assimilating or retaining it. Anyway, the basic thesis is that the founders of sociology as a discipline from Comte through the e20c were pulled in opposite directions--towards literary culture and towards scientific discipline. Indeed, sociology is often the hidden stakes in apparent "two-cultures" debates. But this argument is made mostly implicitly, since Lepenies likes to summarize. Probably this works better in German where one can use subjunctive II (or is it subjve. I?) for indirect quotation. The other implicit argument is that the pull toward the literary usually led would-be sociologists to the political right, just as literary writers and poets who turned their attention to the social as such had a marked tendency towards fascism in the e20c. Finally there is an even more understated theme about the role of women in the founding of sociology--WL's hint being that these women did far more of the intellectual work than a roll of names of sociological founders (Comte, Mill, Durkheim, Weber) would lead you to suppose.