Florian Znaniecki
Encyclopedia
Florian Witold Znaniecki (January 15, 1882 – March 23, 1958) was a Polish sociologist. He taught and wrote in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. He was the 44th President of the American Sociological Association
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...

 and the founder of academic sociology studies in Poland. His theoretical and methodological work contributed to the development of Sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 as a distinct academic discipline.

He gained international fame as the co-author with William I. Thomas of The Polish Peasant in Europe and America 1918-1920http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC11633316&id=zaUMAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PR7&lpg=RA1-PR7&dq=Thomas+and+Florian+Znaniecki++Polish, considered the foundation of modern empirical sociology and humanistic sociology.

His Presidential Address, "Basic Problems of Contemporary Sociology," was delivered on September 8, 1954 at the Association's Annual Meeting, and was later published in the American Sociological Review
American Sociological Review
The American Sociological Review is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of sociology, including new theoretical developments, results of research that advance the understanding of fundamental social processes, and methodological innovations. It is published by SAGE...

 (ASR October 1954 Vol 19 No 5, pp 519–524).

Life

Florian Znaniecki was born on January 15, 1882 in Świetniki, Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

. He studied in Geneva, Zurich, and Paris, and obtained his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 at the Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....

 in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

. Znaniecki came to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 in the United States in 1914 and returned to the Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

 in 1920 to accept the first Polish chair in sociology at the University in Poznań
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan
Adam Mickiewicz University is one of the major Polish universities, located in the city of Poznań in western Poland. It opened on May 7, 1919, and since 1955 has carried the name of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz.-History:...

. There he organized the Polish Sociological Institute (Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

 Polski Instytut Socjologii) and began publishing The Polish Sociological Review (Polish Polski Przegląd Socjologiczny). Keeping in touch with American sociologists, he lectured at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 in 1931-1933 and during the summer of 1939.

This summer ended the Polish stage of his career, since the German invasion on Poland
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...

 and the start of World War II prevented his return to Poland. He then moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

, where he taught until his retirement, deciding not to return to the communist People's Republic of Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...

. He died on March 23, 1958 in the town of Champaign, Illinois
Champaign, Illinois
Champaign is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, in the United States. The city is located south of Chicago, west of Indianapolis, Indiana, and 178 miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Though surrounded by farm communities, Champaign is notable for sharing the campus of the University of...

, USA.

Achievements

Florian Znaniecki characterized the world as caught within two contrary modes of reflection; these were idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...

 and realism
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....

. Znaniecki proposed a third way, which he labeled culturalism (Polish kulturalizm). Znaniecki's culturalism is one of the ideas that founded modern sociological views of antipositivism
Antipositivism
Antipositivism is the view in social science that the social realm may not be subject to the same methods of investigation as the natural world; that academics must reject empiricism and the scientific method in the conduct of research...

.

His focus and subsequent impact lay mainly in the realms of sociology, philosophy, and secondarily psychology. According to the culturalist perspective, sociology should deal with the effects of culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

, as sociology is a study of human meaning, and subsequently dualistic with a locus of empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....

 reality. Znaniecki responds to demands for objective reality as a focus, those that would use Descartesian arguments of fancy, and those with pre-postmodern malaise, in this way: "Therefore, whether we agree that the individual can contribute to the evolution of the objective world or not, whether we treat the objective realities or thoughts which the individual reaches as creations or mere reconstructions, as new objectively or new only for him, we must take the other, active side of the experiencing individual, the creative personality into account."

In 1934 he formulated the principle of analytic induction
Analytic induction
Analytic induction refers to a systematic examination of similarities between various social phenomena in order to develop concepts or ideas. Social scientists doing social research use analytic induction to search for those similarities in broad categories and then develop subcategories...

, designed to identify universal propositions and causal laws. He contrasted it with enumerative research, which provided mere correlations and could not account for exceptions in statistical relationships.(Taylor & Bogdan 1998)

Znaniecki proposed that social phenomena (Polish czynności społeczne) should be treated as active or as potential subjects of one's actions (humanist principle (Polish współczynnik humanistyczny). According to this principle, the individual's experiences and ideas are of utmost importance and the sociologist should study reality as a social actor (subjectively), not as an independent observer (objectively). As one of the first sociologists, he started analyzing personal documents like letters, autobiographies
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

, diaries
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...

 and similar items. Znaniecki's term "social phenomena" is broader then Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...

's social actions
Social actions
In sociology, social action refers to an act which takes into account the actions and reactions of individuals .According to Max Weber, "an Action is 'social' if the acting individual takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course" .- Social action and Max Weber :The...

.

According to Znaniecki, sociology should analyze social relations, which are composed of values. Their basic element is that of human beings. He recognized four types of social relations:
  • social acts (Polish czyny społeczne) - the most simple, like greeting or pleading, each composed of elements like: people, tools, subjects, methods, results
  • social relations (Polish stosunki społeczne)- need at least two people and a platform, like privilege or obligation
  • social group (Polish grupy społeczne)- any group which some people recognize as a separate entity
  • social personalities (Polish osobowości społeczne)- which are created under influence of social movements


Znaniecki also defined four types of character
Moral character
Moral character or character is an evaluation of a particular individual's durable moral qualities. The concept of character can imply a variety of attributes including the existence or lack of virtues such as integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, or of good behaviors or habits...

 and personality
Personality type
Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tendencies. Types are sometimes said to involve qualitative differences...

:
  • the humorous man (Polish człowiek zabawy)- develops among those who have much time, treats work as fun
  • the working man (Polish człowiek pracy)- develops among the working class
    Working class
    Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

     social class
    Social class
    Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...

    , treats work as a life necessity
  • the well-behaved man (Polish człowiek dobrze wychowany)- develops among the intelligentsia
    Intelligentsia
    The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...

     social class
  • the deviant man (Polish człowiek zboczeniec (dewiant))- easily distinguishable from the others, not always in a negative perspective (he can be a genius or a criminal)


The Polish Peasant in Europe and America 1918-1920 is considered to be a classic study of immigrants and their families based on personal documents, and is the foundation of modern empirical sociology and humanist sociology.

Works

In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

:
  • The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (with William I. Thomas, 5 vols., 19l8-1920).
  • "The Principle of Relativity and Philosophical Absolutism," The Philosophical Review, vol. 24, no. 2 (March 1915), pp. 150–164.
  • Cultural Reality (Chicago 1919),
  • The Laws of Social Psychology (Warsaw-Kraków-Poznań 1926),
  • The Method of Sociology (New York 1934),
  • Social Actions (New York 1936),
  • The Social Role of the Man of Knowledge (New York 1940),
  • Cultural Sciences. Their Origin Development (Urbana 1952),
  • Modern Nationalities (Urbana 1952),
  • Social Relations and Social Roles (San Francisco 1965),
  • On Humanistic Sociology (selection of works under redaction of R. Bierstedt, Chicago i London 1969),
  • "The Subject Matter and Tasks of the Science of Knowledge" (translated by Christopher Kasparek
    Christopher Kasparek
    Christopher Kasparek is a Scottish-born writer of Polish descent who has translated works by Ignacy Krasicki, Bolesław Prus, Florian Znaniecki, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Rejewski and Władysław Kozaczuk, as well as the Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791.He has published papers on...

    ; first published in Polish
    Polish language
    Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

    , 1923), in Polish Contributions to the Science of Science, edited by Bohdan Walentynowicz, Dordrecht, D. Reidel, 1982, pp. 1–81.
  • The Social Role of the University Student (Poznań 1994).


In Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

:
  • Zagadnienie wartości w filozofii (Warsaw 1910),
  • Humanizm i poznanie (Warsaw 1912),
  • Upadek cywilizacji zachodniej. Szkic z pogranicza filozofii kultury i socjologii (Poznań 1921),
  • Wstęp do socjologii (Poznań 1922),
  • Socjologia wychowania (vol. I Warsaw 1928, vol. II Warsaw 1930),
  • Miasto w świadomości jego obywateli (Poznań 1932),
  • Ludzie teraźniejsi a cywilizacja przyszłości (Lwów-Warsaw 1934),

See also

  • Stanisław Ossowski
    Stanislaw Ossowski
    Stanisław Ossowski was one of Poland's most important sociologists. He held professorships at Łódź University and Warsaw University .-Life:...

  • History of philosophy in Poland
  • List of Poles
  • Humanistic Sociology
    Humanistic Sociology
    Humanistic sociology is a domain of sociology which originated mainly from the work of University of Chicago Polish philosopher-turned-sociologist, Florian Znaniecki. It is a methodology which treats its objects of study and its students, that is, humans, as composites of values and systems of values...


External links

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