Theodor Geiger
Encyclopedia
Theodor Julius Geiger was a German
socialist lawyer
and sociologist. He was Denmark
's first professor of sociology, at the University of Åarhus.
, 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.
, 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).
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.
and mobility was one of Geiger's main interests and within this subfield he made several contributions to the field of sociology
. Trappe, Paul. 1968. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol#6, Geiger, Theodor. p. 83-85. The Macmillan Company & the Free Press 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 and several theories on the subject. 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 maintained 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 concurred 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 Word War two. 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 mobility over time. In Geiger's analysis he took this 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.
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.
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.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
socialist lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
and sociologist. He was Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
's first professor of sociology, at the University of Åarhus.
Life
Geiger grew up in LandshutLandshut
Landshut is a city in Bavaria in the south-east of Germany, belonging to both Eastern and Southern Bavaria. Situated on the banks of the River Isar, Landshut is the capital of Lower Bavaria, one of the seven administrative regions of the Free State of Bavaria. It is also the seat of the...
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, showing an interest in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
and a talent in Scandinavian languages from an early age.. The son of a gymnasium teacher, Geiger studied law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
and political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, first at the University of Munich from 1910 - 1912, then at the University of Würzburg
University of Würzburg
The University of Würzburg is a university in Würzburg, Germany, founded in 1402. The university is a member of the distinguished Coimbra Group.-Name:...
from 1912 - 1914 where he received his doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
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
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in 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
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, where he published the magazine Fremde Presse (Foreign Press), with news on the Reich
Reich
Reich is a German word cognate with the English rich, but also used to designate an empire, realm, or nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is " sovereign state." It is the word traditionally used for a variety of sovereign entities, including Germany in many periods of its history...
ministry for the army from 1920 - 1929. At the same time he edited the information magazine of the newly-founded Berlin Volkshochschule (adult education
Adult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
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
Intellectualism
Intellectualism denotes the use and development of the intellect, the practice of being an intellectual, and of holding intellectual pursuits in great regard. Moreover, in philosophy, “intellectualism” occasionally is synonymous with “rationalism”, i.e. knowledge derived mostly from reason and...
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
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
beliefs, he had to immigrate to Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. 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
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
through the Instituttet for Historie og Samfundskonomie in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
; later he gave lectures at the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
. 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
Odense
The city of Odense is the third largest city in Denmark.Odense City has a population of 167,615 and is the main city of the island of Funen...
where he lived with his parents-in-law for the next couple of years. In 1943 he fled once again to Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
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
Johan Vogt
Johan Vogt was a Norwegian economist, translator, non-fiction writer and journal editor.He was a member of Mot Dag from 1921, and chaired the Norwegian section of Clarté from 1927. He was a professor at the University of Oslo from 1957 to 1970. He was awarded the Fritt Ord Award in 1976, as the...
. In 1949 he was a co-founder of the International Sociological Association
International Sociological Association
International Sociological Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to scientific purposes in the field of sociology and social sciences...
.
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 stratificationSocial stratification
In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...
, using the concept of stratification (introduced by Edward Ross
Edward A. Ross
Edward Alsworth Ross was a progressive American sociologist, eugenicist, and major figure of early criminology.-Biography:...
) 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
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
and the criteria for an industrial society
Industrial society
In sociology, industrial society refers to a society driven by the use of technology to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the west in the period of time following the Industrial Revolution, and replaced...
.
At least in Germany, he is also seen as an important contributor to the sociology of law
Sociology of law
The sociology of law is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies...
, 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
Working Class Education
Working class education is the education of working-class people.-History:Prior to the 19th century, education for most members of society was elementary and only an elite received advanced education...
, industrial organisation, class structure, mobility, the origin and functions of 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...
, 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
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of 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
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
body of Geiger's work has been translated (commented version) to German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
by Gert J. Fode of the University of Aarhus, edited by Prof. Klaus Rodax (University of Erfurt
University of Erfurt
The University of Erfurt is a public university located in Erfurt, Germany. Originally founded in 1379, the university was closed in 1816 for the next 177 years...
, Germany).
Methodology
Geiger made many significant contributions to methodologyMethodology
Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specificcomponents such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools . It can be defined also as follows:...
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
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
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
Quantitative
A quantitative property is one that exists in a range of magnitudes, and can therefore be measured with a number. Measurements of any particular quantitative property are expressed as a specific quantity, referred to as a unit, multiplied by a number. Examples of physical quantities are distance,...
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
Qualitative
The term qualitative is used to describe certain types of information. The term is distinguished from the term quantitative data, in which items are described in terms of quantity and in which a range numerical values are used without implying that a particular numerical value refers to a...
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.
Social Stratification and Mobility
Social StratificationSocial stratification
In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...
and mobility was one of Geiger's main interests and within this subfield he made several contributions to the field 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...
. Trappe, Paul. 1968. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol#6, Geiger, Theodor. p. 83-85. The Macmillan Company & the Free Press 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 and several theories on the subject. 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
Means of production
Means of production refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production—the factories, machines, and tools used to produce wealth — along with both infrastructural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital...
. 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
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
but that modern developments did not fulfill Marx's predictions of the polarization of classes and intensified class conflict
Class conflict
Class conflict is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes....
. He believed society to be dynamic, so although he agreed with Marx, he maintained 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
Income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
, level of education, and political power
Political power
Political power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...
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 concurred 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
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
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
Social status
In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....
, and subjective class consciousness
Class consciousness
Class consciousness is consciousness of one's social class or economic rank in society. From the perspective of Marxist theory, it refers to the self-awareness, or lack thereof, of a particular class; its capacity to act in its own rational interests; or its awareness of the historical tasks...
, 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
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper 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
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
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 Word War two. 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
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of Aarhus, by adding a question about father's occupation
Occupation
Occupation may refer to:*Job , a regular activity performed for payment, that occupies one's time**Employment, a person under service of another by hire**Career, a course through life**Profession, a vocation founded upon specialized training...
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
Validity
In logic, argument is valid if and only if its conclusion is entailed by its premises, a formula is valid if and only if it is true under every interpretation, and an argument form is valid if and only if every argument of that logical form is valid....
. 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 mobility over time. In Geiger's analysis he took this to reflect a period of increasing stability following a period of stratification type transition. He attributed this to the democratization
Democratization
Democratization is the transition to a more democratic political regime. It may be the transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic...
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
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
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 intelligentsiaIntelligentsia
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...
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
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
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
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
and knowledge that serve to make life spiritual
Spiritual
Spiritual may refer to:*Spirituality, a concern with matters of the spirit*Spiritual , an African American song, usually with a Christian religious text...
, creating applicable science with the purpose of making life rational
Rational
Rational may refer to:* Rationality, a concept of reason* Rational number, a number that can be expressed as a ratio of two integers* Rational function, a mathematical function which can be written as the ratio of two polynomial functions...
, 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
Gentry
Gentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....
, 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.