The Impact of Transcendental Idealism on Early German and American Sociology

Editors

Wilson, John

Document Type

Chapter

Publication Date

1990

Publication Title

Current Perspectives in Social Theory

Volume

10

First page number:

1

Last page number:

29

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to examine the connection between nineteenth-century transcendental idealism and early twentieth-century sociological thought in Germany and the United States. Its central thesis is that the idealist perspective on reason and reality as mutually constitutive is endemic to the German tradition of cultural science and early interactionist sociology in the United States. An argument is also made that there is an ideological affinity between early American and German sociological thought, which reflects its proponents' ambivalence toward modernity and desire to find a middle path between the political extremes of the right and the left.

Keywords

Idealism; Idealism; German; Symbolic interactionism

Disciplines

Social Psychology and Interaction | Sociology | Sociology of Culture

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or use interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the article. Publisher copyright policy allows author to archive post-print (author’s final manuscript). When post-print is available or publisher policy changes, the article will be deposited.


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