Ferdinand Tönnies és a korai társadalomtudományok III.

The theory of society-community stands in the centre of the „social” life. It however also stands in the centre of Tönnies’s positive work itself. This potentiation gives this theory a vitality that is looking for its equivalent and to which little is changed if its presence is not perceived accordingly in every corresponding context. Tönnies is one of the first most important social scientists, who was primarily concerned with being able to investigate society with a strictly scientific character. So he was already therefore much more interested in the optimal way of knowledge than in the diverse concrete results or even in the theoretical possibility of generalization of these results. The society-community theory is an epochal achievement, its result is one of the bases of social existence. It is certainly there, that the rare „open relationship structure” of both these categories is playing. The first social scientists were in multiple paradoxical situations. The first paradox consisted of the fact, that had a very clear idea of a „science” of the society. Because however, such a „science” did not yet exist, they were constrained to make „philosophically” the first steps, but of course not how the „right” philosophers would have done them. The other paradox and eternally opened question are why the „society” as the object remained temporally so much behind the „nature” as an object.