Between Literature and Science

Wolf Lepenies ist seit 1986 Rektor des Wissenschaftskollegs und Professor für Soziologie an der FU Berlin. 2006 erhält er den Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels.

The theme of this book is the conflict that 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 unique 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 alternative 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. Published with the support of the Exxon Education Foundation.

The author chronicles the rise of Sociology and the prominent thinkers of the nineteenth-century.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I. France: 1. The transformations of Auguste Comte: science and literature in early positivism; 2. Agathon and others: literature and sociology in France at the turn of the century; Part II. England: 3. Facts and culture of the feelings: John Stuart Mill; 4. The unwritten novel: Breatrice Webb; 5. The utopian novel as a substitute for sociology: H. G. Wells; 6. Concealed sociology: English literary criticism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; Part III. Germany: 7. Prologue: artisan and poet too: W. H. Riehl; 8. Hostility to science and faith in poetry as a German ideology; 9. A German speciality: poetry and literature in opposition; 10. Disciplines in competition: sociology and history; 11. Remoteness from society and hostility towards sociology in Stefan George's circle; 12. Stefan George, Georg Simmel, Max Weber; 13. Weberian motifs in the work of Thomas Mann; 14. The German spirit in peril: E. R. Curtius, Karl Mannheim and T. S. Eliot; 13. Epilogue: sociology in National Socialist Germany and afterwards; Bibliography; Index.