Der Band bietet einen UEberblick uber die Geschichte und den aktuellen Stand der franzoesischen sozial- und gesellschaftstheoretischen Perspektiven und Forschungsprogramme der Soziologie - dabei auch uber die Disziplingrenzen hinausblickend, um soziologische Theorien jenseits des Faches einzubeziehen: namentlich solche, die sich selbst eher in der Philosophie (des Politischen) oder Anthropologie verorten wurden. Es geht hier darum, moeglichst das ganze Spektrum des franzoesischen Denkens sichtbar zu machen - auch in dessen Zusammenhang, in den theoriegeschichtlichen Abhangigkeiten und Oppositionen.

In welcher Gesellschaft leben wir, und vor allem: was ist uberhaupt eine "Gesellschaft"? Das Lehrbuch fuhrt in die zuletzt genannte Grundfrage der Soziologie ein - in die diversen Antworten und in den Streit um den Gesellschaftsbegriff. Es geht bei diesem Begriff um eine der konzeptionellen Grundlagen des Faches: Ob ein eher theoretischer oder empirischer Schwerpunkt soziologischer Forschung verfolgt wird, eine Antwort auf die Frage nach der Gesellschaft liegt implizit oder explizit vor. Oder praziser, sie muss permanent erarbeitet werden - und sei es im vehementen Versuch, sich des Gesellschaftsbegriffes zu entledigen und Akteure, Relationen oder Kollektive an dessen Stelle zu setzen.

In Political Anthropology (originally published in 1931 as Macht und menschliche Natur), Helmuth Plessner considers whether politics-conceived as the struggle for power between groups, nations, and states-belongs to the essence of the human. Building on and complementing ideas from his Levels of the Organic and the Human (1928), Plessner proposes a genealogy of political life and outlines an anthropological foundation of the political. In critical dialogue with thinkers such as Carl Schmitt, Eric Voegelin, and Martin Heidegger, Plessner argues that the political relationships cultures entertain with one other, their struggle for acknowledgement and assertion, are expressions of certain possibilities of the openness and unfathomability of the human. Translated into English for the first time, and accompanied by an introduction and an epilogue that situate Plessner's thinking both within the context of Weimar-era German political and social thought and within current debates, this succinct book should be of great interest to philosophers, political theorists, and sociologists interested in questions of power and the foundations of the political.

In Political Anthropology (originally published in 1931 as Macht und menschliche Natur), Helmuth Plessner considers whether politics-conceived as the struggle for power between groups, nations, and states-belongs to the essence of the human. Building on and complementing ideas from his Levels of the Organic and the Human (1928), Plessner proposes a genealogy of political life and outlines an anthropological foundation of the political. In critical dialogue with thinkers such as Carl Schmitt, Eric Voegelin, and Martin Heidegger, Plessner argues that the political relationships cultures entertain with one other, their struggle for acknowledgement and assertion, are expressions of certain possibilities of the openness and unfathomability of the human. Translated into English for the first time, and accompanied by an introduction and an epilogue that situate Plessner's thinking both within the context of Weimar-era German political and social thought and within current debates, this succinct book should be of great interest to philosophers, political theorists, and sociologists interested in questions of power and the foundations of the political.