共同体論における共同性の問題

Abstract

Sociologists who study communities do not agree on how observations about community phenomena are to be incorporated into sociological theory. This lack of agreement is the raison d'être for this paper. By the term 'community' (Gemeinschaft) we would designate here that aspect of concrete social collectivity which is predominantly referable to common ties of people as a focus for social cohesion. Based on this definition, it is assumed that the sociological approach to community is mainly divided into two ways. We shall call them as the social property approach and the social formation approach. In the real sense these two converge and represent only differences in emphasis. The former takes as its major focus those elements of community life which make it as a distinctive mode of communal cohesion (communityness) in any collectivity of people. A central problem of the latter approach is that of discovery of how variation in social or group formations affects the communal relationships under investigation. In this paper we only refer to the theoretical delineation of variables or attributes which characterize a communityness, following by the social property approach. We deal in this approach with those action or attitude which is oriented to the feeling of actors that they belong together. Compared with this, social (gesellschaftlich) action is oriented to a rationally motivated adjustment of interests. At first we present a theoretical reformation for the social typology of community after examining the work by Tönnies; community (Gemeinschaft) of blood, of locality, and of mind. Then we call attention to the fundamental elements of communal sentiment in a collectivity of people, with special reference to the givens of human existence, immediate contiguity and kin mainly. We viewed the pre-existent attachments as potentially detrimental to the formation of communal or national identities. After arguing the sociological meaning of the sources of communal affiliation as 'primordial' (Geertz) , we obtained a perspective for analysis of the basic forms of community as they apper in any human associations. These are a) kinship, b) neighbourhood and c) friendship as definite and meaningful derivations of the original three categories of community. All three are closely interrelated in general human society and its history. Then we dealt in this context with the type of community which is not defined in terms of some overall commitment over values, but rather in terms of a sense of belonging to a specific group in terms of recognizing interests shared with members of those groups. A good example of this kind of community (functional community) was given in Durkheim's solidarité organique. Our argument on communityness here is greatly indebted to the works by Tönnies, Vierkandt, MacIver and Plant. We have, however, modified them in various important places by the critical introduction of a phenomenological perspective on 'sympathy' derived mainly from Scheler, and an emphasis on the constitution of social action through subjective meanings derived from M. Weber. Our theorizing on them refers to the empirical discipline in its concrete problems. So it must be followed by the sociological investigation viewing from the social formation approach.