Elias en de neokantianen. Intellectuele achtergronden van Het Civilisatieproces

Samenvatting

Elias and the Neo-Kantians. Intellectual Backgrounds of The Civilizing Process. Norbert Elias's The Symbol Theory and other recent works have engaged repeatedly in arguments against epistemology, favoring instead a process-sociological theory. Elias's antiphilosophical approach, including his rejection of subject/object dualism and the homo clausus concept, is linked to the Marburg school, an important faction of neo-Kantianism. Ernst Cassirer's Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff: Untersuchungen uber die Grundlagen der Erkenntniskritik ([The Concept of Substance and Structures: Studies on the Foundations of the Critique of Knowledge] Berlin, 1910) had a profound influence on Elias. His epistemology, based on the idea that advances in knowledge depend on a transition from substantialism to rational thought, was reflected in Elias's Het civilisatieproces; Sociogenetische en psychogenetische onderzoekingen ([The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Studies] Utrecht, 1982. However, Elias felt that the concept of substance could not be abandoned altogether. A radical revision of Elias's sociological model is needed. 99 References. Adapted from the source document.