Paul von Lilienfeld

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Paul von Lilienfeld (1829–1903), statesman of imperial Russia, was active in late 19th-century European discussions on the relations between the individual and society.^[1] His ideas on the subject—classed with similar ideas by other thinkers under the rubric “organicist sociology” (e.g., Barberis 2003)—were most amply set out in German as Gedanken über die Socialwissenschaft der Zukunft (Thoughts on the social science of the future).

Thoughts on the social science of the future

Lilienfeld’s great work (hereafter referred to as Gedanken) was issued from 1873 to 1881, and consisted of five volumes: I, Die menschliche Gesellschaft als realer Organismus [Human society as real organism] (1873); II, Die socialen Gesetze [The laws of society]; III, Die sociale Psychophysik [Social psychophysics] (1877); IV, Die sociale Physiologie [Social physiology] (1879); and V, Die Religion, betrachtet vom Standpunkte der realgenetischen Socialwissenschaft, oder versuch einer natürlichen Theologie [Religion considered from the viewpoint of the real genetic social science, or attempt at a natural theology] (1881). A year before the first volume of these Thoughts on the Social Science of the Future appeared in German, however, Lilienfeld had already put them out in Russian: Мысли о социальной науке будущего (1872). Of the initial three German volumes, an anonymous reviewer in Mind had this to say:

These volumes start with the conception of Society as a real organism, and attempt to work out this point of view upon the methods proper to the Natural Sciences. The treatise commences with a demonstration that Society consists of individuals in the same manner as the physical organism is made up of cells, and that the one is real in the same sense as the other. With this idea the author seeks to exhibit a thorough-going identity between the laws of Nature as they exist in the case of its highest development, Society, and in its lower stages, including the individual human being. The first volume is entitled Human Society as Real Organism;” the second, “The Laws of Society;” the third, “Social Psychophysics;” and a fourth is promised upon “Social Physiology.” The first three parts are worked out with great minuteness, the connecting thread being the conception of a real analogy between the individual and the social group as the essential foundation of the Social Science of the future (Anonymous 1878: 152).

Works by Paul von Lilienfeld

• (1860). Основные начала политической экономии. (Osnovnie nachala politicheskoi economii.) [The basic beginnings of political economy.] (Published under the pseudonym Лилеев (Lileev). [1]
• (1868). Земля и воля. (Zemlia i volia.) [Land and liberty.] [Library of Congress Control Number: 19013807]
• (1872). Мысли о социальной науке будущего. (Mysli o sotsial’noi naukie budushchego.) [Thoughts on the social science of the future.] [Library of Congress Control Number: 20023989]
• (1873–1881). Gedanken über die Socialwissenschaft der Zukunft. [Thoughts on the social science of the future.] Mitau: E. Behre. [Library of Congress Control Number: 04003289] [Bibliothèque nationale de France notice: FRBNF30819404] I. Die menschliche Gesellschaft als realer Organismus. [Human society as real organism.] (1873). II. Die socialen Gesetze. [The laws of society.] III. Die sociale Psychophysik. [Social psychophysics.] (1877). IV. Die sociale Physiologie. [Social physiology.] (1879). V. Die Religion, betrachtet vom Standpunkte der realgenetischen Socialwissenschaft, oder versuch einer natürlichen Theologie. [Religion considered from the viewpoint of the real genetic social science, or attempt at a natural theology.] (1881).
• (1895). [The method of induction applied to social phenomena.] Annales de l’Institut International de Sociologie, I. Travaux du premier Congrès, tenu à Paris, October, 1894. Paris: V. Giard et E. Brière.
• (1896a). L’organismo sociale è un superorganismo? Estratta dalla Riforma Sociale, Fasc. 3, anno III, vol. VI. Torino: R. Frassati. [Brown University Hay Ward Library Call Number: H W211 28]
• (1896b). La pathologie sociale. Paris: V. Giard et E. Brière. [Library of Congress Control Number: 09020785] [Bibliothèque nationale de France notice: FRBNF30819405]
• (1896c). Y a-t-il une loi de l’evolution des formes politiques? [Is there a law of the evolution of political forms?] Annales de l’Institut International de Sociologie, II. Travaux du second Congrès, tenu à Paris en Sep.-Oct., 1895. Publiées sous la direction de René Worms, Secrétaire Général. Paris: V. Giard et E. Brière.
• (1897). La méthode graphique en sociologie. Paris: V. Giard et E. Brière. [Brown University Hay Ward Library Call Number: H L62m]
• (1898a). La théorie organique des sociétés. [The organic theory of societies.] Annales de l’Institut International de Sociologie, IV. Contenant les travaux du troisième congrès tenu à Paris en juillet 1897. Paris: V. Giard et E. Brière, pp 196–236.
• (1898b) Über Socialphilosophie. In Anknüpfung an das Werk von Dr. Ludwig Stein: Die social Frage im Lichte der Philosophie. Berlin: G. Reimer, pp. 109-113. [Brown University Hay Ward Library Call Number: H W211 28]
• (1898c) Zur Vertheidigung der organischen Methode in der Sociologie. Berlin: G. Reimer. [Library of Congress Control Number: 33016634] [Bibliothèque nationale de France notice: FRBNF30819406]

Notes

1. Also identified as Paul de Lilienfeld as well as Pavel Fedorovich Lilienfel'd-Toal' (Павел Фёдорович Лилиенфельд-Тоаль), Lilienfeld’s date of birth is given by the Bibliothèque nationale de France as 1828 instead of 1829, while the 2 and 9 have been inadvertently transposed in the Russian Wikipedia entry for Lilienfeld (Лилиенфельд-Тоаль, Павел Фёдорович – Википедия). Correct dates are given e.g. by Capozzi (2004: 92), the Library of Congress, Reinert 2003: 7, and Philo 19.

References

• [Anonymous.] (1878). New Books. [Notice of: Gedanken über die Socialwissenschaft der Zukunft. Von Paul v. Lilienfeld. 3 bde. Mitau: Behre, 1873–7. Pp. 399, 455, 484.] Mind, vol. 3, no. 9, p. 152.
• BARBERIS D. S. (2003). In search of an object: Organicist sociology and the reality of society in fin-de-siècle France. History of the Human Sciences, vol 16, no. 3, pp. 51–72.
• CAPOZZI R. (2004). La possibilità come metodo della ragione: La logica dell’analogia nelle scienze sociali. InterConoscenza—Rivista di psicologia, psicoterapia e scienze cognitive, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1–155. [2]
• Philo 19 – base de données bibliographiques sur la philosophie française du XIXe siècle
• REINERT S. (2003). Darwin and the Body Politic: Schäffle, Veblen, and the Shift of Biological Metaphor in Economics. Othercanon.org.