Explaining Modern Social Reality

The Basic Concepts in Norbert Elias's Figurational Sociology
ISBN: 
978-963-386-661-0
cloth
$79.00 / €75.00/ £64.00
Publication date: 
2024
February, 250 pages

Few thinkers have contributed more to the understanding of modern civilization than Norbert Elias. Given the significance and relevance of his ideas in explaining social reality, this book seeks to make his complex concepts more accessible.  

A biographical account of his life (1897–1990) facilitates the comprehension of Elias’s concepts. Elias’s most famous work, “The Civilizing Process”, is the focus of this discussion of his theoretical frameworks, with class structure, the patterns of behavior, and the role of the state as key factors. The book also dedicates special treatment to figurational sociology, an important research field linked especially to Elias.  

Elias was an innovator. He criticized accepted concepts and introduced numerous new constructs (habitus is perhaps the best known) discussed in this book. Respective chapters review Elias’s theory of knowledge, the concept of de-civilization—with an emphasis on violence, his analysis of nations and nationalism, and emotions—and his focus on shame.

Elias borrowed ideas from iconic figures in philosophy and the social sciences such as Edmund Husserl, Karl Mannheim, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, and Talcott Parsons. This book describes the characteristic way Elias interprets them.

The book concludes with an overview of the most significant critiques of Norbert Elias's work.

I. NORBERT ELIAS: BIOGRAPHY, CHARACTERISTICS, RELATIONS

1. Life path
2. The place of Norbert Elias in sociology
3. Theory of Knowledge
4. Influences and impacts
            Edmund Husserl
            Karl Mannheim
            Max Weber
            Sigmund Freud
5.    Figurational Sociology
            Figurational sociology and the relationship to Talcott Parsons
            Basic characteristics of figurational sociology           
            Figurational sociology and the interdependence of individuals
            Figurations and processes
6.    Evolutionism
7.    The process of individualization
8.    Value neutrality

II. SOCIOGENESIS OF THE SOCIETY
9. Reflections on the book "Civilization Process"           
            Civilization as a concept           
            Contradiction of civilization as a concept           
            Civilization or culture           
            The process of civilization and social stratification                       
                        The evolution of class structure in Elias’s opus           
            The process of civilization and the behavior of individuals
10. Survival Units           
            Civilization and the state           
            National States and Nations           
            Nations and nationalism           
            Process of Civilization and the Political History of Europe           
            The process of civilization and the European Union           
            The EU's evolutionary path           
            European identity and Elias
11. Decivilization process           
            The social preconditions for the decivilization of Germany           
            National Socialism and Decivilization           
            Decivilization and the Holocaust
12. Violence           
            The role of the state in regulating violence           
            Norbert  Elias’s Power Conceptualization           
            Violence and wars           
            Violence and global interdependencies

III. PSYCHOGENESIS OF THE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
13. The structure of the personality in the work of Norbert Elias           
            The concept of habitus in the work of Elias
14. In and Out groups
15. The concept of inclusion, distance and detachment in the work of Elias
16. The meaning of emotions in the work of Elias           
            Emotions and Manners of Behavior           
            The role of shame in the process of civilization
                        The origin of shame
                         Types of shame
                         The evolutionary development of shame
                         How shame has become invisible in modern society
17. The difference between shame and humiliation           
            The role of the feeling of humiliation in the process of civilization
            The concept of humiliation in the work of Elias
18. Informalization
            Civilization and sexuality
            The relationship between the sexes in the work of Elias
            Transformation of the attitude towards the body
19. A critical review of Norbert Elias' work
20. References