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Florian Znaniecki

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Florian Zaniecki

Florian Witold Znaniecki (January 15, 1882 - March 23, 1958) was a philosopher and a sociologist. He taught and wrote in Poland and the United States. He was the 44th President of the American Sociological Association and the founder of academic sociology studies in Poland. His theoretical and methodological work contributed to the development of sociology as a distinct academic discipline.

He gained international fame as the co-author with William I. Thomas of The Polish Peasant in Europe and America 1918-1920, considered the foundation of modern empirical sociology and humanist sociology.

His Presidential Address, "Basic Problems of Contemporary Sociology," was delivered on September 8, 1954 at the Association's Annual Meeting in Urbana, Illinois, and was later published in the American Sociological Review (ASR October 1954 Vol 19 No 5, pp 519-524).

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Biography

Florian Znaniecki was born on January 15, 1882 in Świetniki, Poland. He studied in Geneva, Zurich and Paris and obtained his PhD at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Znaniecki came to Chicago in the United States in 1914 and returned to the Second Polish Republic in 1920 to accept the first Polish chair in sociology at the University in Poznań. There he organised the Polish Sociological Institute (Polish Polski Instytut Socjologii) and began publishing The Polish Sociological Review (Polish Polski Przegląd Socjologiczny). Keeping in touch with American sociologists, he lectured at Columbia University in New York in 1931-1933 and during the summer of 1939.

This summer ended the Polish stage of his career, since the German invasion on Poland and the start of World War II prevented his return to Poland. He then moved to the University of Illinois, where he taught until his retirement, deciding not to return to the totalitarian communist People's Republic of Poland. He died on March 23, 1958 in the town of Champaign, USA.

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Achievements

Florian Znaniecki characterized the world as caught within two contrary modes of reflection; these were idealism and realism. Znaniecki proposed a third way, which he labeled culturalism (Polish kulturalizm). Znaniecki's culturalism is one of the ideas that founded modern sociological views of antipositivism.

His focus and subsequent impact lay mainly in the realms of sociology, philosophy, and secondarily psychology. According to the culturalist perspective, sociology should deal with the affects of culture, as sociology is a study of human meaning, and subsequently dualistic with a locus of empirical reality. Znaniecki responds to demands for objective reality as a focus, those that would use Descartesian arguments of fancy, and those with pre-postmodern malaise, thusly, "Therefore, whether we agree that the individual can contribute to the evolution of the objective world or not, whether we treat the objective realities or thoughts which the individual reaches as creations or mere reconstructions, as new objectively or new only for him, we must take the other, active side of the experiencing individual, the creative personality into account."

In 1934 he formulated the principle of analytic induction, designed to identify univeral propositions and causal laws. He contrasted it with enumerative research, which provided mere correlations and could not account for exceptions in statistical relationships.(Taylor & Bogdan 1998)

Znaniecki proposed that social phenomena (Polish czynności społeczne) should be treated as active or as potential subjects of one's actions (humanist principle, Polish współczynnik humanistyczny [1]). According to this principle, the individual's experiences and ideas are of utmost importance and the sociologist should study reality as a social actor (subjectively), not as an independent observer (objectively). As one of the first sociologists, he started analyzing personal documents like letters, autobiographies, diaries and similar items. Znaniecki's "social phenomena" is a larger term then Max Weber's social actions.

According to Znaniecki, sociology should analyze social relations, which are composed of values. Their basic element is that of human beings. He recognized four types of social relations:

social acts (Polish czyny społeczne) - the most simple, like greeting or pleading, each composed of elements like: people, tools, subjects, methods, results
social relations (Polish stosunki społeczne)- need at least two people and a platform, like privilige or obligation
social group (Polish grupy społeczne)- any group which some people recognize as a separate entity
social personalities (Polish osobowości społeczne)- which are created under influence of social movements

Znaniecki also defined four types of character and personality:

the humorous man (Polish człowiek zabawy)- develops among those who have much time, treats work as fun
the working man (Polish człowiek pracy)- develops among the working class social class, treats work as a life necessity
the well-behaved man (Polish człowiek dobrze wychowany)- develops among the intelligentsia social class
the deviant man (Polish człowiek zboczeniec (dewiant))- easily distinguishable from the others, not always in a negative perspective (he can be a genius or a criminal)

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America 1918-1920 is considered to be a classic study of immigrants and their families based on personal documents, and is the foundation of modern empirical sociology and humanist sociology.

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Bibliography

In English:

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (co-author: William I. Thomas, 5 tomes, published during 19l8-1920),
Cultural Reality (Chicago 1919),
The Laws of Social Psychology (Warszawa-Kraków-Poznań 1926),
The Method of Sociology (Nowy Jork 1934),
Social Actions (Nowy Jork 1936),
The Social Role of the Man of Knowledge (Nowy Jork 1940),
Cultural Sciences. Their Origin Development (Urbana 1952),
Modern Nationalities (Urbana 1952),
Social Relations and Social Roles (San Francisco 1965),
On Humanistic Sociology (selection of works under redaction of R. Bierstedt, Chicago i London 1969),
The Social Role of the University Student (Poznań 1994).

In Polish:

Zagadnienie wartości w filozofii (Warszawa 1910),
Humanizm i poznanie (Warszawa 1912),
Upadek cywilizacji zachodniej. Szkic z pogranicza filozofii kultury i socjologii (Poznań 1921),
Wstęp do socjologii (Poznań 1922),
Socjologia wychowania (Tom I Warszawa 1928, Tom II Warszawa 1930),
Miasto w świadomości jego obywateli (Poznań 1932),
Ludzie teraźniejsi a cywilizacja przyszłości (Lwów-Warszawa 1934),
Nauki o kulturze (Cultural Sciences. Their Origin Development, wyd. polskie Warszawa 1971),
Chłop polski w Europie i Ameryce (The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, wyd. polskie Warszawa 1976),
Społeczne role uczonych. Pisma wybrane (The Social Role of the Man of Knowledge, wyd. polskie Warszawa 1984),
Pisma filozoficzne (Tom I Warszawa 1987, Tom II Warszawa 1991),
Współczesne narody (Modern Nationalities, wyd. polskie Warszawa 1990),
Rzeczywistość kulturowa (Cultural Reality, wyd. polskie Warszawa 1990),
Społeczna rola studenta uniwersytetu (The Social Role of the University Student, wyd. polskie Poznań 1997).

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