Comunidade, sociedade e sociabilidade: revisitando Ferdinand Tönnies

Abstract

Despite his role as one of the pioneers of sociology in Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Ferdinand Tönnies appears in the annals of modern sociology as a lesser, almost anonymous figure. Paradoxically, he is the author of important contributions, which made way for the institutionalization of sociology as a scientific discipline and is also the author of important concepts, which today have been incorporated and crystallized by sociological jargon. In this article I bring back to the fore two categories put forth in his most well-known writing, “Community and Society”. My aim is to emphasize the importance of reflecting upon these concepts in order to elaborate theoretical and descriptive models focused on arrangements of sociability.