Abstract
Dr. Shôtaro Yoneda (18731945) was appointed lecturer in the College of Literature, Kyoto Imperial University in 1907 when the university opened its sociology course. In 1920, he became a professor of the university and resigned in 1925. Dr. Yoneda, though he was not a graduate of the Academy, had read extensively in English, American, French, German, and Italian with great keenness and perseverance. He also issued many works based on his extensive reading. With this background, he developed a very broad outlook in Sociology in Japan. In spite of his encyclopedic knowledge, it should be noted that in his works he formed methodically the idea of “Pure Sociology”.
After his graduation from Nara Eiwa Gakko in 1891, he went to the United States and laid the foundation of his knowledge of sociology at Columbia University under the guidance of Professor Giddings. Under the influence of Prof. Giddings' lectures and works, he studied the province, objects, and study method of sociology and its position in the field of social sciences. He concentrated his interest particularly on the subject of the nature of “the most primary and elementary social facts”, noted by Dr. Giddings. Dr. Yoneda thought thought that this was closely related to “Les lois de l'imitation” by Gabriel Tarde, professor of Collège de France. To develop this subject further, he left Columbia University and went to Paris to study under Prof. Tarde. There he devoted himself to the study of Prof. Tarde's sociology. Throughout his life, he had a great respect for Prof. Tarde, as well as Prof. Giddings, as his honoured teachers. Dr. Yoneda, however, did not simply absorb the ideas of his teachers without reflection. He formed the idea of “Pure sociology” by reorganizing the fundamental sociological ideas of his teachers, making them logically consistent, and extracting the good points of many other sociologists' studies. Dr. Yoneda, while he had been with Kyoto Imperial University, gave new lectures, every year, on various subjects to the students who were studying sociology, and at the same time took up “Pure Sociology” as an ordinary lecture to the students.
The theory of Pure Sociology is the most fundamental part in his sociology system. The theory was originated by Giddings as mentioned above and was also based on Tarde's idea of sociology. According to Tarde, imitation is the fact “purement social”, that is the most essential social fact. From this point of view, his Les lois de l'imitation (1890) is the focus of his sociology. He called it “Sociologie pure” or “sociologie générale”. It is, however, substantially different from Ward's “Pure Sociology” and Small's “General Sociology” in its logically systematic structure. Dr. Yoneda was influenced by Giddings' and Tarde's sociology and further influenced, at a later date, by Georg Simmel's theory. He attempted to establish his theory of “Pure Sociology” after a methodological scrutiny of these studies. He had lectured for many years on Pure Sociology, but this lecture had not been published as a special work before he died. His theory of sociology was presented in Annals of the Institute of Social Science of Japan, Vol. I, (19131914), under the title On Sociology, and was stated systematically in his book Modern Sociological Theories (1948). We can also see something of his ideas in Sociological Theories of Today, published in 1906.
It has been said so far that formal sociology was given its basis by Georg Simmel, but I think we can see it first in Tarde's sociology.
