Japanese Sociological Review
Online ISSN : 1884-2755
Print ISSN : 0021-5414
ISSN-L : 0021-5414
Volume 23, Issue 2
Displaying 1-7 of 7 articles from this issue
  • Yasujiro Taido
    1972 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 2-12,112
    Published: September 30, 1972
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this article is to investigate an epoch-making contribution of Dr. Takada's sociology to the Japan Sociological Society and to clarify some unique points of his extraordinary works.
    1. He proposed that sociology be established as a separate discipline among various other disciplines in social sciences for the first time in Japan and developed fruitful conceptualizations of his system of sociology.
    2. He presented a number of unique hypotheses (principles) in developing his system. Here some of those hypotheses will be examined.
    1) the hypothesis of the theory of the superiority of associations
    2) the law of constant quantity of associations
    3) the development of the theory of society in its totality (the theory of pluralistic states)
    4) the will of power (the theory of social forces-as a bridge between Takada's sociology and economics)
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  • Toshimasa Mukai
    1972 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 13-27,112
    Published: September 30, 1972
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    1. According to Takada's theory, sociology is regarded as a specific social science which seeks for general-abstract laws about relations between persons especially about associations. His stress is on the importance of explaining irrational factors as the basis of all relations between persons, with inner-sided understanding of motives of individuals.
    2. Takada's standpoint is clearly showed in the fundamental characteristics of his theory of power where the “power=macht” is defined as “an ability to have one obey”. The power relation in his theory consists of “the will of power” as a need of the superiority of indefinitely expanding self and “the instinct of subordination” seeking subordination for its sake. Concerning the psychological disposition as the basis of power, fundamental importance is attached to the irrational characteristics which seek for the power relation for its own sake. As for the basic tendency of power relation, the power realized by having others obey indirectly or inductively is thought to become superior to the power realized by voluntary obedience of others and enforcement to others and the class distance is regarded to become shortened, because of the constant increase of population accompanied with the decreasing intensity of social associations.
    3. The power theory in Takada's sociology explained above is highly evaluated even today in its keen understanding of purely “interpersonal” irrational factors as basic factors of the formation and change of power. One of our future research subjects succeeded Takada's theory is an investigation of particular types of various power forms with new empirical facts in our mind, focusing on the rational factors typically represented in modern society.
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  • Ken'ichi Tominaga
    1972 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 28-46,111
    Published: September 30, 1972
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    1. The sociological, economic, and political theories of Takada Yasuma (1883-1972) are organized around an integrative focus and thus constitute a synthesis. While Takada was all-round social scientist, the synthesis is clearly centered on sociology and the integrative focus is his power theory.
    2. Takada's power concept started from the idea of “the desire for force” in his early works such as The Division of Labor (1913) and Essays on Social Class (1922, but substantially writen around 1910 in most essays). He noted that the origin of this idea came from works of Ward, Ribot, McDougall and Simmel. However, the concept of “(social) force” is not neccessarily identical with that of “power” which designates the possibility of control over others.Thus his power concept per se was established in Social Class and the Third View of History (1925), whereas his systematic formulation of power theory was produced in the later stage, that is, in Power (1940).
    3. The substance of Takada's power theory consists of a system of propositions : the law of correlation and transfer of different power elements, the law of accereration in the growth of power, the antagonistic relation between “official” and “wild” power, the law of levelling in the distribution of power, the law of cyclical change between centralization and decentralization of power, and so on. These propositions were not the aggregate of mere empirical generalizations, but were derived from the combination of his basic assumptions such as the desire for force, population increase, the trend of Vergesellschaf tung, etc.
    4. The application of his power theory to the price determination and other parts of econcmics, known as “the economics of power theory”, was formulated in The New Lecture on Economics (5 Vols., 1929-1932). Observing the wide spread of unemployment at that time (the Great Depression of the world) he argued that the Walrasian system of general equilibrium equations does not explain this phenomenon. Unemployment, he insisted, can be explained when we see that the price of labor (wages) is not determined in terms of endogeneous variables in the equation system, but is determined from “outside.” That is to say that it is, apart from the equation system, determined by the combination of marginal productivity of labor on the demand side and power elements of workers and their organizations on the supply side.
    5. Takada's power theory was formulated under the background of the development of sociological theories up to 1920s, especially Tarde, Wieser, and Max Weber. When he came to know, later, the new development of power theory of 1950s and 60s such as Lasswell, Parsons, Homans, BI-au and so on, he was too old to absorb them. But it must be emphasized that Takada's theory is not entirely heterogeneous with these recent development.
    6. Takada's economics of power theory was not accepted by the main stream of economic theory. As the results of severe disputes with Nakayama, Kimura, and others he himself at last cut his power theory from the main body of his principles of economics after Treatise of Economics (1938). However, it seems that his idea of power theory is highly suggestive for the possible explanation of, for example, contemporary inflationary process based on the expansion revolution of the expectations of people as organized masses. Most of the economists have a strict tendency to distinguish the economic factors from the non-economic, and thus rejected Takada's hypothesis ; most of the sociologists other than Takada lacked sufficient interests and knowledges on economic analysis. So Takada could not get supporters and failed. But as an economic sociology we would have to reevaluate it as really an original and useful explanatory hypothesis concerning our contemporary economy.
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  • Eisuke Uzu
    1972 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 47-64,109
    Published: September 30, 1972
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Takada's social theory was constructed under the social background of class struggles developed into a new stage by the formulation of monopolistic capitalism in Japan. The social aspects of the development of his social theory will be evaluated from three points.
    First, his theory is constructed as a way to fill a gap left unfilled by traditionally dominant social theories, the organic theories of states, between the capitalistic reality within the limits of absolutistic Tenno system and to follow as thoroughly as possible “the thought and history of the national polity” under the Tenno system. Secondly, it is built as a process to strengthen the separation from and the antagonism against a scientific social theory of Marxism. Thirdly, it is thought to be a theory which “takes before others” the reality accompanied with the reactionary monopolistic capitalism and “legs” behind the reality stepping into the fascistic system.
    Takada's highly abstract social theory can be characterized, in one word, as a Japanese variation of relativistic social theories which are composed on the epistemological basis of agnosticism. Materialistic-dialectic contents, which are indispensable for scientific social theories, such as history, economy and labor as their basis, are intentinally omitted in his theory construction from his common-sence judgement on the social reality in Japan. He composes a highly abstract “law of constant quantity of associations” with various sophisticated concepts abstracted one-sidedly, such as the will, the association, the social relation, the group and the society in its totality. His law, itself, may be regarded as a metaphorical expression of “the intensity of associations” which is presupposed for the stable superordination by the ruling class in the class society. Here we must emphasize that Takada's social theory constructed before W.W. II was nothing more than a kind of unscientific Japanese “formal sociology” whose methodological individualism had not been established to its full extent.
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  • Takeshi Inagami
    1972 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 65-82,108
    Published: September 30, 1972
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In the recent academic mood of reevaluation of Takada's sociology, I would like to examine his theory with his own words in my mind on Spencer, “However old it is, I would like to learn what should be learned”. For this purpose, we must first ask within what methodological contexts and from what standpoints we will learn from him.
    My reference here will be to the following two points.
    1. Modern sociology has been requiring keenly the “normative science” or the “policy science”.
    2. To what extent is Takada's sociology, that had formulated its theoretical core in the so-called democratic period of the Taisho Era, regarded as a real “civil science” in the midst of a modern Japanese society as a deviant type of capitalistic society ?
    I will investigate the theoretical infrastructure of Takada's sociology, paying special attention to his theory of conceptualization in the context of the methodology of science and to the structure of interrelationships between “theory”, “history” and “policy” in his sociology.
    In conclusion, the following two points should be clarified.
    1. Takada, who regards the search for “generalized” orientation of perception of science and the construction of nomological science as core scientific activities, proposed to think that sociological concepts, which were “ideal types” of “intuitive” understanding of “the essence of society”, should be freed from “the historical character”, because they were regarded to have super-time generality.
    2. Concerning the interrelationship between “theory”, “history” and “policy”, in spite of its formal conceptualization, he, in fact, always put focus on “theory” as an analytical foundation. He immediately as well as one-sidedly judged “history” and deduced “policy” from this standpoint. It requires us to examine the contents of the general theory of Takada, itself.
    In addition to this, the two points mentioned above should be investigated thoroughly. I believe that “theory” cannot get out of “history” and “policy” and that it cannot, conversely, get into them. The same assumption will be applied to “history” and “policy”. The future “normative science” will have to be constructed at the point where we will have overcome an overemphasis upon “theory” which was an eminent characteristic of Takada's sociology.
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  • Kenya Numata
    1972 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 83-97,107
    Published: September 30, 1972
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Caste, joint family and village community are three main pillar of traditional India. Especially caste is most important. The structural basis of Hindu society is caste. First of all, we must distinguish between caste and varna. The varna-model has produced a wrong and distorted image of caste. It is necessary for the sociologist to free himself from the hold of the varna-model. There are thought to be some 3, 000 castes in India. There are many definition of caste. Max Weber regards caste as closed status group. Caste is also a system of division of labour. British rule changed India considerably, but it does not mean India become capitalistic state. Trend of disorganization of village community causes new problems. Jajmani system is disappearing and craft caste are becoming tenant or agricultural labourer. In modern India we can see both phenomena, sanskritization and westernization. Sanskritization is found to be a widespread cultural and social process among Hindus in different parts of India. It is the process by which a “low” Hindu caste, or tribal or other group, changes its custom, ritual, ideology and way of life in the direction of a high caste. One of the many interesting contradictions of modern Hindu social life is that while the Brahmins are becoming more and more westernized, the other castes are becoming more and more sanskritized.
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  • [in Japanese]
    1972 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 98-106
    Published: September 30, 1972
    Released on J-STAGE: November 11, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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