LL

a

Lh

Lh

~

4

CHAPTER VII

THE PREREQUISITES OF
SOCIALIZATION

S WAS mentioned in chapter iii, sociology as an exact
A science is flanked on one side by a field of philosophic
— inquiry in which the basic assumptions and fundamental
 concepts of the science have to be investigated.
The study of the actual forms of socialization has to be
preceded by a determination of the ideal logical presuppositions
 of socialization on the basis of a logical analysis of
the elements of experience. This investigation must answer
the question as to how society is possible in the same way
as Kant answered the question as to how nature is possible.
But the two questions have a very different methodological
significance.
Nature is a subjective synthesis, existing only in the
mind of the observer and resulting from categories of
thought and perception with which the subject shapes the
disconnected elements of immediate experience into a
unity. Society, however, is an objective unity, resulting
immediately from the functional psychical occurrences
within the composing elements and realized independently
 and outside of any observer. The society may of course
be observed, but this process in the consciousness of a subject
 neither conditions nor contributes to the socialization.
Socialization, the growing into a unity, is immediately the
result of the mental activities of the entities involved.
Each of the elements performs the function which, with
regard to external nature, is performed by the mind of the
observer. Society is a psychical process, and the consciousoe