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 funda- 
mental 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 presuppo- 
sitions 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 independent- 
ly and outside of any observer. The society may of course 
be observed, but this process in the consciousness of a sub- 
ject 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 conscious- 
oe