SOCIOLOGICAL VISION - STAGES OF INTELLECT UAL-DEVELOPMENT FOR THE YOUNG ELIAS - BRESLAU, HEIDELBERG, FRANKFURT

Elias originated from the jewish milieu of the German middle-Class of the turn of the century. His early interest for science and ''Bildung' ' were shaped at the Breslau humanist gymnasium, where he was member o f a philosophical studies group. In search for their jewish national i dentity he joined the jewish youth movement with friends of this group , which stayed together during the world war and the following study a t the Breslau university. In Elias' first publication we find yet some methodological points, which since then have got to be characteristic al for his sociology: The relational thinking, - rooting in the writin gs of Ernst Cassirer, which puts the relations between things and thei r surroundings as well as the interdependencies between human beings a ls social forces into the center of analytical considerations. As anot her typical element of Elias sociology we find the empirical dimension in his Heidelberg disposition of the first Habilitation: The analysis of the life conditions and professional questions of the ''experiment ing masters'' of the Italian Renaissance, who inventend the perspectiv e, is put figurationally into contrast to the established thinkers of the university. His personal view of the street fights of the late Wei mar Republic lead to his adaption of the Max Weber theorem about state and violence. This shaped his theory of the civilizing process, writt en in the thirties, where he looked on the state as a figurational bal ance of two polarized social classes.