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Norbert Elias

Norbert Elias
NElias.jpg
Born 22 June 1897
Breslau (Wrocław), Silesia Province, Prussia
Died 1 August 1990(1990-08-01) (aged 93)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Era 20th-century philosophy
Region Western Philosophy
School Figurational Sociology
Notable ideas
Habitus

Norbert Elias (German: [eˈliːas]; 22 June 1897 – 1 August 1990) was a German sociologist of Jewish descent, who later became a British citizen. He is especially famous for his theory of civilizing (and decivilizing) processes.

Elias was born on 22 June 1897 in Breslau (today: Wrocław) in Prussia's Silesia Province to Hermann and Sophie Elias. His father was a businessman in the textile industry. After passing the abitur in 1915 he volunteered for the German army in World War I and was employed as a telegrapher, first at the Eastern front, then at the Western front. After suffering a nervous breakdown in 1917, he was declared unfit for service and was posted to Breslau as a medical orderly. The same year, Elias began studying philosophy, psychology and medicine at the University of Breslau, in addition spending a term each at the universities of Heidelberg (where he attended lectures by Karl Jaspers) and Freiburg in 1919 and 1920. He quit medicine in 1919 after passing the preliminary examination (Physikum). To finance his studies after his father's fortune had been reduced by hyperinflation, he took up a job as the head of the export department in a local hardware factory 1922. In 1924, he graduated with a doctoral dissertation in philosophy entitled Idee und Individuum ("Idea and Individual") supervised by Richard Hönigswald, a representative of Neo-Kantianism. Disappointed about the absence of the social aspect from Neo-Kantianism, which had led to a serious dispute with his supervisor about his dissertation, Elias decided to turn to sociology for his further studies.


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