Types of Personal Relations: On Personal and Impersonal Association

Abstract

Man is by nature a social animal, said Aristotle – the Greek word political really having rather this meaning in English. But the American sociologist Lester Ward, reverses the dictum – echoing Hobbes – and says that man is not by nature a social animal but associates only for the mechanical advantage of co-operation. It is patent that men do associate for both reasons, because they like society and because of the greater efficacy of group activity, especially when division of labor comes to be worked out. The point to be noted is that the two motives may either coincide and supplement each other, or conflict. Hobbes and Ward imply that man is in general really antisocial, that the gain from organization of effort has to overcome an essential antipathy to association as such, but clearly this is not necessarily the case.

Citation

Emmett, R.B. (2011), "Types of Personal Relations: On Personal and Impersonal Association", Emmett, R.B. (Ed.) Frank H. Knight in Iowa City, 1919–1928 (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 29 Part 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 301-307. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-4154(2011)000029B029