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Employing Marcelo Dascal's theory and typology of controversies, this chapter attempts to pull together certain elements of the writing of Georg Simmel (1858–1918), the founder of formal sociology; Franz Boas (1858–1942), the founder of cultural anthropology; and Arthur Ruppin (1876–1943), the founder of Jewish sociology and demography, and interpret them with regard to the then contemporary social, political, or scientific anti-Semitism. Through a comparison of their writing, the chapter argues that Ruppin was engaged in a discussion with anti-Semitic writers, as the object of disagreement, anti-Semitic reaction to Jewish difference, was treated as being well circumscribed. Simmel was engaged in a dispute, the source of disagreement rooted in differences of attitude, feelings, or preferences, transcending Jews as a specified object. Boas approached a controversy, revolving around specific objects and problems but spreading to broader methodological issues. The chapter points to the fact that none of these discourses meet Dascal's minimal definition of a controversy, because of the absence of a structured sequence of polemic exchanges (POPO). The chapter attempts to answer why this is so.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-7131-4_13

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