p Western sociology has neither a generally accepted definition of the subject matter of sociology nor a generally accepted definition of the concept of “society”. Now and again the various schools and sociologists put entirely different meanings into this concept.

p Most definitions of this concept are exceedingly broad. Ely Chinoy defines society as the aggregate “of individuals in their relations to one another and as members of groups" [49; 48].

p But this definition may be applied to any group—from a hockey team to a religious sect.

p Nor is his second definition acceptable. Accordingly society is “that group within which man can live a total common life rather than an organisation limited to some specific purpose or purposes. From this point of view society consists not only of individuals related to one another, 67 but also of interconnected and partly overlapping groups" [49; 28].

p All we have learned so far is that society consists of groups as well as individuals. But, then, any workshop group consists of “interconnected and partly overlapping groups" (engineers, technicians, workers, skilled and unskilled, young and old, etc.), although on this basis the shop group cannot be termed a society.

p Very little is altered by Chinoy’s addition to his definition of “society”. He says that society as such is often defined as “the system of institutions which govern behaviour and provide the framework for social life. In this view, society is to be described in terms of its principal institutions—familial, religious, economic, political, educational, and so on" [49; 28].

p But what it means “to be described in terms" and, moreover, in terms of “principal institutions" is extremely vague.

p Green defines “society” as the “largest relatively permanent group who share common interests, common territory, a common mode of life....” [16; 29].

p But this definition covers any aggregation of living organisms which may also be the “largest group”, may have an organisation and exist under “conditions of time and place".

p The definition of the concept of “society” suggested by the American sociologists Rumney and Maier is amorphous and diffuse. They say that in the broadest sense this concept includes “every kind and degree of relationship entered into by man, whether these relations be organised or unorganised, direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious, co-operative or antagonistic" [50; 74].

p Nor is there anything more definite in the definition of the concept of “society” given by Young and Mack. They define society as “the broadest grouping of people who share a common set of habits, ideas and attitudes, live in a definite territory and consider themselves a social unit" [44; 28].

p But what if this group does not consider itself a “social unit”, will it then constitute a society?

p Definitions based on the consensus among people on the basis of common interests are still current among 68 sociologists. Thus in the West German Philosophical Dictionary society is defined as a “group of people existing as a result of purposeful and reasonably organised common life and work.... Society rests on convention, contract and mutual interests" [42; 417].

p Many definitions of the concept of “society” found in bourgeois sociological literature are littered with inessential characteristics. Thus in Freedman’s Principles of Sociology society is defined as “a group of people who have become a spatial, functional, cultural unit .. . which occupies a definable geographical areas”, the members of this unit being “bound together by ties of mutual dependence" and sharing a “distinctive cultural heritage, uniquely their own" [51; 78].

Most of the elements forming part of the definition of “society”, except “culture”, may be ascribed to such a “group” as, for example, an ant-hill or a beehive, which comprise everything mentioned in the foregoing definition —common space, division of functions, ties of mutual dependence, heredity, etc.