Alfred Vierkandt

Alfred Vierkandt (4 June 1867 – 24 April 1953) was a German sociologist, ethnographer, social psychologist, social philosopher and philosopher of history. He is known for a broad and phenomenological Gesellschaftslehre promulgated in the 1920s, and for his formal sociology.

Vierkandt was born in Hamburg. He first studied science and philosophy at Leipzig University. He habilitated at Brunswick. He was first at Dozent in ethnology, becoming eventually in 1913 Professor of Sociology at the University of Berlin. He was one of the founders of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie, in 1909. He was made to retire in 1934. He died, aged 85, in Berlin.