Organic Theory

In general, the term “organic” implies a relation to a living organism. In social science theory, this usually means a philosophical attempt to conceptualize some process as analogous to the life cycle of a living creature. It is often associated with the philosophy of Social Darwinism, a theory popularized in the 19th century that applied the precepts proposed by Charles Darwin regarding “natural selection” and “evolution” to human social, cultural, and political systems. But in fact, organic theories date to a much earlier era, and suggestions of the application of “organic” qualities to human institutions and behavior may be found as far back in history as the writings of Aristotle and Plato, and continue well into the Middle Ages in the work of Niccolo Machiavelli and Ibn Khaldun. Organic theory has been frequently directed at the origin and nature of the state as a means of organizing political space and regulating activity. The concept reappeared in the philosophy of Friedrich Hegel at the beginning of the 19th century, who clearly had a significant influence on a wide group of scholars and writers. Hegel proclaimed the state as an “ideal” means of organizing political authority and made clear that he regarded the state as a living thing, when he stated directly that the “state is an organism.” To Hegel, the state could be examined and understood only in this context. In the discipline of geography, this concept was adopted in the positions of many early theoreticians in political geography in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.