Georg Simmel (; ; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. A founding figure of sociology, his neo-Kantian approach helped establish sociological antipositivism, asking "What is society?" in analogy to Kant's "What is nature?". He pioneered analyses of individuality and social fragmentation.

Simmel discussed social and cultural phenomena in terms of "forms" and "contents" with a transient relationship, wherein form becomes content, and vice versa dependent on context. In this sense, Simmel was a forerunner to structuralist styles of reasoning in the social sciences.

Through "The Metropolis and Mental Life" Simmel was a precursor of urban sociology, symbolic interactionism, and social network analysis. An acquaintance of Max Weber, Simmel wrote on the topic of personal character in a manner reminiscent of the sociological ideal type. He broadly rejected academic standards, however, philosophically covering topics such as emotion and romantic love. Both Simmel and Weber's nonpositivist theory informed the eclectic critical theory of the Frankfurt School.

Biography

Early life and education

Georg Simmel was born in Berlin, Germany, as the youngest of seven children to an assimilated Jewish family. His father, Eduard Simmel (1810–1874), a prosperous businessman and convert to Roman Catholicism, had founded a confectionery store called "Felix & Sarotti" that would later be taken over by a chocolate manufacturer. His mother Flora Bodstein (1818–1897) came from a Jewish family who had converted to Lutheranism. Georg, himself, was baptized as a Protestant when he was a child.

His father died in 1874, when Georg was 16, leaving a sizable inheritance. Georg was then adopted by Julius Friedländer, the founder of an international music publishing house known as Peters Verlag, who endowed him with the large fortune that enabled him to become a scholar.

Beginning in 1876, Simmel studied philosophy and history at the Humboldt University of Berlin, going on to receive his doctorate in 1881 for his thesis on Kantian philosophy of matter, titled "" ("The Nature of Matter According to Kant's Physical Monadology"). His lectures were not only popular inside the university, but attracted the intellectual elite of Berlin as well. Although his applications for vacant chairs at German universities were supported by Max Weber, Simmel remained an academic outsider. However, with the support of an inheritance from his guardian, he was able to pursue his scholarly interests for many years without needing a salaried position.

Simmel had a hard time gaining acceptance in the academic community despite the support of well known associates, such as Max Weber, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan George and Edmund Husserl. This was partly because he was seen as a Jew during an era of anti-Semitism, but also simply because his articles were written for a general audience rather than academic sociologists. This led to dismissive judgements from other professionals. Simmel nevertheless continued his intellectual and academic work, as well as taking part in artistic circles.

Later life

thumb|150px|Simmel in 1914

In 1890, Georg married Gertrud Kinel, a philosopher who published under the pseudonym Marie-Luise Enckendorf, and under her own name. They lived a sheltered and bourgeois life, their home becoming a venue for cultivated gatherings in the tradition of the salon. They had one son, Hans Eugen Simmel, who became a medical doctor. Georg and Gertrud's granddaughter was the psychologist Marianne Simmel. Simmel also had a secret affair with his assistant Gertrud Kantorowicz, who bore him a daughter in 1907, though this fact was hidden until after Simmel's death.

In 1909, Simmel, Ferdinand Tönnies, Max Weber, and others, co-founded the German Society for Sociology. In 1914, Simmel received an ordinary professorship with chair, at the then German University of Strassburg, In 1917, Simmel stopped reading the newspapers and withdrew to the Black Forest to finish the book The View of Life (Lebensanschauung).

Simmel focused on these forms of association while paying little attention to individual consciousness. Simmel believed in the creative consciousness that can be found in diverse forms of interaction, which he observed both the ability of actors to create social structures, as well as the disastrous effects such structures had on the creativity of individuals. Simmel also believed that social and cultural structures come to have a life of their own.

The Philosophy of Money

In The Philosophy of Money, Simmel views money as a component of life which helped us understand the totality of life. Simmel believed people created value by making objects, then separating themselves from that object and then trying to overcome that distance. He found that things which were too close were not considered valuable and things which were too far for people to get were also not considered valuable. Considered in determining value was the scarcity, time, sacrifice, and difficulties involved in getting the object.

A stranger is far enough away that he is unknown but close enough that it is possible to get to know him. In a society there must be a stranger. If everyone is known then there is no person that is able to bring something new to everybody.

The stranger bears a certain objectivity that makes him a valuable member to the individual and society. People let down their inhibitions around him and confess openly without any fear. This is because there is a belief that the Stranger is not connected to anyone significant and therefore does not pose a threat to the confessor's life.

More generally, Simmel observes that because of their peculiar position in the group, strangers often carry out special tasks that the other members of the group are either incapable or unwilling to carry out. For example, especially in pre-modern societies, most strangers made a living from trade, which was often viewed as an unpleasant activity by "native" members of those societies. In some societies, they were also employed as arbitrators and judges, because they were expected to treat rival factions in society with an impartial attitude.

On one hand the stranger's opinion does not really matter because of his lack of connection to society, but on the other the stranger's opinion does matter, because of his lack of connection to society. He holds a certain objectivity that allows him to be unbiased and decide freely without fear. He is simply able to see, think, and decide without being influenced by the opinion of others.

On secrecy

According to Simmel, in small groups, secrets are less needed because everyone seems to be more similar. In larger groups secrets are needed as a result of their heterogeneity. In secret societies, groups are held together by the need to maintain the secret, a condition that also causes tension because the society relies on its sense of secrecy and exclusion.

For Simmel, secrecy exists even in relationships as intimate as marriage.In revealing all, marriage becomes dull and boring and loses all excitement. Simmel saw a general thread in the importance of secrets and the strategic use of ignorance: To be social beings who are able to cope successfully with their social environment, people need clearly defined realms of unknowns for themselves. Furthermore, sharing a common secret produces a strong "we feeling." The modern world depends on honesty and therefore a lie can be considered more devastating than it ever has been before.

Money allows a level of secrecy that has never been attainable before, because money allows for "invisible" transactions, due to the fact that money is now an integral part of human values and beliefs. It is possible to buy silence.

On fashion

In the eyes of Simmel, fashion is a form of social relationship that allows those who wish to conform to the demands of a group to do so. It also allows some to be individualistic by deviating from the norm. There are many social roles in fashion and both objective culture and individual culture can have an influence on people. In the initial stage everyone adopts what is fashionable and those that deviate from the fashion inevitably adopt a whole new view of what they consider fashion. Ritzer wrote:

Works

Simmel's major monographic works include, in chronological order:

  • Über sociale Differenzierung (1890). Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot [On Social Differentiation]
  • Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft 1 & 2 (1892–1893). Berlin: Hertz [Introduction to the Science of Ethics]
  • Die Probleme der Geschichtphilosophie (1892). Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. (2nd ed., 1905) [The Problems of the Philosophy of History]
  • Philosophie des Geldes (1900). Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot (2nd ed., 1907) [The Philosophy of Money]
  • Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben (1903). Dresden: Petermann. [The Metropolis and Mental Life]
  • Kant (1904). Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. (6th ed., 1924)
  • Philosophie der Mode (1905). Berlin: Pan-Verlag.
  • Kant und Goethe (1906). Berlin: Marquardt.
  • Die Religion (1906). Frankfurt am Main: Rütten & Loening. (2nd ed., 1912).
  • Schopenhauer und Nietzsche (1907). Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.
  • Soziologie (1908). Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. [Sociology : inquiries into the construction of social forms]
  • Hauptprobleme der Philosophie (1910). Leipzig: Göschen.
  • Philosophische Kultur (1911) Leipzig: Kröner. (2nd ed., 1919).
  • Goethe (1913). Leipzig: Klinkhardt.
  • Rembrandt (1916) Leipzig: Wolff.
  • Grundfragen der Soziologie (1917) Berlin: Göschen. [Fundamental Questions of Sociology]
  • Lebensanschauung (1918). München: Duncker & Humblot. [The View of Life]
  • Zur Philosophie der Kunst (1922). Potsdam: Kiepenheur.
  • Fragmente und Aufsäze aus dem Nachlass (1923), edited by G. Kantorowicz. München: Drei Masken Verlag.
  • Brücke und Tür (1957), edited by M. Landmann & M. Susman. Stuttgart: Koehler.

;Works in periodicals

  • "Alpenreisen." Die Zeit, Wiener Wochenschrift für Politik, Vollwirtschaft Wissenschaft und Kunst [weekly newspaper] (13 June 1895)
  • "Rom, eine ästhetische Analyse." Die Zeit, Wiener Wochenschrift für Politik, Vollwirtschaft Wissenschaft und Kunst (28 May 1898).
  • "Florenz." Der Tag [magazine] (2 March 1906).
  • "Venedig." Der Kunstwart, Halbmonatsschau über Dichtung, Theater, Musik, bildende und angewandte Kunst [magazine] (June 1907).

See also

  • Definitions of philosophy
  • Karl Mannheim

References

Further reading

Edited works of Simmel

  • Andrews, John A. Y., and Donald N. Levine, trans. 2010. The View of Life: Four Metaphysical Essays with Journal Aphorisms, with introduction by D. N. Levine and D. Silver. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Levine, Donald, ed. 1972. On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Wolff, Kurt, trans. & ed. 1950. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
  • Wolff, Kurt, trans. & ed. 1955. Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations (1922). Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

Works on Simmel

  • Ankerl, Guy. 1972. Sociologues Allemands. Sociologie de la forme. Neuchâtel: . pp. 73–106.
  • Best, Shaun, 2019. The Stranger, London, Routledge: .
  • Bistis, Margo. 2005. "Simmel and Bergson: The Theorist and the Exemplar of the Blasé Person." Journal of European Studies 35(4):395–418.
  • Hartmann, Alois. 2003. "Sinn und Wert des Geldes." In der Philosophie von Georg Simmel und Adam (von) Müller. Berlin. .
  • Ionin, Leonid. 1989. "Georg Simmel's Sociology." Pp. 189–205. in A History of Classical Sociology, edited by I. S. Kon, translated by H. Campbell Creighton. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
  • Karakayali, Nedim. 2003. Simmel's Stranger: In Theory and in Practice. PhD Thesis. Toronto: University of Toronto.
  • — 2006. "The Uses of the Stranger: Circulation, Arbitration, Secrecy and Dirt". Sociological Theory 24(4):312–30.
  • Kim, David, ed. 2006. Georg Simmel in Translation: Interdisciplinary Border-Crossings in Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. .
  • Muller, Jerry Z. 2002. The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought. Anchor Books.
  • Podoksik, Efraim. 2021. Georg Simmel and German Culture: Unity, Variety and Modern Discontents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Georg Simmel Gesellschaft
  • Simmel Studies
  • Georg Simmel Online