The social Theory of Georg Simmel

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1024612627

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-166627

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Spykman, Nicholas J. http://d-nb.info/gnd/124229867

Title:: The social Theory of Georg Simmel

Place of publication:: Chicago

Publisher:: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Year of publication:: 1925

Scope:: XXIX, 297 S

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

272 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL is not new, although his definition is original. The general tendency during the last twenty years has been in the same direction. But he has realized better than anybody else the implications of the new orientation and the necessity for a complete methodology. His theory of association is a science of association, not a philosophy of society, as it is for some American sociologists who define their in- quiries in the same terms. The significance of a study of the forms of socialization may not be immediately apparent. When it is realized that the investigation aims at an under- standing of the processes of socialization, its importance becomes evident. Not only is a knowledge of those pro- cesses necessary for an understanding of all social contents, but it is the only knowledge which will lead to a fundamen- tal understanding of the social life itself. The advantage of his conception of sociology is not only that it leads to investigation of processes which shape all kinds of content, but also that it includes in one study the investigation of instinctive and voluntary groupings, of communities and associations, of contract and coercion, in a word, of all forms of interaction. It would seem, then, that his conception of the science suggests a practically unlimited possibility of work. He has none the less been criticized for limiting the investigation to the study of the social forms. But this limitation is the result of the fact that he conceives of sociology as a science, and therefore as a limited science. Sociology has been taken down from the elevated position where it was enthroned as the syn- thesis of all sciences. But it has apparently not quite lost its former grandeur for a great many of its admirers who still like to think of it as at least a synthesis of the social sciences. It can maintain that position just as long as it is content to be a social philosophy. To become a science, it has to renounce all pretense of being the apotheosis of

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The social Theory of Georg Simmel

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation