The social Theory of Georg Simmel

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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

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68 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL tal understanding of phenomena cannot hope to develop the artistic form out of the preceding form alone. Social relations, religion, intellectual levels, individual predilec- tions would all have to be taken into consideration. It is the same way with the historical development of economic life. The phenomena observed in sequence may be purely economic, but the energies and factors which bring about the change from one form of production to the next are by no means purely economic. Personal, ethical, cultural, and physical factors all contribute in shaping the succeeding stage. The so-called materialistic interpretation of history is but an exaggerated form of this tendency to view eco- nomic situations as a unilateral causal series. Not only is the fact ignored that each succeeding economic occurrence is influenced by innumerable non-economic factors, but the self-sufficiency of the economic series and its freedom from the others is now conceived as a mastery over the others. The totality of historical development is now traced back to this series as its cause.! The approach and approximation to exact knowledge of the actual factors and forces by means of the prelimi- nary formulations in terms of historical laws has therefore an internal boundary. A further differentiation finally, dis- solves the concept of historical law and leaves nothing but the investigation of the historical fact and the timeless law. By the time the historical inquiry has become exact, its task is merely to determine the content of the historical actuality, which is the starting-point of all knowledge and without which no knowledge is possible. The difference between the exact historical and the exact scientific inquiry lies in the fact that the first is in- terested in the individual occurrence and the latter in the law. Both are needed. because the knowledge of a timeless \ Probl. der Gesch., pp. 94-101.

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