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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32 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL the individual obtains in the mental picture of the other that quality and form which make the social relation pos- sible. They permit the beginning of the socialization. Owing to these tendencies toward social generalization, it becomes impossible within a differentiated society to discover the true individuality. They interfere with the ideal cognition of the actual individual, but they are the conditions which make social relations possible. In this they bear a resemblance to the Kantian categories, which reshape and transform the immediate data of experience, but none the less make the given world intelligible.! Another presupposition which determines the way in which individuals view one another might be formulated as the apparently trivial theorem that each element of a group is not only part of the group, but, besides that, something else. This fact becomes operative as a social a priori in this form, that it gives to that part of the individual which does not enter into the social relation a positive signifi- cance for that relation. There are certain types whose so- ciological significance, even in their germ and nature, is determined by the fact that they are in some way shut out from the group for which their existence is significant. Instances of this are the case of the stranger, the enemy, the criminal, and even the pauper. But this form applies, not merely to the case of such general characters, but, in numerous modifications, to every individual existence. The whole relation between individuals would be different if sach confronted the other only with that part of himself which is taken up by the interrelation. The officer is more than just an officer, the civilian more than just a civilian, and that other non-social part of the personality inter- penetrates the picture we form of him as an officer or ci- vilian. 1 Soz., DD. 81-35.

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