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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84 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL The standpoint from which the individual may be un- derstood may be taken either within or outside the individ- ual. The totality of his life may be regarded either as the centripetal destiny of its bearer or as the product and ele- ment of the social life. Therefore the fact of socialization brings the individual into a double situation. He is in- cluded in it and is at the same time in antithesis to it. He is a member of its organism and at the same time a closed organic whole. “Within” and “without” are not two determinations which exist alongside of each other, but they signify the whole unitary position of the social being. His existence is therefore not merely in subdivision of its content par- tially social and partially individual. It stands under the fundamental, formative, irreducible category of a unity, which cannot be expressed otherwise than through thé syn- thesis of these two logically antithetical determinations. So- ciety consists not only of individuals who are in part not socialized, but also of individuals who are conscious of lead- ing a completely social existence on the one hand and at the same time a completely individual existence on the other hand. The social being is the synthetic category of the two, just as the concept of causation is an aprio- ristic unity which includes the two elements of cause and effect.! This analysis enables us to see the second a priori of empirical social life. “It may be formulated as the ability to view society as the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of human beings who view themselves as a ferminus a quo and a terminus ad quem of its qualities, developments, and destinies.”? The third a priori might be roughly formulated as a 1 Soz., pp. 88-41. * Ibid, p. 41.

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