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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A 1] | - HN 1e e -] Y]= []- a] N= ol, of le _S. 1€ l= er AML es 2y ge ‘ts w, le- -n- of SUBMISSION obedience prefer, however, subjection to a law executed by an impersonal power to the subordination to an individ- ual. This was not the case in ancient times. People could then maintain their self-respect only if they were allowed a certain amount of spontaneous participation, and they preferred personal obedience to the subjection to a rigid objective law. There is a great difference between viewing laws as substitutes and makeshifts for an ideal personal government and viewing personal government as provi- sional to the government of law. The one-sided relationship which is characteristic of subordinations to impersonal principles excludes them as such from the category of sociological forms. There is none the less a sociological aspect to these subordinations in two special instances. The first occurs if the ideal superior prin- ciple can be interpreted as a psychological condensation of an actual social power. The second occurs if this principle establishes specific and characteristic relationships be- tween those who are subject to it. The former case is illustrated in the moral imperative. The individual who has a moral consciousness feels himself subject to decrees which have apparently not been issued by any human power. He hears the voice of conscience on- ly in himself, but it speaks with such force and precision against his subjective egoism that it seems to come from an authority outside of himself. One has attempted to solve this apparent contradiction by assuming that the content of morality has been derived from social decrees. The species and the group seem to breed into the individual those characteristics that are useful for the social self-pres- ervation. They obtain a certain instinctive character and appear in the individual as autonomous impulses next to or in opposition to the properly personal impulses. This explains the double character of the moral imperative. It

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