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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3 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL and the whole structure is possible at all, cannot be proved geometrically. The whole of geometry is therefore not valid in the same sense as its single propositions are valid. While the latter can be proved within the system one by another, the whole is valid only in relation to something external, in relation to the nature of space and our cate- gories of thought and perception. This mutual determination which gives the elements within a body of theoretic knowledge the significance of truth seems as a totality to be born of a new relativity, a relativity between the practical and the theoretical inter- ests of our lives. Our ideas of existential actuality are functions of a specific psycho-physiological character and are by no means merely mechanical reproductions. As different biological species equipped with different sense organs must have different ideas of the universe, it follows that none of these can be a pure reproduction of external nature. Each of these species, however, is able to survive and to adapt itself to its environment. The truth, therefore, can in essence mean nothing else but that idea or representation which guides a particular organism in the application of its forces toward useful results. An idea is not useful because it is true, but it is true because it is useful. It is true because it leads to a useful relation to- ward actuality, because it permits adaptation. There are therefore in principle just as many kinds of truth as there are different organisms and life-conditions. What is true for the eagle may not be true for the insect with facet-shaped eyes, and vice versa. These kinds of truth, however, do not lack a norma- tive fixity for the specific species. In so far as the organism and its constitution and needs are given on the one hand, and objective actuality on the other hand, the truth for that particular organism is ideally determined. There are

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