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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18 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL The different metaphysical systems are contradictory in content and relative in value, but metaphysics as fune- tion has a value and significance independent of and be- yond any contradictions in material content. The differ- ent exact sciences treat only a relatively small aspect of the actuality, but science as function has a value which lies beyond the fragmentary character of its special fields. The different types of art seem unrelated and mutually exclu- sive, but art as function has a meaning which lies beyond all discrepancies in style and technique. The different religions may be fundamentally diverse, but religion as function has a value beyond all the contradictions in dogma. As function these forms of the mind have a fixity and universality in relation to their contents, but in relation to each other they have only a relative value. No single field of mental activity takes a position of superiority in relation to any other field. Neither religion, nor meta- physics, nor science, nor art is the one and absolute form to which the others must eventually be converted. They are autonomous worlds in which the totality of existence is expressed in a fully adequate language. What is universal in relation to each of these worlds, because it co-ordinates and transcends all of them, is life itself. Life on the intellectual plane, as mind, is the cre- ator of these worlds. They are adaptational products, in- struments of adaptation, produced in the contact of life’s processes with an environment. Mind lives in these forms and categories, is these forms and categories, just as the vital force lives in the forms and structures of individual organisms. But, although the product of life’s processes, they cannot be defined in terms of processes alone. They are objective systems possessing an independent existence and confronting life’s processes as external structures.

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