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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16 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL 2. It may be viewed with reference to the forms of the reciprocal relations between the individuals. The social situation is then viewed in its purely formal aspect as the result of specific forms of socialization. 3. It may be viewed with reference to the factual con- tent. The social situation is then viewed in its purely fac- tual aspect, that is, with reference to its economic, politi- cal, and legal aspect, or with reference to the state of the industrial arts, of science, and of art proper. These three viewpoints get constantly entangled in the actual investigation of social situations, but they should be kept separate and distinct in a methodological inquiry. The function of these viewpoints is twofold. In the first place, they fulfil a methodological function. They indicate the three modes of approach to an understanding of the socio-historical actuality. But they also fulfil an episte- mological function. The last two viewpoints function as categories of cognition by means of which sociology and the social sciences abstract their subject-matter from the socio-historical actuality. They are therefore immediately indicative of the difference between sociology and the so- cial sciences. The first viewpoint does not function immedi- ately as a category of cognition for any science. But a comparison between this viewpoint and the second is the starting-point for a further consideration which will yield the distinction between sociology and psychology.! Society in the wider and larger sense, as content, is the subject-matter of the social sciences. Their object is every- thing which occurs with and in society, and its laws and history are their aim. Society as such, however, is not open to scientific inquiry, and there has therefore occurred a division of labor among different social sciences on the ¢ Soz., p. 16. For the methodological function of the three viewpoints, see Book I, chapter v.

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