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 tion, not of a variable and a constant, but of two variables. The organizing thought forms themselves have become variables subject to change and development. Not only his epistemology, however, but also his theory of values and his metaphysics of life are relativistic in essence, and this relativism has given his fine analytic and dialectic mind the widest possible scope. Simmel’s relativism has become a dialectic, something dynamic and functional. It is not primarily a formal struc- ture, a doctrine; it has become a mode of thinking, a thought form, a method of approach. He is a relativist, not only in the more restricted sense of the term, but in the widest possible sense. He views unity as a reciprocity of parts, he resolves the fixed, the permanent, the sub- stantial into function, force, and movement, and recog- nizes in all existence the historical process of growth. With his emphasis on process and function rather than on product and content, he approaches Nietzsche and Bergson in their conception of life itself as the ultimate value. With his emphasis on the significance of the external world for the judgment and valuation of scientific knowledge, he approaches modern pragmatism. A full explanation of his relativistic philosophy would take more space than can here be devoted to that purpose. Therefore a short summary of its particular application to the problem of knowledge and a brief indication of the metaphysics of his pluralistic universe must suffice as an illustration of his thought and as a background and basis for comparison with his treatment of societv.! 1 For the complete development of Simmmel’s theory of knowledge, the reader s referred to the following works and essays: Einleitung in die Moralwissen- schaft, Vol. I; Philosophie des Geldes, Intr. and pp. 62-86; Philosophische Kultur, [ntr.; Kant; “Uber eine Bezichung der Selectionslehre zur Erkenntnisstheorie,” Archiv fiir Syst. Phil., 1 (1895), 34-385; “Sur quelques relations de la pensée théorique avee les intéréts pratiques.” Revue de Mét. et de Mor., IV (1896), 160-78.

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