GENERAL INTRODUCTION 
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The truth for Simmel is relative, not absolutei':A 
single idea is true, is valid, only in relation to another idea, 
and a whole body of knowledge is true only jn’ definite 
relation to the external world. The peculiar tendency of 
our mind to accept the truth of a proposition only on the 
basis of a proof leads to an infinite regression, which means 
the impossibility of finding the final truth which shall sup- 
port the whole structure. If we do not want to accept dog- 
matically once and for all a proposition which shall need 
no further proof, we are forced to accept a reciprocity of 
proving between propositions as the basic form of cogni- 
tion (Erkennen). Although in case of a special deduction 
this process of circular reasoning can be shown to be faulty, 
it may none the less be valid for the totality of our theo- 
retic knowledge. Knowing (Erkennen) would then be a 
free-floating process in which the elements mutually de- 
termine each other’s place—just as the masses of matter 
determine each other’s place in space. Truth would then 
be a concept of relationship, like weight, and our picture 
of the world would float in space like the world itself. The 
necessity for proof either postpones the recognition of the 
truth till infinity, along a line of infinite regression, or it 
bends this line round to a circle. Then one proposition is 
true only in relation to another, this latter, however, in the 
last instance only in relation to the former. 
The totality of our theoretic knowledge would then be 
no more true than that the totality of matter is heavy. 
Only in the relation of the elements to each other do they 
have this quality, a quality which the whole cannot be 
said to possess. The totality can only possess this quality 
in relation to something outside of itself. In the same way 
the laws of geometry build themselves on each other ac- 
cording to an internal autonomy, while the axioms and 
methodological norms, according to which this building