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.