Georg Simmel

Georg Simmel (March 1, 1858 – September 28, 1918) was one of the first generation of German sociologists. Simmel was born in Berlin and lived there most of his life. After the early death of his father a guardian was appointed for him. His studies pioneered the concept of social structure.

Simmel studied philosophy and history at the University of Berlin. In 1881 he received his doctorate for his thesis "The Nature of Matter According to Kant's Physical Monadology". He became a Privatdozent at the University of Berlin in 1885. His lectures were not only popular inside the university, but attracted the intellectual elite of Berlin as well.

Although his applications for vacant chairs at German universities were supported by Max Weber, Simmel remained an academic outsider. Only in 1901 was he elevated to the rank of extraordinary professor (full professor but without a chair; see the German section at Professor). At that time he was well-known throughout Europe and America and was seen as a man of great eminence.

Simmel nevertheless continued his intellectual and academic work, taking part in artistic circles as well as being a cofounder of the German Society for Sociology, together with Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber. This life at the meeting point of university and society, arts and philosophy was possible because Simmel had been the heir to a fortune from his appointed guardian.

He befriended many well-known men, e.g. Max Weber, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan George and Edmund Husserl.

In 1890 he married Gertrud Kinel. A philosopher in her own right, she published under the pseudonym Marie-Luise Enckendorf. They lived a sheltered and bourgeois life, their home becoming a venue for cultivated gatherings in the tradition of the salon. They bore a son, Gertmund, a combination of their names. He was frequently mentioned in Simmel's work.

Simmel writing in 1903 was critical of modern urban life, finding it incompatible with a positive urban culture. Working life had developed in a historically unique way that was negative to workers, “The nineteenth century demanded the functional specialisation of man and his work; this specialisation makes one individual incomparable to another, and each of them indispensable to the highest possible extent”Simmel The Metropolis and Mental Life 1903 Simmel claims work specialisation leads to a new ‘metropolitan type individual’ that undermines community culture, city dwellers develop an ‘organ’ to protect themselves from the threatening nature of the city. The ‘organ’ leads individuals to become insensitive and remote. Simmel found the simple country lifestyle beneficial as it created ‘deeply felt and emotional relationships’, that are complementary to a healthy community culture.

Only in 1914 did Simmel receive an ordinary professorship with chair, at the then German University of Strasbourg. Because of the outbreak of World War I, all academic activities and lectures were halted as lecture halls were converted to military hospitals. In 1915 he applied - without success - for a chair at the University of Heidelberg.

Shortly before the end of the war in 1918, he died from liver cancer.

Simmel on Sociability

Simmel refers to, "all the forms of association by which a mere sum of separate individuals are made into a 'society,'" 157 which he describes as a, "higher unity," 157 composed of individuals. He was especially fascinated, it seems, by the, "impulse to sociability in man," 157 which he descibed as "associations...which the solitariness of the individuals is resolved into togetherness, a union with others," 158 a process he describes by which, "the impulse to sociability distils, as it were, out of the realities of social life the pure essence of association," and "through which a unity is made," [Simmel, 158 which he also refers to as, "the free-playing, interacting interdependence of individuals." 158

He defines sociability as, "the play-form of association," 158 driven, in his view, by, "amicability, breeding, cordiality and attractiveness of all kinds." 158 In order for this free association to occur, he says, "the personalities must not emphasize themselves too individually...with too much abandon and aggressiveness." 158 He also describes, "this world of sociability...a democracy of equals...without friction," so long as people blend together in a spirit of fun and affection to, "bring about among themselves a pure interaction free of any disturbing material accent." 159 As so many social interactions are not entirely of this sweet character, one has to conclude that Simmel is describing a somewhat idealised view of the best types of human interaction, and by no means the most typical or average type.

The same can be said of Simmel when he says that, "the vitality of real individuals, in their sensitivities and attractions, in the fullness of their impulses and convictions...is but a symbol of life, as it shows itself in the flow of a lightly amusing play," 162 or when he adds: "a symbolic play, in whose aesthetic charm all the finest and most highly sublimated dynamics of social existence and its riches are gathered." 163 Again, one has to conclude that he is describing human interactions at their idealised best and not the more typical ones, which tend to fall a long way short of his descriptions.

All above quotes are from: G Simmel: The Sociology of Sociability by Everett C Hughes, Amer Jnl of Sociol, 55.3, Nov 1949, pp.254-261, originally from Soziologie der Geselligkeit, his speech to 1st meeting of the German Sociol Society, 1911, reprinted in Talcott Parsons et al, Theories of Society, 1961, numbers shown refer to the latter publication

The work of Simmel

Simmel was known as an essayist as well as author of sociological and philosophical books. Some of his major monographic works include:

Über sociale Differenzierung, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1890 Social Differentiation
Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, 2 vols, Berlin: Hertz, 1892-3 to the Science of Ethics
Die Probleme der Geschichtphilosophie, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1892, 2nd edn 1905 Problems of the Philosophy of History
Philosophie der Geldes, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1900, 2nd edn 1907 Philosophy of Money
''The Metropolis and Mental Life', 1903
Kant, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1904, 6th edn 1924
Kant und Goethe, Berlin: Marquardt, 1906
Die Religion, Frankfurt am Main: Rütten & Loening, 1906, 2nd edn 1912
Schopenhauer und Nietzsche, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1907
Soziologie, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1908 Investigations on the Forms of Sociation
Hautprobleme der Philosophie, Leipzig: Göschen, 1910
Philosophische Kultur, Leipzig: Kröner, 1911, 2nd edn 1919
Goethe, Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1913
Grundfragen der Soziologie, Berlin: Göschen, 1917 Questions of Sociology
Rembrandt, Leipzig: Wolff, 1917
Lebensanschauung, München: Duncker & Humblot, 1918
Zur Philosophie der Kunst, Potsdam: Kiepenheur, 1922
Fragmente und Aufsäze aus dem Nachlass, ed G Kantorowicz, München: Drei Masken Verlag, 1923
Brücke und Tür, ed M Landmann & M Susman, Stuttgart: Koehler, 1957

Other works

Rom, Ein ästhetische Analyse published the Viennese weekly paper in Die Zeit. Wiener Wochenschrift für Politike, Volkwirtschaft Wissenschaft und Kunst. on May the 28th 1898
Florenz published in the Berliner magazine Der Tag on March 2nd 1906
Venedig published in the magazine from Munich Der Kunstwart. Halbmonatsschau über Dichtung, Theater, Musik, bildende und angewandte Kunst. on June 1907
(de) Hartmann, Alois (2003): Sinn und Wert des Geldes. In der Philosophie von Georg Simmel und Adam (von) Müller. ^*. Berlin. ISBN 3-936749-53-1.

References

Sociology in Switzerland presents Georg Simmel Online
Muller, Jerry Z., 2002. The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought. Anchor Books.

External links

1858 births | 1918 deaths | German sociologists

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References

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