When he felt himself to be
incurably
ill, he asked his doctor: How long do I still have to live?
SIMMEL-Georg-Sociology-Inquiries-Into-the-Construction-of-Social-Forms-2vol
" Kant had sought to identify the forms that make up the essence of the human intellect, since he claimed that nature was a product of intellectual activity anyway.
By posing the analogous question for society, Simmel emphasize that his methodical intention is completely different from Kant's.
The qualitative threshold that divides natural philosophy from social philosophy will become clear to anyone who, like Simmel, appreciates that when dealing with data relating to nature, unity is only created in the mind of the researcher and that the objects of research remain unaffected by this. Society, in contrast, consists of conscious individuals, and their intellectual constructs create a unity (in circumstances that are the very object of investigation) not only within the individual but also as an immediate reality of society.
Thus natural philosophy creates and studies processes that do not directly influence nature, whereas social philosophy must take account of processes of the conscious mind that themselves already are, and certainly influence, social reality. There is for Simmel a new transition from nature to society in which epistemology becomes empirical science. By 1908, the year he first published this book, Simmel's epistemology had reached a level that made it possible to adapt easily to a theory of society and henceforth to become sociology. What then are the intel- lectual processes that individuals, as the elements of society, must have undergone in order for society to be possible?
Simmel attempts to outline some of the a priori conditions or forms of socialization that must exist in order to make society possible:
1. The image that one person gains of another person from personal contact is skewed in the direction of generalization using familiar categories. This image cannot be the mirror-like reflection of an unchanging reality, but is constructed in a particular way. That is a
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 7
? necessary consequence of the fact that complete knowledge of the individuality of others is not accessible to us. For society to be pos- sible, we form generalized impressions of our fellow humans and assign each of them to a general category, despite the singularity of each. It is then possible to designate each person to a particular sphere. Within the spheres of military officers, people of religious faith, civil servants, scholars, and family members, each individual makes a certain assumption in how he or she sees the other person by implying: This person is a member of my social circle.
2. Every individual is not only a part of society but also something else besides. There can be no total social engulfment; the individual must always hold back a part of personal existence from total iden- tification with society. Simmel sees this in such a differentiated and dynamic way as to envisage the different variations of the relationship between both 'parts,' saying of the individual: The nature of one's being social is determined or partly determined by the nature of one's not being completely social. Simmel anticipates his studies and mentions as examples the stranger, the enemy, the criminal, and the poor, which are presented as social forms in other chapters of this book. The quality of interaction of people within social categories would be quite different, were each person to confront every other person only as what one is in a particular category, as representative of the particular social role one happens to be seen in.
3. Society is a combination of dissimilar elements, for even where democratic or socialist forces plan or partially realize an 'equality,' it can only be equality in the sense of being equal in value; there can be no question of homogeneity. In this diversity lies the pre- requisite for cooperation. The a priori principle Simmel is leading up to here is the assumption that each individual can find a place in society, that this ideally appropriate position for the individual in society does actually exist in social reality--this is the condition upon which the social life of the individual is based, and which one might term the universality of individuality. This a priori principle is the basis for the category of occupation (vocation), but is of course not identical with the world of working life.
It may be appropriated to state that Simmel's account of social a prioris does not possess normative status. He also repeatedly mentions that those theoretical fundamentals do not describe social conditions. He thus neither requires that these a prioris should empirically exist,
8 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? nor does he claim that they do. If in any concrete individual case the condition of the a priori is not fulfilled, then that particular person is not constituting society. But society as a whole is only possible because people--Simmel calls them society's elements--generally speaking do actually realize these a priori conditions.
As the author reminded his readers in the preface, the methodological directives of chapter 1 must be kept in mind in order to understand the rest of the book. It is not meaningful in this introduction to the translation to attempt a preview of the entire volume, but two important segments are picked here to use them as illustrations of how Simmel applies his method to social forms: They are competition as a form in which humans may interact under conditions of conflict, and the from of strangeness in interaction that becomes the fate and characteristic of Simmel's famous stranger.
The observations on competition are embedded in chapter 4 on con- flict. Simmel chooses his illustrations of this specific form of interaction from different contents of social life: from commerce of course--and that was to be expected--but also from erotic interaction (two men competing for the attention of a women), from religion (two denomi- nations competing for membership of the faithful), and from physical performance in sport. What competitive activities in these various areas of human behavior have in common is the transformation of intentions of the potentially selfish individual into some common good. Simmel sees here advantages for the community in which a particular type of conflict occurs, advantages that only competition can generate.
He expands on the idea that activities undertaken by an individual for purely subjective reasons have the potential of resulting in objec- tive advantages for society as a whole. This is, however, not merely a confirmation of the invisible hand behind the selfish actions of individu- als, it is for Simmel a philosophical principle of a much more general scope. In fact Simmel illustrates his point by referring to examples from religion, erotic pleasure, and scholarship. In each of these domains individualistic interests have the potential of resulting in an increase of the common good. Scholarship, for instance, is a content of the objective culture, and is realized by means of individual curiosity and drive for new insights.
All these advantages can only be achieved provided conflict occurs in the specific form of competition. That means, as Simmel has explained before, that the goal of competition between parties in society is nearly always to attain the approval of one or many third persons. This is
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 9
? achieved in part by this incredible effect of being in a social relationship with people: it compels the competitor, who finds his fellow competi- tor at his side and only as a result of that really starts competing, to approach and appeal to the potential customer, to connect to the lat- ter, to find out the customer's weaknesses and strengths and to adapt to them. It is the society-creating effect of competition that educates people to be good competitors and thereby to be the producers of valuable services for society through artfully multiplied opportunities to make connections and gain approval. Gradually competition becomes more and more important, because to the extent to which slavery, the mechanical taking control of the human being, ceases, the necessity arises to win the person over via the soul. The more the individual is liberated from traditionalistic external control, the more the individual person must be subjected to competition.
For competition to be able to function in society, it needs to be gov- erned by prescriptions that originate from legal as well as moral sources. From both, there spring imperatives that regulate human conduct toward one another, imperatives that are not social in the conventional sense of the word--yet Simmel calls them sociological. Here Simmel hints at a fundamental conviction of his that ties sociology to ethics. Reality as experienced by humans is by necessity socially constructed, and the great cultural pespectives that humans have at their disposal for such construction include scholarship, art, religion, and indeed an integrated concept of ethics.
The texts in this volume are particularly convincing because the reader knows or senses that Simmel frequently writes as it were from within his own person. He also writes from his own experience in his excursus on the stranger in chapter 9. There is one footnote in the excur- sus that is telling and interesting. It comments on Simmel's observation that frequently strangers are blamed for political unrest or rioting:
But where this is falsely claimed on the part of those who feel attacked, it originates from the tendency of the upper strata to exculpate the lower strata who were in closer relationship with them beforehand. Because while they present the fiction that the rebels were actually not guilty, that they were only incited, that the rebellion did really not originate from them--they exculpate themselves, deny any real reason for the rebellion in the first place.
Here we have a political statement by Simmel that, in addition to the reasons that are often discussed, may have contributed to his career
10 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? problems. As is abundantly clear from the footnote to his excursus Der Fremde, Simmel did not identify with "the upper strata" who typically blame aliens for any serious political opposition. He interprets that tendency as the denial of "any real reason for the rebellion. " He indi- cates that there is probably a reason for a rebellion, but that members of the upper strata deny it.
Simmel introduces the stranger using as illustration the European Jew who as businessman would travel long distances, as Simmel's father used to do. "The stranger is a member of the group itself, no different from the poor and the various inner enemies --a member whose immanent presence and membership include at the same time being an outsider and in opposition. " This description probably describes his father's as well as Georg Simmel's own position in Berlin quite well.
Simmel examines the status of minorities in society under the concept of the stranger. He sees a remarkable dynamism in the contact between two groups that are initially distinct, but where each group provides the other with individual aliens; this dynamic process initiates change in both groups with a quite compelling predictability. This idea was adopted by William Isaac Thomas (Thomas, 1923). Simmel describes the "convergence of hitherto separated circles" as follows:
a. Two populations are distinct from one another in important char- acteristics, that is to say that all the members within each group are similar to each other in one particular respect and different from the members of the other group. The requirement of solidarity within each of the two groups initially means that members must suppress personal peculiarities or distinctive features and preferably demonstrate those qualities that show them to be typical or even model representatives of the particular group they belong to. They would thus be required to dress and behave in a uniform manner.
b. The increase in population intensifies competition in the struggle to survive. Under the influence of this increased competition, individu- als gradually develop much more distinctive characteristics of their own. This happens in both of the originally distinctive groups in a similar way, since, according to Simmel, the number of 'human formations' is limited. This fiercer competition thus forces both groups to depart increasingly from their traditional uniformity, so that these various 'human formations' can assert themselves as individual deviations from the group norm.
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 11
? c. This process of departure from uniformity in a process of increas- ing individualization affects both groups of this theoretical model in the same way, and thus brings about a decrease in the differences between them. Almost totally independent of the original nature of their difference, therefore, there is eventually considerable conver- gence between the two populations.
The stranger plays an important part in this process of social change. Depending on the place of origin, the stranger may come from a faraway country and yet now be close at hand, and thus demonstrates in a quite concrete and practical way that there are different forms of life, not only as a distant, utopian theory but personified in the here- and-now as an alien person. The stranger thus signifies to the native what one might term an 'alternative lifestyle,' to use an unfortunate expression. Of course, the benefits rendered in terms of new life forms as represented by the very presence of the stranger also involves a loss of uniformity, consensus, solidarity and inner unity in the groups. Since the peculiarities of the groups become increasingly worn away, they become so similar that belonging to one group or the other is almost of no matter to the individual. The population becomes individualized and the state of being a stranger applies to everyone.
Simmel describes being a stranger as a particular form of interaction. Wherever and whenever human beings come to encounter one another, they assume that elements of closeness and distance are both present. Set against this general assumption, the interaction between native and alien represents a rather exceptional and particularly interesting case. Thus as far as Simmel is concerned, a stranger is a person from afar who is now close at hand because of coming to stay, although leaving again is possible.
The stranger is not "the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but the one who comes today and stays tomorrow--the potential wanderer, as it were. . . " The stranger's status in the newly joined social environment is characterized by the fact that one "does not originally belong to it, and that one brings qualities to it that do not and cannot originate from this new environment. " As a potential wanderer, the alien's consciousness and forms of action are not limited to a particular locality. The stranger has no home, so to speak, or, to put it positively, that home is nowhere, in the land of 'Utopia. ' This is why the stranger's thought can be 'U-topian', not tied to any topos--that is to say not bound by any restraints of locality.
12 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? The advent of the stranger repeatedly shatters the native society's sense of being a universal society. Self-satisfied society witnesses how the alien who has joined it unexpectedly cannot be forced to acquiesce to its order. This very presence thus makes society see the falsehood of such a claim to universality. In the presence of the stranger, a suppos- edly universal orientation is revealed as locally restricted and provincial. Thus the alien has both a destructive and constructive effect at one and the same time, as a representative of alternative patterns of thought and an initiator of social change. At the same time the alien also pro- vides a new, constructive goal, demonstrating a Utopia towards which the locals can orientate their future efforts. Thus while providing an impulse to innovation, the stranger may also cause offence to members of conservative circles. The stranger is initially and principally an indi- vidual who is not integrated into the host society, and very often one who does not wish for such integration, in many historical instances compensating for the burden that this imposes with a strong belief in predestination or divine election.
In order better to understand the conditions under which Simmel was displaying his unusual creativity as author, it may be helpful to look at his biography. Isaak Simmel, the grandfather of Georg, had lived in Silesia, and there he received, as a mature man, citizenship rights in Breslau around 1840. He was the founder of a successful merchant family. His son Edward, Georg Simmel's father, was born there in 1810. Edward was a merchant himself. During one of his numerous travels, between 1830 and 1835, he converted in Paris from the Jewish faith to Christianity, becoming a Roman Catholic. In 1838 Edward Simmel married Flora Bodenstein, who also came from Breslau. Her family too had converted from Judaism to the Christian faith. Georg Simmel's parents moved to Berlin where Edward Simmel founded the chocolate factory called Felix & Sarotti, which he later apparently was able to sell advantageously (Gassen and Landmann 1958:11; an earlier version of this biography was published in Helle 2001:12-18).
When Edward Simmel died early in 1874, he left a sizeable estate. He was survived by his wife and seven children, of which Georg was the youngest. The early death of the father would have meant a catastrophe in material respects for the family had there not been the inheritance. Julius Friedlaender, a friend of the family and an important music publisher, became the legal guardian of Georg Simmel. Later on, Simmel dedicated his doctoral dissertation to him "with gratitude and love" (Gassen and Landmann 1958:11).
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 13
? Like his mother, Georg Simmel was baptized as a Protestant. During World War I he left the church, not so much because he wanted to turn his back on the Christian faith, but out of a "need for religious indepen- dence" (Gassen and Landmann 1958:12; see also Becher 1984:3-17). Gertrud Kinel, whom he married in 1890, also came from a religiously mixed family. Georg and Gertrud Simmel had a son, Hans, who became an associate professor of medicine in Jena; he died in the late 1930s as an immigrant in the United States (see Ka? sler 1985).
Georg and Gertrud Simmel's household in Berlin became a cultural center: It was there that Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan George, Edmund Husserl, Reinhold and Sabine Lepsius, Heinrich Rickert, Max and Marianne Weber, and others were regular guests. Simmel's presence at the University of Berlin had a great attraction for audiences from quite diverse social circles: Simmel's lectures about problems of logic, ethics, esthetics, sociology of religion, social psychology, and sociology were sometimes acclaimed as cultural events, announced in newspa- pers and occasionally even critiqued. As many colleagues scornfully noted, his audiences included many foreigners, intellectually interested non-academics, students from all disciplines, and especially numerous women. Those who had heard his lectures unanimously told of Simmel's fascinating style of presentation, of his ability to attach almost physi- cal substance to his train of thought, and to make the objects of his lectures appear in the mental eye of the audience, instead of presenting ready-made, seemingly undeniable results as did many of his colleagues (Schnabel 1976:272).
He received his entire schooling and university education, which con- tributed to Simmel's later successes as a university teacher, in Berlin. At the age of 18 he successfully finished his secondary school. He enrolled in the summer semester of 1876 at the University of Berlin, where he studied for five years. Here he attended courses in history under The- odor Mommsen, attended lectures about cross-cultural psychology by Lazarus und Steinthal, and finally studied philosophy as a student of the less-well-known professors Zeller and Harms, who introduced him to the works of Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche; of these, Kant had the strongest influence on Simmel. The importance of the University of Berlin can be inferred from the fact that during his studies Simmel had as his teachers Droysen, von Sybel, von Treitschke, Jordan, and Hermann Grimm (Simmel 1881:33; Tenbruck 1958:588).
During 1881 Simmel applied for permission to take the doctoral examinations. The topic of his dissertation was Psychological-Ethnological
14 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? Studies about the Origins of Music. This dissertation was not accepted! According to the available documents and written evaluations, the professors in charge cited as reasons for the rejection the patchwork-like sketchiness and the insufficient precision of the line of reasoning. While admitting that the topic of research was extraordinary, they criticized the manner in which it was carried out--many typographical errors, illegible quotations, etc. In other words, one would have to assume that the dissertation Simmel wrote and submitted was somewhat sketchily done.
On the other hand, shortly before he applied for opening the formal procedures that were surposed to lead to his doctoral degree, he had won a prize with another scholarly work. This successful work carried the title, Presentation and Examination of Several of Kant's Perspectives on the Essence of Matter. The professors who were dissatisfied with his "dissertation" suggested that he should withdraw his work on the origin of music and present in its place this prize-winning work he had written on another occasion. Simmel gladly accepted this friendly advice and he could thus be granted the doctoral degree. The oral doctoral examinations were in the fields of philosophy, history of art, and medieval Italian. The new dissertation became Simmel's first book, published in 1881 in Berlin under the title, The Essence of Matter According to Kant's Physical Monadology (Simmel 1881). Despite the successful completion of his doctoral exams, it is certain that Georg Simmel's degree-process was to be remembered as characterized by extremely unusual events.
Two years after receiving his doctoral degree, Simmel applied to the same faculty of philosophy at the University of Berlin for the formal permission to teach in the area of philosophy. During this application procedure, which should promote him to the rank of an independently teaching faculty member (Privatdozent), even more difficult problems arose. For his postdoctoral dissertation, he had again written a work about Kant, this time about Kant's theory of space and time. The pro- fessors whom the Dean had appointed to judge this dissertation--among them Wilhelm Wundt--turned it down. According to them, this work was not bad from a scientific point of view but it circled around the topic without fully dealing with it. Only after Professors Dilthey and Zeller forcefully came to Simmel's defense was it finally accepted as a Habilitationsschrift.
After the academic trial lecture (Probevorlesung) that Simmel had to deliver, the oral examination of the candidate by the faculty members was marked by an unheard-of and dramatic event; Professor Zeller
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 15
? remarked that he considered a specific lobe of the brain to be the seat of the human soul, whereupon Simmel--ignoring the social situation he was in--uncompromisingly declared Zeller's point of view to be nonsense. As an immediate consequence, Simmel did not pass this examination on his first try (Schnabel 1976:273).
The extraordinary circumstances with regard to his doctoral and post- doctoral examination procedures presumably left a mark in the memory of the faculty members in Berlin, although in both cases Simmel finally succeeded in obtaining the degree. In addition to anti-Semitism, which is widely mentioned in the literature and which would have played a role especially in the social circles of the Ministries of Cultural Affairs, one can safely assume that these occurrences contributed to preventing a smooth academic career path for Simmel. At any rate, in January of 1885 Simmel passed the postdoctoral examinations in philosophy and thereby became a Privatdozent at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Berlin.
The general style of work and life, which he was to then adopt, has been described in this way:
Simmel used to work in the mornings and evenings, whereas he preferred to see guests and friends in the afternoons. His closest friend was the economist Ignaz Jastrow. Both talked to each other in such a manner that the one hardly listened to what the other said; despite this, they always had the impression of having understood each other well. Simmel's pro- duction came easy to him. For his lectures, he made almost no notes and improvised as he talked. He wrote articles one after the other, without second drafts or corrections, as if he already could see them take form in his mind's eye. (Gassen and Landmann, 1958:13).
In 1898 the faculty to which he belonged as Privatdozent requested that he be promoted to an associate professor (Extraordinarius), which would have been equivalent to giving him a permanent position. (See, however, Coser 1968). The Ministry of Cultural Affairs, however, did not grant this request. In February 1900, the same academic body repeated its attempt to make Georg Simmel an Extraordinarius, this time finally with success. Then: In 1908 the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg had an opening to be filled, its second full professorship in philosophy. Following the recommendation of Gothein and Max Weber, Dean Hampe suggested on February 17th to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in Karlsruhe as a first choice (primo loco) the name of Rickert and as a second choice Simmel.
16 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? Although Rickert declined the call for this chair, Georg Simmel did not get the chance to go to Heidelberg. The position remained vacant for a while until a certain Schwarz was called to fill it. Georg Simmel is said to have had an offer to teach in the United States that, probably because of World War I, did not materialize. Finally, in 1914, Simmel got a call to the University of Strassburg (now Strasbourg). As much as he may have been delighted to finally become a full professor, the farewell from Berlin must have been painful for him because he had become part of its cultural and scholarly life.
That Simmel now leaves the university where he had worked for thirty years not only means a loss for it, but also for himself. Such a personal, such an irreplaceable style of teaching as Simmel's has its audience, as in a theater, and one knows: the audience does not necessarily follow the stage director whom it holds in high esteem into a new house. (Ludwig 1914:413).
Simmel belonged to those who are not willing to accept artificially created forms of intellectual discipline as rituals. He made full use of the economic independence that he was fortunate to have, in order to remain intellectually independent as well. This is one of the keys towards understanding the admirable creativity and diversity that char- acterized his scholarly work up until his death.
When he felt himself to be incurably ill, he asked his doctor: How long do I still have to live? He needed to know because his most important book still had to be finished. The doctor told him the truth and Simmel withdrew and completed Perspective on Life (Lebensanschauung). He confronted death like an ancient philosopher. "I await the Delian ship," he wrote to a friend. On September 26, 1918, he died from cancer of the liver in Strasbourg, where he had been appointed four years before. Death at this point in time was perhaps a blessing because many former Strasbourg professors fell into utter poverty shortly thereafter, when Alsace became French again (Gassen and Landmann 1958:13).
Following the already mentioned published dissertation about Kant, Simmel started his publishing activity in 1882 with an article in the Journal of Ethno-Psychology and Linguistics (Zeitschrift fu? r Vo? lkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft) under the title, "Psychological and Ethnological Studies about Music" (Simmel 1882). These are the rescued fragments of the dissertation that had been declined. The first book that he pub- lished after his dissertation appeared in 1890 under the title of "On Social Differentiation--Sociological and Psychological Studies (Simmel 1890).
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 17
? The subtitle expressly signals the claim of presenting a contribution to sociology. Parts of chapter 5 of that book have become part of chapter 6 in this one, as Simmel acknowledges in a footnote here at the beginning of chapter 6.
The title of this translation--as of its original--is Sociology (Soziologie). The subtitle reads: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms. The Ger- man original is available in 2008 in two versions: a) the sixth edition as published 1983 by Duncker and Humblot in Berlin, the publisher who has the original copyright to much of Simmel's works, and b) volume 11 in the collected works of Georg Simmel (Gesamtausgabe in 24 Ba? nden) available at Suhrkamp publishers in Frankfurt, Main. The Suhrkamp cloth edition is sold out, but the paperback version can be ordered. There is an obvious interest in Simmel today, and this book has become a classic work that is read today as it was a century ago.
References
Becher, Heribert Josef. 1984. Georg Simmel in Strassburg. Sociologia internationalis 22(5):3-17.
Coser, Lewis. 1968. Georg Simmel's Style of Work: A Contribution to the Sociology of the Sociologist. American Journal of Sociology 63:635-41.
Gassen, Kurt, and Michael Landmann. 1958. Buch des Dankes an Georg Simmel: Briefe, Erinnerungen, Bibliographie. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
Helle, Horst J. 2001. Georg Simmel: Introduction to his Theory and Method/Einfu? hrung in seine Theorie und Methode. Mu? nchen and Wien: R. Oldenbourg Verlag.
Ka? sler, Dirk. 1985. Hans Simmel--Zwei Briefe. Lebenslauf an Earle Eubank, 1938. Rekonstruktion einer Biographie aufgrund von Gespra? chen mit Arnold Simmel. In Dirk Ka? sler (ed. ) Soziologische Abenteuer. Earle Eubank besucht europa? ische Soziologen im Sommer 1934. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 182-89. [ET: Sociological Adventures: Earle Eubank's Visits with European Sociologists. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transac- tion, 1991]
Ludwig, Emil. 1914: Simmel auf dem Katheder. Die Schaubu? hne, 10(1):411-13.
Mead, George H. 1901: Book review: Philosophie des Geldes by Georg Simmel. Journal
of Political Economy 9:616-19.
Schnabel, P. -E. 1976. Georg Simmel. In Dirk Ka? sler (ed. ) Klassiker des soziologischen
Denkens. Mu? nchen: C. H. Beck, I, 267-311.
Simmel, Georg. 1881. Das Wesen der Materie nach Kants physischer Monadologie. Inaugural-
Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwu? rde von der Philosophischen Fakulta? t der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universita? t zu Berlin genehmigt und Freitag, den 25. Februar 1881 o? ffentlich verteidigt. Berlin.
----. 1882. Psychologische und ethnologische Studien u? ber Musik (Studies in psychol- ogy and cultural anthropology of music). Zeitschrift fu? r Vo? lkerpsychologie und Sprachwis- senschaft 13:261-305.
----. 1890. U? ber sociale Differenzierung--Sociologische und psychologische Unter- suchungen. Leipzig: Dunker & Humblot.
----. 1893. Moral Deficiencies as Determining Intellectual Functions. Short Excerpt from Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft. International Journal of Ethics 3:490-507.
18 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? ----. 1894. Das Problem der Soziologie. Jahrbuch fu? r Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volk- swirtschaft im Deutschen Reich 18:272-77, 1301-07.
----. 1895. The Problem of Sociology. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 6(3):412-23.
----. 1907. Philosophie des Geldes. 2nd edition (1st edition 1900). Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. [ET: The Philosophy of Money, 3rd enlarged edition, ed. David Frisby, tr. Tom Bottomore and David Frisby. London and New York: Routledge, 2004]
----. 1908. Soziologie. Untersuchungen u? ber die Formen der Vergesellschaftung (Sociology. Inquiries into the forms of socialization). Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.
----. 1931. Soziologische Vorlesungen von Georg Simmel--Gehalten an der Universita? t Berlin im Wintersemester 1899 (Nachschrift von Robert E. Park). Chicago: Society for Social Research, University of Chicago 1931, 1, 1, 53 pages.
----. 1950. The Sociology of Georg Simmel, tr. , ed. Kurt H. Wolff. New York: Free Press. ----. 1955. Conflict--The Web of Group-Affiliations, tr. Kurt H. Wolff--tr. Reinhard
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Thomas, William I. 1923. The Unadjusted Girl--with cases and standpoint for behavior analysis.
Boston: Little Brown & Company.
CHAPTER ONE
THE PROBLEM OF SOCIOLOGY
If it is correct that human knowledge developed from practical necessity and that knowing how to keep safe is a weapon in the struggle for exis- tence against nature and in the competition of people with each other, it is no longer tied up with this origin. From being a mere means to a goal of action it has become an ultimate goal in itself. Yet knowledge, even under the self-governing form of science, has not broken off the relationship with practical interests altogether, even though it no longer appears entirely as an outcome of the latter but as interactions of the two, each with its own autonomous claims. Because scientific knowledge offers, in technology, not only the realization of extrinsic purposes but is also directed to the theoretical need for insight into the practical purposes, sometimes new directions of thought turn up that nevertheless touch upon problematics and forms of intellectuality, out of interests in a new sensitivity and desire only for their purely abstract character. So these are the claims that the science of sociology is concerned to raise: the theoretical pursuit and reflection on the practical power that the masses have acquired in the nineteenth century against the interests of individuals. However, the import and concern that the lower classes have caused the higher is scarcely conveyed in the concept, "society. " It is still true that the social distance between the classes does not allow their members to be seen as individuals but as a unified mass, and that this distance does not leave the two bound together in any other fun- damental way than that together they comprise "a society. " While the significance of classes lies not in their ostensive separate importance but in their comprising a "society," theoretical consciousness--as a result of the practical balance of power--at once took up as true the idea that every individual phenomenon is mainly determined through immea- surably immense influences from its social environment. And this idea obtained, so to speak, a retrospective power: next to the present society the past appeared as the substance that shaped individual existence, like waves in the sea. Here ground was gained in that the specific forms of these forces alone shaping individuals became explainable to them. This line of thought lent support to modern relativism, the tendency
20 chapter one
? to dissolve the distinct and essential into interworkings; the individual became only the location where social threads link, the personality only the particular way in which this occurs. Since we have been brought to the conscious awareness that every human act takes place inside society and nothing can evade its influence, so everything that was not the science of external nature must be the science of society. It appears as the all encompassing domain in which ethics as well as cultural his- tory, political economy as well as religious studies, aesthetics as well as demography, politics as well as ethnology are gathered together because the objects of these sciences take form in the compass of society. So the science of humanity would be the science of society. Contributing to this picture of sociology as the science of everything human was that it was a new science and consequently going into every possible problem not otherwise firmly fixed--just as a newly developing field typically becomes the El Dorado of homeless and itinerant beings; the inevitably vague and indefensible boundaries at the beginning grant everyone the right to accommodations. On closer inspection, throwing together all these former areas of study produces nothing new. It means only that the historical, psychological, and normative sciences are thrown into a large pot and the label 'sociology' tacked on. With that, only a new name would have been obtained, while everything that it treats is already fixed in its contents and relations, or produced inside the former domains of research. The fact that human thought and action occur in and are shaped by society makes sociology no more the all encompassing science of it than one can make chemistry, botany and astronomy the contents of psychology, because their topics are in the end only in human consciousness and subject to its requirements.
To be sure a misunderstood but in itself very significant fact underlies that error. The insight that the human being may be defined in all its essence and manifestations as living in interaction with other human beings simply must lead to a new manner of consideration in all the so called cultural sciences.
The qualitative threshold that divides natural philosophy from social philosophy will become clear to anyone who, like Simmel, appreciates that when dealing with data relating to nature, unity is only created in the mind of the researcher and that the objects of research remain unaffected by this. Society, in contrast, consists of conscious individuals, and their intellectual constructs create a unity (in circumstances that are the very object of investigation) not only within the individual but also as an immediate reality of society.
Thus natural philosophy creates and studies processes that do not directly influence nature, whereas social philosophy must take account of processes of the conscious mind that themselves already are, and certainly influence, social reality. There is for Simmel a new transition from nature to society in which epistemology becomes empirical science. By 1908, the year he first published this book, Simmel's epistemology had reached a level that made it possible to adapt easily to a theory of society and henceforth to become sociology. What then are the intel- lectual processes that individuals, as the elements of society, must have undergone in order for society to be possible?
Simmel attempts to outline some of the a priori conditions or forms of socialization that must exist in order to make society possible:
1. The image that one person gains of another person from personal contact is skewed in the direction of generalization using familiar categories. This image cannot be the mirror-like reflection of an unchanging reality, but is constructed in a particular way. That is a
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 7
? necessary consequence of the fact that complete knowledge of the individuality of others is not accessible to us. For society to be pos- sible, we form generalized impressions of our fellow humans and assign each of them to a general category, despite the singularity of each. It is then possible to designate each person to a particular sphere. Within the spheres of military officers, people of religious faith, civil servants, scholars, and family members, each individual makes a certain assumption in how he or she sees the other person by implying: This person is a member of my social circle.
2. Every individual is not only a part of society but also something else besides. There can be no total social engulfment; the individual must always hold back a part of personal existence from total iden- tification with society. Simmel sees this in such a differentiated and dynamic way as to envisage the different variations of the relationship between both 'parts,' saying of the individual: The nature of one's being social is determined or partly determined by the nature of one's not being completely social. Simmel anticipates his studies and mentions as examples the stranger, the enemy, the criminal, and the poor, which are presented as social forms in other chapters of this book. The quality of interaction of people within social categories would be quite different, were each person to confront every other person only as what one is in a particular category, as representative of the particular social role one happens to be seen in.
3. Society is a combination of dissimilar elements, for even where democratic or socialist forces plan or partially realize an 'equality,' it can only be equality in the sense of being equal in value; there can be no question of homogeneity. In this diversity lies the pre- requisite for cooperation. The a priori principle Simmel is leading up to here is the assumption that each individual can find a place in society, that this ideally appropriate position for the individual in society does actually exist in social reality--this is the condition upon which the social life of the individual is based, and which one might term the universality of individuality. This a priori principle is the basis for the category of occupation (vocation), but is of course not identical with the world of working life.
It may be appropriated to state that Simmel's account of social a prioris does not possess normative status. He also repeatedly mentions that those theoretical fundamentals do not describe social conditions. He thus neither requires that these a prioris should empirically exist,
8 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? nor does he claim that they do. If in any concrete individual case the condition of the a priori is not fulfilled, then that particular person is not constituting society. But society as a whole is only possible because people--Simmel calls them society's elements--generally speaking do actually realize these a priori conditions.
As the author reminded his readers in the preface, the methodological directives of chapter 1 must be kept in mind in order to understand the rest of the book. It is not meaningful in this introduction to the translation to attempt a preview of the entire volume, but two important segments are picked here to use them as illustrations of how Simmel applies his method to social forms: They are competition as a form in which humans may interact under conditions of conflict, and the from of strangeness in interaction that becomes the fate and characteristic of Simmel's famous stranger.
The observations on competition are embedded in chapter 4 on con- flict. Simmel chooses his illustrations of this specific form of interaction from different contents of social life: from commerce of course--and that was to be expected--but also from erotic interaction (two men competing for the attention of a women), from religion (two denomi- nations competing for membership of the faithful), and from physical performance in sport. What competitive activities in these various areas of human behavior have in common is the transformation of intentions of the potentially selfish individual into some common good. Simmel sees here advantages for the community in which a particular type of conflict occurs, advantages that only competition can generate.
He expands on the idea that activities undertaken by an individual for purely subjective reasons have the potential of resulting in objec- tive advantages for society as a whole. This is, however, not merely a confirmation of the invisible hand behind the selfish actions of individu- als, it is for Simmel a philosophical principle of a much more general scope. In fact Simmel illustrates his point by referring to examples from religion, erotic pleasure, and scholarship. In each of these domains individualistic interests have the potential of resulting in an increase of the common good. Scholarship, for instance, is a content of the objective culture, and is realized by means of individual curiosity and drive for new insights.
All these advantages can only be achieved provided conflict occurs in the specific form of competition. That means, as Simmel has explained before, that the goal of competition between parties in society is nearly always to attain the approval of one or many third persons. This is
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 9
? achieved in part by this incredible effect of being in a social relationship with people: it compels the competitor, who finds his fellow competi- tor at his side and only as a result of that really starts competing, to approach and appeal to the potential customer, to connect to the lat- ter, to find out the customer's weaknesses and strengths and to adapt to them. It is the society-creating effect of competition that educates people to be good competitors and thereby to be the producers of valuable services for society through artfully multiplied opportunities to make connections and gain approval. Gradually competition becomes more and more important, because to the extent to which slavery, the mechanical taking control of the human being, ceases, the necessity arises to win the person over via the soul. The more the individual is liberated from traditionalistic external control, the more the individual person must be subjected to competition.
For competition to be able to function in society, it needs to be gov- erned by prescriptions that originate from legal as well as moral sources. From both, there spring imperatives that regulate human conduct toward one another, imperatives that are not social in the conventional sense of the word--yet Simmel calls them sociological. Here Simmel hints at a fundamental conviction of his that ties sociology to ethics. Reality as experienced by humans is by necessity socially constructed, and the great cultural pespectives that humans have at their disposal for such construction include scholarship, art, religion, and indeed an integrated concept of ethics.
The texts in this volume are particularly convincing because the reader knows or senses that Simmel frequently writes as it were from within his own person. He also writes from his own experience in his excursus on the stranger in chapter 9. There is one footnote in the excur- sus that is telling and interesting. It comments on Simmel's observation that frequently strangers are blamed for political unrest or rioting:
But where this is falsely claimed on the part of those who feel attacked, it originates from the tendency of the upper strata to exculpate the lower strata who were in closer relationship with them beforehand. Because while they present the fiction that the rebels were actually not guilty, that they were only incited, that the rebellion did really not originate from them--they exculpate themselves, deny any real reason for the rebellion in the first place.
Here we have a political statement by Simmel that, in addition to the reasons that are often discussed, may have contributed to his career
10 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? problems. As is abundantly clear from the footnote to his excursus Der Fremde, Simmel did not identify with "the upper strata" who typically blame aliens for any serious political opposition. He interprets that tendency as the denial of "any real reason for the rebellion. " He indi- cates that there is probably a reason for a rebellion, but that members of the upper strata deny it.
Simmel introduces the stranger using as illustration the European Jew who as businessman would travel long distances, as Simmel's father used to do. "The stranger is a member of the group itself, no different from the poor and the various inner enemies --a member whose immanent presence and membership include at the same time being an outsider and in opposition. " This description probably describes his father's as well as Georg Simmel's own position in Berlin quite well.
Simmel examines the status of minorities in society under the concept of the stranger. He sees a remarkable dynamism in the contact between two groups that are initially distinct, but where each group provides the other with individual aliens; this dynamic process initiates change in both groups with a quite compelling predictability. This idea was adopted by William Isaac Thomas (Thomas, 1923). Simmel describes the "convergence of hitherto separated circles" as follows:
a. Two populations are distinct from one another in important char- acteristics, that is to say that all the members within each group are similar to each other in one particular respect and different from the members of the other group. The requirement of solidarity within each of the two groups initially means that members must suppress personal peculiarities or distinctive features and preferably demonstrate those qualities that show them to be typical or even model representatives of the particular group they belong to. They would thus be required to dress and behave in a uniform manner.
b. The increase in population intensifies competition in the struggle to survive. Under the influence of this increased competition, individu- als gradually develop much more distinctive characteristics of their own. This happens in both of the originally distinctive groups in a similar way, since, according to Simmel, the number of 'human formations' is limited. This fiercer competition thus forces both groups to depart increasingly from their traditional uniformity, so that these various 'human formations' can assert themselves as individual deviations from the group norm.
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 11
? c. This process of departure from uniformity in a process of increas- ing individualization affects both groups of this theoretical model in the same way, and thus brings about a decrease in the differences between them. Almost totally independent of the original nature of their difference, therefore, there is eventually considerable conver- gence between the two populations.
The stranger plays an important part in this process of social change. Depending on the place of origin, the stranger may come from a faraway country and yet now be close at hand, and thus demonstrates in a quite concrete and practical way that there are different forms of life, not only as a distant, utopian theory but personified in the here- and-now as an alien person. The stranger thus signifies to the native what one might term an 'alternative lifestyle,' to use an unfortunate expression. Of course, the benefits rendered in terms of new life forms as represented by the very presence of the stranger also involves a loss of uniformity, consensus, solidarity and inner unity in the groups. Since the peculiarities of the groups become increasingly worn away, they become so similar that belonging to one group or the other is almost of no matter to the individual. The population becomes individualized and the state of being a stranger applies to everyone.
Simmel describes being a stranger as a particular form of interaction. Wherever and whenever human beings come to encounter one another, they assume that elements of closeness and distance are both present. Set against this general assumption, the interaction between native and alien represents a rather exceptional and particularly interesting case. Thus as far as Simmel is concerned, a stranger is a person from afar who is now close at hand because of coming to stay, although leaving again is possible.
The stranger is not "the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but the one who comes today and stays tomorrow--the potential wanderer, as it were. . . " The stranger's status in the newly joined social environment is characterized by the fact that one "does not originally belong to it, and that one brings qualities to it that do not and cannot originate from this new environment. " As a potential wanderer, the alien's consciousness and forms of action are not limited to a particular locality. The stranger has no home, so to speak, or, to put it positively, that home is nowhere, in the land of 'Utopia. ' This is why the stranger's thought can be 'U-topian', not tied to any topos--that is to say not bound by any restraints of locality.
12 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? The advent of the stranger repeatedly shatters the native society's sense of being a universal society. Self-satisfied society witnesses how the alien who has joined it unexpectedly cannot be forced to acquiesce to its order. This very presence thus makes society see the falsehood of such a claim to universality. In the presence of the stranger, a suppos- edly universal orientation is revealed as locally restricted and provincial. Thus the alien has both a destructive and constructive effect at one and the same time, as a representative of alternative patterns of thought and an initiator of social change. At the same time the alien also pro- vides a new, constructive goal, demonstrating a Utopia towards which the locals can orientate their future efforts. Thus while providing an impulse to innovation, the stranger may also cause offence to members of conservative circles. The stranger is initially and principally an indi- vidual who is not integrated into the host society, and very often one who does not wish for such integration, in many historical instances compensating for the burden that this imposes with a strong belief in predestination or divine election.
In order better to understand the conditions under which Simmel was displaying his unusual creativity as author, it may be helpful to look at his biography. Isaak Simmel, the grandfather of Georg, had lived in Silesia, and there he received, as a mature man, citizenship rights in Breslau around 1840. He was the founder of a successful merchant family. His son Edward, Georg Simmel's father, was born there in 1810. Edward was a merchant himself. During one of his numerous travels, between 1830 and 1835, he converted in Paris from the Jewish faith to Christianity, becoming a Roman Catholic. In 1838 Edward Simmel married Flora Bodenstein, who also came from Breslau. Her family too had converted from Judaism to the Christian faith. Georg Simmel's parents moved to Berlin where Edward Simmel founded the chocolate factory called Felix & Sarotti, which he later apparently was able to sell advantageously (Gassen and Landmann 1958:11; an earlier version of this biography was published in Helle 2001:12-18).
When Edward Simmel died early in 1874, he left a sizeable estate. He was survived by his wife and seven children, of which Georg was the youngest. The early death of the father would have meant a catastrophe in material respects for the family had there not been the inheritance. Julius Friedlaender, a friend of the family and an important music publisher, became the legal guardian of Georg Simmel. Later on, Simmel dedicated his doctoral dissertation to him "with gratitude and love" (Gassen and Landmann 1958:11).
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 13
? Like his mother, Georg Simmel was baptized as a Protestant. During World War I he left the church, not so much because he wanted to turn his back on the Christian faith, but out of a "need for religious indepen- dence" (Gassen and Landmann 1958:12; see also Becher 1984:3-17). Gertrud Kinel, whom he married in 1890, also came from a religiously mixed family. Georg and Gertrud Simmel had a son, Hans, who became an associate professor of medicine in Jena; he died in the late 1930s as an immigrant in the United States (see Ka? sler 1985).
Georg and Gertrud Simmel's household in Berlin became a cultural center: It was there that Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan George, Edmund Husserl, Reinhold and Sabine Lepsius, Heinrich Rickert, Max and Marianne Weber, and others were regular guests. Simmel's presence at the University of Berlin had a great attraction for audiences from quite diverse social circles: Simmel's lectures about problems of logic, ethics, esthetics, sociology of religion, social psychology, and sociology were sometimes acclaimed as cultural events, announced in newspa- pers and occasionally even critiqued. As many colleagues scornfully noted, his audiences included many foreigners, intellectually interested non-academics, students from all disciplines, and especially numerous women. Those who had heard his lectures unanimously told of Simmel's fascinating style of presentation, of his ability to attach almost physi- cal substance to his train of thought, and to make the objects of his lectures appear in the mental eye of the audience, instead of presenting ready-made, seemingly undeniable results as did many of his colleagues (Schnabel 1976:272).
He received his entire schooling and university education, which con- tributed to Simmel's later successes as a university teacher, in Berlin. At the age of 18 he successfully finished his secondary school. He enrolled in the summer semester of 1876 at the University of Berlin, where he studied for five years. Here he attended courses in history under The- odor Mommsen, attended lectures about cross-cultural psychology by Lazarus und Steinthal, and finally studied philosophy as a student of the less-well-known professors Zeller and Harms, who introduced him to the works of Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche; of these, Kant had the strongest influence on Simmel. The importance of the University of Berlin can be inferred from the fact that during his studies Simmel had as his teachers Droysen, von Sybel, von Treitschke, Jordan, and Hermann Grimm (Simmel 1881:33; Tenbruck 1958:588).
During 1881 Simmel applied for permission to take the doctoral examinations. The topic of his dissertation was Psychological-Ethnological
14 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? Studies about the Origins of Music. This dissertation was not accepted! According to the available documents and written evaluations, the professors in charge cited as reasons for the rejection the patchwork-like sketchiness and the insufficient precision of the line of reasoning. While admitting that the topic of research was extraordinary, they criticized the manner in which it was carried out--many typographical errors, illegible quotations, etc. In other words, one would have to assume that the dissertation Simmel wrote and submitted was somewhat sketchily done.
On the other hand, shortly before he applied for opening the formal procedures that were surposed to lead to his doctoral degree, he had won a prize with another scholarly work. This successful work carried the title, Presentation and Examination of Several of Kant's Perspectives on the Essence of Matter. The professors who were dissatisfied with his "dissertation" suggested that he should withdraw his work on the origin of music and present in its place this prize-winning work he had written on another occasion. Simmel gladly accepted this friendly advice and he could thus be granted the doctoral degree. The oral doctoral examinations were in the fields of philosophy, history of art, and medieval Italian. The new dissertation became Simmel's first book, published in 1881 in Berlin under the title, The Essence of Matter According to Kant's Physical Monadology (Simmel 1881). Despite the successful completion of his doctoral exams, it is certain that Georg Simmel's degree-process was to be remembered as characterized by extremely unusual events.
Two years after receiving his doctoral degree, Simmel applied to the same faculty of philosophy at the University of Berlin for the formal permission to teach in the area of philosophy. During this application procedure, which should promote him to the rank of an independently teaching faculty member (Privatdozent), even more difficult problems arose. For his postdoctoral dissertation, he had again written a work about Kant, this time about Kant's theory of space and time. The pro- fessors whom the Dean had appointed to judge this dissertation--among them Wilhelm Wundt--turned it down. According to them, this work was not bad from a scientific point of view but it circled around the topic without fully dealing with it. Only after Professors Dilthey and Zeller forcefully came to Simmel's defense was it finally accepted as a Habilitationsschrift.
After the academic trial lecture (Probevorlesung) that Simmel had to deliver, the oral examination of the candidate by the faculty members was marked by an unheard-of and dramatic event; Professor Zeller
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 15
? remarked that he considered a specific lobe of the brain to be the seat of the human soul, whereupon Simmel--ignoring the social situation he was in--uncompromisingly declared Zeller's point of view to be nonsense. As an immediate consequence, Simmel did not pass this examination on his first try (Schnabel 1976:273).
The extraordinary circumstances with regard to his doctoral and post- doctoral examination procedures presumably left a mark in the memory of the faculty members in Berlin, although in both cases Simmel finally succeeded in obtaining the degree. In addition to anti-Semitism, which is widely mentioned in the literature and which would have played a role especially in the social circles of the Ministries of Cultural Affairs, one can safely assume that these occurrences contributed to preventing a smooth academic career path for Simmel. At any rate, in January of 1885 Simmel passed the postdoctoral examinations in philosophy and thereby became a Privatdozent at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Berlin.
The general style of work and life, which he was to then adopt, has been described in this way:
Simmel used to work in the mornings and evenings, whereas he preferred to see guests and friends in the afternoons. His closest friend was the economist Ignaz Jastrow. Both talked to each other in such a manner that the one hardly listened to what the other said; despite this, they always had the impression of having understood each other well. Simmel's pro- duction came easy to him. For his lectures, he made almost no notes and improvised as he talked. He wrote articles one after the other, without second drafts or corrections, as if he already could see them take form in his mind's eye. (Gassen and Landmann, 1958:13).
In 1898 the faculty to which he belonged as Privatdozent requested that he be promoted to an associate professor (Extraordinarius), which would have been equivalent to giving him a permanent position. (See, however, Coser 1968). The Ministry of Cultural Affairs, however, did not grant this request. In February 1900, the same academic body repeated its attempt to make Georg Simmel an Extraordinarius, this time finally with success. Then: In 1908 the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg had an opening to be filled, its second full professorship in philosophy. Following the recommendation of Gothein and Max Weber, Dean Hampe suggested on February 17th to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in Karlsruhe as a first choice (primo loco) the name of Rickert and as a second choice Simmel.
16 introduction to the translation by horst j. helle
? Although Rickert declined the call for this chair, Georg Simmel did not get the chance to go to Heidelberg. The position remained vacant for a while until a certain Schwarz was called to fill it. Georg Simmel is said to have had an offer to teach in the United States that, probably because of World War I, did not materialize. Finally, in 1914, Simmel got a call to the University of Strassburg (now Strasbourg). As much as he may have been delighted to finally become a full professor, the farewell from Berlin must have been painful for him because he had become part of its cultural and scholarly life.
That Simmel now leaves the university where he had worked for thirty years not only means a loss for it, but also for himself. Such a personal, such an irreplaceable style of teaching as Simmel's has its audience, as in a theater, and one knows: the audience does not necessarily follow the stage director whom it holds in high esteem into a new house. (Ludwig 1914:413).
Simmel belonged to those who are not willing to accept artificially created forms of intellectual discipline as rituals. He made full use of the economic independence that he was fortunate to have, in order to remain intellectually independent as well. This is one of the keys towards understanding the admirable creativity and diversity that char- acterized his scholarly work up until his death.
When he felt himself to be incurably ill, he asked his doctor: How long do I still have to live? He needed to know because his most important book still had to be finished. The doctor told him the truth and Simmel withdrew and completed Perspective on Life (Lebensanschauung). He confronted death like an ancient philosopher. "I await the Delian ship," he wrote to a friend. On September 26, 1918, he died from cancer of the liver in Strasbourg, where he had been appointed four years before. Death at this point in time was perhaps a blessing because many former Strasbourg professors fell into utter poverty shortly thereafter, when Alsace became French again (Gassen and Landmann 1958:13).
Following the already mentioned published dissertation about Kant, Simmel started his publishing activity in 1882 with an article in the Journal of Ethno-Psychology and Linguistics (Zeitschrift fu? r Vo? lkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft) under the title, "Psychological and Ethnological Studies about Music" (Simmel 1882). These are the rescued fragments of the dissertation that had been declined. The first book that he pub- lished after his dissertation appeared in 1890 under the title of "On Social Differentiation--Sociological and Psychological Studies (Simmel 1890).
introduction to the translation by horst j. helle 17
? The subtitle expressly signals the claim of presenting a contribution to sociology. Parts of chapter 5 of that book have become part of chapter 6 in this one, as Simmel acknowledges in a footnote here at the beginning of chapter 6.
The title of this translation--as of its original--is Sociology (Soziologie). The subtitle reads: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms. The Ger- man original is available in 2008 in two versions: a) the sixth edition as published 1983 by Duncker and Humblot in Berlin, the publisher who has the original copyright to much of Simmel's works, and b) volume 11 in the collected works of Georg Simmel (Gesamtausgabe in 24 Ba? nden) available at Suhrkamp publishers in Frankfurt, Main. The Suhrkamp cloth edition is sold out, but the paperback version can be ordered. There is an obvious interest in Simmel today, and this book has become a classic work that is read today as it was a century ago.
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Boston: Little Brown & Company.
CHAPTER ONE
THE PROBLEM OF SOCIOLOGY
If it is correct that human knowledge developed from practical necessity and that knowing how to keep safe is a weapon in the struggle for exis- tence against nature and in the competition of people with each other, it is no longer tied up with this origin. From being a mere means to a goal of action it has become an ultimate goal in itself. Yet knowledge, even under the self-governing form of science, has not broken off the relationship with practical interests altogether, even though it no longer appears entirely as an outcome of the latter but as interactions of the two, each with its own autonomous claims. Because scientific knowledge offers, in technology, not only the realization of extrinsic purposes but is also directed to the theoretical need for insight into the practical purposes, sometimes new directions of thought turn up that nevertheless touch upon problematics and forms of intellectuality, out of interests in a new sensitivity and desire only for their purely abstract character. So these are the claims that the science of sociology is concerned to raise: the theoretical pursuit and reflection on the practical power that the masses have acquired in the nineteenth century against the interests of individuals. However, the import and concern that the lower classes have caused the higher is scarcely conveyed in the concept, "society. " It is still true that the social distance between the classes does not allow their members to be seen as individuals but as a unified mass, and that this distance does not leave the two bound together in any other fun- damental way than that together they comprise "a society. " While the significance of classes lies not in their ostensive separate importance but in their comprising a "society," theoretical consciousness--as a result of the practical balance of power--at once took up as true the idea that every individual phenomenon is mainly determined through immea- surably immense influences from its social environment. And this idea obtained, so to speak, a retrospective power: next to the present society the past appeared as the substance that shaped individual existence, like waves in the sea. Here ground was gained in that the specific forms of these forces alone shaping individuals became explainable to them. This line of thought lent support to modern relativism, the tendency
20 chapter one
? to dissolve the distinct and essential into interworkings; the individual became only the location where social threads link, the personality only the particular way in which this occurs. Since we have been brought to the conscious awareness that every human act takes place inside society and nothing can evade its influence, so everything that was not the science of external nature must be the science of society. It appears as the all encompassing domain in which ethics as well as cultural his- tory, political economy as well as religious studies, aesthetics as well as demography, politics as well as ethnology are gathered together because the objects of these sciences take form in the compass of society. So the science of humanity would be the science of society. Contributing to this picture of sociology as the science of everything human was that it was a new science and consequently going into every possible problem not otherwise firmly fixed--just as a newly developing field typically becomes the El Dorado of homeless and itinerant beings; the inevitably vague and indefensible boundaries at the beginning grant everyone the right to accommodations. On closer inspection, throwing together all these former areas of study produces nothing new. It means only that the historical, psychological, and normative sciences are thrown into a large pot and the label 'sociology' tacked on. With that, only a new name would have been obtained, while everything that it treats is already fixed in its contents and relations, or produced inside the former domains of research. The fact that human thought and action occur in and are shaped by society makes sociology no more the all encompassing science of it than one can make chemistry, botany and astronomy the contents of psychology, because their topics are in the end only in human consciousness and subject to its requirements.
To be sure a misunderstood but in itself very significant fact underlies that error. The insight that the human being may be defined in all its essence and manifestations as living in interaction with other human beings simply must lead to a new manner of consideration in all the so called cultural sciences.
