On Individuality and Social Forms

462 Pages·1972·27.47 MB·English

by  Georg Simmel

Georg Simmel
ON INDIVIDUALITY
AND SOCIAL FORMS
THE HERITAGE OF SOCIOLOGY
A Series Edited by Morris Janowitz
Georg Simmel
ON INDIVIDUALITY
AND SOCIAL FORMS
Selected Writings
Edited and with an Introduction by
DONALD N. LEVINE
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO AND LONDON
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1971 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1971
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
16 15 14 13 12 16 17
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-75776-6 (paper)
ISBN-10: 0-226-75776-5 (paper)
LCN: 78-157146
øThe paper used in this publication meets the
minimum requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials,ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Vll
INTRODUCTION by Donald N. Levine ix
I. PHILOSOPHY OF THE
SOCIAL SCIENCES 1
1. How Is History Possible? 3
2. How Is Society Possible? 6
3. The Problem of Sociology 23
4. The Categories of Human Experience 36
II. FORMS OF SOCIAL INTERACTION 41
5. Exchange 43
6. Conflict 70
7. Domination 96
8. Prostitution 121
9. Sociability 127
III. SOC I A L TYPES 141
10. The Stranger 143
11. The Poor 150
12. The Miser and the Spendthrift 179
13. The Adventurer 187
V
vz CONTENTS
14. The Nobility 199
IV. FORMS OF INDIVIDUALITY 215
15. Freedom and the Individual 217
16. Subjective Culture 227
17. Eros, Platonic and Modern 235
V.
INDIVIDUALITY AND
SOCIAL STRUCTURE 249
18. Group Expansion and the Development
of Individuality 251
19. Fashion 294
20. The Metropolis and Mental Life 324
21. Subordination and Personal Fulfillment 340
VI.
FOR M S V E R SUS L I F E PRO C E S S :
THE D I ALE C TIC S 0 F C HAN G E 349
22. Social Forms and Inner Needs 351
23. The Transcendent Character of Life 353
24. The Conflict in Modern Culture 375
395
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Acknowledgments
FOR HELPFUL COMMENTS on the introductory essay I am
greatly indebted to Robert K. Merton and Lewis A. Coser. Mrs.
Robert Redfield kindly provided materials for the section on
Robert E. Park. Guenther Roth graciously made available a copy
of the unpublished manuscript by Max Weber which is cited in
the essay.
A belated word of gratitude is due to Everett C. Hughes, whose
seminar on Simmel in the mid-1950s helped confirm a young grad
uate student's interest.
vu

Introduction
Simmel as Innovator
OF THOSE who created the intellectual capital used to
launch the enterprise of professional sociology, Georg Simmel was
perhaps the most original and fecund. In search of a subject matter
for sociology that would distinguish it from all other social sci
ences and humanistic disciplines, he charted a new field for dis
covery and proceeded to explore a world of novel topics in works
that have guided and anticipated the thinking of generations of
sociologists. Such distinctive concepts of contemporary sociology
as social distance, marginality, urbanism as a way of life, role
playing, social behavior as exchange, conflict as an integrating
process, dyadic encounter, circular interaction, reference groups
as perspectives, and sociological ambivalence embody ideas which
Simmel adumbrated more than six decades ago. These and kindred
ideas represent only a fraction of Simmel's total intellectual out
put, which also included lasting contributions to aesthetics, ethics,
epistemology, metaphysics, and intellectual history.
The period in which Simmel's mature works appeared was one
of great cultural ferment. Central Europe from the turn of the
century to World War I witnessed the birth of psychoanalysis, rela
tivity theory, logical positivism, phenomenology, atonal music,
and several milestones of literature and humanistic scholarship.
Berlin of the period was a congenial setting for the cultivated style
of life and thought which Simmel followed. Born there in 1858, he
remained to study at the University of Berlin, where he subse
quently spent most of his academic career lecturing. He moved, to
Strasbourg, only at the age of fifty-six, four years before his death.