Georg Simmel

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Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel

Georg Simmel (March 1, 1858 – September 28, 1918, Berlin, Germany) was one of the first generation of German sociologists. He was born to a Jewish family, but after the early death of his father, a Catholic guardian was appointed for him and he was raised as a Catholic. His studies pioneered the concept of social structure. His most famous work today is probably "The Philosophy of Money".

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[edit] Life

Georg Simmel was the youngest of seven children. His father was the partner of a chocolate factory. When he died he was appointed to a catholic gaurdian, who was the founder of an international music publishing house, who endowed him with a large fortune enabling him to become a scholar.

Simmel studied philosophy and history (but he also studied social psychology and Medieval Italian) 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, officially lecturing in philosophy but also in ethics, logic, pessimism, art, psychology and sociology. 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.

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.

[edit] Simmel on the Metropolis

One of Simmel's most widely read essays is "The Metropolis and Mental Life" from 1903, which was originally given as a lecture at the Dresden exhibition on city life in which Simmel was supposed to be lecturing on the positive cultural influence. Simmel analyses various differences between the life of urban and rural people, seeing beneficial and harmful elements in both. In rural life, he observes that the slow, regular pattern of ongoing association with the same places and people allows deep emotional connections to form. On the other hand, he also observes that there is a narrowness and conformity of thought in such environs, as everyone knows everyone else's habits and opinions and so a mesh of communal judgement forms, making it very difficult for the individual to act or think idiosyncratically.

Contrarily, in urban life, as one lives mostly surrounded by strangers, one is freed by their indifference to dress, behave, speak and think, with a much broader range of freedom. The nonconformist finds themselves much more able to live as they would like in a city. However, living in the city, one is constantly surrounded by far more people, events, and changes, than one would encounter in the countryside. This constant stimulation results in people being brought to a state where they are no longer capable of reacting to each of the specific things that happens to them individually; instead, they develop a cool, distant, intellectualised way of observing the things around them: "the blase attitude". Being blase protects them from feeling overwhelmed by the constant stimulation, but on the other hand, in time, as it reduces everything around them to a state of indifferent equality, they are themselves inevitably drawn into the same feeling of indifference and hence worthlessness.

Unfortunately for Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life" was not well received. The organisers of the exhibition were appalled due to its negativity regarding city life. He was accused of being a womaniser and that his text was too 'Jewish'. It was heavily criticised by Emile Durkheim, who said it was largely based on 'wild speculation'. Due to this it did not appear in wide circulation until the 1950s.

[edit] Simmel on sociability

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

He defines sociability as, "the play-form of association," [Simmel, 158] driven by, "amicability, breeding, cordiality and attractiveness of all kinds." [Simmel, 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." [Simmel, 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." [Simmel, 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," [Simmel, 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." [Simmel, 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 [trans. 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, [page numbers shown refer to the latter publication]

[edit] Simmel and the First World War

Prior to the outbreak of the first world war Simmel had not been very interested in contemporary history, but rather in looking at the interactions, art and philosophy of his time. However, after its beginning he seems to have begun to be heavily interested in its unfolding. However, he seems to give conflictory opinions of events, being a supporter in "Germany's inner transformation", more objective in "the idea of Europe" and a critic in "The crisis of culture".

Eventually, he appears to have grown tired of the war, especially in the year of his death. He stopped reading the paper and withdrew to the Black Forest to finish his book.

[edit] 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 [On Social Differentiation]
  • Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, 2 vols, Berlin: Hertz, 1892-3 [Introduction to the Science of Ethics]
  • Die Probleme der Geschichtphilosophie, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1892, 2nd edn 1905 [The Problems of the Philosophy of History]
  • Philosophie der Geldes, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1900, 2nd edn 1907 [The 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 [Sociology: Investigations on the Forms of Sociation]
  • Hauptprobleme der Philosophie, Leipzig: Göschen, 1910
  • Philosophische Kultur, Leipzig: Kröner, 1911, 2nd edn 1919
  • Goethe, Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1913
  • Grundfragen der Soziologie, Berlin: Göschen, 1917 [Fundamental 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

[edit] 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. [1]. Berlin. ISBN 3-936749-53-1.

[edit] References

    [edit] External links

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