The Sociology of George Simmel

Translated, Edited, And With An Introduction By Kurth. Wolff

Georg Simmel rejected the organicist theories of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer and German historical tradition. He believed that society is an intricate web of multiple relations between individuals who are in constant interaction. He introduced the term sociation to describe and analyze particular forms of human interaction and their crystallization in-group characteristics. He emphasized the study of forms of interaction and this approach gave impetus to the rise of formal sociology. Georg Simmel's concept of social types was complementary to his concept of social forms. He used the example of 'The Stranger' to explain his social type, which is someone who has a particular place in society within the social group that the person has entered. Simmel stressed both the connection as well as the tensions between the individual and society, arguing that an individual is both a product of society and the link in all-social processes that take place in society. His dialectical approach brings out the dynamic interlink ages as well as conflicts that exist between social units in a society. Georg Simmel argued that conflict is an essential and complementary aspect of consensus or harmony in society. He made a distinction between social appearances and social realities, and argued that in pre-modern societies the relationships of subordination and superordination between master and servant, between employer and employee involved the total personalities of individuals. In capitalist modern society, the concept of freedom emerges and the domination of employer on employee, master on servant becomes partial. In modern societies, individualism emerges in societies with an elaborate division of labor and a number of intersecting social circles, but human beings are surrounded by objects that put constraint on them and dominate their individual needs and desires. Simmel warned that in modern societies, individuals will be frozen into social functions and the price of the objective perfection of the world will be the atrophy of the human soul.

New York Collier-Macmillan. 1950. 496p. CONTAINS MARK-UP