Philosopher
Georg Simmel
Overview
Georg Simmel (; German: [ˈzɪml̩]; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. A founding figure of sociology, his neo-Kantian approach helped establish sociological antipositivism, asking "What is society?" in analogy to Kant's "What is nature?". He pioneered analyses of individuality and social fragmentation.
Simmel discussed social and cultural phenomena in terms of "forms" and "contents" with a transient relationship, wherein form becomes content, and vice versa dependent on context. In this sense, Simmel was a forerunner to structuralist styles of reasoning in the social sciences and heralded relational sociology.
In "The Metropolis and Mental Life", Simmel anticipates urban sociology, symbolic interactionism, and social network analysis. An acquaintance of Max Weber, Simmel wrote on the topic of personal character in a manner reminiscent of the sociological ideal type. He broadly rejected academic standards, however, philosophically covering topics such as emotion and romantic love. Both Simmel and Weber's nonpositivist theory informed the eclectic critical theory of the Frankfurt School.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Philosophers who discussed Georg Simmel
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Bernard Lonergan
- Heinrich Rickert
- Karl Mannheim
- Emil Cioran
- Theodor W. Adorno
- Ferdinand Tönnies
- Michael Oakeshott
- Paul Tillich
- György Lukács
- Wilhelm Dilthey
- Zygmunt Bauman
- José Ortega y Gasset
- Max Scheler
- Martin Heidegger and Nazism
- Theodor Litt
- Karl Joel (philosopher)
- Jean-Michel Berthelot
Ideas Georg Simmel discusses
- Heidelberg University
- History
- Neo-Kantianism
- Heinrich Rickert
- Germany
- German Empire
- Philosophy
- Western philosophy
- Immanuel Kant
- Academy
- Individualism
- Antipositivism
- Impartiality
- Eduard Zeller
- Mind–body dualism
- Philosophy of history
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Sociology
- Middle Ages
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Max Weber
- University of Chicago Press
- Lebensphilosophie
- Auguste Rodin
Place in the tradition
Part of Dramatism.