Messages from George Simmel

As the founder of the humanist version of sociology, Georg Simmel sent powerful messages about the discipline. His key ideas that reality is socially constructed, changes over time, and rarely is as it appears are critically re-examined with an eye toward drawing lessons for contemporary scholars and activists. With essential insights for those working in any field within the social sciences.

Introduction

1. The Message of Interpretation
Humanities versus Natural Sciences
The Operation Called Verstehen
The Controversy about Pragmatism
Simmel versus conventional Philosophy
The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy
Simmel’s Critique of Subjectivist Pragmatism
Tension between Culture and the Individual

2. The Message of Change: Society Evolves Over Time
Evolution and Darwin’s “Theory of Descendency”
Change as Differentiation and Individualization
Competition promotes Evolution
Alternative Theories of Evolution

3. The Message of Interaction: How Reality is Constructed
Sociology as the Study of Interaction
Society Emerges in Interaction
Religion as Interaction
Strangeness as Form of Interaction
Encounters between Alien Populations
The Stranger as Innovator

4. The Message of Alienation: Money and Politics
Money as a Paradigm of Cultural Processes
Evaluation and Alienation
Construction of Value in Interaction
Money as a Means of Exchange
Socialism as Result of a Forming Process
Socialism on Happiness
Machine - Factory – Government

5. The Main Thrust of the Messages contra Marx and Weber
Simmel’s Main Thrust against Marx
Simmel’s main Thrust against Weber

6. Background of the Messages: Intellectual Influences
The Platonic Socrates
Plato’s Eternal Ideas
Spinoza
Kant
Dilthey
Summary: Statements about Simmel’s Method

Appendix 1: Biography of Georg Simmel
Appendix 2: Simmel’s Autobiographical Fragment

References
Index