Bio: (1858-1918) German philosopher and sociologist. Georg Simmel received his doctorate from the University of Berlin, where he taught until 1914, after which, until his death, he taught at the University of Strasbourg. Zimel's scientific work is at the intersection of philosophy and sociology. Many classify him as a member of the Formal School of Sociology, and some even consider him the founder of that school. The reason for this is that he believed that the subject of "pure sociology" are the forms of interaction that constitute the essence of society and social life. On the other hand, his philosophical approach to life and culture served as the basis and inspiration for many interpretive sociological approaches, such as social constructivism and symbolic interactionism.

                         Philosophy and Sociology of Knowledge

To understand Simel's sociology, it is first necessary to understand his basic philosophical positions. He believes that society could not have arisen from the belief that it is useful, because only historical experience could provide that knowledge. The conditions of society are a priori, so only philosophy can reveal them. The unity of society is realized directly by the social elements themselves, the subjects, who are aware and realize the synthesis, and who enter into mutual action. Society consists of a large number of complex elements, that is, personalities, and these personalities are different and unrepeatable, so sociology cannot create general laws, such as those in the natural sciences.

We understand other people as objects of our notions, creating them to some extent, using different categories. These categories represent the basis of sociological knowledge. There are three such categories: 1) abstraction of individual characteristics of persons in order to classify them into different general and a priori categories. Such categories are classes, races, professions, and the like. 2) Reserve of personality - the personal psychic life of an individual that cannot be reported from any general category, and that area is a subject of psychology and history. The two sides of the individual, social and personal, influence each other, the personality is a product of society, while, on the other hand, the personality determines the reaction of the individual to social influences. The end product of this relationship is the achievement of personality unity. 3) The third category enables the unification of the first two. Individuals have different roles and functions in society, so it is crucial for the normal functioning of society that individuals internalize awareness of the necessity of the roles they perform.

Simmel believes that sociology does not have a specific subject of research, which would be different from the subject of other social sciences, but that it represents a new method of researching these phenomena. Sociology should study pure social forms, hence, he called his approach „pure sociology“. The same forms can be filled with different content (goals and purposes), just as the same content can be found in different forms. Sociology should systematize these pure social forms, it should explain their psychological basis and show the historical development of these forms.

Simmel views society as an area of ​​psychological interaction between individuals and groups. In that sense, society, in essence, represents a process of association, where not every psychological interaction is at the same time an association. For the association to form, over time, from simple interaction, there must be unity around common values ​​and common goals. There are various forms by which unity is achieved around values ​​and goals: law achieves external goals by external means; morality achieves internal goals by internal means; honor achieves external goals by internal means. The law regulates the narrowest part of common values, while morality is the most comprehensive.

                                   Sociological Formalism

Simmel systematized and described in detail many social forms: social gatherings, relations of superiority and subordination, relations of cooperation and conflict, secret associations and secrecy, the spatial organization of society, and various similar forms. Social gatherings that are focused on entertainment are manifestations of social drive and have no specific purpose or goal. Such gatherings are regulated by quasi-ethical rules - individuals should not bring the most intimate aspects of their personality into this process and should behave tactfully.

The relations of superiority and subordination are based on force or authority, but they can never be absolute. Supremacy can be the product of the domination of one individual, one group, or some objective force (principle). Simmel emphasizes subordination to principle instead of man because such subordination is more objective, that is, it better expresses the interests of the whole society. In the beginning, the principles are imposed on the individual as an obligation, and only later, and gradually, the individual "internalizes" these rules as part of his personality. A similar process occurs when an individual or a group rules, because they first rule in their own interest, and later they themselves submit to objective principles, and then they rule in the interest of the whole society. Bureaucracy is a special form of expression of the objective principle in the relations of subordination because the formal standards of expertise necessary for a person to come to a position of authority or power are introduced. According to Simmel, the relations of superiority and subordination will never cease to be a part of social life.

                                               Conflicts

Simmel believes that no society can exist without conflicts, and that is why conflicts represent one of the forms of association, because in these relations, human interaction is most intense, and conflicts can lead to unity. In primitive societies, war is the basic form of contact with other societies, and only the development of trade and travel changes this situation. He investigates the psychological causes of conflicts and struggles and believes that people have in themselves both hatred and love. The causes of conflict can be the result of a struggle over interests, but they can also take the form of pure opposition to the other side. There are different forms of conflict - competition, dispute, opposition, envy, jealousy - and their representation and the way they are expressed depends on the nature of the integration of the whole society or a certain group.

The competition is a specific type of conflict because the participants not only strive to beat each other but also provide the opportunity to achieve the common interest of all competitors. Simmel emphasizes that conflicts that grow around similarity or something that is shared by different sides in conflict can be greater than those that arise because of differences, and the best example is the conflict between churches over the smallest dogmatic differences. Conflicts are very important for maintaining the strength of society, and one example is conflicts of political parties that enable antagonisms and differences of interest to be expressed constructively and resolving these conflicts leads to stability and development of a modern state.

                            Secret, Stranger, and the Poor

In social life, secrecy and the public are always intertwined, while in their private lives, people always keep one part of themselves secret. Secret associations are a very specific form of expressing secrecy in society. They are removed from the public and society as a whole, are closely connected, are characterized by strict discipline and severe punishment for those who reveal the secrets of associations, attach great importance to their own rituals, membership is voluntary, and their basic function is to protect the secret society from the wider society.

In addition, Simmel studied the ideal social types of the „poor“ and „the stranger“. Poverty is a relative term because the poor person is not the one who is characterized by a specific amount of property or income, but the one whose economic situation provokes a social reaction of helping. The stranger, on the other hand, is characterized by a contradictory relationship with the rest of society, because he is always part of a wider group, but at the same time, he is isolated. When researching the ideal type of stranger, Simel does not study passing travelers but observes people who constantly live in some place, but are never fully accepted by that environment. It is this opposition of simultaneous proximity and distance from the wider environment that characterizes the life of the stranger and his relations with the environment. A stranger enters into social, economic, and personal relations with the wider society, but the stranger is never organically connected with that society through kinship or profession. Strangers perform special economic roles in society, and the best example is a Jewish person who is engaged in trade. The mutual relations between the stranger and the environment are specific, objective, and formal.

                                    Religion and Money

Simmel also studied various cultural forms: music, religion, money, literature, and the like. In his book Religion (1906), he states that the essence of religion is social. Religious experience and teachings are not the product of supra-empirical reality but are the product of a shared experience of social life. The first societies possessed a unique set of norms that were not differentiated, and later religious norms become separated. Religions represent the internalization of social coercion and the pursuit of social unity. These forces lead to the sublimation of the social, in the specific religious experience (the idea of ​​God) with which unity is experienced. Precisely because religion firmly achieves social unity, no society can survive without religion.

In the book The Philosophy of Money (2004, in German 1900), Simmel states that money is one of the most general forms of social relations because it is the purest expression of human interdependence. Money enables a higher level of individuation because it is used to express specific personal lifestyles, ways of doing business, and consumer habits. Money also leads to the depersonalization of social relations in the economy, civil society, and other spheres. On the other hand, money can also serve for the domination of one person or group over others.

                                View on Historical Materialism

Simmel also provided a significant critique of historical materialism in his book Problems of the History of Philosophy (1910). Historical materialism starts from the assumption that material interest is the basic mover of society, and on that basis, this approach strives to create an objective theory of historical processes. However, since material interest is a psychic and subjective phenomenon historical materialism is only another psychological hypothesis about history. The historical reality is the product of many interrelated interests and instincts, so it cannot be reduced to economic factors alone. Simmel believes that it is impossible to objectively investigate all the complexity of the mutual influences of all historical factors. That is why, according to him, historical materialism was invented in order to prove the historical necessity of socialism.

Main works

„Psychologische und Ethnologische Studien über Musik”, in Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Srachwissenschaft (1882);

Über sociale Differenzierung (1890);

Die Probleme der Geschichtphilosophie (1892);

Philosophie des Geldes (1900);

Die Religion (1906);

Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung (1908);

Hauptprobleme der Philosophie (1910);

Das Problem der historischen Zeit (1916);

Grundfragen der Soziologie (1917);

Lebensanschauung: Vier metaphysische Kapitel (1918).

Works translated into English:

The Problems of the Philosophy of History: An Epistemological Essay (1977, in German 1892);

Essays on Religion (1997);

The Philosophy of Money (2004, in German 1900);

Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms, 2 volume (2009, in German 1908);

Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations (1955, in German 1908);

The View of Life: Four Metaphysical Essays with Journal Aphorisms (2015);

The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies (2018); 

Superiority and Subordination as The Art of the City: Rome, Florence, Venice (2019);

Essays on Art and Aesthetics (2020);

Subject-Matter of Sociology (2021).