What did Georg Simmel seek to demonstrate through his “formal” sociology?
What did Georg Simmel seek to demonstrate through his “formal” sociology?
Georg Simmel (1858 - 1918) was living in Berlin at a time when Sociology was beginning to form as a science, most notably with the work of Comte setting up the positivist methodology of studying society. In the intellectual world he was an outsider and struggled, becoming a full professor without a chair only in 1901.
Through formal sociology Simmel was proposing an alternative way of thinking to his contemporaries. I found Simmel’s writing very paradoxical. He purposes a more qualitative method of investigation rather then the quantitative method of positivists. Simmel together with Max Weber formed the anti-positivist a movement that opposed positivism. Positivism believed that truth is in scientific knowledge gained from empirical evidence. They would choose a subject matter, such as history or society, and set out to define empirical goals of their study. Simmel defined “general sociology” (positivism) subject matter as “the whole of historical life insofar as it is formed societally”. Simmel disagrees, through his discussion of sociology as a method he finds that this is sociology’s first “problem area” (Kurt Wolff, 1950), he never defines his subject matter but I feel that it is the “forms of sociation” that he is interested in.
Simmel, although he never gives us a strict guide book to his methodology and many times contradicts himself, was trying to form a new method. His method consisted of an observation, which is followed by an assumption (for without this no further thinking can be done). This assumption becomes a concrete fact or what he calls “content”, from here one must abstract them (without being ridged or socially constructed although he says everything is socially constructed). The method “isolates form from heterogeneity of content of human sociation” (Coser, 1977). A large part of this method revolves around the idea of content and form, I will not attempt to
Georg Simmel (1858 - 1918) was living in Berlin at a time when Sociology was beginning to form as a science, most notably with the work of Comte setting up the positivist methodology of studying society. In the intellectual world he was an outsider and struggled, becoming a full professor without a chair only in 1901.
Through formal sociology Simmel was proposing an alternative way of thinking to his contemporaries. I found Simmel’s writing very paradoxical. He purposes a more qualitative method of investigation rather then the quantitative method of positivists. Simmel together with Max Weber formed the anti-positivist a movement that opposed positivism. Positivism believed that truth is in scientific knowledge gained from empirical evidence. They would choose a subject matter, such as history or society, and set out to define empirical goals of their study. Simmel defined “general sociology” (positivism) subject matter as “the whole of historical life insofar as it is formed societally”. Simmel disagrees, through his discussion of sociology as a method he finds that this is sociology’s first “problem area” (Kurt Wolff, 1950), he never defines his subject matter but I feel that it is the “forms of sociation” that he is interested in.
Simmel, although he never gives us a strict guide book to his methodology and many times contradicts himself, was trying to form a new method. His method consisted of an observation, which is followed by an assumption (for without this no further thinking can be done). This assumption becomes a concrete fact or what he calls “content”, from here one must abstract them (without being ridged or socially constructed although he says everything is socially constructed). The method “isolates form from heterogeneity of content of human sociation” (Coser, 1977). A large part of this method revolves around the idea of content and form, I will not attempt to
Bibliography: Kurt Wolff “The Sociology of Georg Simmel”, 1950 Jacky Goody, “The domestication of the savage mind”, 1977 Coser, “Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context”, 1977 AF Bentley, “Relativity in Man and Society”, 1926 L.H. Morgan, “Ancient Society” 1887 Comte, “A General View of Positivism”, 1848 Max Webber “Economy and Society” Georg Simmel, “How is Society Possible”, “The Problem of Sociology”, “Conflict”, “Sociability (Contents vs. Forms of Social Life”, 1908 Plato “Theory of Forms”