Georg Simmel

Georg Simmel
Born1 March 1858
Died26 September 1918(1918-09-26) (aged 60)
NationalityGerman
Alma materUniversity of Berlin (PhD)
Era19th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolNeo-Kantianism
Lebensphilosophie
InstitutionsUniversity of Berlin
University of Strasbourg
Notable studentsGyörgy Lukács, Robert E. Park, Max Scheler
Main interests
Philosophy, sociology
Notable ideas
Formal sociology, social forms and contents, the tragedy of culture, web of group affiliation

Georg Simmel (/ˈzɪməl/; German: [ˈzɪməl]; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.

Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach laid the foundations for sociological antipositivism, asking "what is society?"—directly alluding to Kant's "what is nature?"—presenting pioneering analyses of social individuality and 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. With his work on the metropolis, Simmel would also be a precursor of 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 would inform the eclectic critical theory of the Frankfurt School.


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