Simmel and 'the Social'

Simmel, Georg (1858–1918)

“…This new generation has focused more prominently upon the relational paradigm in Simmel's works, seeking to apply it, as we understand he would have recommended us to do, to our contemporary sociological problems and questions. (See, for instance, Fitzi, 2002;Papilloud, 2002Papilloud, , 2003Cantó-Milà, 2005;Phyyhtinen, 2010;Tokarzewska, 2010. ) Furthermore, the anniversaries of the publication of The Philosophy of Money first (1900), and Sociology later (1908) have also given occasion for the organization of conferences and seminars that have sought to actualize Simmel's works, and discuss the striking validity of most of the theoretical insights he left for us to explore further.…”

Beneath and Beyond the Fragments: The Charms of Simmel’s Philosophical Path for Contemporary Subjectivities

“…in the 'specific epistemic and ethical dilemmas' 'lived out by modern subjects in the forms of life described by Simmel (Goodstein 2002: 217, 230). Simmel's relativism is better understood, as pointed out by François Léger, as 'relationism' (Léger 1989: 25), a term also taken up by Olli Pyyhtinen (2010). This passage is also discussed by Hans Blumenberg in the essay translated for this special issue.…”

“…for 20 th century thought and where it lies again for contemporary subjectivities. This prompts us to offer an assessment of the implications of such philosophical stance, in particular of its political impasse, by placing it in relation to what we understand to be the new philosophical situation today.1 -Simmel's path to a philosophical attitude: from 'science of reality' to philosophy and the 'totality of being'For those inclined to see overall continuity in Simmel's work, it has become again customary to highlight the powerful and unifying theme of 'life' as guiding threadPyyhtinen 2010). This is but a rediscovery, for in 1925, Vladimir Jankélévitch had already unravelled and demonstrated the early, encompassing and pervasive influence of Simmel's very specific notion of life on all his writings, and indeed the fusion, in the last part of his life, between his aesthetics, his philosophy of history and his philosophy of life (Jankélévitch 1988) 1 .…”

Social Theory, Photography and the Visual Aesthetic of Cultural Modernity

“…Simmel’s sociological style is often compared with Baudelaire’s flâneur , at one with the novelist, photographer or essayist naturalistically but also voyeuristically recording city scenes. However, although the visual is important for Simmel, he understood the city as a sensory experience in which the object is made real by appearing to different senses (Pyyhtinen, 2010). The ‘interpersonal relationships of people in big cities are characterised by a markedly greater emphasis on the use of the eyes than of the ears’ (Simmel, 1997: 111), but this does not mean that the eye is the mirror of reality since framing and selecting are unavoidable.…”