The Social Theory of Georg Simmel

About this book

"Nicholas Spykman's The Social Theory of Georg Simmel, originally published in 1925, was the first comprehensive account of Simmel's ideas. It remains a valuable summary of the major elements of his thought. Spykman wrote this study for a specific purpose: to indicate Simmel's conception of the relations between different fields of theoretic inquiry into socio-historical actuality; to make Simmel's contributions to the methodology of the social sciences understood; and to illustrate Simmel's conception of sociology as a science. He shows that Simmel was primarily a social philosopher interested in a functional understanding of socio-historical realities, art and economic values, morals and aesthetics, religion, and the function of money." "Spykman identifies three major phases in the development of Simmel's thought: the first is primarily occupied with methodology and the presuppositions of the social sciences; during the second he wrote several essays containing philosophic interpretations of modern civilization; and the third culminated in his metaphysics of culture."--Jacket.