Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Week 3:
27/07/2013
Georg Simmel
Dr Craig Hammond (UCBC) 1
Georg Simmel
1858-1918 Born in Berlin, Germany His family was business-oriented, prosperous, and Jewish His father converted to Christianity--died in Simmels youth
27/07/2013 Dr Craig Hammond (UCBC) 2
Georg Simmel
Simmels approach to sociology rejects the organicist theories of Comte and Spencer As well as the historical description of unique events (such as the Marxist Historical Materialism) Instead he suggests that society consists of a web of patterned interactions, and that it is the task of sociology to study the forms of these interactions as they occur and reoccur in diverse historical periods and cultural settings.
(Coser 1971:177)
27/07/2013
Georg Simmel
As with Durkheim and Weber, Simmel resisted reducing social behavior to individual personality. Nor, for Simmel, could social relationships be fully explained by larger collective patterns such as the economy. Rather, the results of everyday interaction creates a level of reality in its own right--an interaction order that is never totally fixed and is therefore always problematic and capable of change.
27/07/2013
Georg Simmel
How is society possible? Simmel proposed that sociologists focus on people in relationships. Society, for Simmel, was the patterned
Georg Simmel
Simmel began with the elements of everyday life: playing games, keeping secrets, being a stranger, forming friendships Opening a door Picking up a jug And arrived at insights into the quality of relationships.
27/07/2013
Georg Simmel
Society is merely the name for a number of individuals connected by interactions.
The Dyad The Triad And the Complexity of the City (Metropolis)
27/07/2013
When a dyad is transformed into a triad, the apparently insignificant fact that one member has been added actually brings about a major qualitative change. In the triad, all associations involve more than two persons, the individual participant is
27/07/2013
When a third member enters a dyadic group, various processes become possible where previously they could not take place. A third member may: Mediate Rejoice Divide and Rule
27/07/2013 Dr Craig Hammond (UCBC) 10
the group can play. By virtue of his partial involvement in group affairs he can attain an objectivity that other members cannot reach being distant and near at the same time, (Coser 1971:182)
27/07/2013
13
A Simmelean Stranger?
27/07/2013
14
27/07/2013
15