Philosophy of Mr. Simmel. Georg Simmel: biography and creative path. Social function of money

2. Simmel's sociology

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Among the most famous teachings about social forms is the concept of Georg Simmel, the provisions of which are directly related to the author’s concept of society.

Georg Simmel(1858-1918) played a significant role in the formation of sociology as an independent science, although he remained in the shadow of his great contemporaries - Durkheim<#"justify">According to Simmel, society is an interaction of individuals, which always takes shape as a result of certain drives or for the sake of certain goals. It was these that Simmel called content, the matter of socialization, which “is a form realized in countless ways.”

The purpose of the study is to consider the cultural theory of G. Simmel.

Research objectives:

study the biography of G. Simmel;

consider Simmel's sociology;

characterize Simmel's cultural and philosophical concept.

The work used publications by G. Zimel, D. Levin, T. Ogane, L.G. Ionina et al.

Structurally, the work consists of an annotation, a reference diagram, tests, a glossary of terms and a list of references.

1. Brief biography of G. Simmel

Georg Simmel was born in Berlin. He graduated from a classical gymnasium and entered the University of Berlin. He received his doctorate in philosophy for his dissertation on Kant. He became a professor at universities in Berlin and Strasbourg. At universities he read logic, history of philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of art, social psychology, sociology and special courses on Kant, Schopenhauer and Darwin. The interdisciplinary nature of Simmel's lectures attracted the attention of not only students, but also representatives of the intellectual elite of Berlin.

The early period was marked by the influence of G. Spencer and C. Darwin. Simmel writes an essay “Darwinism and the Theory of Knowledge,” in which he gives a biological-utilitarian justification for ethics and the theory of knowledge; applies the principle of differentiation, characteristic of Spencerian evolutionism, as a universal tool in the analysis of development in any sphere of nature, society and culture.

Then Simmel began to look for a priori forms of social knowledge, relying on the philosophy of I. Kant. At the neo-Kantian stage of spiritual development, his focus is on values ​​and culture related to the sphere that lies beyond natural causality. It was then that “formal sociology” was born, which is designed to study not the content of individual social phenomena, but the social forms inherent in all social phenomena. He understands the activities of humanists as “transcendental form-creation.” The source of creativity is the individual with his a priori given way of seeing. During this period, Simmel wrote numerous works on Kant and created a work on the philosophy of history.

Subsequently, Simmel becomes one of the most significant representatives of the late “philosophy of life”. He writes the work “Philosophy of Money”, in which he attempts a cultural interpretation of the concept of “alienation”. In accordance with the forms of vision, various “worlds” of culture arise: religion, philosophy, science, art - each with a unique internal organization, its own unique logic. Philosophy, for example, is characterized by comprehension of the world in its integrity. The philosopher sees integrity through each specific thing , and this way of seeing can neither be confirmed nor refuted by science. Simmel speaks in this regard about different “distances of cognition.” The difference in distances determines the difference in images of the world.

An individual always lives in several worlds, and this is the source of his internal conflicts, which have deep foundations in “life”. The complex ideological evolution, breadth and dispersion of interests, and the essayistic style of most of his works make it difficult to adequately understand and evaluate the work of Georg Simmel. And, nevertheless, one can highlight the general theme of his work - the interaction of society, man and culture. He viewed society as a set of forms and systems of interaction; man - as a “social atom”, and culture - as a set of objectified forms of human consciousness. What was common to creativity was also “an idea of ​​the subject, method and tasks of sociological science.”

Simmel wrote about 200 articles and more than 30 books. Let's name a few. "Social differentiation. Sociological and psychological studies" (1890), "Problems of the philosophy of history" (1892), "Introduction to ethics" in two volumes (1893), "Philosophy of money" (1900), "Religion" (1906), " Sociology. Study of forms of socialization" (1908), "Philosophy of Culture" (1911), "Goethe" (1913), "Rembrandt" (1916), "Fundamental Issues of Sociology" (1917), "The Conflict of Modern Culture" (1918 ) .

2. Simmel's sociology

Of particular interest is the author’s analysis of game forms, which clearly demonstrates the relationship between form and content: “The real forces, needs and impulses of life created such purposeful forms of our behavior, which then in the game, or rather as a game, turned into independent content: hunting, traps, body training and spirit, competition, risk, bet on chance, etc.”

These forms emerged from the stream of pure life, breaking with its content, and “they themselves became the goal and matter of their own movement.” This statement equally applies to other examples of content-independent social forms - free communication, fashion, coquetry, etc.

As L.G. points out. Ionin, from the point of view of modern ideas, forms of sociation can be interpreted “as a set of role structures.” However, he rightly notes that “Simmel treats roles not as forced instruments of socialization and social control, but, on the contrary, as secondary formations, the function of which is determined by their internal, individually determined content, i.e. motives, goals, in short - cultural material brought into roles by interacting individuals."

So, summarizing the above, we can conclude that Simmel’s social forms represent inter-individual configurations of varying degrees of complexity in which any social interaction occurs. These forms also imply the awareness by individuals that they together form a certain unit. Moreover, the forms of sociation themselves are only conditional constructions, “blueprints.” Only if they have content can they exist objectively. It is the real content (cultural material) that not only gives the forms one color or another, but also acts directly as the matter from which they are composed.

The use of the conceptual apparatus of formal sociology in the study of civil society can open up a new perspective on this phenomenon. The events of recent years clearly show that informal, “grassroots” self-organization, which occurs spontaneously in response to a specific challenge or problem, is becoming increasingly important.

Thus, in the summer of 2010, many regions of Russia suffered from forest fires, as a result of which hundreds of settlements were completely or partially destroyed. However, natural disasters were actively resisted by volunteers who fought the fire, collected things, food and money, and gave shelter to the fire victims left homeless. Coordination of the actions of volunteers and public organizations was carried out with the active use of the Internet with the help of special websites and blogs.

At the same time, the self-organization of people often filled the gaps in the work of local and central authorities. Volunteers managed to go where the teams of state fire safety services could not, people acted without waiting for anyone’s command, invested their own funds and worked for free. All these are classic signs of a civil organization that acts in a value-based and expedient manner in a mode of autonomy from government structures.

Another example of grassroots self-organization is the spontaneously created search and rescue teams of volunteers who take part in the search for missing people. The Liza Alert organization, named after the deceased girl Liza Fomkina, who was lost in the forest near Orekhovo-Zuevo in September 2010, has recently gained significant popularity. All events conducted by Lisa Alert are paid for from the personal funds of volunteers; the organization does not accept monetary donations.

At the same time, participation is not limited to search operations; interested parties can provide any possible assistance, including simply disseminating information about missing people. "Lisa Alert" and similar search teams do not have a formal organizational structure, which, however, does not in any way affect the effectiveness of their work. Thanks to their high response speed, these organizations quickly carry out events with a large number of participants (up to several hundred people), the implementation of which is beyond the power of either the Ministry of Emergency Situations or the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The given examples of civil self-organization are nothing more than new social forms, the existence of which became possible thanks to modern information technologies, primarily the Internet. Volunteer communities do not compete with specialized government services, but operate in parallel with them, occupying a special, grassroots sphere of civil society. The patterns of emergence and functioning of new forms of civil society are of particular interest for further study. At the same time, in the conditions of a changing social reality, some of the previously existing social forms, on the contrary, are becoming obsolete.

Thus, the identification and description of forms, as well as the study of the process of formation using the conceptual apparatus of formal sociology, has significant potential for the sociological interpretation of the problems under study.

Among the advantages of G. Simmel include the development of “understanding sociology”, microsociology, conflictology, personology, communication theory, and the substantiation of the idea of ​​a plurality of cultural worlds. He captured and expressed the main trends of the coming era: the enrichment of universal “objective culture”, the liberation of the individual from corporate ties, the erosion of a single self-identity into many independent “I”.

The deepest concept is “life”. It is irrational, self-sufficient, capable of mobilizing and transforming any natural objects. Only through it can the spirit be actualized. Life is a continuous flow of being. In its rapid pressure, reality and should differ. Life strives for the proper, the ideal, for that which is higher and more significant than itself. At every given moment, the spiritual content of life confronts it as duty, ideal, value, meaning. Having achieved them, life throws off its material, social and spiritual shells, forms that served as steps to freedom, and establishes itself in pure spirituality. Society and culture thus turn out to be the products and instruments of life, and animal vitality and spirit are its lower and higher essences. “Life” is understood by Simmel as a process of creative formation, not exhausted by rational means and comprehended only intuitively, in inner experience. Simmel’s attention to individual forms of realization of life, unique historical samples of culture found its expression in monographs about I.V. Goethe, Rembrandt, I. Kant, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche, Rodin. “Artistic vision” was for Simmel not just a subject of theoretical reflection, but to a large extent a way of his perception of social reality. He believed that an aesthetic attitude to reality is capable of providing a holistic, self-sufficient image of the world.

This approach made it possible to identify the close connection between aesthetics and sociology.

The purpose of the sociological study of Simmel is to isolate a special series of facts from various sciences about society, namely, forms of socialization. In this sense, sociology is like grammar, which separates the pure forms of language from the content in which these forms live. The identification of forms should be followed by their ordering and systematization, psychological justification in historical change and development. Simmel calls forms of socialization cultural forms. The most important of the classifications of cultural forms is the classification according to the degree of their distance from the immediacy of experience, from the “stream of life.” The closest to life are spontaneous forms, such as exchange, donation, imitation, and forms of crowd behavior. Economic and other organizations are somewhat more distant from the contents of life. The greatest distance from the immediacy of life is maintained by the forms Simmel called pure or “playful”. They are pure because the content that once filled them has disappeared. These are forms such as the “old regime”, i.e. a political form that has outlived its time and does not meet the needs of the individuals participating in it, “science for science” - knowledge divorced from the needs of society, “art for art’s sake”, “coquetry” - a love experience devoid of poignancy and spontaneity.

Unlike E. Durkheim, Simmel did not consider solidarity to be a fundamental principle of social life. He found the process of socialization even where there seemed to be separation and disintegration of interaction between people - in disputes, in competition, in enmity, in conflicts. This emphasis on the antagonistic aspects of interaction between people formed the basis of a new scientific direction - the sociology of conflict.

In his work “The Conflict of Modern Culture” (1918), G. Simmel analyzed the connections between the philosophy of life and the historical conditions of modern times. For the classical Greek world, the central idea was the One, substantial Being, embodied in plastic forms. In its place, the Middle Ages put God, in whom they saw the Truth, Cause and Purpose of everything that exists and who differed from the pagan gods in his intimate connection with the soul of man, illuminated his inner world, and demanded free obedience and devotion. Since the Renaissance, the concept of “Nature” began to occupy the highest place in the spiritual world. Only towards the end of the 18th century was the concept of the “personal “I” and being as its creative representation introduced in German philosophy. The 19th century created the concept of “Society”. Social movements based on this concept covered only a small part of the intellectual and political elite. For Simmel, life is "facts of will, impulses and feelings" directly given to us as "experiences".

Reality is what is “contained in the experience of life itself.” Simmel notes that the philosophy of life outgrows the requirements of any specific idea, form, or social group. His conclusion: the modern era is characterized by the struggle of life against all forms. A formless life loses its purpose, becomes meaningless and chaotic. This is the deep reason for the crisis of modern culture. Simmel proposes to create a culture that will always be a spiritually meaningful, personally significant formative process for everyone.

Simmel proceeds from the deep opposition between the methods of natural science and history. Besides history, Simmel argues, there is a philosophy of history, which is concerned with the search for “historical laws.”

The paradox of this situation lies in the fact that no other science provides the establishment of its laws to philosophy, but seeks them itself. The whole point here is in the nature of the laws of history: the inevitable ignorance of the completeness of the complex of all the component parts of a historical event turns a historical law into an individual law. This interpretation of “law” leads Simmel to the conclusion that law is essentially replaced by the idea of ​​“fate.”

Thus, Simmel reduces social phenomena to the “vital feeling of individuals”, to the “linkage of their destinies”. Thus, for Simmel, the social process turns out to be the implementation of mental forces and impulses, the “creation” of the historical world by the “soul”.

Simmel viewed the development of society as functional differentiation, accompanied by the simultaneous integration of its various elements. The emergence of intelligence and the appearance of money mark the entry of society into a “historical period”.

Thus, the history of society is an increasing intellectualization of social life and at the same time an increasing influence of the principles of money economy. The action of these two most important “forms of sociation” leads to general alienation, which is accompanied by an increase in individual freedom. Simmel views modern socio-cultural development as a constant strengthening of the gap between forms and contents in the social process, a constant and increasing devastation of cultural forms, accompanied by the individualization of man and an increase in human freedom.

Intelligence and money form the essential core of modern culture. It is they who differentiate and integrate various elements of the sociocultural cosmos - from economic relations to ways of expressing emotional states.

Money frees an individual from the care of family, community, church, corporation. In them a person finds the realization of the great ideal of Personal Freedom. However, the liberating function of money is necessarily accompanied by its destructive functions. Money destroys family and tribal relationships, modernizes traditional societies and destroys small cultures. Money promotes the formation of groups based on common goals, regardless of the social utility or morality of these goals. Hence organized crime and brothels. This leads to the disappearance of the depth of emotional experience and to a decrease in the overall level of emotional life. “In money matters, all people are equal,” notes Simmel. From this follows the conclusion that not a single person today has value, but only money.

Thing has supplanted cardiac movement. Rationality and money are opposed and at the same time supported by numerous irrational forces of life itself: passions, lust for power, love and enmity. The devastation of the fundamental forms of social life has turned them into self-sufficient forms of play.

Modern conflictology grew out of Simmel’s analysis of enmity. The wide scale of hostility in the form of large and small wars, class and religious hatred, and ethnic conflicts is obvious. Simmel notes that enmity can be explained and regulated. It can be minimized, introduced into cultural forms, rationalized in the form of economic competition, scientific discussion and dispute, but cannot be completely eradicated. Enmity is present in economics, politics, religion, family relationships and even in love. Enmity between people is natural. The human soul has a need to love and hate, Simmel notes in the article “Man as an Enemy.”

3. Simmel’s cultural and philosophical concept

The conclusions from the cultural-philosophical concept for Simmel are pessimism and deep individualism. Despair from a failed life gave rise to internal discord.

Pessimism also applies to religion. Since religious impulses, in which the vital impulses inherent in the individual are expressed, have been objectified and institutionalized in strictly fixed dogmas, religion has lost its source of development. Hence the confrontation between the non-institutionalized religious movements emerging today and the traditional “objectified” religion, which is no longer capable of expressing the deepest aspirations of human nature.

Simmel demonstrated the fruitfulness of the sociological approach to analyzing the work of great artists by examining the work of Rodin, Michelangelo and Rembrandt. The greatness of an artist depends on his ability to unite style, form and idea. Rodin's work expressed the principle of Heraclitism, with its increased dynamism characteristic of social life at the beginning of the 20th century. Michelangelo's work embodied the spirit of contradiction between the physical and spiritual principles in man. Rembrandt was able to capture and express in his work the transition from the classical principle of form to a more in-depth attitude towards the world and life.

However, in the new conditions of increased consumption, cultural products acquire an impersonal, alienated character, the individual “I” is suppressed, and human freedom is limited. Objectified culture becomes a brake on the path of self-development and self-realization of life. This led to the conclusion that the struggle against culture would continue on a grander scale.

There cannot be an unambiguous assessment of an outstanding thinker - and such is Simmel, undoubtedly. But an honest researcher will agree that the theoretical and methodological principles for studying sociocultural processes developed by Georg Simmel are in demand today and continue to stimulate the sociological imagination.

Separating the form and content of social relations, Simmel saw the task of sociology in considering the “pure” forms of social life. The study of content (i.e. motives, drives, goals, interests, etc.) is left to other sciences.

At the same time, sociological research is applicable in various sciences and has as its task “the isolation in their total subject of a special series of facts that become the own subject of sociology - pure forms of sociation (Formen der Vergesellschaftung).” Thus, in the words of L.G. Ionina, the sociology program designed by Simmel is designed to help researchers in various social sciences “approach their subject “sociologically.”

Also discussing the problem of the identity of sociology as a science, Simmel turned to the concept of social forms, or forms of sociation, which should be understood as pure communication, the association of people. At the same time, the author did not leave any classification of these forms and in his works only gave individual examples of the latter: domination and subordination, rivalry, etc. Simmel himself did not consider the classification to be fundamentally important, pointing out that “in relation to forms of socialization one cannot hope for close in the future even to their approximate decomposition into simple elements."

Simmel cultural and philosophical concept social

Conclusion

Thus, based on the materials of the study, we can draw the following conclusions.

G. Simmel emphasized that no matter how diverse the interests that lead to socialization (i.e., interaction), the forms in which they occur can be the same. And, on the contrary, interest of the same content can be presented in very diversely formed socializations.

Such an interpretation of society, in turn, determines the tasks that the author set for sociology as a science. Thus, he believed that sociology does not have its own, special subject, which would not already be “occupied” by other sciences: “by mixing together all hitherto known areas of knowledge, we do not create a single new one. It only turns out that all historical, psychological, normative sciences are shaken out into one big pot and a label is stuck to it: sociology."

Thus, the author positioned sociology in relation to other sciences precisely as a new method of cognition, capable of introducing a different vision of already known problems: “It is not the object, but the point of view, the special abstraction it makes that differentiates it from the rest of the historical and social sciences.” In this regard, Simmel compared sociology with induction, which “as a new principle of research penetrated into all kinds of sciences, as if acclimatized in each of them and, within the limits of the tasks established for them, helped to achieve new solutions.”

Bibliography

1.Simmel G. Favorites. T.2. - M.: Lawyer, 2010. - 350 p.

2.Simmel G. Communication. An example of pure or formal sociology. // Sociological research. - 1984. - No. 2. - P.170-176.

.Simmel G. The problem of sociology // Western European sociology of the 19th - early 20th centuries. - M.: Publication of the International University of Business and Management, 1996. - 520 p.

.Ionin L.G. Georg Simmel - sociologist. - M.: Ast, 2009. - 170 p.

.History of sociology in Western Europe and the USA: a textbook for universities. - M.: Norma, Infra-M, 2009. - 350 p.

.History of sociology: textbook for universities. - Mn.: Higher School, 2010. - 300 p.

.Levin D. Some key problems in Simmel's works. // sociological journal. - 2012. - No. 2. - P.61-101.

.Ogane T. Sociology at the turn of the century: Georg Simmel. // Sociology and life. - 2008. - No. 2. - P.82-91

.Ramstedt O. Relevance of Simmel's sociology. // Sociological journal. - 2011. - No. 2. - P.53-65.

.Filippov L.F. The Rationale of Theoretical Sociology: An Introduction to Georg Simmel's Concept. // Sociological journal. - 2010. - No. 2. - P.65-81.

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Georg Simmel(1858-1918) played a significant role in the formation of sociology as an independent science, although he remained in the shadow of his great contemporaries - and. Simmel is considered the founder of the so-called formal sociology, in which a central role is played by logical connections and structures, the isolation of forms of social life from their meaningful relationships and the study of these forms in themselves. Simmel calls such forms “forms of sociation.”

Forms of association can be defined as structures that arise on the basis of the mutual influence of individuals and groups. Society is based on mutual influence, on relationships, and specific social mutual influences have two aspects - form and content. Abstraction from content allows, according to Simmel, to project facts that we consider socio-historical reality onto the plane of the purely social. Content becomes public only through forms of mutual influence, or sociation. Only in this way can one understand, said Simmel, that in society there is truly a “society”, just as only geometry can determine what in three-dimensional objects really constitutes their volume.

Simmel anticipated a number of significant provisions of modern sociology of groups. A group, according to Simmel, is an entity that has an independent reality, exists according to its own laws and independently of individual carriers. She, like the individual, thanks to a special vitality, has a tendency towards self-preservation, the foundations and process of which Simmel studied. The group's ability to self-preserve is manifested in its continued existence even with the exclusion of individual members. On the one hand, the group's ability to self-preserve is weakened where the life of the group is closely connected with one dominant personality. The disintegration of a group is possible due to authoritative actions that are contrary to group interests, as well as due to the personalization of the group. On the other hand, the leader can be an object of identification and strengthen the unity of the group.

Of particular importance are his studies of the role of money in culture, outlined primarily in “The Philosophy of Money” (1900).

The use of money as a means of payment, exchange and settlement transforms personal relationships into indirect extrapersonal and private relationships. It increases personal freedom, but causes general leveling due to the possibility of quantitative comparison of all conceivable things. For Simmel, money is also the most perfect representative of the modern form of scientific knowledge, which reduces quality to purely quantitative aspects.

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2.2. History of the formation and development of Western sociology.

Subtitles

Biography

Born into a wealthy family; Simmel's parents were of Jewish origin, his father converted to Catholicism, his mother to Lutheranism, Simmel himself was baptized into Lutheranism in childhood. After graduating from the University of Berlin, he taught there for more than 20 years. Due to the anti-Semitic sentiments of his superiors, his career was not very successful. For a long time he served in the low position of privatdozent, although he enjoyed popularity among listeners and the support of scientists such as Max Weber and Heinrich Rickert. Freelance professor from , full-time employee of the provincial University of Strasbourg (1914), where he found himself isolated from the Berlin scientific community, and with the outbreak of the First World War in the same year, this university ceased activity. Shortly before the end of the war, Simmel died in Strasbourg from liver cancer.

Philosophical ideas

According to Simmel, life is a flow of experiences, but these experiences themselves are culturally and historically conditioned. As a process of continuous creative development, the life process is not subject to rational-mechanical knowledge. Only through direct experience of historical events, diverse individual forms of realization of life in culture and interpretation based on this experience of the past can one comprehend life. The historical process, according to Simmel, is subject to “fate,” in contrast to nature, in which the law of causality prevails. In this understanding of the specifics of humanitarian knowledge, Simmel is close to the methodological principles put forward by Dilthey.

Formal sociology

Pure (formal) sociology studies forms of socialization, or forms of association(German: Formen der Vergesellschaftung) that exist in any of the historically known societies. These are relatively stable and repeated forms of human-to-human interactions. Forms of sociation were abstracted by Simmel from the corresponding content to develop “strong points” of scientific analysis. Through the creation of scientifically based concepts, Simmel saw the path to the establishment of sociology as an independent science. Forms of social life are domination, subordination, competition, division of labor, formation of parties, solidarity, etc. All these forms are reproduced, filled with appropriate content, in various kinds of groups and social organizations, such as the state, religious society, family, economic association etc. Simmel believed that pure formal concepts have limited value, and the project of formal sociology itself can only be realized when these identified pure forms of social life are filled with historical content.

Basic forms of social life

1. Social processes - these include constant phenomena independent of the specific circumstances of their implementation: subordination, domination, competition, reconciliation, conflict, etc.
2. Social type (for example, cynic, poor man, aristocrat, coquette).
3. “Development models” are a universal process of expanding a group with strengthening the individuality of its members. As their numbers grow, group members become less and less similar to each other. The development of individuality is accompanied by a decrease in group cohesion and unity. Historically, it develops towards individuality due to the loss by individuals of their unique social characteristics.

• Classification of forms of social life according to the degree of their remoteness from the immediate flow of life:

1. The closest to life are spontaneous forms: exchange, personal inclination, imitation, crowd behavior, etc.
2. Somewhat further from the flow of life, that is, from social contents, stand such stable and independent forms as economic and other forms of state-legal organizations.
3. “Game” forms maintain the greatest distance from social life. These are pure forms of sociation, which are not just a mental abstraction, but forms that actually occur in social life: the “old regime,” that is, a political form that has outlived its time and does not satisfy the needs of the participating individuals; “science for science’s sake,” that is, knowledge divorced from the needs of humanity, which has ceased to be “a weapon in the struggle for existence.”

Big cities and spiritual life

The intellectualization of society and the development of the money economy is, according to Simmel, evidence of a growing gap between the forms and contents of modern society, evidence of the increasing devastation of cultural forms, accompanied by individualization and an increase in human freedom. At the same time, the reverse side of intellectualization is a decrease in the general level of mental life, and the reverse side of the development of a money economy is the alienation of the worker from the product of his labor. The devastation of cultural forms and their separation from content is most clearly manifested in large cities, which live by production for the market and make rational people free, but lonely and abandoned. Simmel’s work “Big Cities and Spiritual Life” is dedicated to big cities and the peculiarities of the inner world of their inhabitants.

Fashion philosophy

The study of fashion and its place in the development of society is one of the areas of Simmel’s work. Explaining the origins of fashion, Simmel, first of all, analyzes the tendency to imitation. He believes that the attractiveness of imitation for an individual, first of all, is that it represents the opportunity for purposeful and meaningful activity where there is nothing personal and creative. Fashion is an imitation of a model and satisfies the need for social support, leading the individual to a path that everyone follows. However, it equally satisfies the need for difference, the tendency to change, to stand out from the crowd. Thus, fashion is nothing more than one of the forms of life. According to Simmel, fashion is a product of the division of classes, where there are no classes, fashion is impossible there. Necessary social trends for establishing fashion are the need for unity, on the one hand, and isolation, on the other.

1. Brief biography of G. Simmel

Georg Simmel was born in Berlin. He graduated from a classical gymnasium and entered the University of Berlin. He received his doctorate in philosophy for his dissertation on Kant. He became a professor at universities in Berlin and Strasbourg. At universities he read logic, history of philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of art, social psychology, sociology and special courses on Kant, Schopenhauer and Darwin. The interdisciplinary nature of Simmel's lectures attracted the attention of not only students, but also representatives of the intellectual elite of Berlin.

The early period was marked by the influence of G. Spencer and C. Darwin. Simmel writes an essay “Darwinism and the Theory of Knowledge,” in which he gives a biological-utilitarian justification for ethics and the theory of knowledge; applies the principle of differentiation, characteristic of Spencerian evolutionism, as a universal tool in the analysis of development in any sphere of nature, society and culture.

Then Simmel began to look for a priori forms of social knowledge, relying on the philosophy of I. Kant. At the neo-Kantian stage of spiritual development, his focus is on values ​​and culture related to the sphere that lies beyond natural causality. It was then that “formal sociology” was born, which is designed to study not the content of individual social phenomena, but the social forms inherent in all social phenomena. He understands the activities of humanists as “transcendental form-creation.” The source of creativity is the individual with his a priori given way of seeing. During this period, Simmel wrote numerous works on Kant and created a work on the philosophy of history.

Subsequently, Simmel becomes one of the most significant representatives of the late “philosophy of life”. He writes the work “Philosophy of Money”, in which he attempts a cultural interpretation of the concept of “alienation”. In accordance with the forms of vision, various “worlds” of culture arise: religion, philosophy, science, art - each with a unique internal organization, its own unique logic. Philosophy, for example, is characterized by comprehension of the world in its integrity. The philosopher sees integrity through each specific thing , and this way of seeing can neither be confirmed nor refuted by science. Simmel speaks in this regard about different “distances of cognition.” The difference in distances determines the difference in images of the world.

An individual always lives in several worlds, and this is the source of his internal conflicts, which have deep foundations in “life”. The complex ideological evolution, breadth and dispersion of interests, and the essayistic style of most of his works make it difficult to adequately understand and evaluate the work of Georg Simmel. And, nevertheless, one can highlight the general theme of his work - the interaction of society, man and culture. He viewed society as a set of forms and systems of interaction; man - as a “social atom”, and culture - as a set of objectified forms of human consciousness. What was common to creativity was also “an idea of ​​the subject, method and tasks of sociological science.”

Simmel wrote about 200 articles and more than 30 books. Let's name a few. "Social differentiation. Sociological and psychological studies" (1890), "Problems of the philosophy of history" (1892), "Introduction to ethics" in two volumes (1893), "Philosophy of money" (1900), "Religion" (1906), " Sociology. Study of forms of socialization" (1908), "Philosophy of Culture" (1911), "Goethe" (1913), "Rembrandt" (1916), "Fundamental Issues of Sociology" (1917), "The Conflict of Modern Culture" (1918 ) .

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The life of the German thinker and sociologist was intellectually rich. His biography is full of difficulties, but it also has many achievements. His views became widespread and popular during his lifetime, but the greatest demand for Simmel’s ideas came in the second half of the 20th century.

Childhood

The future philosopher was born in Berlin on March 1, 1858 into a wealthy businessman. Georg's childhood was quite normal, his parents took care of their children and tried to give them a better future. The father, a Jew by birth, accepted the Catholic faith, the mother converted to Lutheranism, in which the children, including George, were baptized. Until the age of 16, the boy studied well at school and demonstrated success in mastering mathematics and history. It seemed that a typical fate of a businessman awaited him, but in 1874 Simmel’s father died, and Georg’s life changed. The mother cannot support her son, and a family friend becomes his guardian. He finances the young man's education and sponsors his admission to the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Berlin.

Study and formation of views

At the university, Simmel studied with the outstanding thinkers of his time: Lazarus, Mommsen, Steinthal, Bastian. Already in his university days, he clearly demonstrates his dialectical mindset, which would later be noted by such philosophers as Pitirim Sorokin, Max Weber and But then the main life collision is outlined, which will complicate the lives of many people in Europe during that period. Georg Simmel was no exception, whose biography was greatly complicated due to his nationality. After completing his university course, the philosopher tries to defend his doctoral dissertation, but is rejected. The reason is not directly stated. But in Berlin at that time anti-Semitic sentiments reigned and, despite the fact that he was a Catholic by religion, he was unable to hide his Jewish nationality. He had a distinctly Jewish appearance, and this would later hinder him more than once in his life. After some time, thanks to perseverance and perseverance, Georg managed to obtain an academic degree, but this did not open the doors he wanted.

The difficult life of a German philosopher

After graduating from university, Simmel is looking for a teaching position, but he is not given a permanent job, again because of his personal data. He receives the position of private assistant professor, which does not bring a guaranteed income, but is entirely made up of student contributions. Therefore, Simmel gives a lot of lectures and writes a large number of articles that are addressed not only to the academic environment, but also to the general public. He was an excellent speaker, his lectures were characterized by breadth, original approach and interesting presentation. Simmel's lectures were energetic; he knew how to captivate his audience by thinking aloud on a wide variety of topics. He was a constant success with students and the local intelligentsia, and during his 15 years in this position he gained a certain fame and friendship with significant thinkers in his circle, for example, with Max Weber. But for a long time the philosopher was not seriously recognized by the scientific community; sociology had not yet gained the status of a fundamental discipline. The Berlin circle of scientists laughed at the original scientist-thinker, and this hurt him. Although he continued to work persistently: reflect, write articles, give lectures.

In 1900, however, he received official recognition, he was awarded the title of honorary professor, but he still did not achieve the desired status. Only in 1914 did he finally become an academic professor. By this time he already had more than 200 scientific and popular science publications. But he receives a position not at his native university in Berlin, but in provincial Strasbourg, which was the source of his worries until the end of his life. He did not get along with the local scientific elite, and in the last years of his life he felt loneliness and alienation.

Ideas about the laws of life

Georg Simmel differed from his great contemporaries in the absence of a clear affiliation with any philosophical movement. His path was full of tossing and turning; he thought about many things, finding objects for philosophical reflection that had not previously interested thinkers. The lack of a clear position did not work in Simmel's favor. This was another reason for the difficulty of integrating the philosopher into the scientific community. But it was precisely thanks to this breadth of thought that he was able to contribute to the development of several important themes in philosophy. There are many people in science whose work begins to be appreciated only years later, and that was Georg Simmel. The biography of the thinker is full of labor and endless reflection.

Georg Simmel's dissertation was dedicated to I. Kant. In it, the philosopher tried to comprehend the a priori principles of social structure. The beginning of the thinker's path is also illuminated by the influence of Charles Darwin and G. Spencer. In line with their concepts, Simmel interpreted the theory of knowledge, identifying the natural and biological foundations of ethics. The philosopher saw the existence of man in society as the central problem of his thoughts, which is why he is considered to be a movement called “philosophy of life.” He connects cognition with the concept of life and sees its main law in going beyond biological limits. Human existence cannot be considered outside of its natural conditioning, but it is impossible to reduce everything only to them, since this coarsens the meaning of existence.

Georg Simmel

In Berlin, Simmel, together with like-minded people, including M. Weber and F. Tönnies, organized the German Society of Sociologists. He actively thought about the object, subject and structure of the new science, and formulated the principles of social structure. Describing society, Georg Simmel imagined it as the result of contacts of many people. At the same time, he deduced the main features of the social structure. Among them are the number of participants in the interaction (there cannot be less than three), the relationship between them, the highest form of which is unity, and it is he who introduces this term into scientific circulation, which denotes the sphere of communication that the participants define as their own. He calls money and socialized intelligence the most important social forces. Simmel creates a classification of forms of social existence, which is based on the degree of proximity or distance from the “stream of life”. Life appears to the philosopher as a chain of experiences that are determined simultaneously by biology and culture.

Ideas about modern culture

Georg Simmel thought a lot about social processes and the nature of modern culture. He recognized that the most important driving force in society is money. He wrote a huge work, “The Philosophy of Money,” in which he described its social functions and discovered their beneficial and negative effects on modern society. He said that ideally a single currency should be created that could ease cultural contradictions. He was pessimistic about the social possibilities of religion and the future of modern culture.

"Functions of social conflict"

Society, according to Simmel, is based on enmity. The interaction of people in society always takes the form of struggle. Competition, subordination and domination, division of labor - all these are forms of hostility that certainly lead to social conflicts. Simmel believed that they initiate the formation of new norms and values ​​of society; they are an integral element of the evolution of society. The philosopher also identified a number of others, built a typology, described its stages, and outlined methods for its settlement.

Fashion concept

Reflections on social forms form the basis of philosophy, authored by Georg Simmel. Fashion, in his opinion, is an important element of modern society. In his work “Philosophy of Fashion,” he explored the phenomenon of this social process and came to the conclusion that it appears only with urbanization and modernization. In the Middle Ages, for example, it did not exist, says Georg Simmel. Fashion theory is based on the fact that it satisfies individuals' need for identification and helps new social groups gain their place in society. Fashion is a sign of democratic societies.

The scientific significance of the philosophical views of Georg Simmel

The significance of Simmel's work cannot be overestimated. He is one of the founders of sociology, identifies the causes of social development, and comprehends the role of money and fashion in human culture. Georg Simmel, whose conflictology became the basis for social philosophy of the second half of the 20th century, left a serious work on social confrontations. He had a significant influence on the formation of the American direction of sociology and became a harbinger of postmodern thinking.