The Philosophy of Mr. Simmel. Georg Simmel: biography and career. The social function of money

2. Sociology of Simmel

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Among the most famous teachings on 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 development of sociology as an independent science, although he remained in the shadow of his great contemporaries - Durkheim<#"justify">According to Simmel, society is the interaction of individuals, which always develops as a result of certain drives or for the sake of certain goals. It was them that Simmel called the content, the matter of socialization, which "is a form realized in an innumerable number of 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;

to characterize Simmel's cultural-philosophical concept.

The work used the publications of G. Zimel, D. Levin, T. Ogane, L.G. Ionina and others.

Structurally, the work consists of an annotation, a reference scheme, 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 the classical gymnasium and entered the University of Berlin. Received a PhD in philosophy for a dissertation on Kant. He became a professor at the universities in Berlin and Strasbourg. At universities he taught 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 Berlin intellectual elite.

The early period is 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 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 cognition, relying on the philosophy of I. Kant. In the center of his attention at the neo-Kantian stage of spiritual development are values ​​and culture, which are related to the sphere that lies on the other side of natural causality. It was then that "formal sociology" was born, which is called upon to investigate not the content of individual social phenomena, but the social forms inherent in all social phenomena. The activity of the humanities is understood by him as "transcendental form-creation". The source of creativity is a personality with its a priori given way of seeing. During this period, Simmel wrote numerous works on Kant, and created a work on the philosophy of history.

In the future, Simmel becomes one of the most significant representatives of the late "philosophy of life." He writes the work "Philosophy of Money", in which he makes an attempt at 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 peculiar internal organization, its own unique logic. Philosophy, for example, is characterized by the comprehension of the world in its integrity. The philosopher sees the integrity through each specific thing , and this way of seeing can neither be confirmed nor refuted by science. Simmel speaks in this connection of various “distances of cognition.” The difference in distances determines the difference in the images of the world.

The individual always lives in several worlds, and this is the source of his internal conflicts, which have deep roots in "life". The complex ideological evolution, the breadth and dispersion of interests, the essayistic style of most of the works make it difficult to adequately understand and evaluate the work of Georg Simmel. And, nevertheless, one can single out the general theme of his work - the interaction of society, man and culture. Society was considered by him 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. Common to creativity was "an idea of ​​the subject, method and tasks of sociological science" .

Simmel wrote about 200 articles and over 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. A Study of Forms of Socialization" (1908), "Philosophy of Culture" (1911), "Goethe" (1913), "Rembrandt" (1916), "Fundamental Questions of Sociology" (1917), "The Conflict of Modern Culture" (1918 ) .

2. Sociology of Simmel

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 expedient 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, chance, etc."

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

As L.G. points out Ionin, from the point of view of modern ideas, the forms of socialization can be interpreted "as a set of role structures." However, he rightly notes that “Roles are interpreted by Simmel not as coercive 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 the roles by interacting individuals.

So, summarizing the above, we can conclude that Simmel's social forms are interindividual configurations of varying degrees of complexity in which any social interaction takes place. These forms also imply the realization by individuals that they together form a unit. At the same time, the forms of socialization themselves are only conditional constructions, "drawings". 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 of 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 who were left homeless. Coordination of 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 in 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 of these are classic signs of a civil organization operating in a value-oriented and expedient manner in autonomy from state structures.

Another example of grassroots self-organization is the spontaneous search and rescue teams of volunteers who take part in the search for missing people. Recently, the Liza Alert organization, named after the deceased girl Lisa Fomkina, who was lost in the forest near Orekhovo-Zuyevo in September 2010, has gained considerable fame. All events held by "Liza Alert" are paid 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 persons can provide any feasible assistance, including simply disseminating information about missing people. "Liza Alert" and similar search parties do not have a formal organizational structure, which, nevertheless, does not affect the effectiveness of their work. Due to the high speed of response, 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 above examples of civil self-organization are nothing but new social forms, the existence of which has become possible thanks to modern information technologies, primarily the Internet. Volunteer communities do not compete with specialized state services, but operate in parallel with them, occupying a special, grassroots sphere of civil society. The regularities of the emergence and functioning of new forms of civil society are of particular interest for further study. At the same time, in a changing social reality, some of the previously existing social forms, on the contrary, become obsolete.

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

G. Simmel's merits include the development of "understanding sociology", microsociology, conflictology, personology, communication theory, and substantiation of the idea of ​​a plurality of cultural worlds. He grasped and expressed the main trends of the coming era: the enrichment of the 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, able to mobilize and transform any natural objects. Only through it can the spirit be actualized. Life is a continuous stream of being. In its impetuous pressure, reality and duty are distinguished. Life strives for the proper, the ideal, for what is higher, more significant than itself. At every given moment, the spiritual content of life opposes it as a duty, an ideal, a value, a meaning. Having reached them, life throws off material, social and spiritual shells, forms that served as steps to freedom, and is affirmed in pure spirituality. Society and culture thus turn out to be the products and instruments of life, while 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 examples of culture found its expression in monographs about I.V. Goethe, Rembrandt, I. Kante, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche, Roden. "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 giving a holistic, self-sufficient image of the world.

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

The purpose of Simmel's sociological study 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 are alive. The identification of forms should be followed by their ordering and systematization, psychological substantiation in historical change and development. Simmel calls the forms of socialization cultural forms. The most important of the classifications of cultural forms is the classification according to the degree of their remoteness from the immediacy of experience, from the "stream of life." Closest to life are spontaneous forms, such as exchange, donation, imitation, forms of behavior of the crowd. Somewhat more removed from the vital contents are economic and other organizations. The greatest distance from the immediacy of life is retained by the forms that Simmel called pure or "playful". They are pure because the content that once filled them has disappeared. These are such forms 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 sharpness and immediacy.

Unlike E. Durkheim, Simmel did not consider solidarity to be the fundamental principle of social life. He found the process of socialization even where, it would seem, there is a 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 connection between the philosophy of life and the historical conditions of modern times. For the classical Greek world, the idea of ​​a single, substantial Being, embodied in plastic forms, was central. 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 human soul, illuminated his inner world, demanded free obedience and devotion. Since the Renaissance, the highest place in the spiritual world has been occupied by the concept of "Nature". It was not until the end of the 18th century that the concept of "personal "I" and being as its creative representation was introduced into German philosophy. The 19th century created the concept of "Society". The 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 that which is "contained in the experience of life itself." Simmel notes that the philosophy of life outgrows the requirements of any particular idea, form, social group. His conclusion: the modern era is characterized by the struggle of life against all forms. A formless life loses purposefulness, becomes meaningless and chaotic. This is the root cause of the crisis of modern culture. Simmel proposes to create a culture that will always and for everyone be a spiritually meaningful, personally significant formative process.

Simmel proceeds from a profound opposition between the methods of natural science and history. Beyond history, Simmel argues, there is a philosophy of history that seeks out "historical laws."

The paradox of this situation lies in the fact that no other science provides the establishment of its laws to philosophy, but searches for 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 constituent parts of a historical event turns a historical law into an individual law. Such an interpretation of "law" leads Simmel to the fact that in essence the law is replaced by the idea of ​​"fate".

In this way, 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 realization of spiritual forces and impulses, the "creation" of the historical world by the "soul."

Simmel considered the development of society as a 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 the growing intellectualization of social life and, at the same time, the strengthening of the influence of the principles of the monetary economy. The action of these two most important "forms of socialization" leads to a general alienation, which is accompanied by the growth of individual freedom. Simmel considers modern socio-cultural development as a constant strengthening of the gap between forms and contents in the social process, a constant and growing devastation of cultural forms, accompanied by the individualization of a person 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 socio-cultural cosmos - from economic relations to ways of expressing emotional states.

Money frees the individual from the tutelage of the family, community, church, corporation. In them man finds the realization of the great ideal of Personal Freedom. However, the liberating function of money is necessarily accompanied by a destructive function. Money destroys family and tribal relations, modernizes traditional societies and destroys small cultures. Money contributes to the formation of groups based on common goals, regardless of the social utility, 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," says Simmel. From this follows the conclusion that not a single person today has value, but only money.

Objectivity has superseded the movement of the heart. 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-contained game forms.

From Simmel's analysis of hostility, modern conflictology has grown. Wide scale enmity in the form of large and small wars, class and religious hatred, ethnic conflicts are obvious. Simmel notes that hostility 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 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. Cultural-philosophical concept of Simmel

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 applies to religion as well. Since the religious impulses, which express the vital impulses inherent in the individual, have been objectified and institutionalized in strictly fixed dogmas, religion has lost its source of development. Hence the opposition of the non-institutionalized religious movements that are being born today to 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 the analysis of the work of great artists by examining the work of Rodin, Michelangelo and Rembrandt. The greatness of the artist depends on his ability to combine style, form and idea. Rodin's work expressed the principle of Heraclitism, with its increased dynamism, characteristic of the social life of the early 20th century. The work of Michelangelo embodied the spirit of inconsistency between the bodily 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 relationship to the world and life.

However, in the new conditions of growing consumption, cultural products acquire an impersonal alienated character, the individual "I" is suppressed, and human freedom is limited. An objectified culture becomes a brake on the path of self-development and self-realization of life. From this followed the conclusion that the struggle against culture would continue on a grander scale.

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

Sharing the form and content of social relations, Simmel saw the task of sociology in considering "pure" forms of social life. The study of the same content (ie, motives, drives, goals, interests, etc.) is left to other sciences.

At the same time, sociological studies are applicable in various sciences and have as their task "the isolation in their total subject of a special series of facts that become their own subject of sociology - pure forms of socialization (Formen der Vergesellschaftung)". Thus, according to L.G. Ionin, the program of sociology 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 socialization, 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 separate 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 the forms of socialization, future even to an approximate decomposition of them into simple elements.

simmel cultural-philosophical concept social

Conclusion

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

G. Simmel emphasized that no matter how diverse the interests leading to socialization (ie, to interaction), the forms in which they take place can be the same. And, on the contrary, an interest of the same content can present itself in very diverse socializations.

Such an interpretation of society, in turn, determines the tasks that the author set for sociology as a science. So, he believed that sociology does not have its own, special subject that would not have been "occupied" by other sciences: "mixing together all hitherto known areas of knowledge, we do not create a single new one. It turns out only 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: "Not an object, but a point of view, a special abstraction made by it differentiates it from other 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 set for them, helped to achieve new solutions."

Bibliography

1.Simmel G. Selected. 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 XIX - early XX centuries. - M.: Edition of the International University of Business and Management, 1996. - 520 p.

.Ionin L.G. Georg Simmel is a 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: a textbook for universities. - Minsk: Higher School, 2010. - 300 p.

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

.Ohane 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 Grounding 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 development 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 the central role is played by logical connections and structures, the isolation of the forms of social life from their meaningful relations and the study of these forms in themselves. Such forms Simmel calls "forms of socialization".

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

Simmel anticipated a number of essential provisions of modern sociology of groups. The 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, due to a special vitality tends to self-preservation, the basis and process of which Simmel investigated. The ability of a group to self-preservation is manifested in the continuation of its existence even with the exclusion of individual members. On the one hand, the ability of the group to self-preservation is weakened where the life of the group is closely connected with one dominant personality. The disintegration of the group is possible due to power 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, set forth primarily in The Philosophy of Money (1900).

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

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Biography

Born into a wealthy family; Simmel's parents were of Jewish origin, his father converted to Catholicism, his mother - Lutheranism, Simmel himself was baptized into Lutheranism in childhood. After graduating from the University of Berlin, he taught there for over 20 years. Due to the anti-Semitic sentiments of the authorities, the career did not develop very well. For a long time he served in the low position of Privatdozent, although he was popular among students and supported by such scientists as Max Weber and Heinrich Rickert. A freelance professor with, a staff member of the provincial Strasbourg University (1914), where he found himself isolated from the Berlin scientific environment, and since the outbreak of the First World War in the same year, this university ceased operations. Shortly before the end of the war, Simmel died in Strasbourg of liver cancer.

Philosophical ideas

According to Simmel, life is a stream 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 cognition. Only through direct experience of the events of history, diverse individual forms of the realization of life in culture and interpretation on the basis of this experience of the past, life can be comprehended. The historical process, according to Simmel, is subject to "fate", in contrast to nature, in which the law of causality rules. 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 socialization(German: Formen der Vergesellschaftung) that exist in any of the historically known societies. These are relatively stable and repetitive forms of interpersonal interactions. The forms of sociation were abstracted by Simmel from the corresponding content in order to develop the "strongholds" of scientific analysis. Through the creation of scientifically substantiated concepts, Simmel saw the way to establish sociology as an independent science. Forms of social life are domination, subordination, rivalry, division of labor, formation of parties, solidarity, etc. All these forms are reproduced, filled with appropriate content, in various 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 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 - they include constant phenomena independent of the specific circumstances of their implementation: submission, domination, competition, reconciliation, conflict, etc.
2. Social type (eg, cynic, pauper, aristocrat, coquette).
3. "Models of development" - a universal process of expanding the group with the strengthening of the individuality of its members. As the population grows, the members of the group become less and less similar to each other. The development of individuality is accompanied by a decrease in the cohesion of the group and its 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 direct flow of life:

1. 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, there are such stable and independent forms as economic and other forms of state-legal organizations.
3. The greatest distance from social life is kept by "play" forms. These are pure forms of socialization, 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 mankind, which has ceased to be "a tool in the struggle for existence."

Big cities and spiritual life

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

Philosophy of fashion

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 imitate. He believes that the attractiveness of imitation for the individual, first of all, is that it represents the possibility of 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, leads the individual to a track 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 but 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. The necessary social tendencies for the establishment of fashion are the need for unity, on the one hand, and for isolation, on the other.

1. Brief biography of G. Simmel

Georg Simmel was born in Berlin. He graduated from the classical gymnasium and entered the University of Berlin. Received a PhD in philosophy for a dissertation on Kant. He became a professor at the universities in Berlin and Strasbourg. At universities he taught 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 Berlin intellectual elite.

The early period is 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 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 cognition, relying on the philosophy of I. Kant. In the center of his attention at the neo-Kantian stage of spiritual development are values ​​and culture, which are related to the sphere that lies on the other side of natural causality. It was then that "formal sociology" was born, which is called upon to investigate not the content of individual social phenomena, but the social forms inherent in all social phenomena. The activity of the humanities is understood by him as "transcendental form-creation". The source of creativity is a personality with its a priori given way of seeing. During this period, Simmel wrote numerous works on Kant, and created a work on the philosophy of history.

In the future, Simmel becomes one of the most significant representatives of the late "philosophy of life." He writes the work "Philosophy of Money", in which he makes an attempt at 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 peculiar internal organization, its own unique logic. Philosophy, for example, is characterized by the comprehension of the world in its integrity. The philosopher sees the integrity through each specific thing , and this way of seeing can neither be confirmed nor refuted by science. Simmel speaks in this connection of various “distances of cognition.” The difference in distances determines the difference in the images of the world.

The individual always lives in several worlds, and this is the source of his internal conflicts, which have deep roots in "life". The complex ideological evolution, the breadth and dispersion of interests, the essayistic style of most of the works make it difficult to adequately understand and evaluate the work of Georg Simmel. And, nevertheless, one can single out the general theme of his work - the interaction of society, man and culture. Society was considered by him 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. Common to creativity was "an idea of ​​the subject, method and tasks of sociological science" .

Simmel wrote about 200 articles and over 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. A Study of Forms of Socialization" (1908), "Philosophy of Culture" (1911), "Goethe" (1913), "Rembrandt" (1916), "Fundamental Questions 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 there are many achievements in it. 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 as a wealthy businessman. George's childhood proceeded quite normally, the parents took care of their children, tried to give them a better future. The father, a Jew by origin, adopted the Catholic faith, the mother converted to Lutheranism, in which the children were baptized, including George. Until the age of 16, the boy studied well at school, demonstrated success in mastering mathematics and history. It seemed that the typical fate of a merchant awaits him, but in 1874 Simmel's father dies, and Georg's life changes. The mother cannot support her son, and a family friend becomes his guardian. He finances the education of the young man and sponsors his admission to the University of Berlin at the Faculty of Philosophy.

Study and formation of views

At the university, Simmel studied with the outstanding thinkers of his time: Lazarus, Mommsen, Steinthal, Bastian. Already in university times, he clearly demonstrates his dialectical mindset, which later philosophers such as Pitirim Sorokin, Max Weber and But then the main life collision is outlined, which will complicate the lives of many people in Europe at that time. Georg Simmel was no exception, whose biography was very difficult because of his nationality. At the end of the course of study at the university, the philosopher tries to defend his doctoral dissertation, but he is refused. 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 did not manage to hide his Jewish nationality. He had a pronounced Jewish appearance, and this subsequently hindered him more than once in life. After some time, thanks to perseverance and perseverance, George managed to get a degree, but this did not open the desired doors for him.

The difficult life of a German philosopher

After graduating from the university, Simmel is looking for a teaching position, but he is not given a permanent job, again because of personal data. He gets the position of Privatdozent, which does not bring a guaranteed income, but consists entirely of student contributions. Therefore, Simmel lectures a lot 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 delivery. Simmel's lectures were energetic, he had the ability to captivate the audience, thinking aloud on a variety of topics. He was a constant success with students and local intelligentsia, for 15 years of work in this position, he won a certain fame and made friends with significant thinkers in his environment, for example, with Max Weber. But for a long time the scientific community did not seriously recognize the philosopher; sociology had not yet won the status of a fundamental discipline at that time. The Berlin circle of scientists laughed at the original thinking scientist, and it hurt him. Although he continued to work with perseverance: to reflect, write articles, lecture.

In 1900, however, he received official recognition, he was awarded the title of honorary professor, but still he did not achieve the desired status. It was not until 1914 that he finally became an academic professor. By this time, he already had more than 200 scientific and popular science publications. But he does not receive a position at his native university in Berlin, but in provincial Strasbourg, which was the source of his experiences 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 by the absence of a clear belonging to any philosophical movement. His path was full of throwing, he thought about many things, finding such objects for philosophical reflection that had not previously interested thinkers. The lack of a clear position did not work in favor of Simmel. This was another reason for the difficulty of integrating the philosopher into the scientific community. But precisely because of this breadth of thought, he was able to contribute to the development of several important topics of philosophy at once. There are many people in science whose work begins to be appreciated only years later, and such was Georg Simmel. The biography of the thinker is full of work and endless reflections.

The dissertation of Georg Simmel was dedicated to I. Kant. In it, the philosopher tried to comprehend the a priori principles of the social structure. The beginning of the thinker's path is also illuminated by the influence of C. Darwin and G. Spencer. In line with their concepts, Simmel interpreted the theory of knowledge, revealing the natural and biological foundations of ethics. The philosopher saw the existence of a person in society as the central problem of his reflections, therefore he is ranked among the direction with the name "philosophy of life". He connects knowledge 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 being.

Georg Simmel

In Berlin, Simmel, together with like-minded people, among whom were M. Weber and F. Tennis, organized the German Society of Sociologists. He actively thought about the object, subject and structure of the new science, formulated the principles of social organization. Describing the society, Georg Simmel, presented as the result of the contacts of many people. At the same time, he brought out the main features of the social structure. Among them are such as the number of participants in the interaction (there can be no less than three), the relationship between them, the highest form of which is cohesion, and it is he who introduces this term into scientific circulation, which denotes the sphere of communication, which the participants define as their own. He calls money and socialized intellect the most important social forces. Simmel creates a classification of forms of social existence, which is based on the degree of proximity or remoteness from the "stream of life". Life, on the other hand, is presented to the philosopher as a chain of experiences that are conditioned both by biology and culture.

Ideas about modern culture

Georg Simmel thought a lot about social processes and the nature of contemporary culture. He recognized that the most important driving force in society is money. He wrote a huge work "Philosophy of money", in which he described their social functions, discovered their beneficial and negative impact 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 hostility. The interaction of people in society always takes the form of struggle. Competition, subordination and domination, division of labor - all these are forms of enmity, which inevitably 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, 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 studied the phenomenon of this social process and came to the conclusion that it appears only together with urbanization and modernization. In the Middle Ages, for example, it did not exist, says Georg Simmel. Fashion theory comes from the fact that it satisfies the need of individuals for identification, helps new social groups to win 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 can hardly be overestimated. He is one of the founders of sociology, reveals the causes of social development, comprehends the role of money and fashion in the culture of mankind. 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 impact on the formation of the American direction of sociology and became a harbinger of postmodern thinking.