Simmel George (1/3/1858 – 9/26/1918), German philosopher and sociologist. Docent (since 1885) and professor at University comrade in Berlin (since 1901) and Strasbourg (since 1914).
The early period, marked by the influence of Herbert Spencer and Darwin (bio-utilitarian justification of ethics and theory of knowledge: morality and truth as a kind of instinctive appropriate), replaced in 1900-ies. influence the ideas of Kant in particular – its priori. In the future, Simmel became one of the most significant representatives of the "philosophy of life", working mainly problems of philosophy of culture. "Life" Simmel understood as a process of creative becoming, the inexhaustible rational means, and comprehended only in the inner experience, intuitively. This experience life objectified in the diverse forms of culture.
Characteristic of Simmel's attention to the individual forms of realization of life, a unique historic image of culture reflected in his monographs on the Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Rembrandt, Kant, A. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and others and led to unsystematic his numerous essays on philosophy and history culture. The typical "life philosophy" the pathos of life as an irrational fate pervades the philosophy of Georg Simmel, expressing, in particular, in recent years, his life in the doctrine of "the tragedy of creativity."
The latter is caused by Simmel, the eternal tension between the creative surge of life and stiff objective form of culture.
In works on the sociology 1890-1900-ies. Simmel stands founder of so-called. formal sociology. The subject of sociology of Simmel considers forms of social interaction of people, continuing with all the changes in the specific historical content. In this social unilateral understood as a set of interindividual relations. In line with this approach Simmel analyzed the social differentiation, social form (contract, conflict, competition, prestige, subordination, rank, etc.), the relations arising in small groups. In The Philosophy of Money "(in 1900, 6 ed., 1958) Simmel has given the socio-psychological analysis of the role of money in the development of interpersonal relations between people as a prerequisite for the development of personality and individual freedom. Simmel's work greatly influenced the subsequent development of bourgeois sociology in Germany (L. von Wiese, W. Sombart, R. Stammler) and USA (G. Becker and L. Coser), in Russia the influence of Simmel's impact on the views of Struve (see VI Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. coll. Op., 5 ed., v. 1, pp. 431). Cit.: Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, 4 Aufl .. Bd 1 – 2, Aalen, 1964; Soziologie, 4 Aufl., VI, 1958; Philosophische Kultur, 3 Aufl., Potsdam. 1923; Lebensanschauung, Munch. -Lpz., 1918; Zur Philosophie und Kunst. Potsdam, 1922; Fragmente und Aufsatze, Munch., 1923; Briicke und Tur, Stuttg., 1957, in Russian. per .- Problems of Philosophy of History, Moscow, 1898; Religion, M., 1909: Social differentiation, MA, 1909; conflict of modern culture. P., 1923; Goethe, M.. , 1928. Lit.: History of Philosophy, Vol 3, Moscow, 1959, pp. 362-64: Kon positivism in sociology, L., 1964. pp. 106 – 10: Gassen K., Landmann M., Buch des Dankes an G. Simmel, B., 1958; G. Simmel. 1858-1918, Columbus (Ohio), 1959; Weingartner RH, Experience and culture. The philosophy of G. Simmel, Middletown (Connecticut), 1962; G. Simmel, ed. by LA Coser, Englewood Cliffs (New Jersey), 1965.