Georg Simmel and the Aesthetics of Social Reality

Abstract

Georg Simmel's sociology is shown to be grounded on his aesthetics. Isomorphisms between his sociological and aesthetic approaches to their respective subject matters are found in their similar stress on (1) the visual modality, (2) the separation of the product from the process which created it, and (3) the method of generalization through particularization. Although Simmel's sociology is usually said to be disorganized, considering his sociology to be modeled after his aesthetics reveals that it is actually more unified in conception than is commonly thought. Arthur Salz (1959) once said he learned from his teacher Georg Simmel, the following about society: [Simmel] conceives of sociology as the study of the forms of sociation. But whoever speaks of forms moves in the field of aesthetics. Society, in the last analysis, is a