Abstracts
Abstract
Simmel’s work has often been interpreted as a succession of disparate phases of development following contradictory epistemological paradigms and intellectual stances. By analysing the ‘money or life metaphor’ Hans Blumenberg delivered the paradigmatic assessment for the consistency of Simmel’s philosophical work. The present paper critically extends this approach in order to understand the meaning of Simmel’s life and forms paradigm and shows that its preeminent theoretical contribution concerns sociological theory. From the analysis emerges that Simmel’s delivers a consistent alternative to Parson’s conception of functional differentiation in form of a theory of qualitative societal differentiation. In this frame, Simmel’s critical adoption and transformation of Marx’ theory of societal conflict allows for the foundation of an open-end theory of the development of modernity in the different domains of culture.
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Appendices
Biographical notes
Gregor Fitzi is co-director of the Centre for Citizenship, Social Pluralism and Religious Diversity at University of Potsdam, Germany. After his PhD in Sociology at the University of Bielefeld, he was assistant professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Heidelberg, Germany. Among his recent publications are: The Challenge of Modernity. Simmel’s Sociological Theory, (Routledge 2018). (With Jürgen Mackert and Bryan Turner) Populism and the Crisis of Democracy, 3 vol. (Routledge 2018).
Vincenzo Mele is associate professor of General Sociology at the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pisa. He is author of Metropolis. Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin and Modernity (Belforte, 2011), Aesthetics and Social Theory. Simmel, Benjamin, Adorno, Bourdieu (Aracne, 2013), and Globalizing Cultures. Theories, Paradigms, Actions (edited with M. Vujnovic, Brill, 2015) as well as numerous articles on the sociology of culture and social theory. His last areas of research are: physiognomic as evidential paradigm in history and sociology, the sociology of crowd, the fragmentation of public sphere in the era of digital culture, the criminal imaginary in the mafia tv series.
Mauro Magatti is Full professor of Sociology at the Catholic University of Milan and Director of the “Centre for the Anthropology of Religion and Cultural Change” (ARC). He has been Visiting Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Social in Paris and is Permanent Research Fellow at the Centre for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, USA. Among his recent publications are The Crisis Conundrum: How to reconcile Economy and Society (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), Social Generativity. A Relational Paradigm for Social Change (Routledge, 2018).
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- Magatti M. (ed) (2018). Social Generativity. A Relational Paradigm to Social Change. London and New York: Routledge.
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