Volume 28, numéro 1, 2024

EN :

The article is dedicated to the reconstruction and recapitulation of Georg Simmel's relationship to architecture and to the aesthetics of the field of architecture. To this aim, a number of texts have been identified and discussed in Simmel's production that describe the urban dimension, as dimension of the city and of architecture as a modality of the construction of buildings, objects and places to inhabit the world and thus give it a certain configuration. From this discussion derives the plural field of oppositions in relation to the urban-architectural dimension, according to a view of Simmelian thought based on a kind of law of contrast, which can be exemplified in the following set of “oppositional pairs” found in Simmel's work: nature and culture (§ 2), hyperaesthesia and anaesthesia (§ 3), aesthetic “superadditum” and abstraction (§ 4), artistic will and practical functionality (§ 5), connecting and separating (§ 6), transience and eternity or, in architectural terms, temporary and solidity (§ 7), freedom and solitude - subjective culture and objective culture (§ 8). The paper proposes an attempt to trace this series of contrasts and to conclude with an initial assessment of the path traveled and some reflections on a possible convergence between aesthetic and social morphology (§ 9).

EN :

The relationship between morality and freedom is present throughout Simmel's intellectual path. Significantly, the topic ‘freedom’ is treated in one of Simmel's first works specifically dedicated to moral science. Within the framework of his sociology and philosophy of life as well as his anthropological vision, Simmel rethinks the Kantian categorical imperative: on the one hand, developing his own 'moral principle of freedom' and, on the other, carrying out an inversion of the Kantian imperative whereby what had been understood as universal, valid for all individuals and capable of guiding their actions, becomes an individual law whose moral imperative is particular to each individual and universally affects all that individual's actions. Morality concerns the whole human being and coincides with the response – that is, responsibility - in relation to life, beyond dualistic visions that separate what is related (e.g., bond and freedom, reason and sensitivity, objective and subjective, etc.): on this point, the ethical dimension and freedom intertwine the aesthetic dimension, capable of restoring the integrity of human existence and experience. Aesthetics, in Simmel, has to do with the feeling of a profound intensity of life, offering the possibility of a connection between the experience of perception and sensitive affection with the knowledge of life from inside. This involves the authenticity of the individual, leading him to feel the reality of life to which he can respond. And freedom rests on this response, which is responsibility.

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Simmel never finished his book on Hegel. Simmel rarely mentions Hegel throughout his collected works. But when he does, it is often with praise. However, Simmel explicitly distances himself from Hegel in those places where, as readers, we find Hegelian traits. What should we make of this complex relationship? With the aim of contributing to understanding Simmel’s systematic thought, I assess the extent to which Simmel was and was not influenced by Hegel. I refer to two lesser-known writings, in which Simmel addresses Hegel’s philosophy at length, along with some of the more incidental mentions of Hegel that Simmel makes throughout his oeuvre. I show that Simmel adopts Hegel’s conception of philosophy while rejecting its system building. I then argue that what most scholars consider to be Hegelian in Simmel’s philosophy, namely dialectics, in fact represents his weakest, or most general, form of Hegelianism. Moreover, I show that given Simmel’s aesthetic focus, he may have been more influenced by Schiller than by Hegel in this regard. Finally, among other Hegelian features that are often overlooked, I consider Simmel’s conceptual relationality of individual–society as well as his critique of Kantian ethics.

EN :

Drawing on selected passages from Simmel's texts, this article seeks to, on one hand, consolidate the key elements of his understanding of the presuppositional level in sociology, and on the other hand, building on insights particularly evident in an essay published in the late 19th century, to develop a complementary second level of analysis and theorization in sociology, which I term the epistemic level. Thus, in the first part of the text, with an emphasis on Philosophie des Geldes and Soziologie, I address Simmel's understanding of the presuppositional elements in social-theoretical reflection on the world, seeking to determine the content of this level of analysis and theorizing in the transition from philosophy to the particular sciences. Secondly, I turn to the definition of the epistemic level in Simmel. At this point, I focus on delineating the fundamental questions of a historical-systematic nature that can be explored from this epistemic level. I conclude with some general considerations about the theoretical significance of these levels for sociological analysis and theorizing.