• DOI:10.1177/000271629500600304
• Corpus ID: 143284719

The Problem of Sociology

@article{SimmelThePO,
  title={The Problem of Sociology},
  author={Georg Simmel},
  journal={The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science},
  volume={6},
  pages={52 - 63}
}

• G. Simmel
• Published 1 November 1895
• Philosophy
• The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

The overthrow of the individualistic point of view may be considered the most important and fruitful step which historical science and the moral sciences (Geisteswissenscha_ ften ) generally have made in our time. In place of the individual careers which formerly stood in the foreground of our picture of history, we now regard social forces, national movements, as the real and determining factors, out of which the parts which individuals play cannot be evaluated with complete definiteness. The science of human beings has become the science of human society. No object of discussion in the moral sciences can avoid this tendency. Even where movements culminate in the individual, as in the realm of art, we seek the causes in the evolution of the race, from which we have arrived at a perception of the beautiful, and in the particular social condition of the time, which made possible just this or that form of artistic product. In the realm of religion, as in that of economic life; in the realm of morals, as well as in technical progress; in politics, as well as in those things which treat of the health and disease of body and soul, it is equally true that we find