Simmel, Georg

Related Category: Sociology: Biographies

(gā´ôrk zĭm´əl), 1858–1918, German philosopher and sociologist. At the universities of Berlin and Strasbourg he was an influential lecturer. Basing his social philosophy on a broad historical foundation, he did much to establish German sociology as an independent discipline. His chief works are Soziologie (1908) and Lebensanschauung [philosophy of life] (1918).

See his On Individuality and Social Forms: Selected Writings, ed. and with an introd. by D. N. Levine (1971); biography by D. Frisby (1984); essays by and about Simmel, edited by K. H. Wolff (1965); studies by N. J. Spykman (1925, repr. 1964), L. A. Coser (1965), and D. Frisby (1981).