Contested Canon: Simmel Scholarship at Columbia and the New School

Author(s): Gary D. Jaworski

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The American Sociologist, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 4-18
Published by: Springer
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Contested Canon: Simmel
Scholarship
at Columbia and the New School
Gary D.
Jaworski
The
history
of
sociology
exhibits what
might
be
called,
after Gallie
(1956),
an
"essentially
contested" canon. The
key figures,
sacred
texts,
and central ideas
that constitute the
sociological
tradition are
inherently
in
dispute.
This
essay
examines the "contested canon" within a historical framework to
provide
at
least a
partial explanation
for the restricted
interpretation
of
Georg
Simmel as
a structuralist
sociologist.
The sites of this contest are two New York
City
institutions,
Columbia
University
and the New School for Social
Research,
both of which offered
mid-century readings
of Simmel's works. At Columbia
in the
mid-1950s,
Robert K. Merton advanced a structural
reading
of Simmel's
work.
During
the same broad
period,
the New School's Albert Salomon cham
pioned
a
phenomenological reading
of Simmel in his classes and seminars.
Despite penetrating insights
into Simmel's links to the
phenomenological
tra
dition,
Salomon's
interpretation
has had less salience than the
approach
ad
vanced
by
Merton. The differential success of these
competing interpretations
is
explained
in
large
measure
by
the institutionalization and dominance of
Merton's research tradition relative to Salomon's.
The
history
of
sociology
exhibits what
might
be
called,
after Gallie
(1956),
an
"essentially
contested" canon. Like the
concepts
that Gallie
discussed?"power,"
"democracy,"
and
"freedom,"
for
example?the key figures,
sacred
texts,
and
central ideas that constitute the
sociological
tradition are
inherently
in
dispute.
Even when there is
agreement
over which
figures belong
in the list of
approved
writers,
the
interpretation
of those
figures
is often
hotly
debated. Recent contro
versies over Parsons's
reading
of Weber and Blumer's
reading
of Mead are
only
two
examples
of this
pattern.
Unlike Gallie's
concepts, however,
the inherent
contestability
of the
sociological
canon is less a
logical
than a
sociological
and
political problem.
The
contending
schools of
sociology,
as
Tiryakian (1986)
Gary
D.
Jaworski
is a Professor of
Sociology, Fairleigh
Dickinson
University,
Madison,
New
Jersey.
The American
Sociologist/Summer
1998
and others have
observed,
canonize intellectual
heroes, texts,
and
traditions,
and
challenge
or
ignore
others.
Approved
authors and texts are advanced as
schools institutionalize themselves and attain
dominance;
others are
ignored,
forgotten,
and
occasionally
resurrected.
This
essay
examines the "contested canon" within a
historical framework to
provide
at least a
partial explanation
for the restricted
interpretation
of
Georg
Simmel as a structuralist
sociologist.
The sites of this contest are two New York
City
institutions,
Columbia
University
and the New School for Social
Research,
both of which offered
mid-century readings
of Simmers works. At Columbia in
the
mid-1950s,
Robert K. Merton advanced a structural
reading
of Simmers work
in two
year-long
seminars
(1955-56; 1956-57)
titled "Selected Problems in the
Theory
of
Organizations." During
the same broad
period,
Albert
Salomon,
an
original
member of the New School's Graduate
Faculty
who had studied with
both Weber and
Simmel,
championed
a
phenomenological reading
of Simmel in
his classes and seminars.
Despite penetrating insights
into Simmers links to the
phenomenological
tradition, including
an examination of the "inner
affinity"
of
Simmel and Alfred
Schutz,
Salomon's
interpretation
has had less salience than
the
approach
advanced
by
Merton. The differential success of these
competing
interpretations
is
explained
in
large
measure
by
the institutionalization and
dominance of Merton's research tradition relative to Salomon's. Such an
analysis
promises
to cast
light
not
only
on the
history
of Simmel's American
reception
but on the vicissitudes of
contemporary sociological
theories and methods.
A useful
strategy
for
comparing
intellectual and
professional styles
of work is
to chart them
along
an intellectual continuum. At one end of the continuum lies
"scholarship,"
that
is,
intellectual work in
harmony
with humanist intellectual
traditions.
Assuming
the
unity
of
knowledge,
this
approach
links
sociology
to
literary, philosophical,
and historical
projects.
Texts are examined
historically
and
systematically, employing explication
du
texte,
and
biography
is
accepted
as
relevant to
understanding
a thinker. At the other end of the continuum is
"abstracted
empiricism,"
to borrow C.
Wright
Mills's
(1959)
phrase,
in the sci
entific intellectual tradition. Work in this vein is characterized less
by
its
ques
tions than its
techniques.
Armed with
a
positivist philosophy
of
science,
it measures
all
knowledge by
a restricted
yardstick
of truth. Not
surprisingly, many
authors
are
dismissed as
unworthy
of
study;
others are of interest
only
for the
hypoth
eses and
concepts
their works contain. Texts are
examined,
if at
all,
in isolation
from the
literary
and historical context of their
production.
In the middle of the
continuum is a
style
of work that shares in abstracted
empiricism's
instrumen
talism,
its
goal
of
utilizing
a text for some
purpose,
and in
scholarship's
univer
salism,
its desire to advance intellect and
learning.
This middle course can be
called the "research
program."
The
competing approaches
to Simmel in the
period
after the Second World
War do not
range very widely along
this continuum. Yet Salomon's work at the
New School
mostly
addresses the criteria of
scholarship,
while the work of
Merton and other Columbia
sociologists
focuses on the research
program.
Over
all,
the
story
of Simmel in
post-war
American
sociology
revolves in
important
Jaworski 5
ways
around the
relationship
between these
styles
of
thought
and their corre
sponding
institutional locations. Columbia's institutional dominance relative to
the New School had
profound consequences,
not
only
for American Simmel
studies but for
sociology
more
generally.
In the American
academy today,
the
research
program
and abstracted
empiricism
have
largely supplanted
scholar
ship. Explication
du texte is a
dying
art,
while methods that
ape
the natural sci
ences are de
rigueur
in
graduate
schools across the United States.
European
style scholarship,
with its ties to
philosophy
and
literature,
has been
rejected
as
old-fashioned and
replaced by
an American brand of academic work tied to
scientific advance and social
improvement.
In
part,
such
developments
are a result of the academic
styles successfully
advanced
by
Merton and Paul Lazarsfeld at Columbia
University,
where
sociology
was defined
mostly along
the lines of the natural sciences. Such a definition
entailed substantial
gains, including greater prestige
for
postwar sociology.
But
those
gains
have come at a
price, namely,
the
eclipse
of the kind of American
Simmel
scholarship represented
at the New School. With few
exceptions,
con
temporary
Simmel
scholarship
has returned to the
European community,
where
the most
comprehensive
efforts at
understanding
Simmel's
writings,
as
opposed
to
developing
them for other
purposes,
are
taking place.1
A
thorough study
of the
writings
and institutional contexts of American Simmel
studies would be
necessary
to substantiate the above thesis and conclusions.
Here I
lay
the
groundwork
for such a
study by presenting
short sketches of work
at each institution. The sketches rest on information from
my
interviews with
the
principals
and their students and from an
analysis
of
published
and
unpub
lished
sources,
including
seminar
notes,
drafts of
papers,
and
correspondence.
Simmel Studies at Columbia
Merton's examination of Simmel's
sociology
is
usefully
viewed in the context
of the Columbia
sociology department's project
of
developing
a unified socio
logical approach,
what Crothers
(1996)
calls the "Columbia Tradition." Prior to
this
development,
Columbia
sociology
was
dominated
by
a series of
great
think
ers?first Franklin H.
Giddings
and then Robert M.
Maclver,
and assisted
by
a
number of other
strong intellects, including
Theodore Abel and Robert
Lynd?
each one
professing
his own brand of
sociology.2
In the late
1930s,
there
emerged
a divide between those members of the
department,
like
Abel,
who
thought
that
the
department's
internal contradictions stimulated
individuality
of
thought
and
those,
like Lazarsfeld and
many students,
who
thought
it
impaired
intellectual
accomplishment.
This
split
is evident in a debate between Lazarsfeld and
Abel,
recorded in the latter's diaries
(Abel 1936: 130-131).
Lazarsfeld
gave
the
depart
ment low marks and
argued
in favor of a unified
approach,
a school of
thought.
Abel,
predictably,
stressed the
department's
virtues and defended
a scholar's
right
to do his own
thinking.
Columbia
sociology during
the
1940s
and 1950s
developed along
the lines
that Lazarsfeld had
promoted,
as a
department
characterized
by
strong
intellec
6
The American
Sociologist/Summer
1998
tuai coherence. Lazarsfeld and Merton
joined
formal
theory
with research meth
odology,
funded students with
strong
statistical
skills,
secured
grants
for
faculty
and student research
projects,
and
helped
form
a school of
thought
that ensured
Columbia's
place
as one of the
country's leading departments.
Central to this
"tradition" was Merton's definition of
sociology
as a
"special
science" focused
on the structural factors of social life. Such an
approach
aimed for
autonomy,
not
only
from related
disciplines,
like
psychology
and cultural
anthropology,
but
also from other schools of
sociological thought.
It also entailed a
rereading
of
the
sociological
tradition,
not as a
history
of
great
thinkers or a tale of theoreti
cal
convergence,
but as a
repository
of structuralist
insights.
Merton's
postwar
interest in
Simmel, then,
was
part
of this
project
of advanc
ing
the frontiers of the
emerging
Columbia school of
thought.
This focus
helps
explain
Merton's
response
to Lewis A. Coser's initial dissertation
proposal.
Coser
originally
envisioned not a
special study
of Simmel's
essay
on conflict but an
examination of the German
sociologist's
intellectual
biography.
Merton
rejected
the
plan
on the
grounds
that such a
study
was "unfashionable"
(Coser 1987;
see
also
Rosenberg
1984:
44).
This
response
reflected his
quest
to make Columbia
sociology
scientific and
autonomous,
distinct not
only
from non-scientific fields
of
study
but also from the
department's
own humanistic
past.
In
developing
a distinctive brand of
sociology,
Merton and his
colleagues
abandoned continental intellectual
styles.
The version of social science advanced
by
his
predecessor
Maclver
closely
linked
sociology
and
philosophy
(Bierstedt
1981:
243-297).
Mertonian
structural-functionalism, however,
severed the con
nection between the two intellectual
pursuits.
Illustrative of this
separation
is
Merton's Social
Theory
and Social Structure
(1957).
One of the era's most
erudite and
enduring sociological treatises,
it nevertheless examines almost no
philosophers.
In more than 600
pages, Hegel
and Nietzsche are cited once
each,
and there are no citations of Plato or
Aristotle,
Kant or
Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer
or
Bergson.3
Moreover,
Merton's seminar notes on "Selected Problems in the
Theory
of
Organization"
reveal that of all Simmel's
writings, only
his
Soziologie
was included. Simmel's cultural or
philosophical
works,
indeed even his other
sociological writings,
would have been read
by
Merton's
students,
only
either
outside of class or later in their careers.4
In
place
of a historical and
systematic
examination of Simmel's
writings,
Merton
developed
a
strategy
of
extracting
and
extending
Simmel's structuralist
insights.6
The basic
approach
of each seminar session was to start with a
quotation
from
an
assigned
text and then
rephrase
it in terms of
contemporary
issues or
concepts
in order to
extend, revise,
or
update
the ideas. The
primary
text was Kurt H.
Wolffs translation of The
Sociology of Georg
Simmel
(1950),
but other sources?
by Parsons, Homans,
and
Bendix, among
others?also
provided
raw material for
those sessions. This
procedure
is similar to what Merton
(1973)
has referred to as
"codification" in
science,
an
operation
considered fundamental in the structural
functional school but
quite foreign
to the humanistic scholars at the New School.
Merton's interest in Simmel
may
have found
expression
in the Columbia
project,
but its content
largely
derives from a
contemporary
social
problem. By
the mid
Jaworski
7
1950s,
when Merton examined Simmel's
sociology,
America had suffered from
years
of Cold War
suspicion
and
demagoguery. Through
the activities of Senator
Joseph McCarthy
and his
minions,
thousands of citizens suffered countless inva
sions of
privacy
and other violations of civil
rights.
Academics were
specially
targeted
for their real or
imagined
ties to
scapegoated
groups.
Once the tumult
had
subsided,
the
topic
of
leadership
in a democratic
society
took center
stage.
For
many intellectuals, including
Merton's former
teacher,
Talcott
Parsons,
the
solution to the
problem
of
McCarthyism lay,
above
all,
in
improved
national
political leadership.6
Merton
(1957:336-357) forcefully engaged
this
issue,
draw
ing
on Simmel's ideas about
visibility
to
help
him answer one of the crucial
questions
of this
period:
What are the conditions that
support
a vital
democracy?
(See Jaworski
1990; 1997,
ch.
5.)
In a discussion of
aristocracy
in his
Soziologie,
Simmel
(1950:90)
wrote: "If
it is to be effective as a
whole,
the aristocratic
group
must be
'surveyable'
[?bersehbar] by every single
member of it.
Every
element must be
personally
acquainted
with
every
other." Merton extended Simmel's term
theoretically by
distinguishing
between
"visibility,"
a social
psychological quality,
and
"observability,"
a structural
property
of a
group. Practically,
he
applied
Simmel's
insights
into
the "vital conditions of
aristocracy" (Simmel 1950:91)
to the
problem
of demo
cratic
leadership.
In a vital
democracy,
Merton
maintained,
leaders and led must
be visible and observable to each
other;
leaders must be
willing
to communicate
openly
with the
people.
The
improvement
of
public opinion polls,
for
example,
would
provide
an efficient means of
communicating
to leaders the concerns of
the
people.
While Merton
recognized
the ethical and social
necessity
for curbs
on full
visibility,
he was
convinced, following
Simmel's
insights,
that
improved
"visibility"
and
"observability"
would enhance democratic
governance.
Merton's
extension of Simmel's ?bersehbar
was thus embedded in an institutional
project,
developing
the "Columbia
Tradition,"
and motivated as well
by practical
con
cern with the renewal of national
political leadership.
His
development
of the
structural
aspects
of Simmel's ideas was a theoretical
expression
of the
political
problem
of
secrecy
and
disclosure,
a
key
concern of the Cold War world.7 The
same cannot be
said, however,
for
subsequent applications
of Merton's
concep
tual distinction between
"visibility"
and
"observability." Applied
to abstracted
research on medical
practice,
small
groups,
and scientific
prestige,
the terms
yielded
thin results
and,
consequently,
the trickle of studies in this research
program
dried
up (Cole
and Cole
1968;
Hopkins
1964;
Merton et al.
1957).8
Merton's extension of Simmel's ideas contributed to
sociological
and
political
theory,
but it never became in our sense a
"scholarly"
examination of Simmel's
writings.
Neither the seminars nor the
writings
derived from them
represent
efforts to better understand Simmel on his own terms. The seminar notes reveal
neither an
exegesis
nor a contextual examination of the text. In the words of
one of the seminar
participants,
The
Sociology of Georg
Simmel was "a
pretext,
not a text." It was a
point
of
departure
for
advancing
Merton's research
pro
gram,
which aimed at an
analysis
of the structural
properties
of
groups.
In his
seminars, then,
Merton was more interested in
standing
on Simmel's shoulders
than in
carefully measuring
them.
8 The American
Sociologist/Summer
1998
Merton attributes the modest
productivity
of these seminars to his own error
of
judgment
(Merton 1988).
For
him,
their result was the
long chapter
in the
second edition of Social
Theory
and Social
Structure,
titled "Continuities in the
Theory
of Reference
Groups
and Social Structure"
(Merton 1957:281-386).
This
chapter
contains
a wealth of directions for research in functionalist
analysis,
many
of which remain buried in those
pages
and
unexplored by
his students.
Had the
piece
been
published separately,
Merton
remarked,
it would have had
greater
research salience. Merton's
conjecture
is realistic. Lewis A. Coser's The
Functions
of
Social
Conflict
(1956),
while written
prior
to those
seminars,
also
employed
Simmelian ideas to advance the functionalist research
agenda.
Pub
lished as a
slim
volume,
it succeeded in
shaping
several
generations
of thinkers.
(See Jaworski 1997,
ch.
6.)
It is well known that The Functions
of
Social
Conflict
was
Coser's doctoral
dissertation,
written under Merton at Columbia. Less
widely
known is the fact
that the
published
book is
actually only
half of his
dissertation,
and that the
other half remains
unpublished/The part
that has become famous follows Merton's
functionalist research
program, especially
the focus on unintended
consequences
of social action. Its
style
is also
heavily
indebted to
Merton,
whose
strategy
of
examining
Simmel's
writings
is in all essentials the same
approach
Coser follows
in his book. Coser's
study departs
from
functionalism, however,
in
privileging
conflict over consensus as the cohesive force of
liberal,
democratic societies. In
this sense Coser calls himself "a heretic in the church of functionalists"
(Rosenberg
1984:
44).
The
unpublished
first
part
of Coser's dissertation is titled "The
Concept
of
Social Conflict in American
Sociology:
An Exercise in the
Sociology
of Knowl
edge" (Coser 1954:
5-188).
It was written
partly
at
Chicago, partly
at
Columbia,
and
represents
a
very
different research
program
from that followed in the
published part (Coser 1989).
In the
unpublished
material,
Coser's basic
purpose
is to
explain
the
changing
status of conflict in American
sociological thought,
from a
positive
valuation
among
the
founding generation
to a
negative
estima
tion in the
generation represented by
Elton
Mayo
and Talcott Parsons.
Drawing
on
Mead, Znaniecki,
and C.
Wright Mills,
Coser observes that the first
generation
of
sociologists
addressed reformist audiences: men and women
engaged
in social
conflict who
positively
valued this
struggle.
A shift in audience and affiliation
occurred
during
and after the New Deal
period,
as
sociologists increasingly
worked in
applied positions
within various
public
and
private
bureaucracies.
Along
with new audiences came a new
style
of
work,
"applied sociology,"
and
a new
type
of administration-oriented
sociologist.
A fear of conflict dominated
the intellectual outlook of this new
generation
and resulted in work
preoccu
pied
with
cohesion,
common
values,
and social
integration.
As this brief review
indicates,
Coser's
response
to Merton's
rejection
of his
proposal
to write an
intellectual
biography
of Simmel resulted in a
dissertation
that contributes to two research
programs.
The
published part,
with its
analysis
of the
"positive
functions of social
conflict,"
advanced the functionalist research
program;
the
unpublished part presents
a
critique
of that theoretical
perspec
Jaworski 9
tive,
especially
of its more conservative branch. It
represents
an
attempt
to
forge
a critical
sociology
on
quite
different theoretical
grounds.
Simmel
Scholarship
at the New School
What Columbia
rejected,
the New School embraced. In the
1940s
and
1950s,
the New School
sociology department produced
dissertations on Max
Weber,
Thorstein
Veblen,
Carl Gustav
Jung, George
Herbert
Mead,
Emile
Durkheim,
and
the
lay sociologist,
Mark
Twain, among
other
topics.9
These studies not
only
offer intellectual
biographies
of their
subject,
but also include Simmelian
analy
ses and reflections.
Rosenberg's
dissertation on Veblen
singled
out Simmel's
essay
on the
stranger
as a
key
text in
understanding
its
subject;
Natanson's
study
of Mead identified the similarities and differences between Mead's and Simmel's
analyses
of self and
society;
even Skelton's dissertation on Mark Twain offered
a Simmelian
analysis
of Pudd'nhead
Wilson,
one of Twain's
characters,
as mav
erick and
stranger.
It is
likely, then,
that the New School
faculty
would not have
rejected
a
dissertation
proposal
for an intellectual
biography
of
Georg
Simmel.
In
fact,
Albert Salomon was
eager
for a new
interpretation
of Simmel.
Salomon, himself,
was
working
on such a revised
reading
of his former teacher
as
early
as
1940,
when he wrote to
Harry
Elmer
Barnes, "My
Simmel
interpreta
tion will
give
me much work.
However,
it is
highly necessary
to revise the
very
imperfect
book of
Spykman
and to
suggest
a new
[reading]
of Simmel himself"
(Salomon 1940).
Salomon was
referring
to Nicholas
J. Spykman's
book,
The
Social
Theory of Georg
Simmel,
first
published
in
1925.
At the
time,
this was
the
only major study
of Simmel available in
English,
and both its contributions
and limitations were
widely recognized.
Salomon's work on a new
interpretation
of Simmel led to two
publications
in the
1940s:
an
entry
on Simmel in The
Universal
fewish Encyclopedia
(Salomon 1943)
and a section of his
chapter
on
German
sociology
in Gurvitch and Moore's Twentieth
Century Sociology
(Salomon
1945).
Both
pieces
are animated
by
a desire to make sense of Simmel's
writings,
as
opposed
to
employing
them for some other research
purpose. They
also link
Simmel's work to more
general philosophical
and
literary
traditions.
Indeed,
Salomon's insistence on
reading
Simmel as a.
philosopher
and
sociologist
distin
guishes
his
reading
of Simmel from his American
contemporaries,
who
preferred
to extract Simmel's
sociology
from his
philosophy, focusing primarily
on the
former and
ignoring
the latter. To
Salomon,
such an
approach
was "scandal
ous."10
Both of these
early essays
on Simmel draw out the connections between
Simmel's
philosophy
and his
sociology.
For
example,
in his
1945
chapter
on
German
sociology,
Salomon described Simmel as
"primarily
a
philosopher."
But
he
quickly
added, "however, sociological thinking
was a fundamental element of
his
philosophical
reflection"
(Salomon 1945:604).
In later
publications,
as well
as in seminars and class
lectures,
he stated this
point
more
forcefully.
"I
submit,"
he said to his class on Simmel and
Schutz,
"that in the case of
Simmel,
sociology
and
philosophy basically
merge
and are one and indivisible"
(Salomon 1962).
In
10 The American
Sociologist/Summer
1993
1963,
when he lectured on Simmel at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York
City,
he
repeated
this refrain: Simmel was a
philosopher-sociologist,
"one and indivis
ible"
(Salomon 1995[1963]:363).
Like Merton's work on
Simmel,
which was tied to
advancing
the frontiers of
Columbia
sociology,
Salomon's Simmel
scholarship
was embedded in an institu
tional
project.
In the
1950s
and
1960s
Alfred
Schutz,
and later Aron Gurwitsch
and Dorian
Cairns,
was
making
the New School the center for
phenomenological
philosophy
(Rutkoff
and Scott
1986).
Since this
perspective
was well out of the
mainstream of social and
political thought,
which was dominated
by positivist
assumptions, special
efforts were made to
legitimate
the
approach.
In their bid
for
legitimacy,
the Graduate
Faculty employed
the
strategy
of
interpreting
social
theory
with an
eye
to
establishing
the links between the
phenomenological
tradition and other
European
and American
developments.
Schutz's
writings
on
William
James
and
George
Herbert
Mead,
for
example,
underscored the
parallels
between those American thinkers and Husserl and
Bergson (see
Coser
1984:121
125;
Rutkoff and Scott
1986:205-206; Wagner 1983).
As Schutz
(1970: 13)
explained,
in those
writings
his aim was "to show that
phenomenology
[was]
not
quite
a
stranger
in this
country."
Salomon's work on Simmel contributed to these efforts to vindicate one of the
New School's most
important emerging philosophical positions.
He does this
by
interpreting
Simmel as an
important progenitor
of the
phenomenological
tradi
tion. In his
writings
and class
notes,
Salomon
emphasized
Simmel's
relationship
to both the
European phenomenological
tradition and
analogous
American
philo
sophical thought.
As a former student of
Simmel's,
he wrote about his teacher
having
a
"remarkable influence" on the liberal
youth
in his
classes, introducing
them to
James
and
Bergson
and
combining
those thinkers "with the idealistic
traditions which were then
prevalent" (Salomon 1943:542).
Another
example
is
found in Salomon's seminar on
Simmel,
offered in the semester
preceding
Schutz's
own
1958
seminar on
James
and
Bergson.
As he
wrote,
"I considered
[my
semi
nar on
Simmel]
as an introduction to Professor Schutz's course on
Bergson
and
James....Simmel
knew that
Bergson
was closest to his own
work,
and he
recog
nized the
greater potency
of the French
philosopher"
(Salomon 1966).
A few
years
after Schutz's death in
1959,
Salomon offered his course "Simmel and
Schutz as
Sociologists,"
a tribute to both thinkers
(see
Appendix). Again
in this
course,
Salomon maintained that Simmel was an
important precursor
to
phenom
enological philosophy
and
sociology:
in his examination of
intersubjectivity
as a
constitutive element of human
conduct;
in his
analysis
of social
types
and
typi
fications;
and in his
philosophy
of life and
essays
on the life-world. In all these
ways,
and
others,
Simmel reveals his affinities to that tradition. As Salomon
(1945:609)
stated
elsewhere,
Simmel's work is
"living
and
suggestive,"
for he
"has seen the
problems
that the
Phenomenological
School
applies
to the
analysis
of social
phenomena."
The seminar on
Simmel and Schutz
explored
the affinities between the two
figures, including
their common
background
in the
philosophy
of
Bergson
and
the
similarity
of the intellectual
problems
on which
they
worked.11 While Salomon
Jaworski
11
admitted the fundamental differences between their
respective
intellectual
worlds,
he insisted on the "inner
affinity"
of Simmel and Schutz as
sociologists.
Accord
ing
to
Salomon,
both thinkers are concerned with
vindicating
the
subject
in the
face of social forces that "were
turning
the constructive and
spontaneous
indi
vidual into a
stereotype
and
pattern
of institutional
logic" (Salomon 1962).
Simmel's defense of the
subject,
Salomon
showed,
took the form of under
standing
how individuals transcend the
relationships
and structures within which
they
interact. Whether
they
are
examining
art or
fashion,
the
money economy
or
religion,
Simmel's
writings
illustrate how our
ways
of
being
with others al
ways
include
ways
of
going beyond
them. To
employ
Salomon's
(1962) apposite
phrase, according
to
Simmel,
"the
beyond
is not irrelevant for the social
being."
Schutz's vindication of the
subject lay
on different foundations than Simmel's?
especially
on the works of Husserl and Weber?but he too focused on the world
as
experienced
and understood from the
subjective point
of view.
Thus,
despite
the manifold differences in their
work,
Simmel and Schutz
occupy
common
ground.
The "inner
unity"
of the two thinkers shows in other
ways
as well. Both were
essayists
in the tradition of
Montaigne,
a
stylistic similarity
that
perhaps
accounts
for Schutz's
appreciation
of Simmel's
special investigations, including
his
essays
on the role of numbers in social
life,
the
poor,
and faithfulness and
gratitude.
But his
regard
for Simmel's
essay
on the
sociology
of the letter has
deeper
roots
(Simmel 1950:352-355;
see Schutz
1964:112).
Simmel's
analysis
of the letter
contrasts face-to-face communication with communication
through
the written
word. He
explores
the
paradox
of written communication: it enhances the
logi
cal
clarity
of communication while
magnifying
the
ambiguity surrounding
an
understanding
of the individual. Because the reader of a letter does not have
immediate access to the visual and audible
signs
of
delivery,
the letter is more
open
to
interpretation
and also
misunderstanding. Hence,
what Simmel calls the
"secret of the other"?a
person's
moods and
qualities
of
being?while poten
tially
accessible
through
face-to-face
interaction,
is concealed in written commu
nication
(Simmel 1950:355).
Simmel's
analysis
of the letter reveals close the
matic links to Schutz's own
analysis
of
degrees
of
intimacy
and
anonymity
in
social relations
(Schutz
and Luckmann
1973,
ch.
2),
thus
lending support
to
Salomon's view of the "inner
affinity"
of the two
figures?their
mutual concern
for "the secret of the other."
As this brief review
indicates,
Salomon's
unpublished
notes on Simmel are
powerful
and
suggestive.
His
published writings
on
Simmel, however,
are not as
clear or
comprehensive
as are the
writings
of some of his
contemporaries,
such
as Kracauer's
(1995 [1920-21]) essay
on Simmel.
Indeed,
his assertions are some
times
cryptic
and
undeveloped.
Consider this elusive statement: "Simmel's mode
of
thinking
moves between
George
Herbert Mead and some
problems
of a
phi
losophy
of existence"
(Salomon 1995[1963]:374).
Such
writing may
be the result
of
poorly
considered
ideas,
but more
likely
it has another source. As his intel
lectual
biographer,
Matthiesen,
has
shown,
Salomon's efforts to
join
the Ameri
can academic mainstream were
repeatedly
rebuffed and
may
have led him to
withdraw to the small audiences that
accepted
him,
his students and fellow New
12 The American
Sociologist/Summer
1998
York
Jewish refugees (Mathiessen 1988).
In
speaking
to this
audience,
it
may
have been
unnecessary
to elaborate on
points
known to all. The
meaning
of
Salomon's
point
about Simmel's
relationship
to Mead would
likely
have been
obvious to his
students,
especially
if
they
attended his seminar on
Mead,
which
he
jointly
conducted in
spring
of
1944
with Alfred Schutz. Maurice
Natanson,
a
student of both Salomon and
Schutz,
wrote a dissertation on Mead that ad
dressed this
question clearly,
if
briefly.
Despite
these
limitations,
Salomon's
writings
on Simmel make several contri
butions,
not the least of which is their
powerful
if
implicit critique
of the
recep
tion of Simmel's work
by
mainstream American
sociology.
Salomon's insistence
on the
unity
of Simmel's
philosophy
and
sociology,
as well as his
reading
of
Simmel within the
phenomenological
tradition,
are
important
contributions then
as now. Matthiesen
(1988:330)
echoes this
point
when he
writes,
"Salomon showed
why
the American Simmel
reception,
which favored formal
sociology
and conflict
sociology,
had to remain
inadequate
without also
considering
the
strong philoso
phy
of life
undercurrents,
the influence of
Dilthey
as well as
Bergson
and
James."
Conclusion
Merton
(1973 [1959]:55)
once wrote that
controversy among sociologists
of
ten "is less a matter of contradictions between
sociological
ideas than of com
peting
definitions of the role considered
appropriate
for the
sociologist."
The
place
of Simmel in the
sociological
canon,
I
maintain,
is an outcome of such a
contest between what I earlier called the "research
program"
and
"scholarship"
models of intellectual work.
While intellectuals in both traditions often
agreed
on the value of Simmel's
work,
they
construed his
significance
in
very
different
ways. Empiricists
and
advocates of the research
program sought
to extract
insights
from Simmel's
work and
develop
them into a series of fundable research
proposals.
The emi
gres
in Greenwich
Village, by
contrast,
resisted this trend
by salvaging
the rem
nants of the continental tradition threatened
by
war and
atrocity
and
developing
them on American soil. Their efforts were a mixed success
(Krohn 1993),
but
the
attempt
to
transplant
"old world"
styles
of
scholarship
must be
judged
a
failure.
Empiricism
and the research
program,
both consistent with the structure
and reward
system
of American
higher education,
came to dominate its aca
demic
style
of work. Columbia's research
program
overshadowed the New School's
alternative,
and
thereby
contributed to the restricted
understanding
of Simmel
among
American
sociologists
that lasts to this
day.
Ironically, despite
the relative success of the Columbia intellectual
style,
its
program
of research on Simmel remains
only partially incorporated
into Ameri
can
sociology.
Like Salomon's
interpretation
of
Simmel,
which is
captured partly
in
publications, partly
in class notes and
syllabi,
Merton's Simmel
interpretation
is buried in seminar notes and the dense thickets of his
magnum opus,
Social
Theory
and Social Structure.
Perhaps something
about Simmel's
writings
makes
them inassimilable
by
mainstream academic
styles.
His
radically
individual talent
Jaworski 13
may
be the ultimate
protection against
what Merton calls "obliteration
by
incor
poration."
Neither
surpassed
nor
fully
assimilated,
Simmel's oeuvre remains to
be understood.
Acknowledgments
This article is a revision of a
paper presented
at
meetings
of the Research Committee on the
History
of
Sociology,
International
Sociological Association, Amsterdam,
the
Netherlands, May 16-18, 1996. I am
grateful
to Charles
Crothers,
David
Frisby,
and Arnold Simmel for
helpful
conversations about American Simmel
studies,
and to
Larry
Nichols and
Mary Rogers,
who
helped
to make this a better
essay.
Permission to
quote
material from
the Albert Salomon Collections of the Leo Baeck Institute
(New York)
and the Sozialwissenschafliches Archiv
(Constance)
is
gratefully acknowledged.
Notes
1. I have in mind the editors of the Simmel Newsletter
(Universit?t Bielefeld),
the contributors to that
important
forum for
Simmel-studies,
and those who are
responsible
for
producing
the
Georg
Simmel
Gesamtausgabe.
2. The
beginning years
of Columbia
sociology,
under
Giddings,
have been
extensively
studied
(Wallace 1991,
1992),
as have the
years
of the
postwar period
of the Lazarsfeld-Merton team
(Clark 1995;
Crothers
1996;
Lipset
and Smelser
1961).
But the
pivotal
decade of the thirties has
yet
to be
investigated
with the same
intensity.
3.
According
to the Name Index of Merton's Social
Theory
and Social Structure
(1957),
the
following figures
received one citation each:
Adorno, Comte, Hegel, Hobbes, Hume, Husserl, Jaspers, Leibniz, Mill, Nietzsche,
Russell,
and Smith.
Dilthey, James, Luk?cs, Peirce,
and Rickert earned two citations each. Whitehead
received five citations.
Compare
these citations to the Foreword and Index to Maclver
(1965).
4. Information from
telephone
interviews with three seminar
participants:
D.
Harper,
Professor of
Sociology,
University
of
Rochester, July 24, 1996;
C
Kadushin,
Professor of
Sociology, City University
of New
York,
Graduate
Center, April 25, 1996;
and G.
Lindt,
Dean of Columbia
University's
School of General
Studies,
March
18, 1996.
5. I am
grateful
to Professor Merton for
making
available to me the second
year's report, "Working
Memo
randa
(Preliminary Draft)," 1956-57. From "Selected Problems in the
Theory
of
Organizations,"
Soc.
321,
Columbia
University.
6. In his
essay
on
McCarthyism,
Parsons advocated
"far-reaching changes
in the structure" of American soci
ety,
the "most
important"
of which was a revision in the source and character of "national
political
leadership" (Parsons 1963 [1955]: 228).
7. Merton's
terminology
articulates in theoretical terms E. Shils's
(1956: 237)
claim that "the
stability
of the
free
society" acknowledges
both "the claims of individuals and
corporate
bodies to
privacy"
and "the
proper practice
of
publicity."
8. For an
exception,
see R.L. Coser
(1961).
9. Identified
chronologically,
these dissertations are: E.
Fischoff,
"Max Weber and the
Sociology
of
Religion
with
Special
Reference to
Judaism" (1942);
B.
Rosenberg,
"Thorstein Veblen in the
Light
of
Contemporary
Social Science"
(1949);
I.
Progroff, "CJ. Jung's Psychology
in its
Significance
for the Social Sciences"
(1952);
M. A.
Natanson, "George
H. Mead: Social Scientist and
Philosopher"
(1953);
K. T.
Skelton,
"Mark
Twain:
Sociological
Realist"
(1956); J.W. Harris,
"Thorstein Veblen's Social
Theory:
A
Reappraisal" (1956);
and A.
Ben-Ami,
"Durkheim's
Sociological
Method and Parsons' Action
Theory:
A
Study
in
Sociological
Theory" (1956).
See Contributions to
Scholarship (1973).
10. Kurt H. Wolff
(1993)
has revealed that Salomon used the word "scandalous" to describe Wolffs introduc
tion to his translated collection of Simmel's
writings,
The
Sociology of Georg
Simmel
(1950).
11. On
Bergson
and
Schutz,
see
Wagner (1977; 1983: 273-284).
On
Bergson
and
Simmel,
see
Schwerdtfeger
(1995).
Salomon's students were
encouraged
to read an
important essay
on Simmel
by
V.
Jank?l?vitch
(1925),
a student and friend of
Bergson
's.
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16 The American
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1998
APPENDIX
Graduate
Faculty,
New School for Social Research
Albert Salomon
Simmel and Schutz as
Sociologists
Georg Simmel,
Sociology,
Trans. Kurt
Wolff,
The Free Press 1950
(referred
to hereafter
as
Sociology)
Kurt
Wolff,
ed.
Georg Simmel,
1958-1918?^4 Collection
of Essays,
Ohio State
University
Press, 1959
(hereafter
Essays)
Georg Simmel,
Conflict
and The Web
of Group Affiliations,
trans. Bendix and
Wolff,
Free
Press, 1955
Alfred
Schutz,
Der
Sinnhafte Aufbau
der Sozialen Welt.
Essays
in: Social Research
(hereafter SR),
Philosophy
and
Phenomenological
Research
(hereafter
P & Ph
R)
I. How is
Society
Possible:
Intersubjectivity?
(on Schutz)
Richard
Zaner,
"Theory
of
Intersubjectivity:
Alfred Schutz"
SR
Winter, 1961
Simmel,
"The Problem of
Sociology,"
"How is
Society
Possible?"
Essays
II. The Problem
of
Communication
Schutz,
"Sartre's
Theory
of the Alter
Ego,"
P & Ph R V.
IX, 1948;
"Scheler's
Theory
of
Intersubjectivity," ibid., 1942;
"Scheler's Ethics and
Epistemology" Journal of Metaphysics,
1954
(on Simmel)
Tenbruck "Simmel's Formal
Sociology" Essays
III. The Social Distribution
of Knowledge
Schutz,
"The Well Informed Citizen: An
Essay
in the Social Distribution of
Knowledge"
S.R.,
V.
XIII, December, 1946
Simmel,
Philosophie
des
Geldes,
Part
six,
Lebensanschauug:
Ch. I and II
IV. On
Multiple
Realities
Schutz,
"On
Multiple
Realities"
P&PhR,
V.
5, 1945
Simmel,
"The
Adventure,"
"The
Actor,"
Essays,
The
Secret,
Sociology,
"Fashion"
AfS,
Vol.
LXII, #6, May
1959
V.
Schutz, "Aspects
of Human
Equality,"
Conference on
Science,
Philosophy
and
Religion,
Symposium,
1955
Simmel,
Philosophie
des
Geldes,
Last
Division;
"The
Metropolis
and Mental
Life,"
Soziologie',
and
Mills,
Images of
Man
VI. The Problem
of
Individual
Psychology
Schutz,
Sinnhafte, parts 3, 4,
on
Descriptive Psychology; "James' Concept
of
Stream of
Thought," P&PhR,
vol.
I, 1941;
"On Husserl's
Ideas," P&PhR,
vol.
XIII, 1953.
Simmel,
Sociology, Philosophie
des
Geldes,
Lebensanshauung
VIL
Schutz,
Problem der
Vergangenheit
in der Sozialwelt
Simmel,
"Das Problem der historischen
zeit,"
"vom wesen des historischen
verstehens,"
"Die Formation de Historischen Kunstwerkes."
VIII.
Schutz,
"Common-Sense and Scientific
Interpretation
of Human Action"
P&PhR,
vol.
XIV, 1953,
Also in Coser &
Rosenberg, Sociological Theory
Jaworski
17
Simmel
Lebensanschauung,
ch.
1,2,
Fragmente,
Br?cke und
T?r,
Philosophie
des Geldes.
IX.
Schutz,
"Symbol, Reality
and
Society,"
Conference in
Science,
Philosophy
and
Religion, Symposium,
1954
Simmel, Goethe, Rembrandt,
Kant und
Goethe,
Probleme der
Philosophie,
Essays
on
George
X. The
Stranger
Schutz,
"The
Stranger," AfS
1944
Simmel,
"The
Stranger,"
Sociology
XI.
Schutz,
Die Mitweltliche
Beziehung
und die mitweltliche
Beobachtug
Simmel,
Exkurs ?ber den Schriftlichen
Verkehr,
Die
Soziologie
der Sinne
18
The American
Sociologist/Summer
1998