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Simmel and the Dialectic of the Double Boundary: The Case of the Metropolis and Mental Life
Author(s) -
Weinstein Deena,
Weinstein Michael A.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
sociological inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.446
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1475-682X
pISSN - 0038-0245
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-682x.1989.tb01079.x
Subject(s) - dialectic , sociology , modernity , boundary (topology) , symbol (formal) , george (robot) , epistemology , expression (computer science) , aesthetics , psychoanalysis , philosophy , art history , history , psychology , computer science , mathematical analysis , linguistics , mathematics , programming language
George Simmel's sociology was only one expression of his overall project of understanding the modern human condition. Works such as “The Metropolis and Mental Life” have been appropriated by sociology for their substantive insights. These works are more fully understood when they are interpreted in terms of Simmel's late philosophical writings, which are based on an image of man as standing between boundaries and therefore of being a boundary for them. In light of the boundary dialectic the metropolis becomes, for Simmel, a symbol of the failed mediations attempted in modernity between the objective culture of things and the subjective culture of personal development.