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SIMMEL'S FORMS OF EXPERIENCING: THE ADVENTURE AS SYMBOLIC WORK
Author(s) -
Wanderer Jules J.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1987.10.1.21
Subject(s) - adventure , the symbolic , pragmatism , sociology , symbolic interactionism , ephemeral key , certainty , aesthetics , work (physics) , adventure education , epistemology , social psychology , psychology , psychoanalysis , computer science , social science , art , philosophy , artificial intelligence , engineering , computer security , mechanical engineering
Simmel says the content of experience does not make the adventure, the form does! To help clarify this remark, the Simmelian adventurer here is recast, following leads from Mead, Burke, and the pragmatists, as an ephemeral role incumbent engaged in symbolic work. The adventure is presented in terms of symbolic conversions of the content of life's experiences—physical things, social things, events, and persons—into objects of adventure. The form of experiencing engages the adventurer in symbolic work in which she or he symbolically synthesizes, antagonizes, and compromises Simmel's fundamental categories of life: certainty‐uncertainty, chance‐necessity, and passivity‐activity.