社会杂志 ›› 2018, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (5): 41-69.

• 专题:齐美尔学术遗产评估 • 上一篇    下一篇

现代生命的“社会化”图景

吉砚茹   

  1. 北京大学社会学系
  • 出版日期:2018-09-20 发布日期:2018-09-20
  • 作者简介:吉砚茹,E-mail:pkujiyanru@163.com

“Vergesellschaftung” of Modern Life

JI Yanru   

  1. Department of Sociology, Peking University:pkujiyanru@163. com
  • Online:2018-09-20 Published:2018-09-20

摘要:

齐美尔在与康德的对话中提出“社会何以可能”的问题,将社会学确立为对社会化形式的研究,探究现代个体如何与周遭世界产生联系并由此构建自我。齐美尔通过对比古今社会化形式,进而得出对现代生命内在困境的基本洞察。面对现代世界的外在化和碎片化的生活感受,他并未完全采取康德的思路——用认知的方式构建统一的世界来解决主客体冲突,而是参照歌德的生命观,提出一种介于康德与歌德之间的生命学说,使个体能从自身生命的根基生长出与世界的深刻关联,在生命直观之中达成自我与外在世界的和解。

关键词: 形式社会学, 生命直观, 现代个体, 冲突

Abstract:

For neo-Kantian sociologist Georg Simmel, the principal task of sociology is to answer the question of “how is society possible?”, a reference to Kant's question of “what is nature possible”. This paper explores Simmel's preoccupation with the problem of unity in modern fragmentary individuality. In examining how individuals interact with the surrounding modern world and form self-images, Simmel, in a Kantian tradition, views the world as representation of the subject and hence the subject matter of sociology shall be forms of socialization, or the so-called “formal sociology”. However, his sociological and philosophical inquiries not only go beyond the conventional Kantian understanding of forms but also repudiate Kant's intellectualistic outlook. The diverging point is that for Simmel, rather than rational cognition, “being” is of paramount importance. Influenced by Goethe's life and work, Simmel develops a life philosophy that converges the dichotomy between life and form, and between noumena and phenomena. His approach resides somewhere in between Kantian and Goethean worldview, providing a possibility for modern individuality to form profound bounds with the world yet to avoid being estranged by forms. This essay argues that Simmel's concept of life, i.e. the Individual Law demands the deepest unity of life and form to reconcile the dichotomy between the subjective and the external, and thus to overcome the strangeness and fragmentation of modern condition.

Key words: formal sociology, conflict, modern individual, Simmel, vergesellschaftung