Language:
English
Year of publication:
1995
Titel der Quelle:
International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society
Angaben zur Quelle:
8,3 (1995) 361-378
Keywords:
Simmel, Georg,
Abstract:
A lecture delivered on 9 January 1963 at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York. The text was edited, with an introduction and notes, by Gary D. Jaworski. Simmel (1858-1918) was a sociologist and philosopher. He did his Ph.D. and then lectured at the University of Berlin, where he was not granted a position on the faculty; he received a full professorship at the University of Strasbourg in 1914. His parents had converted to Christianity, and therefore Simmel was born a Christian. Although he was not a Jew, his thinking aroused violent anti-Jewish reactions in Germany, involving claims that his philosophy was destructive. The section "Evaluating Simmel's Anti-Semitic Detractors" (pp. 364-368) shows that the charges of a "destructive" trend of thinking in Simmel's philosophy were completely subjective. The colleagues who attacked him saw him as a Jew, and as representative of the negative stereotype of the Jew in German society. Simmel, the philosopher of individuality, to whom the meaningful uniqueness of the personality was the highest value, faced a situation in which certain individuals (i.e. Jews) were not recognized as individuals but were only tolerated as patterns of strangeness. Analyzes Simmel's views on the problem of the Jew in the Western world as a historical and sociological concern, particularly the fact that the Jew was a stranger or outsider in society, and takes issue with some of Simmel's conclusions.
Note:
On Simmel's views regarding the place of Jews in modern society.
URL:
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