Individuality and the outside of relations

pp. 133-162

in: Olli Pyyhtinen, Simmel and "the social", Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Abstract

Simmel's relational ontology, as we have seen, dissolves entities into relations. Relations appear not only as the basic unit of analysis for Simmelian sociology but they also have ontological primacy over relata. They are the reality that his realistic-dynamic approach refers to. For Simmel, no entity is separate from its associations: to be is to be with, to be related. The related entities do not preexist their relations as such, but they rather constitute each other in their mutual relations, as we saw in the case of I and you. Instead of pure entities completely independent of others, one only encounters entities in their relations to one another. Therefore, what anyone is ever capable of experiencing is mixings and interminglings.