From Elias back to Simmel

Leopoldo Waizbort

pp. 179-188

in: François Dépelteau, Tatiana Savoia Landini (eds), Norbert Elias and social theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

Ever-growing interest in Norbert Elias has given rise to countless studies on significant aspects of his work, thought, life, themes and concepts, texts, and contexts. However, I believe not enough attention and care has been given to the relations of continuity between his work and that of Georg Simmel. To redress this, I would like to propose the thesis that founding and fundamental elements of Norbert Elias's sociology derive from the work of Georg Simmel. More precisely, I hope to show how, and in what measure, the concept of the social that emerges from Elias's writings is very (if not too) similar to Simmel's own formulation, with the necessary consequence that so is everything else he erects upon it—in other words, an essential and determinant strata of Elias's thought bears striking resemblances to Simmel's.

Cited authors

Simmel Georg

Elias Norbert