Individual and society are methodological standpoints, not separable entities

Evidence

Individual and society are, both for historical understanding and for normative judgment, methodological concepts. This is so either in that they divide given events and conditions among themselves or in that they deal with the unity of the given, which we cannot directly comprehend, by organizing it under two different points of view, comparable to the way a picture is considered now as a physiological and optical phenomenon, now as a cultural product, or now with respect to the technique of painting, now with respect to its content and aesthetic value. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 213

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Simmel’s radical move: individual and society are not two things but two incommensurable viewpoints on one reality — the Spinoza analogy that follows (una eademque res) is the load-bearing metaphor.
• XREF: Connects to reader’s other Simmel sources on the blasé attitude and to the general problem of standpoint theory in the broader sociology canon. — connects to: Collectivities are networks of interaction, not substantive entities. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 130; Society is a concrete generality neither reducible to individuals nor abstract — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 274; Human life must be understood under both individual and social attributes at once — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 213 (+4 more)

Related

• Personal and collective frames are both standpoints, not reality versus abstraction (similarity 0.85)
• Society is a concrete generality neither reducible to individuals nor abstract (similarity 0.85)
• Numbers name the intermediate agent between individual and society that neither alone can enact (similarity 0.84)
• Human sociality is one possibility among several, not the only lens on experience (similarity 0.84)
• Human life must be understood under both individual and social attributes at once (similarity 0.84)
• Humanity’s viewpoint and society’s viewpoint remain in principle distinct (similarity 0.84)
• Simmel advanced technical sociology mainly as a byproduct of metaphysical concerns (similarity 0.83)
• Humanity functions as an organizing idea, not a concrete entity (similarity 0.81)
• Society names both actual human networks and the abstract forms of sociality (similarity 0.81)
• Any social group can act as individual or aggregate depending on its relational frame. (similarity 0.81)
• Human essence is the ensemble of social relations, not an individual abstraction (similarity 0.81)
• A set of individuals can be society to varying degrees. (similarity 0.81)
• Each person holds a constant ratio of individual to social factors (similarity 0.80)
• Sociology treats psychological processes only as carriers of social forms (similarity 0.80)
• Individual and social liberation must be waged together but not assumed interdependent (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Society is a concrete generality neither reducible to individuals nor abstract #expands (0.70) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 274
• Human life must be understood under both individual and social attributes at once #expands (0.65) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 213