Real social unities must be conceptually dissolved into dualities that never fully capture them

Evidence

Here as elsewhere, the intrinsic unity of being is inconceivable to us. We are forced to dissolve it into a duality of elements, neither of which quite covers i( and from whose interweaving we make it result. But to do this is only a conceptual analysis which is possible in retrospect and which does not retrace the real genetic process, the real being of the unit. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 3605

Categorization

• DEFINE: This defines Simmel’s methodological premise: unity is only approachable via conceptual duality, prefiguring his dyad/triad analysis.
• XREF: connects to: Social division is constitutive and cannot be explained by any positive ground — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 604