Social forms must be abstracted from many historical instances

Evidence

Conversely, the facts accumulated in diverse kinds of history provide invaluable material for the sociological study of social forms. They do so in three ways. First, to determine the origins and structural properties of any social form one must look at its realization in a great variety of contents. One can learn something about competition, for example, from a great many fields—economic history, history of art, history of religion, and so on. After looking at a variety of actual instances of competition one can then abstract the common structural features from these cases, in order to determine what competition is as a pure form of human behavior. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 60

Categorization

• XREF: Methodological point relevant to the essay: to understand the blasé attitude as a form one must see it realized across many urban instances — New York and Brussels alike. — connects to: Forms of interaction retain identity across varied contents and historical settings — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 202; Social relations can be analyzed purely as formal configurations — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 208; Social generalization, though distorting, is what makes social relations possible — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 177 (+7 more)

Related

• Forms of interaction retain identity across varied contents and historical settings (similarity 0.87)
• Historical pattern explanations need leveled generality (similarity 0.86)
• Identical interaction forms recur across radically different social groups (similarity 0.84)
• The formal content distinction in sociology can only be illustrated, not yet defined (similarity 0.83)
• The same content persists across different interaction forms (similarity 0.82)
• A science of society must study only forms of interaction (similarity 0.81)
• Sociology treats psychological processes only as carriers of social forms (similarity 0.81)
• Forms differ from Kantian categories by informing all experience and changing over time (similarity 0.80)
• Social generalization, though distorting, is what makes social relations possible (similarity 0.80)
• Sociology studies abstract forms of interaction as geometry studies spatial forms (similarity 0.80)
• Social relations can be analyzed purely as formal configurations (similarity 0.79)
• Sociology’s proper object is the forms relating two or more individuals (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Forms of interaction retain identity across varied contents and historical settings #corroborates (0.85) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 202
• Social relations can be analyzed purely as formal configurations #expands (0.60) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 208
• Social generalization, though distorting, is what makes social relations possible #expands (0.50) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 177