SOURCE: "The Sociology of Georg Simmel: The Forms of Social Interaction," in An Introduction to the History of Sociology, edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, The University of Chicago Press, 1970, pp. 249-70.

In the following essay, originally published in 1948, Heberle finds that Simmel's works are more valuable for exemplifying his methods as a thinker than for any substantive contribution to the field of sociology.

I. Simmel's Life and Chief Writings

Georg Simmel belongs to the generation of European scholars who, at the end of the nineteenth century, broke with the "classical tradition" in sociology and originated a renaissance of sociological theory and research. Born in Berlin of Jewish parentage, he became a lecturer in philosophy (Privatdozent) at the age of twenty-seven at the University of Berlin, in which position he remained until 1914, when he was called to Strassburg as a professor of philosophy. He taught there under the adverse...