SOURCE: "The Foundation of Sociology," in Georg Simmel, Ellis Horwood Limited and Tavistock Publications, 1984, pp. 45-64.

In the following excerpt, Frisby highlights Simmel's consideration of a broad range of human interactions as the reason for the wide scope of his sociological thought.

A New Concept of Sociology: First Attempt

In his review of Simmel's Sociology, Alfred Vierkandt makes the following ambitious claim:

If sociology succeeds in developing itself into an autonomous individual science, then its future historian will have to celebrate Simmel as its founder, and even if this process is not completed, his work remains an outstanding, penetrating achievement. He has indeed demarcated an autonomous group of problems for the study of society and thereby demonstrated the possibility and urgent need for a new discipline. His distinction between the form and content of social life elevates him above the encyclopaedic interpretation of sociology. In the same way...