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The View of Life: Four Metaphysical Essays with Journal Aphorisms
Published in 1918, The View of Life is Georg Simmel’s final work. Famously deemed “the brightest man in Europe” by George Santayana, Simmel addressed a variety of topics across his essayistic writings, which have influenced scholars in aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, and sociology. Nevertheless, a set of core issues emerged over the course of his career, most centrally the genesis, structure, and transcendence of social and cultural forms and the nature and genesis of authentic individuality. Composed in the years before his death, The View of Life was, according to Simmel, his “testament,” a capstone work of profound metaphysical inquiry intended to formulate his conception of life in its entirety.
Now Anglophone readers can at last read in full the work that shaped the argument of Heidegger’s Being and Time and whose extraordinary impact on European intellectual life between the wars was extolled by Jürgen Habermas. Presented alongside these seminal essays are aphoristic fragments from Simmel’s last journal, providing a beguiling look into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers.
- GenresPhilosophy
240 pages, Hardcover
Published January 15, 2011
9 people are currently reading
106 people want to read
About the author
Georg Simmel
449 books223 followersGeorg Simmel was a major German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.
Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach laid the foundations for sociological antipositivism, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?', presenting pioneering analyses of social individuality and fragmentation. For Simmel, culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history". Simmel discussed social and cultural phenomena in terms of "forms" and "contents" with a transient relationship; form becoming content, and vice versa, dependent on the context. In this sense he was a forerunner to structuralist styles of reasoning in the social sciences. With his work on the metropolis, Simmel was a precursor of urban sociology, symbolic interactionism and social network analysis. An acquaintance of Max Weber, Simmel wrote on the topic of personal character in a manner reminiscent of the sociological 'ideal type'. He broadly rejected academic standards, however, philosophically covering topics such as emotion and romantic love. Both Simmel and Weber's nonpositivist theory would inform the eclectic critical theory of the Frankfurt School.
Simmel's most famous works today are The Problems of the Philosophy of History (1892), The Philosophy of Money (1907), The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903), Soziologie (1908, inc. The Stranger, The Social Boundary, The Sociology of the Senses, The Sociology of Space, and On The Spatial Projections of Social Forms), and Fundamental Questions of Sociology (1917). He also wrote extensively on the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as well on art, most notably his book Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art (1916).
Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach laid the foundations for sociological antipositivism, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?', presenting pioneering analyses of social individuality and fragmentation. For Simmel, culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history". Simmel discussed social and cultural phenomena in terms of "forms" and "contents" with a transient relationship; form becoming content, and vice versa, dependent on the context. In this sense he was a forerunner to structuralist styles of reasoning in the social sciences. With his work on the metropolis, Simmel was a precursor of urban sociology, symbolic interactionism and social network analysis. An acquaintance of Max Weber, Simmel wrote on the topic of personal character in a manner reminiscent of the sociological 'ideal type'. He broadly rejected academic standards, however, philosophically covering topics such as emotion and romantic love. Both Simmel and Weber's nonpositivist theory would inform the eclectic critical theory of the Frankfurt School.
Simmel's most famous works today are The Problems of the Philosophy of History (1892), The Philosophy of Money (1907), The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903), Soziologie (1908, inc. The Stranger, The Social Boundary, The Sociology of the Senses, The Sociology of Space, and On The Spatial Projections of Social Forms), and Fundamental Questions of Sociology (1917). He also wrote extensively on the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as well on art, most notably his book Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art (1916).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 16, 2020
"Being underestimated often helps the small person to feel nevertheless at a certain height."
"In tolerance there always lurks a certain arrogance. When you say no, however impudently, you place yourself still on one and the same level with the person who has said yes. But if you tolerate him, you are his
patron."
"Perhaps the most horrifying symptoms of life are the things — manners of behavior, joys, beliefs — with which people make life bearable for themselves. Nothing reveals so much the depths of the human level as what man reaches for in order to be able to continue his life."
"It is nonsense to say that life should be made into a work of art. Life has its own norms, ideal demands, that are only to be realized as and in the form of life — and cannot be borrowed from art, which has its own."
"With many people, the depth of their life (and indeed an actual, by no means contemptible one) consists in suffering over its superficiality."
"The poet—at least the dramatic poet—possesses the great love that gives rights even to one who is wrong. At least the right of existence. In actuality, evil does not exist on a basis of right, but only because it is there. In the work of art, though, it has an existence only because it is entitled to it."
"To C. F. Meyer’s phrase, “Enough is not enough,” one must counter with the following: enough is already too much. That is the deep contradiction in the relation of everything eudaimonistic/epicurean to the totality of our life — every such thing is for us either too little or too much. The first leaps into the second without passing through the equilibrium-range of “enough."
"Desire has already stepped beyond its climax when one recognizes it — sorrow, however, only approaches its climax at that point."
"Innumerable love and marriage relationships run aground or at least
lead to the deepest disillusionments because we tend to forget that an
experience can never be repeated as the same thing — even the fact that it was already there once before creates different psychic conditions for the repetition than the original possessed. If today we had an hour of happiness, we believe it could be repeated tomorrow and the next day and forever because the outward conditions — and in broad measure the inner ones as well — have remained the same. Yet happiness is just as difficult to repeat as any other psychic condition. Only someone who can create a new happiness tomorrow can have the same happiness tomorrow as today."
"The highest art of living: adapting oneself without making concessions.
The unhappiest natural condition: always making concessions and yet never reaching adaptation."
"It is astounding how little of the pain of humanity has passed over into its philosophy."
"In tolerance there always lurks a certain arrogance. When you say no, however impudently, you place yourself still on one and the same level with the person who has said yes. But if you tolerate him, you are his
patron."
"Perhaps the most horrifying symptoms of life are the things — manners of behavior, joys, beliefs — with which people make life bearable for themselves. Nothing reveals so much the depths of the human level as what man reaches for in order to be able to continue his life."
"It is nonsense to say that life should be made into a work of art. Life has its own norms, ideal demands, that are only to be realized as and in the form of life — and cannot be borrowed from art, which has its own."
"With many people, the depth of their life (and indeed an actual, by no means contemptible one) consists in suffering over its superficiality."
"The poet—at least the dramatic poet—possesses the great love that gives rights even to one who is wrong. At least the right of existence. In actuality, evil does not exist on a basis of right, but only because it is there. In the work of art, though, it has an existence only because it is entitled to it."
"To C. F. Meyer’s phrase, “Enough is not enough,” one must counter with the following: enough is already too much. That is the deep contradiction in the relation of everything eudaimonistic/epicurean to the totality of our life — every such thing is for us either too little or too much. The first leaps into the second without passing through the equilibrium-range of “enough."
"Desire has already stepped beyond its climax when one recognizes it — sorrow, however, only approaches its climax at that point."
"Innumerable love and marriage relationships run aground or at least
lead to the deepest disillusionments because we tend to forget that an
experience can never be repeated as the same thing — even the fact that it was already there once before creates different psychic conditions for the repetition than the original possessed. If today we had an hour of happiness, we believe it could be repeated tomorrow and the next day and forever because the outward conditions — and in broad measure the inner ones as well — have remained the same. Yet happiness is just as difficult to repeat as any other psychic condition. Only someone who can create a new happiness tomorrow can have the same happiness tomorrow as today."
"The highest art of living: adapting oneself without making concessions.
The unhappiest natural condition: always making concessions and yet never reaching adaptation."
"It is astounding how little of the pain of humanity has passed over into its philosophy."
November 11, 2015
Simmel expone su vitalismo de una forma deductiva, partiendo desde ciertos a priori axiomáticos. Cómo en Filosofía del dinero, sus resultados son atractivos y fértiles, pero desde una perspectiva historicista de la filosofía se podría observar que su sistema no supera los procedimientos del kantismo al que critica.
No es del todo justo evaluarlo desde ahí. A pesar del registro abstracto de su escritura y de su voluntad de sistema, Simmel fue ante todo un ensayista, no un tratadista. Tenía más en común con Montaigne que con Hegel. Y en el momento de editar y completar esta colección de ensayos Simmel estaba comprometido existencialmente con su propia finitud. Es más justo y fructífero leerlo desde otro lado.
"Sólo la experiencia de la muerte habrá disuelto esa fusión, esa solidaridad de los contenidos de la vida con la vida", escribe. La muerte inaugura la contingencia, y la tragedia es un intento de restituír la necesidad apelando a una ley individual, al despliegue de una esencia personal. En esas reflexiones Simmel intenta lo imposible: aprehender la muerte en sí misma. Eso que los ritos funerarios (desplazados por un trabajo de duelo individual bajo la vigilancia de un terapeuta en el caso del hombre desnaturalizado) visten con la máscara de la pérdida y que es, en rigor, inconcebible.
La intuición central, sin embargo, es que la vida es aquello cuya inmanencia es la trascendencia. Una definición típicamente simmeliana, que revindica a un concepto injustamente relegado en filosofía, y que se demuestra más valiosa que cualquier corolario imaginado en un momento de melancolía.
No es del todo justo evaluarlo desde ahí. A pesar del registro abstracto de su escritura y de su voluntad de sistema, Simmel fue ante todo un ensayista, no un tratadista. Tenía más en común con Montaigne que con Hegel. Y en el momento de editar y completar esta colección de ensayos Simmel estaba comprometido existencialmente con su propia finitud. Es más justo y fructífero leerlo desde otro lado.
"Sólo la experiencia de la muerte habrá disuelto esa fusión, esa solidaridad de los contenidos de la vida con la vida", escribe. La muerte inaugura la contingencia, y la tragedia es un intento de restituír la necesidad apelando a una ley individual, al despliegue de una esencia personal. En esas reflexiones Simmel intenta lo imposible: aprehender la muerte en sí misma. Eso que los ritos funerarios (desplazados por un trabajo de duelo individual bajo la vigilancia de un terapeuta en el caso del hombre desnaturalizado) visten con la máscara de la pérdida y que es, en rigor, inconcebible.
La intuición central, sin embargo, es que la vida es aquello cuya inmanencia es la trascendencia. Una definición típicamente simmeliana, que revindica a un concepto injustamente relegado en filosofía, y que se demuestra más valiosa que cualquier corolario imaginado en un momento de melancolía.
October 7, 2025
Una obra fundamental, funda te. Aquí, el amigo personal y protegido de Max Weber, desarrolla los elementos fundamentales de su sociología y con ello estableciendo las bases sólidas de la ciencia social. Muy desconocido ha sido su aporte en el mundo hispano, cuestión lamentable.
September 24, 2024
Who would have thunk? The greatest work of metaphysics in the 20th century may have been written by a sociologist in old age. The View of Life is an incredible book, worthy of serious, repeated study. This is a work on par with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit in terms of its significance.
Simmel's book tour de force, integrating many of the basic innovations in science with nascent metaphysical ideas from Bergson, Freud, and Nietzsche. If this book is hard to read, it is because Simmel is rigorously honest. He doesn't exaggerate his position, and is careful to make concessions when it is appropriate.
Many of the ideas that have kept modern humanity up late at night, that have induced a terrible insomnia and horrible reaction, are dealt with here, clear-headedly. Simmel does not pretend to have clean answers for anything, but never have I seen the problems posed in modern life described more thoroughly. I have only begun to scratch the surface of this endlessly fertile text. There will be updates to this review.
Simmel's book tour de force, integrating many of the basic innovations in science with nascent metaphysical ideas from Bergson, Freud, and Nietzsche. If this book is hard to read, it is because Simmel is rigorously honest. He doesn't exaggerate his position, and is careful to make concessions when it is appropriate.
Many of the ideas that have kept modern humanity up late at night, that have induced a terrible insomnia and horrible reaction, are dealt with here, clear-headedly. Simmel does not pretend to have clean answers for anything, but never have I seen the problems posed in modern life described more thoroughly. I have only begun to scratch the surface of this endlessly fertile text. There will be updates to this review.
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April 17, 2018One of the most difficult books I've ever read. Simmel's style is much more obscure here than in his earlier works and I'm not sure it's worth the effort. In his later thought he moves beyond Kant and toward Nietzsche, Bergson, and other "philosophers of life," a move which represents, for most of us at least, the wrong way forward in philosophy. Nevertheless, this remains a work by Georg Simmel, his last work in fact, and therefore it's very much worth at least a cursory look.
"Happiness is the state in which the higher spheres of the soul are not disturbed by the lower ones. Comfort is the state in which the lower ones are not disturbed by the higher ones." (G Simmel)
"Happiness is the state in which the higher spheres of the soul are not disturbed by the lower ones. Comfort is the state in which the lower ones are not disturbed by the higher ones." (G Simmel)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews