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 has been extolled by Jurgen 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.

About the Author
Georg Simmel (1858-1918) was professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin and, later, at the University of Strasbourg. His many books include The Philosophy of Money, On Social Differentiation, and Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art. John A. Y. Andrews is an information systems consultant for the Rhode Island Department of Human Services. Donald N. Levine is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Chicago and the author of, most recently, Powers of the Mind: The Reinvention of Liberal Learning in America.

Reviews
"Simmel is the only social theorist one can read anymore." - Max Horkheimer"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226757834
Author Georg Simmel
Format Hardback
Page Count 240
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 510g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 16mm * 2mm