On Individuality and Social Forms

Intro
What do the origins, essences and destinies of cultural forms looks like in terms of
activities and ethnomethods for activities?
Simmels stages:
SocialDarwinism
Neo-Kantianism
Philosophy of Life
Some key points out of Benzer:
[Society secondary to interaction, individuals with motives and drives, interests are
primary. Parts/whole, Interaction/individualism, No foundation. Nothing isolated.
Everything interrelated. Web-change one, change the others. Forms in plural.
Abstract, pure forms. Not historical. Forms sub specie aeternitatis. Sociology deals
with the form and forms of sociation, Vergessellschaftung. Concept of distance is
important to analyze SECRET, CONFLICT Is his methodology consistent with
his substantive writings?]

How is History Possible

Kant
Formative influence of mind, but
The material of history is mind itself
We must determine as a matter of principle the a priori dimension of historical
knowledge-how is history possible?
Kants answering of how is nature possible?- releases us from the grip of one of the
two oppressions of modern man- nature and history (in the second case the
discernment is subtlerer because history is of the same substance as ourselves)
Preserving the freedom of the human spirit -form-giving creativity- over against
historicism
the mind forms the picture of psychic existence which we call history in sovereign
wise, through categories which inhere in the knower alone. Man, as something
known, is made by nature and history; but man, as knower, makes nature and
history.
mind becomes aware of itself in the stream of becoming, but mind has already
marked out the banks and currents of that stream and thereby made it into history

How is Society Possible

Kant. Mind turns perceptions to nature by giving them interdependence which they
do not have in their immediate givennessWhat we call nature is the special way
the mind assembles (could be one of two: Weak claim: what seems independently

there is really a product of the mind. Strong claim: Nature is mind and mind is
nature.)
So what gives society interrelatedness? What are the apriorities of the fact that
concrete processes in consciousness are processes of sociation? What element
produce the societal unit.
Societal connection is not a matter of observation. It inheres in the things themselves.
Instead of categories of cognition
A priori conditions which reside in the relating elements, individuals
not conscious but knows (cf. W. OC) the other is tied to him
1) Distortions, Generalized picture of other person, in terms of a category. There is
an ungraspable core of individuality. So it is INCOMPLETE. It is not the same as an
instantiation of a Universal statement nevertheless. It is not subsumable in that way. It
does not coincide with the general type.
(there is a representationalism lurking)
All of us are fragments, not only of general man, but also of ourselves
But we compensate for the blind stop, we try to reach some kind of typical unity in
our view of another individual and such a possibility is a precondition of additional
interactions
We see the other not simply as an individual but as a colleague or comrade or fellow
party member in short, as a cohabitant of the same specific world. And this
inevitable, quite automatic assumption is one of the means by which ones personality
and reality assume, in the imagination of another, the quality and form required by
sociability.
But the very alterations and new formations which preclude this ideal knowledge of
him are, actually, the conditions which make possible the sort of relations we call
social. The phenomenon recalls Kants conception of the categories: they form
immediate data into new objects, but they alone make the given world into a
knowable world.
2) The apriori of empirical social life: In some respects the individual is not an
element of society and this constitutes the positive condition for the possibility that in
other respects he is. Non-social imponderables.
Continuum of how much is left out. Love, friendship (single life) (priest, formally
identical phenomenon though type of content rather than content disappears here)
On the other side: produce, buy, sell (?)
Individual-society (both in and out). Same form of life in God-man, and in the nontranscendental sphere in nature-individual (Nature stands over and against but still
man comprises nature [role of the mind]). Individual-groups
the two social and individual- are only two different categories under which the
same content is subsumed, just as the same plant may be considered from the
standpoint of its biological development or its practical uses or its aesthetic
significance[but].The individual is contained in sociation and at the same time

finds himself confronted by itThe within and withoutdefine together the

fully homogeneous position of man as a social animalSimultaneity of two logically
contradictory characterizations of manSocial being is a synthetic categorythe
phenomenon parallels the concept of causation.
Terminus a quo/terminus ad quem
3) stated in pg.20= the general value of individuality
Equality. Equivalence in people (impossible), function, positions
Society may be conceived as a purely objective system of contents and actions
connected by space, time, concepts, and values.
Personality, the articulation of the Ego
Web, nothing could change without affecting the whole
Bureaucracy/ In society positions are not planned by a constructive will, has
irrational, imperfect elements
Perfect society, perfect society
The a priori of the individuals existence is the fundamental correlation between his
life and the society that surrounds him, the integrative function and necessity of his
specific character, as it is determined by his personal life, to the life of the whole. In
so far as he does not realize this a priori or does not find it realized in society, the
individual is not sociated and society is not the perfect system of interactions called
for by its definition.
This is shown in vocation, fit between individuals inner calling, a qualification
intimately personal and position offered (Analysis brings to mind what MacIntyre
calls character). Idea that this position must exist for everyone
!socially effective action is the unified expression of the inner qualification of the
individual, the idea that by functioning in society the wholeness and permanence of
subjectivity becomes practically objective.
Causal-teleological switch!
The nexus by which each social element (each individual) is interwoven with the life
and activities of every other, and by which the external framework of society is
produced, is a causal nexus. But it is transformed into a teleological nexus as soon as
it is considered from the perspective of the elements that carry and produce it
individualsthe objective totality yields to the individuals that confront it from
without, as it were;It is the dual nexus which supplies the individual
consciousness with a fundamental category and thus transforms it into a social
element.

The problem of sociology

31The mathematician can feel quite safe in assuming that, in spite of the imperfect
drawing, the concept of the ideal geometrical figure is known and understood, and
that it is regarded as the essential significance of the chalk or ink marks. The
sociologist, however, may not make the corresponding assumption; the isolation of

truly pure sociation out of the complex total phenomenon cannot be forced by logical
means
(intuitively conveyed method and then explicit, where?)

Conflict
Conflict at a certain level of relations does not mean that it reduces the unity of the
whole.