DA SOCIOLOGIA FILOSÓFICA AO EXISTENCIALISMO VITALISTA

AS DIMENSÕES DESCONHECIDAS DO CLÁSSICO GEORG SIMMEL

Abstract

More than a canon of Social Science, Georg Simmel should be regarded as a classic by virtue of the surplus of meaning generated by his theory. Such surplus was overshadowed by interpretations that classified the author merely as an urban sociologist, which, to some extent, fails to encompass important aspects of his thought. Thus, the aim of this paper is to situate and discuss Georg Simmel’s concept of “Philosophical Sociology” and, from it, to describe the vitalist existentialism present in his work. This element is fundamental to the author’s thought, yet it was scarcely explored by twentieth-century interpreters, since vitalism was adopted at the end of the German sociologist’s life. The intention here is to highlight the perspective of vitalism as a relevant aspect of the surplus of meaning in Simmel’s theory, marking his work as classical—that is, as containing interpretative keys capable of illuminating social relations in the contemporary world.