Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman: Conceptions of the Self

Running Head: GEORG SIMMEL AND ERVING GOFFMAN
Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman: Conceptions of the Self
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Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman: Conceptions of the Self
This essay spells out both Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman`s conceptions of the self. To discuss each of these formal sociologists` conceptions of the self, each conception will be spelled out and critiqued in some detail.
Georg Simmel
Simmel`s (1910) conception of the self is associated with his three sociological a priori conditions articulated in “How is Society Possible?” Simmel suggests that since society consists of sociation, then, the make-up of society “must have its ultimate basis in individual existences, in certain cognitive dispositions” (Simmel 1910:150). Thus, “Simmel asks, what are the universal and a priori characteristics that must be presupposed as extant in all individual minds in order for them to engage in sociation? What cognitive procedures must be present in every mind for any kind of sociation to take place at all?” (Simmel 1910:220). For Simmel (1910), the answer is his three sociological a priori conditions.
Importantly, Simmel tells us that the typification procedure operates only within the already existing society as a priori of the further reactions which develop between individuals (Simmel 1910:380). In other words, we can only paint a picture and assign imperfect form to individuals’ content/material from the pre-existing pictures or societal forms, categories, constellations, or spheres of societal units that are infused into language—that have been, or will be, generated from or out of sociation. Simmel also tells us that our typifications of others, our pictures or the forms that we assign to each other, generate from within our individual content/material, our personality, our soul (Simmel 1910:380). Again, subtly distinct from Smith’s (1989/2000) interpretation, Simmel’s content is more than cognition. Human content is everything that makes up the self (Simmel 1917/1950). As Simmel (1908/1910) note, the picture that we paint of others is imperfect. We paint this picture from our own constellation of contents, and we paint a picture of the other that approaches the other’s reality (from within our own reality), but it can never truly reflect or be that person’s reality; we can never truly enter another’s content.
Individual typifications are certainly cognitive, but they are only a priori because the constellations of social forms we typify them from are sociologically a priori. Images of social forms exist through language a priori to the individual; and, phenomenologically, language and images are taught to us through socialization. For example, prior to sometime in the 1970s, we could not typify a person as a “punk rocker.” It is only after various individuals’ content surfaced through sociation that the punk rocker emerged, became socially established, somewhat agreed upon, infused into language, and thus added to the common stock of knowledge. The “punk rocker” typification evolved, in other words.
Sociologically, then, society is made possible with Sim...