Abstract

A recent resurgence in interest in the philosophy of Georg Simmel, especially by postmodernists, warrants a closer examination of his life and thought, particularly in light of the fact that he is poorly understood and generally misperceived. Simmel's philosophy is relevant not only because, unlike most postmodernists, he does not slide into the realm of nihilism, although he did maintain an ambivalent pessimism regarding the future. Simmel was a member of a generation who, like postmodernists, rebelled against the grand narratives of the Enlightenment and lived in an era stereotyped by rootlessness and a decline in meaning for life. Simmel's era was given articulation by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, to whom Simmel is greatly indebted intellectually, although this debt is generally not recognized. I argue that to understand Simmel properly, particularly in light of his being embraced by postmodernists, he must be perceived from the perspective of the times in which he lived, which entails examining the Schopenhauerian roots of his philosophy. In this manner, generally negative stereotypes of Simmel can be shown to be false, and the relevance of his thought for our postmodern world becomes clear in that the world in which he lived was extremely similar to ours