Abstract

The goal of this manuscript is to resurrect the cultural significance of Georg Simmel . Simmel is widely recognized as the founder of the discipline of sociology in Germany. For most of his academic life, however, he taught in the Philosophy Department of Berlin University. In addition to his sociological inclinations, he was one of Wilhelmine Germany's greatest exponents of Nietzschean philosophy. His combination of a Kantian and socialist sociology and Nietzschean existential philosophy is the basis of what this study refers to as Geist-Politik. The best example of this type of cultural critique was his Philosophy of Money . ;This study contends that Simmel's cultural influence upon the left-wing intellectual avant-garde was unrivalled in the Wilhelmine period. The historiographical and cultural reasons for his descent into relative obscurity after 1918 are explored. ;Simmel's cultural impact was greatest in three cultural spheres. First, Kurt Hiller drew upon Simmel's theory of culture in developing the aesthetic philosophy of early Expressionism. This study is the first to argue for Simmel's seminal contribution to what became the greatest aesthetic movement in twentieth-century German cultural history. Second, Simmel's philosophy was the basis for political activism against patriarchal and heterosexist visions of culture. Previous to the Great War, Hiller was one of the most vehement critics of laws against homosexuality. The intellectual foundation of his opposition was Simmel's philosophy of history. Another Simmel student, Helene Stocker, drew upon her mentor's theories of gender in founding the Mutterschutz movement which defended women's liberation and the rights of unwed mothers. Third, Simmel was the primary mentor of two of Germany's most renowned Communist intellectuals: Georg Lukacs and Ernst Bloch. Simmel's contribution to their intellectual development as anti-capitalist thinkers has heretofore been grossly underappreciated