Routledge Revivals Series

"The Alienated Mind" investigates the emergence and development of the sociology of knowledge in Germany in the critical period 1918-33. These years witnessed the development of distinctive paradigms centred on the works of Max Scheler, Georg Lukacs and Karl Mannheim. The theoretical and practical context within which the diverse strands of this tradition emerged in German social theory are investigated in order to indicate, in part, the extent to which central problems in the sociology of knowledge were located within philosophical, sociological, cultural and political crises in Germany. In the context of their development of sociologies of knowledge and culture, Scheler, Lukacs and Mannheim outlined versions of the alienation of the mind thesis: for Scheler the "powerlessness of the mind"; for Lukacs "the rectification of consciousness"; for Mannheim "the homelessness of the mind". Each theorist sought to confront base/superstructure models of the relationship between knowledge and society. How these and other themes in the sociology of knowledge were contested is illustrated in a detailed account of some of the central debates in Weimar Germany.
This book should be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics of sociology and philosophy.

Fragments of Modernity

by David Frisby

Published 17 April 1986

Fragments of Modernity provides a critical introduction to the work of three of the most original German thinkers of the early 20th century. In their different ways, all three illuminated the experience of the modern in urban life, whether in mid-19th-century Paris or in Berlin at the turn of the century or later as the vanguard city of the Weimar Republic. They related the new modes of experiencing the world to the maturation of the money economy (Simmel), the process of rationalization of capital (Kracauer), and the fantasy world of commodity fetishism (Benjamin) - in each case focusing on those fragments of social experience that could best capture the sense of modernity.David Frisby is Reader in Sociology at Glasgow University. Fragments of Modernity is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

Simmel and Since (Routledge Revivals)

by David Frisby

Published 9 January 1992

Originally published in 1992, this book, written by one of the world's leading experts on Simmel, provides a fascinating set of insights into a thinker who is fast becoming recognized as the sociologist of modernity; an indispensible resource in confronting post-modernity. It examines the relevance of his work in relation to contemporary debates on culture, aesthetics and modernity.

Sociological Impressionism

by David Frisby

Published 14 September 1981

Stimulation for this study, first published in 1981, came from working on the translation and introduction to Simmel's "The Philosophy of Money" (Routledge 1978; new edition 1990). It was intended as a provocative introduction to some aspects of Simmel's social theory. It challenged many earlier conceptions of Simmel's work, most notably the view that Simmel produced a "formal" sociology. It also drew out the significance of the aesthetic dimension in Simmel's work. A major feature of the study, presented here in its first paperback edition, is that it locates Simmel within the social and intellectual "milieu" in which he was working, by drawing upon many little known essays and pieces by Simmel and his contemporaries. A new afterword takes up new material on Simmel's aesthetic stance and confronts critical responses to the first edition of the book. Providing a critical introduction to Simmel's social theory, it should be of interest to students of sociology, philosophy, and German studies.