Chapter 4 - On the Special Relation between Proximity and Distance in Simmel's Forms of Association and Beyond

Summary

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to focus on Simmel's conceptualisation of proximity and distance, and to elaborate on the reciprocal relations, forms of association and other crystallisations that emerge from the special relation between proximity and distance, as Simmel proposes in The Philosophy of Money and Sociology (Georg Simmel Gesamtaugabe, hereafter GSG. GSG 11, GSG 6; Simmel 2004; 2009). By doing so I will necessarily touch on other crucial conceptual pairings that play a central role in Simmel's works: near and far, connectedness and separateness, subject and object, me and you, value and desire.

Simmel's way of dealing with the special relation between proximity and distance is a well- known aspect of his work, especially due to the widespread attention that his digression on ‘The Stranger’ has received from Englishspeaking scholars. However, as Donald N. Levine has magisterially shown, the English reception of this brief text (and, through English, its reception in many other languages) has been biased by misleading interpretations when read apart from the wider context in which this digression was originally located, namely, as an excursus within the ninth chapter of Sociology dedicated to the sociology of space (Levine 1973; 1977; 1988, 73– 88). Moreover, the concepts of distance and proximity, or distance and closeness (Distanz and Nähe, in German) play a crucial theoretical role far beyond Simmel's sociology of space, and even beyond Simmel's formal sociology. These notions are, for instance, a crucial conceptual pairing (indeed one of the most crucial) in The Philosophy of Money. It is thus the intention of this chapter to elaborate on the relation between proximity and distance in Simmel's works within his sociology of space and beyond. I argue that the differentiation between proximity and distance is a crucial differentiation throughout Simmel's philosophy and sociology (Solies 1998) and not only a motto that appeared when dealing with the well- known, though widely misunderstood, excursus on ‘The Stranger’.

The Origins of Proximity and Distance:

A Necessary Relation

In Simmel's work proximity and distance can be understood only in a relational way. This is of course not a unique case in Simmel's oeuvre, as his analyses of the processual and relational character of the social (and of living in general) constitute the most important feature of his sociology and his philosophy.