ABSTRACT
A critical study of the relationship between Georg Simmel and Max Weber is long overdue. Simmel's pioneering forays into the philosophy of history, notably his Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie, provided a persuasive argument for a methodology based on the procedures of empathic understanding and the use of ideal types in historical reconstruction. Weber's high regard for Simmel was shown both by his repeated appreciative references to Simmel in the notes of his early essays and by his strenuous efforts to help Simmel secure a suitable academic appointment in the German university system. Tantalizing evidence concerning Weber's profoundly ambivalent relationship to Simmel is presented in the fragment translated. In evaluating the work of Georg Simmel, one's responses prove to be highly contradictory. One is bound to react to Simmel's works from a point of view that is overwhelmingly antagonistic. To speak in the most general terms to begin with: "sociology" is for Simmel a science concerned with "interactions" among individuals.
