A Philosophy of Rootlesness: The Young Kracauer as a Critic of Georg Simmel

Abstract

The article reviews the reception of Georg Simmel’s works by the young Kracauer, focusing especially on the study—written in 1919, but published posthumously—Georg Simmel. Ein Beitrag zur Deutung des geistigen Lebens unserer Zeit. The treatment (ambivalent, but predominantly negative) that the “outsider” or “pilgrim” (Wanderer) perspective receives—as a constitutive element of Simmel’s intellectual physiognomy—is here examined in detail and historically considered. The article points out to what extent the changes that Kracauer’s thinking subsequently experienced led him to modify this kulturkritisch perspectives and to support the point of view of the Außenseiter or the stranger (der Fremde) as a privileged point of view for sociological and historiographical analysis.

Translation from the Spanish by Cecilia E. Lasa.