Secrecy and Interpersonal Knowledge: An Original Basis for the Social Bond
Simmel’s analysis of secrecy, which marked a sociological turn away from Enlightenment philosophy, includes a specific vision of interpersonal “knowledge”. Interpersonal knowledge can serve as a framework for research into online social networks, allowing for the study of groups within a reference grid of « public » and « hidden » data. Yet it also raises epistemological difficulties, seeming to suggest, in fact, that the image of the other is composed through the aggregation of factual elements. In order to avoid this conclusion, which is incompatible with Simmel’s fundamental texts, a new reading of the chapters of Sociology is proposed in the light of the notion of understanding that Simmel developed in his later writings. An original conception of the social bond is elaborated, articulating the operations of « knowing » and « understanding ».