How is Individuality Possible?
The following article outlines in a systematic way the main ideas of Simmel on this set of issues. The general thesis is that the German sociologist discerned and seized anthropological, structural and cultural conditions (ideational but also normative) of modern individuality with an exceptional acuity. Indeed, the question “How is individuality possible?” is the mirrored equivalent to the question “How is society possible?” Though Simmel did not pose the question in exactly these terms he developed a systematic reflection on the structural conditions and the cultural prerequisites of this modern ideal. The “tragedy of individuality”, as I will try to show, results from the gap between structural and cultural development. The former, for the first time, enables modern freedom and individuality; the latter, however, from a moral point of view, almost renders impossible the realization of this option generated by the structural development. In Weberian terms, one could say that the “life chances of individuality” are not met by a “style of life of individuality.”