齐美尔的自由理论——以关系主义为主轴的诠释

Georg Simmel's Social Theory of Freedom:An interpretation from the perspective of relational sociology

本文尝试探索齐美尔这位关系社会学奠基者的自由理论。在整体的掌握与梳理之后,本文认为,齐美尔将"自由"定义为"社会行动的可能性",它镶嵌于社会关系网络中而得以生成,并且在不同的社会中有不同的形式。奠基于货币经济之上的当代资本主义社会所发展出来的客观个体自由即是一例。同时,齐美尔也论证了,自由的重要特质在于让社会运作产生非线性的、不可完全预测的偶然演变,使得自由虽然可能带来创新,但也会造成风险。最后,本文指出了齐美尔自由理论当中的若干缺憾,以作为后续社会自由研究的可能的主题。

The sociological studies of freedom have been facing the dilemma between the sociological individualism and the sociological collectivism.The relational sociology rising in recent decades might be a way to break the impasse.This paper attempts to present the social theory of freedom of Georg Simmel,who can be seen as the relevant founder of the relational sociology,in order to open up a relationist approach for the sociological research on freedom.In Simmel's theory,freedom is reckoned as the possibility of social action,which is generated from the social networks,and the form of freedom would vary with different societies.The objective freedom of individual,for instance,is the form of freedom in the contemporary capitalistic society based on the monetized economy.Simmel also elaborated that freedom as an empirical social phenomenon would lead to nonlinear and unpredictable consequences,so that freedom is a spring of both innovation and risk.Finally,this paper tries to point out the deficiencies of Simmel's theory of freedom for the possible themes of further sociological researches.