齐美尔与戈夫曼:形式社会学的探索

Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman:Exploration of Formal Sociology

齐美尔与戈夫曼在研究主题、文风与方法论等方面存在诸多共通之处,他们的研究都是关于形式社会学的探索。齐美尔与戈夫曼都关注交互性和社会交往形式,在齐美尔看来,社会不是具体的实质,而是正在进行的交往过程,互动类型是纯粹社会学的研究目标,并应使社会互动的内容与形式相分离。戈夫曼研究的面对面互动系统类似于齐美尔的社交性,琐碎而普遍的拟剧管理是形式社会学极佳的分析例证。俩人都论述了互动形式与现代性条件下边缘性的都市特性以及个体对各种感官刺激作出的反应。概言之,齐美尔和戈夫曼践行的是"微小社会学",他们共同关注社会生活的基本形式。形式社会学可以回应人们对齐美尔和戈夫曼的部分批评,诸如太过抽象、缺乏足够具体的经验事实等。

Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman have many common grounds in research topics,writing style and methodology,they both explore the formal sociology.Simmel and Goffman focus on interactivity and the forms of social communication,to Simmel,society is not a concrete substance,but the ongoing communication process,and interaction type is the goal of pure sociology,meanwhile he separated the content from the form of social interaction.Goffman’s face-to-face system is similar to Simmel’s sociability,trivial but widespread dramaturgical managements are excellent examples of formal sociology analysis.Both of them discussed about the interaction form and urban peculiarity and individual response to various sensory stimuli under the condition of modernity.In general,Simmel and Goffman practices“small sociology”,both focus on basic forms of social life.Formal sociology can be used as response to the critics of Simmel and Goffman,such as too abstract,insufficient of concrete empirical facts.