Fostering the dialogue between sociology and critical theory: some remarks on the normative character of social relations from Georg Simmel’s sociological theory

This paper aims at reconstructing some aspects of Georg Simmel’s relational sociology in order to highlight the possible convergence between (relational) sociology and Critical Theory. Georg Simmel focuses on the idea that society consists of the interactions (Wechselwirkung) among individuals, and these interactions generate forms of socialization (Formen der Vergesellschaftung) which are investigated by the sociologist. In this regard, the very subject of the social ontology is the social relation. Within the frame of this interaction, individual conducts are expected to be managed under an ethical and intrinsic vocation: each individual plays the social role and society is the moral arena in which any individual feel the constraining forces as ethical claims (as also Durkheim sustained). Good and evil in society govern individual conducts, as well as Critical Theory points out the possible “social pathologies” and “social disfunctions” given by new and old forms of domination and control (or simply unauthentic paths of individual life). Through a reconstruction of the main topics in relational sociological literature, Simmel’s texts and the recent debate within Critical Theory, this paper wants to put accent on the inner normative character of social relations, arising from interaction, giving by forms of social life, and carrying possible pathologies when they cannot accomplish to its purposes which is guaranteeing a “good life” for individuals involved.