Freiheit

The theme of freedom is crucial in the field of social sciences. Social relationships, patterns and forms of organised life originate from and develop around the conceptualisation of freedom. And this is what Georg Simmel well understood when he pointed out that sociology can be thought as the science of relational freedom: the analysis of freedom is closely intertwined with the analysis of the individual-society relationship, in the dialectical perspective of reciprocity between individuals and social life, beyond deterministic, mechanistic and individualising stances. According to Simmel, it is clear that people are free only in relation to a social world that, in turn, establishes them as single individuals, and that their freedom has to do with others’ freedom and vice versa.