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SOCIAL THEORY AS A VOCATION: 
NEW GENRES OF THEORY WORK IN SOCIOLOGY
Transaction Publishers

About Donald Levine

Donald N. Levine is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Levine's scholarly interests focus on social theory, modernization, Ethiopian Studies, conflict theory and aikido, and philosophies of liberal education.
        Dr. Levine serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Classical Sociology, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Theory, Culture and Society, and Aiki Thought Papers.

Georg Simmel, Selected Aphorisms

  • 44. The human soul is the greatest cosmic endeavor with unsuitable means.
  • 69: Essential life task: to begin life anew each day as though this day were the first – but yet to gather into it all of the past with all its results and unforgotten occurrences and to have them as prologue.
  • 72   The highest art of living: adapting oneself without making concessions. The unhappiest natural condition: always making concessions and yet never reaching adaptation.
  • 81: To treat not just every person, but even every thing, as if it were an end in itself – that would be a cosmic ethic.
  •  125   Happiness is the condition in which the higher psychic energies are not disturbed by the lower – comfort is the condition in which the lower are not disturbed by the higher.
Source: The View of Life: Four Metaphysical Essays with Journal Aphorisms. Translated by John A.Y. Andrews and Donald N. Levine. University of Chicago Press. 2010.

Selected Publications by Donald Levine

Books

The View of Life: Four Metaphysical Essays with Journal Aphorisms, by Georg Simmel. Translation of LEBENSANSCHAUUNG by John Andrews and Donald N. Levine, With an introduction by Donald N. Levine and Daniel Silver. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011

Visions of the Sociological Tradition.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

The Flight From Ambiguity: Essays in Social and Cultural Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Simmel and Parsons: Two Approaches to the Study of Society. With a new Introduction. NY: Arno Press, (1957) 1980.

Georg Simmel on Individuality and Social Forms, edited, co-translated, and with an introduction.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Phoenix Paperback, 1972. Farsi translation by Shanaz Ghanooni. 

Articles

“Soziologie and Lebensanschauung: Two Approaches to Synthesizing ‘Kant’ and ‘Goethe’ in Simmel’s Work.”  Theory Culture and Society 29 (7/8): 26-52. 2012.

Book Review: Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation. By Richard Sennett   

"The Dialogue of Civilizations: An Eisenstadt Legacy.” Journal of Classical Sociology 11, No. 3. August: 313-26. 2011. 



“In Memoriam:  Shmuel Noah (S. N.) Eisenstadt (1923-2010).” Theory, Newsletter of the ISA Research Committee on Sociological Theory. No. 1. August. 2011.

"Simmel's Shifting Formulations Regarding the Antinomies of Modern Culture," Simmel Studies 18, No. 2:  239-63, 2008. 

"On the Critique of 'Utilitarian' Theories of Action: Newly Identified Convergences among Simmel, Weber, and Parsons," Theory, Culture and Society, 2000.

"Theory and Practice Revisited: Reflections on the Philosophies of Richard McKeon and Talcott Parsons," In Pluralism in Theory and Practice: Richard McKeon and American Philosophy, Vanderbilt University Press, 2000.

"The Forms and Functions of Social Knowledge." In Metatheory in Social Science: Pluralisms and Subjectivities, eds. D.W. Fiske and R.A. Shweder (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 271-83. 1986.
Courses

American Social Thought
Forms and Functions of Social Knowledge
Practicum in Social Theory
Axiality, Evolution, Modernity
Microsociology