A comparative analysis of the social theories of Karl Marx and Georg Simmel on ontological, epistemological, theoretical and methodological grounds

This study comparatively analyses the social theories of Marx and Simmel with a historical and relational theoretical approach, starting from discussions in contemporary social theory and focusing on the classics. The reason for returning to the classics here is that we believe that contemporary social theory can be better understood by reading the classics because it is nourished by classical understandings such as historicity, and that the classics should be re-read with understandings such as relationality. The fact that there is no comprehensive comparison of their works in terms of ontological, epistemological, theoretical and methodological aspects that focuses directly on these two thinkers today makes this study important. However, this deficiency also constitutes one of the difficulties of the study. The central problem of social theory, which is based on relations between concepts, has always been "how to deal with the relation between dualities", both in the past and today. However, at the present stage of the critique of essentialism and reification, the change in the way things are treated has fundamentally differentiated the way this relationship is analysed. This change has taken place in the sense that things are no longer seen as fixed and static entities, and relations are seen as multifaceted and multidimensional. However, in their attempts to overcome dualities, these critics are increasingly turning to the theories of Marx and Simmel. This is because their work reflects this tendency, contrary to the dominant paradigm of their time. Starting from the basic problem of how to deal with the relationship between the persisting dualities in social theory, the comparative analysis of Marx's and Simmel's social theories on ontological, epistemological, theoretical and methodological grounds aims to show that it is the "historical and relational dialectic" that connects these thinkers to contemporary social theory and causes their theories to have these qualities. In line with this aim, the main claim of the study is that Marx and Simmel have a unique historical and relational dialectical approach and that both thinkers analyse the social world with their own historical and relational dialectical methods. In order to justify this claim, Marx's historical dialectics will be demonstrated on the basis of his own statements and works, and the relationality of his dialectics will be positioned in relation to today's debates on relationalism. Although it is agreed today that Simmel has a relational understanding, the debate about Simmel as a dialectical thinker continues. Based on the views of George Ritzer, Henry Schermer, David Jary, Levis A. Coser, etc. that Simmel was also a dialectical thinker, it will be shown that he had a "relational dialectic", but the fact that his dialectic was also historical will be revealed by analysing his works and comparing them with those of Marx.