Adventure in the social world: Georg Simmel’s appeal to a theory of creative action

Abstract

Reconstructing the logic of everyday action between reproduction and invention of forms is a growing concern in contemporary debates on the praxeological foundation of sociology. This article argues for a renewed understanding of action in its contingency and creativity. Building on current developments on the role of projectivity and imagination in the emergence of the new and unexpected in action, it turns to Simmel’s undervalued essay “The Adventure” to examine a style of conduct characterized by deviation from predicable patterns and background assumptions in everyday life. To understand the emergent properties and intrinsic complexity of creative action, one must consider the philosophical discoveries of Simmel concerning the form of adventure in the subjective flow of time. The adventure is elaborated as an action involving curiosity, unfamiliar detours, and a sense of presentness as striking features that benefit insights from his later work on life’s transcendence.