For Simmel, society is an intricate web of multiple relations between individuals who are in constant interaction with one another; society is merely the name for a number of individuals, connected by interactions.
Simmel introduced the term ‘sociation’, which he believes is the major field of study for the student of society. Sociation implies the particular patterns and forms in which human beings relate to each other and interact.
According to him society is nothing more than all the individuals who constitute it. But here he has also drawn attention to the fact that people in groups of different sizes – dyads, i.e., two persons, triads i.e., three people, and groups with more than three people interact differently from each other. A qualitative change in terms of organisation takes place with the increase in number of people in a group.
In the study of society, Simmel made an attempt to understand a whole range of social types such as ‘the stranger’, ‘the mediator’, ‘the poor’. A social type becomes a type because of his/her relations with others who assign a certain position to this person and have certain expectations of him/her. The characteristics of the social type are, therefore, seen as the features of the social structure.
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According to Simmel, in real life no society can exist with absolute harmony. Conflict is an essential and complementary aspect of consensus or harmony in a society. Simmel also made a distinction between social appearances and social realities. There are certain relationships of conflict which give appearances of being negative to both the participants, as well as the outsiders. But, if we analyse these conflictive relationships we may find that it has latent positive aspects.