Simmel’s extraordinary originality may well be connected with his position as a relatively isolated thinker. He was, indeed, a "stranger" in the academy. The stylistic manifestations of a marginal position are striking in his written work. Neither in Simmel’s text nor in annotations does one find acknowledgment of scholarly predecessors or contemporaries. He speaks for himself, along with the immortal dead. What is more, Simmel deliberately shied away from recruiting disciples to carry on his kinds of inquiry.

DEFINE: Connects Simmel's position as an academic 'stranger' to a distinct intellectual style that ignored contemporaries and avoided disciples.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 10