This subtle shift of definition was not inconsequential. It had three methodological implications which shaped the character of sociology as practiced by Park and his students and distinguished their work from that of Simmel. (1) Its empirical focus was on types of concrete collectivities rather than on the empirical referents of analytically abstracted types of social interaction. (2) Its explanatory focus was on how these types of collectivity come into being, persist, and change, rather than on the structural implications of a particular kind of form. (3) By relegating competition and conflict to the sphere of the presocial, or subsocial, it led to an identification of sociality with consensus, rather than a conception of all social facts as inherently based on fundamental dualisms. In sum, Park’s sociology was concrete, dynamic, and oriented to social consensus, whereas Simmel’s was abstract, structural, and oriented to sociological dualism.

XREF: This distinction between Park's concrete/consensus orientation and Simmel's abstract/structural/dualism orientation parallels similar contrasts in other sociological theory traditions.

XREF: Contrasts Chicago School pragmatist sociology against European formalist sociology; resonates with broader theory of knowledge traditions.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 131