This does not mean, of course, that each member of a society is conscious of such an abstract notion of unity. It means that he is absorbed in innumerable, specific relations and in the feeling and the knowledge of determining others and of being determined by them.

DEFINE: Clarifies that societal cohesion in this framework is experienced through concrete mutual determinations rather than any conscious grasp of the whole.

Builds on: "Social unity is self-produced by conscious members, unlike nature's observer-dependent unity."

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 169