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Entering into Relation: Being as Social Being
Abstract
Everyday lived relation is routinely characterized as “social being” and “being-with.” It is for this reason that classical and contemporary theorists view social relations as the foundational units of society. Sociology is, above all else, the study of social relationships, events, and phenomena, all of which are direct expressions of how people “enter into relation” with one another. Notwithstanding extensive academic work on conceptual definitions and typologies, discourse on social relations remains under-theorized. This chapter explores some of the earlier understandings of social relations, as outlined by Tönnies, Weber, and Simmel, followed by more recent discussions of relational emergence and relational ontology. These ideas form the basis for thinking about community as a socially constituted, emergent social phenomenon.
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The motivation, planning, production, comprehension, coordination, and evaluation of human social life may be based largely on combinations of 4 psychological models. In communal sharing, people treat all members of a category as equivalent. In authority ranking, people attend to their positions in a linear ordering. In equality matching, people keep track of the imbalances among them. In market pricing, people orient to ratio values. Cultures use different rules to implement the 4 models. In addition to an array of inductive evidence from many cultures and approaches, the theory has been supported by ethnographic field work and 19 experimental studies using 7 different methods testing 6 different cognitive predictions on a wide range of subjects from 5 cultures.
Relationalism, as opposed to substantialism and as a critique of the various essentialist and reificatory ways of doing science, has been always very pervasive in classical, modern and postmodern sociological thought. The principal aim of this paper is to investigate, define and demonstrate this profound pervasiveness with reference to specific influential epistemic issues and dilemmas in contemporary social/sociological theory and methodology. It thus comprehensively provides a critical overview of the relationalist mode of thinking about the crucial notions of performativity, reflexivity and the self, as well as about social network research, which is at the very heart of American sociology.
Atomism and holism in the understanding of society and social systems Throughout its history, reflection on human society has been torn apart by the opposing views of atomism and holism. Tra-ditional societies, the city state of ancient Greece as well as the medieval perfect society apparently resemble a whole with its parts. Early modernity continued this holistic inclination for a while, but soon reverted to atomistic theories of the (hypo-thetical) social contract. Modern humanism dominated the sub-sequent views articulated in terms of the dialectical tension between nature and freedom (science ideal and personality ideal) – including mechanistic and vitalistic approaches as well as the more recent acknowledgment of irreducibly complex systems (Behe, 2003). In Wiener's (1954; 1956) "technologi-cism" human responsibility and freedom are sacrificed. An alter-native view is advanced in terms of the normativity of societal life as well as its many-sidedness. It is shown that theories of social systems increasingly tend to explore avenues trans-cending the limitations of the atomistic additive approach and the boundary-leveling whole-parts scheme entailed in social systems theory. This development is used as a starting point for the classification of social interaction and for underscoring the scope of the principle of sphere-sovereignty for a multidisci-plinary understanding of social systems.
Top-down causation has been implicit in many sociological accounts of social structure and its influence on social events, but the social sciences have struggled to provide a coherent account of top-down causation itself. This paper summarizes a critical realist view of causation and emergence, shows how it supports a plausible account of top-down causation and then applies this account to the social world. The argument is illustrated by an examination of the concept of a norm circle, a kind of social entity that, it is argued, is causally responsible for the influence of normative social institutions. Nevertheless, social entities are structured rather differently from ordinary material ones, with the result that the compositional level structure of reality implicit in the concept of top-down causation has some limitations in the social world. The paper closes by considering what might be involved in examining how top-down causation can be shown to be at work in the social domain.
Sociology has been often defined as a science of "social relations". The aim of this article is to contribute to the clarification of this concept. I take into account only two classic analytical sociologies — those developed by Max Weber and by Florian Znaniecki.These sociologies seem to me only partly useful for the analysis of macroscale (ethnic, racial, industrial, and international) problems. They refer to human individual interactions within social collectivities, and not between them. If we follow expressis verbis the individualistic aspects of Weber's model and the analytical aspects of Znaniecki's theory, it would be difficult to base empirical investigations of social relations. The situation changes when we depart from the classics' ways of construction of the concepts of social relation and concentrate on the implication of the concept presented by the same authors. Fortunately, the research practices of both scholars encourage us to abandon a literal interpretation of their models. They present a variety of interesting typologies of social relations and social objects between which these relations can exist.
Both online and off, people frequently perform particular social roles. These roles organize behavior and give structure to positions in local networks. As more of social life becomes embedded in online systems, the concept of social role becomes increasingly valuable as a tool for simplifying patterns of action, recognizing distinct user types, and cultivating and managing communities. This paper standardizes the usage of the term 'social role' in online community as a combination of social psychological, social structural, and behavioral attributes. Beyond the conceptual definition, we describe measurement and analysis strategies for identifying social roles in online community. We demonstrate this process in two domains, Usenet and Wikipedia, identifying key social roles in each domain. We conclude with directions for future research, with a particular focus on the analysis of communities as role ecologies.
This paper offers two main contributions. On the one hand, it establishes a general formal framework for developing a foundational ontology of socially constructed entities, in the broadest sense of this notion; on the other hand, it further contributes to understanding the ontological nature of roles. The key choice here is to put all social entities in the domain of discourse: besides social individuals, we also consider 'reified' social concepts and roles, as well as their descriptions, i.e, the 'social conventions' or 'contexts' that define them. This allows us to formally characterize in a first-order theory the relationships among all these entities.
Building on her seminal contribution to social theory in Culture and Agency, in this 1995 book Margaret Archer develops her morphogenetic approach, applying it to the problem of structure and agency. Since structure and agency constitute different levels of stratified social reality, each possesses distinctive emergent properties which are real and causally efficacious but irreducible to one another. The problem, therefore, is shown to be how to link the two rather than conflate them, as has been common theoretical practice. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world. The morphogenetic approach is the sociological complement of transcendental realism, and together they provide a basis for non-conflationary theorizing which is also of direct utility to the practising social analyst.
This section presents the third volume of Max Weber's fundamental work Economy and Society which has been translated into Russian for the first time. The third volume includes two works devoted to the sociology of law. The first, 'The Economy and Laws', discusses differences between sociological and juridical approaches to studies of social processes. It describes peculiarities of normative power arenas (orders) at different levels and demonstrates how they influence the economy. The second, 'Economy and Law' ('Sociology of Law'), reviews the evolution of law orders (primarily, the three "greatest systems of law" including Roman Law, Anglo-American Law, and European Continental Law) in the context of changes in the organization of economy and structures of dominancy. Law is considered an influential factor of the rationalization of social life which in turn is affected by a rationalized economy and social management. The Journal of Economic Sociology here publishes an excerpt from the chapter 'Law, Convention and Custom' in this third volume, which shows the role of the habitual in the formation of law; explains the importance of intuition and empathy for the emergence of new orders; and discusses the changeable borders between law, convention and custom. The translation is edited by Leonid Ionin and the chapter is published with the permission of HSE Publishing House. © 2018 National Research University Higher School of Economics. All rights reserved.
'Simultaneous invention' has become commonplace in the natural sciences, but is still virtually unknown within the sphere of social science. The convergence of two highly compatible versions of Critical Realism from two independent sources is a striking exception. Pierpaolo Donati's Relational Sociology develops 'upwards' from sociology into a Realist meta-theory, unlike Roy Baskhar's philosophy of science that works 'downwards' and 'underlabours' for the social sciences. This book systematically introduces Donati's Relational Sociology to an English readership for the first time since he began to advance his approach thirty years ago. In this eagerly awaited book, Pierpaolo Donati shifts the focus of sociological theory onto the relational order at all levels. He argues that society is constituted by the relations people create with one another, their emergent properties and powers, and internal and external causal effects. Relational Sociology provides a distinctive variant upon the Realist theoretical conspectus, especially because of its ability to account for social integration. It will stimulate debate amongst realists themselves and, of course, with the adversaries of realism. It is a valuable new resource for students of social theory and practising social theorists.
Towards Relational Sociology argues that social worlds comprise networks of interaction and relations. Crossley asserts that relations are lived trajectories of iterated interaction, built up through a history of interaction, but also entailing anticipation of future interaction. In addition, he demonstrates how networks comprise multiple dyadic relations which are mutually transformed through their combination. On this conceptual basis he builds a relational foundation for sociology. Over the course of the book, three central sociological dichotomies are addressed - individualism/holism, structure/agency and micro/macro - and utilised as a foil against which to construct the case for relational sociology. Through this, Crossley is able to argue that neither individuals nor 'wholes' - in the traditional sociological sense - should take precedence in sociology. Rather sociologists should focus upon evolving and dynamic networks of interaction and relations. The book covers many of the key concepts and concerns of contemporary sociology, including identity, power, exchange and meaning. As such it is an invaluable reference tool for postgraduate students and researchers alike.
A field concept of social organization is proposed as an alternative to systems theory with special reference to the case of the community. Field notions in physics, biology, and psychology are shown to reflect a view of reality as emergent and dynamic. The concept of the field is distinguished from the method of field analysis. The assumptions of interactional theory are taken as a frame of reference for delineating characteristics of the social field. Contributions of ecological, cultural, and psychological factors are noted, but the social field is described as having a distinctive existence. Theoretical and methodological implications of conceptualizing the community as a social field are discussed, and the concept of the community field is elaborated.
Many definitions of postmodernism focus on its nature as the aftermath of the modern industrial age when technology developed. This book extends that analysis to postmodernism by looking at the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and the way the flow of information is controlled in the Western world.
First published in 1895: Emile Durkheim's masterful work on the nature and scope of sociology--now with a new introduction and improved translation by leading scholar Steven Lukes.The Rules of the Sociological Method is among the most important contributions to the field of sociology, still debated among scholars today. Through letters, arguments, and commentaries on significant debates, Durkheim confronted critics, clarified his own position, and defended the objective scientific method he applied to his study of humans. This updated edition offers an introduction and extra notes as well as a new translation to improve the clarity and accessibility of this essential work. In the introduction, Steven Lukes, author of the definitive biography Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work, spells out Durkheim's intentions, shows the limits of Durkheim's view of sociology, and presents its political background and significance. Making use of the various texts in this volume and Durkheim's later work, Lukes discusses how Durkheim's methodology was modified or disregarded in practice--and how it is still relevant today. With substantial notes on context, this user-friendly edition will greatly ease the task of students and scholars working with Durkheim's method--a view that has been a focal point of sociology since its original publication. The Rules of the Sociological Method will engage a new generation of readers with Durkheim's rich contribution to the field."
This article focuses on emergence in social systems. The author begins by proposing a new tool to explore the mechanisms of social emergence: multi agent–based computer simulation. He then draws on philosophy of mind to develop an account of social emergence that raises potential problems for the methodological individualism of both social mechanism and of multi agent simulation. He then draws on various complexity concepts to propose a set of criteria whereby one can determine whether a given social mechanism generates emergent properties, in the sense that their explanation cannot be reduced to a mechanistic account of individuals and their interactions. This combined account helps to resolve the competing claims of methodological individualists and social realists. The author’s conclusion is that the scope of mechanistic explanation may be limited due to the extreme complexity of many social systems.
This article examines the convergence between Italian relational sociology, developed by Pierpaolo Donati and introduced here by Emmanuele Morandi, and critical realism. Whilst the latter is preoccupied with relations between people and structures, Donati sees the whole social order as a relational entity sui generis. Consequently, relational sociology can provide a fuller account of ‘social integration’ than critical realism, which concentrates upon ‘malintegration’ because of its transformative potential. This difference is viewed as a potential source of synergy between these two versions of realism.
The author draws on arguments from contemporary philosophy of mind to provide an argument for sociological collectivism. This argument for nonreductive individualism accepts that only individuals exist but rejects methodological individualism. In Part I, the author presents the argument for nonreductive individualism by working through the implications of supervenience, multiple realizability, and wild disjunction in some detail. In Part II, he extends the argument to provide a defense for social causal laws, and this account of social causation does not require any commitment to intentionality or agency on the part of individuals.
Sociologists today are faced with a fundamental dilemma: whether to conceive of the social world as consisting primarily in substances or processes, in static ''things'' or in dynamic, unfolding relations. Rational-actor and norm-based models, diverse holisms and structuralisms, and statistical ''variable'' analyses continue implicitly or explicitly to prefer the former point of view. By contrast, this ''manifesto'' presents an alternative, ''relational'' perspective, first in broad, philosophical outlines, then by exploring its implications for both theory and empirical research. In the closing pages, it ponders some of the difficulties and challenges now facing relational analysis, taking up in turn the issues of boundaries and entities, network dynamics, causality, and normative implications.
For decades, the notion of roles has been discussed and applied in various fields of computer science in a num- ber of different ways, but apparently no consensus at an integrative definition has been reached yet. Therefore, roles qualify for a comprehensive analysis with the aim of covering and generalizing recurrent understandings and uses of roles. Regarding ontology development, this would further allow to relate or integrate this notion into top-level ontologies. For these purposes, this paper extends and refines an earlier analysis of roles which is primarily based on the notions of role, player, and context and their interrelations (Loebe 2003). In partic- ular, the classification of roles therein is refined in the light of recent papers and discussions on recurrent role issues. We argue that roles can be understood in two distinct ways which are mixed in the literature. Firstly, abstract roles provide a means of viewing something in a context, whereas social roles are complex social ob- jects for which a relation to players (frequently referring to material objects) is of primary interest.
Many accounts of the micro-macro link use the philosophical notion of emergence to argue that collective phenomena are collaboratively created by individuals yet are not reducible to explanation in terms of individuals. However, emergence has also been invoked by methodological individualists; they accept the existence of emergent social properties yet claim that such properties can be reduced to explanations in terms of individuals and their relationships. Thus, contemporary sociological uses of emergence are contradictory and unstable. This article clarifies this situation by developing an account of emergence based in contemporary philosophy of mind. The philosophical account is used to evaluate contradictory sociological theories. Several unresolved issues facing theories of emergence in sociology are identified.
Harm to Others is the first volume in a four‐volume work entitled The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law that addresses the question, What acts may the state rightly make criminal? Feinberg identifies four liberty‐limiting, or coercion‐legitimizing, principles, each of which is the subject of a volume of his book. In the first volume, Feinberg looks at the principle of harm to others – or the harm principle – which John Stuart Mill identified as the only liberty‐limiting principle. The other principles that Feinberg considers in subsequent volumes are (1) the offense principle: it is necessary to prevent hurt or offense (as opposed to harm) to others; (2) legal paternalism: it is necessary to prevent harm to the actor herself; and (3) legal moralism: it is necessary to prevent immoral conduct whether or not it harms anyone. As a thinker who favors liberalism, Feinberg rejects legal paternalism and legal moralism, maintaining that the harm principle and the offense principle exhaust the class of morally relevant reasons for criminal prohibitions. Feinberg's examination of the harm principle begins with an account of the concept of harm and its relation to other concepts like interests, wants, hurts, offenses, rights, and consent. After addressing difficult examples such as moral harm, vicious harm, prenatal harm, and posthumous harm, Feinberg considers both the moral status of a failure to prevent harm and the problems related to assessing, comparing, and imputing harms.
Video-based media spaces are designed to support casual interaction between intimate collaborators. Yet transmitting video is fraught with privacy concerns. Some researchers suggest that the video stream be filtered to mask out potentially sensitive ...
Communities are networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging, and social identity. Well into the 20th century, communities were equated with neighborhoods---bounded groups of people living near each other. This neighborhood-centered view of community made only partial sense because people have always had long-distance community ties either by traveling themselves or through connections with soldiers, artisans, peddlers, traders, marriage partners, shepherds, and the rich.
• The title of this volume, Experience and nature, is intended to signify that the philosophy here presented may be termed either empirical naturalism or naturalistic empiricism, or, taking "experience" in its usual signification, naturalistic humanism. I believe that the method of empirical naturalism presented in this volume provides the way, and the only way by which one can freely accept the standpoint and conclusions of modern science: the way by which we can be genuinely naturalistic and yet maintain cherished values, provided they are critically clarified and reinforced. The naturalistic method, when it is consistently followed, destroys many things once cherished; but it destroys them by revealing their inconsistency with the nature of things—a flaw that always attended them and deprived them of efficacy for aught save emotional consolation. But its main purport is not destructive; empirical naturalism is rather a winnowing fan. Only chaff goes, though perhaps the chaff had once been treasured. An empirical method which remains true to nature does not "save"; it is not an insurance device nor a mechanical antiseptic. But it inspires the mind with courage and vitality to create new ideals and values in the face of the perplexities of a new world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
• The title of this volume, Experience and nature, is intended to signify that the philosophy here presented may be termed either empirical naturalism or naturalistic empiricism, or, taking "experience" in its usual signification, naturalistic humanism. I believe that the method of empirical naturalism presented in this volume provides the way, and the only way by which one can freely accept the standpoint and conclusions of modern science: the way by which we can be genuinely naturalistic and yet maintain cherished values, provided they are critically clarified and reinforced. The naturalistic method, when it is consistently followed, destroys many things once cherished; but it destroys them by revealing their inconsistency with the nature of things—a flaw that always attended them and deprived them of efficacy for aught save emotional consolation. But its main purport is not destructive; empirical naturalism is rather a winnowing fan. Only chaff goes, though perhaps the chaff had once been treasured. An empirical method which remains true to nature does not "save"; it is not an insurance device nor a mechanical antiseptic. But it inspires the mind with courage and vitality to create new ideals and values in the face of the perplexities of a new world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper will look at a form of sociation known as the Bund, conceptualized by Schmalenbach in the 1920's. I shall argue that this long ignored concept, dealing with affectual form of solidarity in small groups, is of considerable relevance to contemporary issues concerning individuality and lifestyle, particularly in relation to debates surrounding their significance in modernity and postmodernity. After looking at the historical origins of the German word Bund and its usage by various groups from the Bundschuh to the Wandervogel, I shall consider its significance in the sociology of Herman Schmalenbach, particularly in relation to his critiques of Tönnies's Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft dualism and Weber's typology of social action. A comparison of the Bund will then be made with Victor Turner's concept of communitas and Maffesoli's concept of the neo‐tribe. The paper will conclude by looking at some contemporary examples of Bund‐like sociations using a diverse range of examples including: the womens' peace camp at Greenham Common; soccer crews and Tom Peter's notion of the workplace based ‘self‐managing team’. My central argument shall be that an understanding of the Bund is of use in explaining the significance and dynamics of all manner of elective groups and lifestyles 1994 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
This book, by one of the most innovative and challenging contemporary thinkers, consists of an extensive essay from which the book takes its title and five shorter essays that are internally related to âBeing Singular Plural.â One of the strongest strands in Nancyâs philosophy is his attempt to rethink community and the very idea of the social in a way that does not ground these ideas in some individual subject or subjectivity. The fundamental argument of the book is that being is always âbeing with,â that âIâ is not prior to âwe,â that existence is essentially co-existence. Nancy thinks of this âbeing-withâ not as a comfortable enclosure in a pre-existing group, but as a mutual abandonment and exposure to each other, one that would preserve the âIâ and its freedom in a mode of imagining community as neither a âsociety of spectacleâ nor via some form of authenticity. The five shorter essays impressively translate the philosophical insight of âBeing Singular Pluralâ into sophisticated discussions of national sovereignty, war and technology, identity politics, the Gulf War, and the tragic plight of Sarajevo. The essay âEulogy for the Mêlée,â in particular, is a brilliant discussion of identity and hybridism that resonates with many contemporary social concerns. As Nancy moves through the exposition of his central concern, being-with, he engages a number of other important issues, including current notions of the âotherâ and âselfâ that are relevant to psychoanalytic, political, and multicultural concepts. He also offers astonishingly original reinterpretations of major philosophical positions, such as Nietzscheâs doctrine of âeternal recurrence,â Descartesâs âcogito,â and the nature of language and meaning.
Written from the standpoint of the social behaviorist, this treatise contains the heart of Mead's position on social psychology. The analysis of language is of major interest, as it supplied for the first time an adequate treatment of the language mechanism in relation to scientific and philosophical issues. "If philosophical eminence be measured by the extent to which a man's writings anticipate the focal problems of a later day and contain a point of view which suggests persuasive solutions to many of them, then George Herbert Mead has justly earned the high praise bestowed upon him by Dewey and Whitehead as a 'seminal mind of the very first order.'"âSidney Hook, The Nation
Morphogenesis versus structuration: On combining structure and action
- M S Archer
- MS Archer
Community: A sociological study
- R M Maciver
- RM Maciver
The application of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft as related to other typologies
- J C Mckinney
- C P Loomis
George Herbert Mead and human conduct
- H Blumer
The knowledge of man: A philosophy of the interhuman
- M Buber
The concept of Gemeinschaft
- F Tönnies
The nature of sociology
- F Tönnies
Macrosociology, past and future
- C Tilly
The problem of sociology
- G Simmel