Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour最新文献

The article argues that social catastrophes are the product of networks of unsaturated social relations that lead to the exponential spread of a social evil (pandemic, poverty, desertification, etc.). In the exponential curve of catastrophe there is an inflection point where, if unsaturated social relations are saturated, the catastrophe can be halted and ultimately avoided. The inflection point can be conceived as a generative relational complex in which both necessity and contingency of social relations are at work. Necessity is due to constitutive mechanisms that are automatic and, therefore, to some extent mathematically predictable. Contingency refers to non-automatic, in principle unpredictable relational mechanisms. However, contingency can be of two kinds. It can mean “dependence on” other factors, which can have some degree of predictability, or can be understood as the possibility of “being otherwise”, which is less predictable in its outcomes, but can also open up new opportunities to change the catastrophic trend. The reduction of the exponential curve to logistics can be expected if the networks of relationships at the inflection point are saturated in one way or another. This can be achieved by managing the contingent factors of both types in order to steer the morphogenetic processes of the social networks that configure the inflection point as a relational complex.

In this article I examine and criticize some mainstream views of the future within scholarly debates, mainly in social science. The goal is to review the strategies sociology is following to include the future as a theme of its own reflections. Such strategies also reveal relevant aspects of the society in which they are developed. The main argument revolves around some tensions concerning the relationship of contemporary societies to their future. The key points can be summarized as follows: in contemporary complex societies, where change is believed to be the only constant, social science seems to have abandoned the future as a theme of its reflections, while at the same time prediction and forecast are increasingly necessary. Future studies are, therefore, mainly an enterprise for managers and engineers, taking place in either government or corporate environments and far from the academy. Why is this happening? And is it necessarily so? What does sociology know about "the future(s)? Could prediction still be the form of the argument sociology can make about the future? And if this cannot be, then what exactly is its possible contribution – if any? Are these embarrassing questions a reflection of the way things really are, or of a wrong attitude sociology has taken to future studies? The main thesis is that insofar as sociology still occupies the field of future studies, it is undergoing a process of hybridization, which leads to mix its representational and performative function in a new way, and that can possibly escape confusion with old and new forms of utopian thinking. Such a thesis is illustrated introducing one particular analytic tool deployed in social scientific oriented future studies, namely scenarios, and comparing its inherent logic with that of the morphogenetic approach to sociological research. I attempt to examine the rationale of such a tool, and how it can serve the purpose of sociological analysis, constituting some kind of reflexive morphogenesis of sociological theory of the future

The subject of this special forum is contingency and the openness of the future, and in this essay we take a route not often travelled in regard of these and focus first on philosophy of time. We contrast static and dynamic theory of time in order to (eventually) acquire some traction on the meaning of both contingency and the open future. We suggest critical realism presupposes dynamic theory and that critical realism provides various conceptualizations that might contribute to dynamic theory.

This paper introduces the original research articles that constitute the present Forum issue on unpredictability, contingency and catastrophe. In doing so, it also identifies and discusses the specificity of realist approaches to the above questions. It is argued that attentiveness to the ontological dimension of (un)predictability opens promising avenues for reflexive approaches to social science and collective action.

Major paradigms in sociology and social sciences usually embrace either individualism or anti-individualism as fundamental worldview. This paper explores a third way between individualism and anti-individualism developed by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann in his systems theory. Luhmann treats actors or individuals as psychic systems and he distinguishes them from social systems. In a nutshell, social systems produce communication, whereas psychic systems produce consciousness. In line with anti-individualism, Luhmann therefore argues that social systems are irreducible to psychic systems and their actions. On the other hand, Luhmann joins ranks with individualism to assert that psychic systems are not rigorously constrained by social systems. Ultimately, Luhmann explains that social systems and psychic systems are part of each other's environment and that each type of systems provides the ecological conditions that the other type depends on to emerge and grow. To discuss this third way between individualism and anti-individualism, the paper examines more specifically two central points in Luhmann's theory: (1) how social systems and psychic systems are separated from each other, and (2) how social systems and psychic systems are coevolving.

Sociologists tend to see G. H. Mead's conceptualization of self as fundamentally correct. In this paper, we develop a critique of Mead's notion of the self as constituted through social interactions. Our focus will be on Mead's categorial distinction between the socially constructed self and subjective experience, as well as on the tendency of post-Meadian sociologists to push Mead's position in ever more radical directions. Drawing inspiration from a multifaceted understanding of selfhood that can be found in Husserlian phenomenology, we then propose that the most basic level of selfhood is anchored in irreducible subjective experience.

This article addresses the problem of whether we can speak of personal identity in cases of infants or elderly with cognitive disabilities as hydrocephaly or dementia, lives that could be considered borderline in terms of personal identity because they lack certain characteristics normally considered indispensable for personal life. Taking as a reference recent discussions on personal identity, particularly the narrative theories of Hilde Lindemann, Françoise Baylis and Marya Schechtman, the article analyses in what sense, under what assumptions, and in what way such a thing could be defended. Finally, some problems and objections to these approaches are considered.

The article examines the nature of bank money on two complementary levels. The first level deals with theoretical considerations. Here, the departure point is Social Positioning Theory, which provides a framework to investigate the nature of money. Within the theory, the paper situates bank money in credit-debt relations, that are themselves integral part of a wider productive-consumptive nexus of the economy. In this perspective, bank money is the relation, accounting economic positions of participating members, resulting from their economic activities realized within the context of the overall society. The second level uses the methods of Oral History and Memory Studies and, through semi-structured interviews, provides empirical material illustrating ideas about the nature of money in a specific historical form. The article thus explores the contrasting experiences of banking in the context of a centrally planned economy and banking in the transformation to a market economy. These two contrasting episodes are illustrative because of the significant change in the form of bank money, which brings to light various aspects of its nature. Moreover, the article utilizes interviews that present the lived experience of bankers with years of involvement in the sector, enriching the perspective on the issue under study.

Anti-dualistic social ontologies, those highlighting the intrinsic interdependency of agency and structure as two sides of the same coin, are sometimes criticized for failing to provide a satisfactory account of autonomous – capable and free – agency, or even denying the reality of such agency. This paper contests these claims, arguing that anti-dualistic ontologies only conflict with autonomous agency when the latter is understood in a highly voluntaristic sense, whose ideational roots go to what philosophers of free will call “incompatibilist” intuitions of freedom. Those intuitions suggest that actions (intentions, decisions) ultimately determined by extrinsic causes lack the kind of freedom presupposed by moral responsibility, so when agentive autonomy is presumed to involve such freedom, it does indeed cohere poorly with the anti-dualistic picture of intrinsically structured agency. Herein, however, an alternative, “compatibilist” notion of autonomy is advanced, such that does not conflict with extrinsic determination and is therefore congruent with anti-dualistic social ontologies.

According to Roy Bhaskar, social science can derive values from social facts by a process called “explanatory critique.” Bhaskar offers two different versions of explanatory critique: a belief-based version and a need-based version. Both versions are faced with a difficult objection. They seem either to employ an invalid inference or to assume the values that they are attempting to derive. I argue that at least the need-based version of Bhaskar's explanatory critique falls to the objection, and that the belief-based version on its own is insufficient. Bhaskar anticipates the objection and offers a defense. I show that his defense is unsuccessful. I also suggest a Baskar-inspired alternative explanatory critique.