Social Ontology De-dramatized

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-23
Author(s):  
Daniel Little
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Social World ◽  
Scientific Methodology ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Realist Interpretation ◽  
Explanatory Success ◽  
Social Scientific

The article responds to Richard Lauer’s (2019) “Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology?” The article concurs that “social ontology matters” for the conduct of research and theory in social science. It argues, however, that neither of the interpretations of the status of social ontology offered by Lauer is satisfactory (either apriori philosophical realism or pragmatist anti-realism). The article argues for a naturalized, fallibilist, and realist interpretation of the claims of social ontology and presents the field of social ontology as the most abstract edge of social-science theorizing, subject to broad empirical constraints. The approach taken is anti-foundationalist in both epistemology and metaphysics. Ontological theorizing is part of the extended scientific enterprise of understanding the social world. Claims about the nature of the social world are not different in kind from more specific sociological claims about social class or individual rationality, to be justified ultimately by the coherence and explanatory success of the theories they help to create. At the same time, it is justified to treat the claims of social ontology as provisionally true, which supports a realist interpretation of the findings of social ontology.

Instrumentalizing and Naturalizing Social Ontology: Replies to Lohse and Little

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-39
Author(s):  
Richard Lauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Social World ◽  
Scientific Methodology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Science Methodology ◽  
Social Science Methodology ◽  
Made In

This article addresses Simon Lohse’s and Daniel Little’s responses to my article “Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology?.” In that article, I present a pragmatic and deflationary view of the priority of social ontology to social science methodology where social ontology is valued for its ability to promote empirical success and not because it yields knowledge of what furnishes the social world. First, in response to Lohse, I argue that my view is compatible with a role for ontological theorizing in the social sciences. However, the view that results instrumentalizes social ontology. Second, in my response to Little, I argue that the same considerations I made in my article apply to naturalistic attempts to motivate a non-deflationary view, repeating some of the central issues of that article.

Social science as apologia

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102199096
Author(s):  
Federico Brandmayr
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific

The social sciences are predominantly seen by their practitioners as critical endeavours, which should inform criticism of harmful institutions, beliefs and practices. Accordingly, political attacks on the social sciences are often interpreted as revealing an unwillingness to accept criticism and an acquiescence with the status quo. But this dominant view of the political implications of social scientific knowledge misses the fact that people can also be outraged by what they see as its apologetic potential, namely that it provides excuses or justifications for people doing bad things, preventing them from being rightfully blamed and punished. This introduction to the special issue sketches the long history of debates about the exculpatory and justificatory consequences of social science and lays the foundations for a theory of social scientific apologia by examining three main aspects: what social and cognitive processes motivate this type of accusation, how social theorists respond to it and whether different contexts of circulation of ideas affect how these controversies unfold.

Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology?

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Lauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Scientific Methodology ◽  
Quantifier Variance ◽  
Empirical Success ◽  
The Common ◽  
Pragmatic Interpretation ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Science Methodology ◽  
Social Science Methodology

In this article, I examine “Ontology Matters!” (OM!) arguments. OM! arguments conclude that ontology can contribute to empirical success in social science. First, I capture the common form between different OM! arguments. Second, I describe quantifier variance as discussed in metaontology. Third, I apply quantifier variance to the common form of OM! arguments. I then present two ways in which ontology is prior to social science methodology, one realist and one pragmatic. I argue that a pragmatic interpretation of ontology’s priority gives proponents of realist OM! arguments a special burden that they must meet to render their argument successful.

scholarly journals Ontological Investigations of a Pragmatic Kind? A Reply to Lauer

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Simon Lohse
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Scientific Methodology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific

This article is a reply to Richard Lauer’s “Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology?” and an attempt to contribute to the meta-social ontological discourse more broadly. In the first part I will give a rough sketch of Lauer’s general project and confront his pragmatist approach with a fundamental problem. The second part of my reply will provide a solution for this problem rooted in a philosophy of the social sciences in practice.

Feudal Europe, 800–1300: communal discourse and conflictual practices

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 427-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Structural Theory ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Fundamental Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Scientific Argument

The discipline of international relations faces a new debate of fundamental significance. After the realist challenge to the pervasive idealism of the interwar years and the social scientific argument against realism in the late 1950s, it is now the turn of critical theorists to dispute the established paradigms of international politics, having been remarkably successful in several other fields of social inquiry. In essence, critical theorists claim that all social reality is subject to historical change, that a normative discourse of understandings and values entails corresponding practices, and that social theory must include interpretation and dialectical critique. In international relations, this approach particularly critiques the ahistorical, scientific, and materialist conceptions offered by neorealists. Traditional realists, by contrast, find a little more sympathy in the eyes of critical theorists because they join them in their rejection of social science and structural theory. With regard to liberal institutionalism, critical theorists are naturally sympathetic to its communitarian component while castigating its utilitarian strand as the accomplice of neorealism. Overall, the advent of critical theory will thus focus the field of international relations on its “interparadigm debate” with neorealism.

scholarly journals In the midst of theory and practice: a foreword

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Hannes Peltonen ◽  
Knut Traisbach
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
World Society ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
The Core ◽  
Critical Engagement ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status

Abstract This foreword frames the Symposium in two ways. It summarises the core themes running through the nine ‘meditations’ in The Status of Law in World Society. Moreover, it places these themes in the wider context of Kratochwil's critical engagement with how we pursue knowledge of and in the social world and translate this knowledge into action. Ultimately, also his pragmatic approach cannot escape the tensions between theory and practice. Instead, we are in the midst of both.

Social Ontology and Model-Building: A Response to Epstein

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-192
Author(s):  
Nadia Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Model Construction ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social

Brian Epstein has recently argued that a thoroughly microfoundationalist approach towards economics is unconvincing for metaphysical reasons. Generally, Epstein argues that for an improvement in the methodology of social science we must adopt social ontology as the foundation of social sciences; that is, the standing microfoundationalist debate could be solved by fixing economics’ ontology. However, as I show in this paper, fixing the social ontology prior to the process of model construction is optional instead of necessary and that metaphysical-ontological commitments are often the outcome of model construction, not its starting point. By focusing on the practice of modeling in economics the paper provides a useful inroad into the debate about the role of metaphysics in the natural and social sciences more generally.

Constructivist Moral Realism

1998 ◽  
pp. 147-153
Author(s):  
J. K. Swindler
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social World ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Social Morality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Realm

We are social animals in the sense that we spontaneously invent and continuously re-invent the social realm. But, not unlike other artifacts, once real, social relations, practices, institutions, etc., obey prior laws, some of which are moral laws. Hence, with regard to social reality, we ought to be ontological constructivists and moral realists. This is the view sketched here, taking as points of departure Searle's recent work on social ontology and May's on group morality. Moral and social selves are distinguished to acknowledge that social reality is constructed but social morality is not. It is shown how and why moral law requiring respect for the dignity and well being of agents governs a social world comprising roles that are real only because of their occupants' social intentions.

Reflexivity and Sociological Practice

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 184-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim May
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Social World ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Sociological Practice ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social

Attention to reflexivity is often assumed to be the means through which the assumptions and values of social scientists may be uncovered. Researchers are thus called upon to position themselves explicitly in terms of their place within the research process in order that their interpretations may be assessed according to situated aspects of their social selves. Taking a reconstructive social science as one whose aim is to examine our pre-theoretical knowledge in the spirit of producing more adequate accounts of the social world, this article seeks to make sense of these ideas in relation to their consequences for producing an engaged practice and body of knowledge.

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