scholarly journals The applicability of Parsons’ action system to the food system

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (30) ◽  
pp. 40-58
Author(s):  
Martin Milán Csirszki
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social System ◽  
Food System ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Final Conclusion ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Action System ◽  
The Social ◽  
Abstraction Levels

In this paper Talcott Parsons’ systems theory is applied to the food system. After the introduction of the basic categories of the food system, the main elements of Parsons’ theory are drawn up. Then, the detailed analysis takes place on three abstraction levels: within the general paradigm of human condition, the action system and the social system. During the analysis, two conclusions are formulated: one of them is in connection with the correction of abstraction levels concerning the food system, the other one creates the classes of the food system that can be corresponded to the four Parsonsian functions. In the end of the study, a final conclusion is formulated.

scholarly journals Don Quixote and the social system: Interpreting Ronald Laing’s concept of ontological insecurity from Alfred Schütz’ and Talcott Parsons’ theories of social action

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-207
Author(s):  
Christopher Schlembach
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Social System ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
Alfred Schutz ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alfred Schütz

Alfred Schütz and Talcott Parsons, two towering authorities of Weberian social thought are rarely interpreted in the same theoretical perspective (with the exception of Harold Garfinkel). This article intends to show that Schütz’s later writings about the constitution of social reality in the pluralized and differentiated modern society and Parsons’s concept of the social system converge with reference to their common problem of understanding interaction. In this article, I use Ronald Laing’s psychiatric thought of the early 1960s as a starting point to discuss some of the points of intersection between Schütz and Parsons. Laing argued that psychosis is not a phenomenon of the individual mind. Rather it must be understood in terms of an interaction system that is constituted by doctor and patient. The patient cannot maintain ego borders strong enough to establish a role-based social relationship and feels ontologically insecure. It is necessary to understand the patient in his existential position which constitutes his self as a kind of role. Schütz and Parsons reflected on similar interaction systems. Schütz analyzed the little social system that is established between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; Parsons addressed the social system between doctor and patient. It is argued that Schütz and Parsons analyzed the conditions under which a social system can be established, but they also look at its breakdown leading to the situation as described by Laing.

scholarly journals : The Social System . Talcott Parsons.

1954 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. W. M. Hart
Keyword(s):  
Social System ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Distributed artificial intelligence, diversity and information literacy

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kåhre
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Social System ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Global Dimension ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Strong Artificial Intelligence ◽  
The Social ◽  
Symbolic Ai

My proposal is based on my doctoral dissertation On the Shoulders of AI-technology : Sociology of Knowledge and Strong Artificial Intelligence which I succesfully defended on May 29th 2009. E-published http://www.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=12588&postid=1389611 The dissertation is concerned with Sociology’s stance in the debate on Strong Artificial Intelligence,.i.e. AI-systems that is able to shape knowledge on their own. There is a need for sociologists to realize the difference between two approaches to constructing AI systems: Symbolic AI (or Classic AI) and Connectionistic AI in a distributed model – DAI. Sociological literature shows a largely critical attitude towards Symbolic AI, an attitude that is justified. The main theme of the dissertation is that DAI is not only compatible with Sociology’s approach to what is social, but also constitutes an apt model of how a social system functions. This is consolidated with help from german sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory. A lot of sociologists criticize AI because they think that diversity is important and can only be comprehended in informal circumstances that only humans interacting together can handle. They mean that social intelligence is needed to make something out of diversity and informalism. Luhmann´s systems theory gives the opposite perspective. It tells us that it is social systems that communicate and produce new knowledge structures out of contincency. Psychological systems, i.e. humans, can only think within the circumstances the social system offer. In that way human thoughts are bound by formalism. Diversity is constructed when the social systems interact with complexity in their environments. They reduce the complexity and try to present it as meaningful diversity. Today when most of academic literature is electronically stored and is accessible through the Internet from al over the world, DAI can help social systems to observe and reduce complexity in this global dimension. It is pointed out that human consciousness is limited in handling this global dimension. Therefore is it reasonable to argue that DAI in at least this dimension has a stronger intelligence than humans have. I will argue that Luhmann´s social theory and DAI give a god model to analyze the conditions for diversity in the Internet society. Further, the discussion about strong AI gives a lot of opportunities to discuss what sort of information literacy is needed and it also gives some perspective to discuss the concept of IL I have observed that the concept has evolved from something that coined some formal capacities, to something that has to do with a capacity to observe informal relations. That discussion can easily be compared to a parallel discussion within the debate about strong AI.

scholarly journals Understanding social economy through a complexity lens: Four case studies in Northwestern Ontario

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-59
Author(s):  
Connie Nelson ◽  
Mirella L. Stroink ◽  
Charles Z. Levkoe ◽  
Rachel Kakegamic ◽  
Esther McKay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Social Economy ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Discussion Section ◽  
Northwestern Ontario ◽  
The Social

Broadly described, the social economy refers to a series of initiatives with common values representing explicit social objectives. The roots of social economy organizations predate the neoliberal economy and are integral to the human condition of coming together in mutual support to address challenges that benefit from collective efforts. Drawing on a complexity science approach, this paper analyzes four case studies situated in Northwestern Ontario—blueberry foraging, Cloverbelt Local Food Co-op, Willow Springs Creative Centre and Bearskin Lake First Nations—to demonstrate key features of social economy of food systems. Their unifying feature is a strong focus on local food as a means to deliver social, economic and environmental benefits for communities. Their distinct approaches demonstrate the importance of context in the emergence of the social economy of food initiatives. In the discussion section, we explore how these case study initiatives re-spatialize and re-socialize conventional food system approaches.

scholarly journals Lineal kinship organization in cross-specific perspective

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Fortunato
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Reproduction ◽  
Social System ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Domains

I draw on insights from anthropology to outline a framework for the study of kinship systems that applies across animal species with biparental sexual reproduction. In particular, I define lineal kinship organization as a social system that emphasizes interactions among lineally related kin — that is, individuals related through females only, if the emphasis is towards matrilineal kin, and individuals related through males only, if the emphasis is towards patrilineal kin. In a given population, the emphasis may be expressed in one or more social domains, corresponding to pathways for the transmission of different resources across generations (e.g. the allocation of food, the transfer of access to the natal territory or household).A lineal bias in any domain can be viewed as a bias in investment towards a particular set of kin — specifically, towards the offspring of daughters if the bias is matrilineal, and towards the offspring of sons if the bias is patrilineal. Effectively, investment is restricted to the offspring of the females in the population in one case, and to the offspring of the males in the other. This is distinct from a bias in investment towards daughters and towards sons, respectively.Overall, I propose a shift in focus — from viewing matrilineal and patrilineal kinship as unitary phenomena, to consideration of the different aspects of the social system featuring a bias towards lineally related kin.

scholarly journals The Controversy between Niklas Luhmann and Jűrgen Habermas Related to Sociological Approach to Law

SEEU Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Jovanoski ◽  
Agron Rustemi
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Niklas Luhmann ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
The Social

Abstract The aim of the paper is to present a brief insight into the significant works and views of the German sociologists Niklas Luhmann and Jűrgen Habermas on the role of law in regulating human relations in society. Educated as a lawyer, Niklas Luhmann in the late academic career was under the influence of the American sociologist Talcott Parsons. Niklas Luhmann later, under the influence of the American sociologist Talcott Parsons, he built a sociological theoretical system called the systems theory. On the other side, Jűrgen Habermas was a philosopher and sociologist, highly influenced by the Frankfurt school of sociology. According to Luhmann‘s systems theory, the social reality and the separate aspects of the social life are part of a deeper system called society, and in relation to the same they are set as subsystems. Social systems are divided into allopoietic and autopoietic. One of the significant axioms of Luhmann’s theory is that the largest number of systems tends to simplify due to the pressure of the environment for greater efficiency. Law in Luhman’s systems theory enjoys the status of an autonomous system for regulating society, rather than an instrumental contribution to politics. This brief review exposed a big clash between two influential German thinkers. In this paper we are going to use historical method and analysing of the content of different materials and previous authors that are dealing with the work of Niklas Luhmann and Jűrgen Habermas.

The Strength of Strong Ties : The Importance of Philos in Organizations

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Krackhardt
Keyword(s):  
Social System ◽  
Information Access ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
The Other ◽  
Tie Strength ◽  
Strong Ties ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dependent Variables ◽  
Research Stream

In 1973, Mark Granovetter proposed that weak ties are often more important than strong ties in understanding certain network-based phenomena. His argument rests on the assumption that strong ties tend to bond similar people to each other and these similar people tend to cluster together such that they are all mutually connected. The information obtained through such a network tie is more likely to be redundant, and the network is therefore not a channel for innovation. By contrast, a weak tie more often constitutes a “local bridge” to parts of the social system that are otherwise disconnected, and therefore a weak tie is likely to provide new information from disparate parts of the system. Thus, this theory argues, tie strength is curvilinear with a host of dependent variables: no tie (or an extremely weak tie) is of little consequence; a weak tie provides maximum impact, and a strong tie provides diminished impact. Subsequent research has generally supported Granovetter’s theory (Granovetter 1982), but two issues have been neglected in the research stream. First, there is considerable ambiguity as to what constitutes a strong tie and what constitutes a weak tie. Granovetter laid out four identifying properties of a strong tie: “The strength of a tie is a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie” (1973:1361). This makes tie strength a linear function of four quasi-independent indicators. At what point is a tie to be considered weak? This is not simply a question for the methodologically curious. It is an important part of the theory itself, since the theory makes a curvilinear prediction. If we happen to be on the very left side of the continuum of tie strength, then increasing the strength of the tie (going from no tie to weak tie) will increase the relevant information access. On the other hand, at some point making the ties stronger will theoretically decrease their impact. How do we know where we are on this theoretical curve? Do all four indicators count equally toward tie strength? In practice, tie strength has been measured many different ways.

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