Further Reflections in the Social World

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 257-284
Author(s):  
Margaret Gilbert ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Joint Commitment ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Beliefs ◽  
The Individual

This discussion responds to a collection of papers that relate in one way or another to the author’s work in the philosophy of social phenomena. It focuses on those passages that deal most directly with that work. After making some general points that respond to remarks in several of the papers, it turns to the individual papers. The subjects discussed include coordination, conversation, collective beliefs and emotions, joint commitment, obligations and rights, patriotism, promises, the pronoun “we”, and what it is to tell someone something.

scholarly journals Power, Agency, Relationality and Welfare Practice

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
RACHAEL DOBSON
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article argues that constructions of social phenomena in social policy and welfare scholarship think about the subjects and objects of welfare practice in essentialising ways, with negativistic effects for practitioners working in ‘regulatory’ contexts such as housing and homelessness practice. It builds into debates about power, agency, social policy and welfare by bringing psychosocial and feminist theorisations of relationality to practice research. It claims that relational approaches provide a starting point for the analysis of empirical practice data, by working through the relationship between the individual and the social via an ontological unpicking and revisioning of practitioners' social worlds.

Abstract Right: Natural Immediacy within the Matrices of Personhood

2018 ◽  
pp. 168-188
Author(s):  
Wes Furlotte
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social World ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Opening Section

Chapter ten, therefore, examines the opening section of Hegel’s Rechtphilosophie, “Abstract Right,” in order develop a ‘preliminary sketch’ of the concepts of right and juridical personhood. The chapter historically contextualizes Hegel in relation to the mechanical deterministic conception of the individual (Hobbes) and abstract, though free, conceptions (Rousseau, Kant, Fichte). The chapter then moves to point out Hegel’s uniqueness in this context. Synthesizing Hobbesian and Fichtean standpoints, Hegel argues that the natural dimension of the individual (impulse, drive, and whim) is crucial to the genesis of actual freedom in the social world. Reconstructing Hegel’s analysis, the chapter shows that freedom is not undermined by acting out on one’s desires, impulses etc. but is brought into the world by these very drives. Although these drives are historically and socially conditioned they are, nevertheless, immediate and therefore constitutive of the basal level of juridical personhood. Thereby the chapter argues that a new sense of nature arises within Hegel’s political philosophy. The task, then, is to pursue what nature must mean within the fields constituting the socio-political.

Habitus and Field

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Leander
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
International Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
Heuristic Devices

The terms habitus and field are useful heuristic devices for thinking about power relations in international studies. Habitus refers to a person’s taken-for-granted, unreflected—hence largely habitual—way of thinking and acting. The habitus is a “structuring structure” shaping understandings, attitudes, behavior, and the body. It is formed through the accumulated experience of people in different fields. Using fields to study the social world is to acknowledge that social life is highly differentiated. A field can be exceedingly varied in scope and scale. A family, a village, a market, an organization, or a profession may be conceptualized as a field provided it develops its own organizing logic around a stake at stake. Each field is marked by its own taken-for-granted understanding of the world, implicit and explicit rules of behavior, and valuation of what confers power onto someone: that is, what counts as “capital.” The analysis of power through the habitus/field makes it possible to transcend the distinctions between the material and the “ideational” as well as between the individual and the structural. Moreover, working with habitus/field in international studies problematizes the role played by central organizing divides, such as the inside/outside and the public/private; and can uncover politics not primarily structured by these divides. Developing research drawing on habitus/field in international studies will be worthwhile for international studies scholars wishing to raise and answer questions about symbolic power/violence.

ANALYZING THE AGENT-BASED MODEL AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

2003 ◽  
Vol 06 (03) ◽  
pp. 331-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
YUTAKA I. LEON SUEMATSU ◽  
KEIKI TAKADAMA ◽  
NORBERTO E. NAWA ◽  
KATSUNORI SHIMOHARA ◽  
OSAMU KATAI
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Agent-based models (ABMs) have been attracting the attention of researchers in the social sciences, becoming a prominent paradigm in the study of complex social systems. Although a great number of models have been proposed for studying a variety of social phenomena, no general agent design methodology is available. Moreover, it is difficult to validate the accuracy of these models. For this reason, we believe that some guidelines for ABMs design must be devised; therefore, this paper is a first attempt to analyze the levels of ABMs, identify and classify several aspects that should be considered when designing ABMs. Through our analysis, the following implications have been found: (1) there are two levels in designing ABMs: the individual level, related to the design of the agents' internal structure, and the collective level, which concerns the design of the agent society or macro-dynamics of the model; and (2) the mechanisms of these levels strongly affect the outcomes of the models.

Epidemiology and the Scientific Method

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan F. Chalmers
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Community Health ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Made In

This article refutes the claim that the field of epidemiology and community health would benefit from the application of the scientific method. It is argued that the methods of physics are not appropriate for other disciplines. When applied to the social sciences, positivism is a conservatizing force, causing theory to become based on a mere description of social phenomenon. Since it cannot lead to a deep understanding of social phenomena, positivism is incapable of revealing ways in which society could be radically changed. Moreover, such theory is far from neutral. Rather, it is formed and influenced by the forms of life experienced and practiced in the society. This is illustrated by an analysis of the origin of modern physics at the time when society was changing from a feudal to capitalist form of organization. It is concluded that advances will be made in epidemiology and community health when this field breaks from its focus on the individual and incorporates class into its analysis. However, given the interconnection between social structure and social theory, resistance to such a radical change can be expected.

scholarly journals Accounting and the Making of Homo Liberalis

2012 ◽  
pp. 67-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Lambert ◽  
Eric Pezet
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
Organisational Context ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual

This paper investigates the practices whereby the subject, in an organisational context, carries out systematic practices of self-discipline and becomes a calculative self. In particular, we explore the techniques of conduct developed by management accountants in a French carmaker, which adheres to a neoliberal environment. We show how these management accountants become calculative selves by building the very measurement of their own performance. The organisation thereby emerges as the cauldron in which a Homo liberalis is forged. Homo liberalis is the individual capable of constructing for him/her the political self-discipline establishing his/her relationship with the social world on the basis of measurable performance. The management accountants studied in this article prefigure the Homo liberalis in the self-discipline they develop to act in compliance with the organisation’s goals.

scholarly journals Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-178
Author(s):  
Matti Heinonen
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Joint Commitment ◽  
The Social

Symbolic Interaction and Retirement Adjustment: An Empirical Assessment

1979 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Cox ◽  
Albert Bhak
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Symbolic Interaction ◽  
Significant Others ◽  
Social World ◽  
Empirical Assessment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Primary Groups

Using a variety of indicators of retirement adjustment most studies have focused on two variables as the critical ones: the kind of work the individual was involved in prior to retirement with its concomitant style of life or the individual's pre-retirement attitudes. Focusing on the latter variable and using a symbolic interaction perspective, it was hypothesized that the individual's significant others are crucial to both the development of his pre-retirement attitudes and his post-retirement adjustment. The data upheld both the predicted relationships, and further suggest that the social world of older people is comprised of both primary groups and proximate others. The Lowenthal and Haven concept of confidants as a major factor in the adjustment of older people, though valuable, too narrowly defines their social world. The broader concept of significant others comprised of both confidants and proximate others seems more realistic.

Lo Normal Como Categoría Sociológica

1998 ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Sandra Caponi
Keyword(s):  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Ian Hacking ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Georges Canguilhem ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Individual Body

Building on criticism directed against August Comte by Georges Canguilhem, I analyze Émile Durkheim's usage of the "normality-pathology" typology and show that these concepts do not support the organicist metaphor or the analogy between the social and the individual body. Rather, as suggested by Ian Hacking, these concepts are linked to the use of statistics and the Quetelian media, tools which allow us to understand social phenomena on populational terms. Thus, from the application of biological and statistical categories to sociological analysis, a kind of speech is born which enjoys solidarity with strategies of administration and management of the masses. This Foucault called the "biopolitics of the population."

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