Emergence and Communication in Computational Sociology

Computational sociology models social phenomena using the concepts of emergence and downward causation. However, the theoretical status of these concepts is ambiguous; they suppose too much ontology and are invoked by two opposed sociological interpretations of social reality: the individualistic and the holistic. This paper aims to clarify those concepts and argue in favour of their heuristic value for social simulation. It does so by proposing a link between the concept of emergence and Luhmann's theory of communication. For Luhmann, society emerges from the bottom‐up as communication and he describes the process by which society limits the possible selections of individuals as downward causation. It is argued that this theory is well positioned to overcome some epistemological drawbacks in computational sociology.     

The Place of Construction in Sociological Realism

In the contemporary epistemological debate on social reality, characterized by the crisis of post‐modern theories and the emergence of new forms of realism, are there any approaches not acknowledging some specific ontological character to the construction of social objects? The question is apparently rhetorical, but the implication of this problem are not obvious. In the sociological literature the opposition between reality and construction is not clearly defined. Sometimes it is considered a dichotomy, in other situations the synthesis of alternative theses in a dialectical horizon. The more systematic attempt considers reality and construction as analytical macro‐dimensions where the relation between social ontology and epistemology operates. From this stance, the acknowledgement of the role of social construction in a wider realist horizon is the true overtaking of postmodern philosophy. If it is true that facts exist beyond representations, it is also true that representations themselves have a specific effect on reality, who continually re‐structures itself around specific relations of emergent power. Stating that reality is socially constructed is an evident limit of postmodern theories. On the other hand, stating that only facts exist constitute an impoverishment of realism and its replacement in neo‐positivism. Social phenomena are real because they are based on specific properties of the inter‐subjective construction of social reality. This thesis represents the revitalization of an advanced, anti‐positivistic realism and the definition of the specificity of social objects. The aim of this essay is to search for a specific place of construction within the development of realist social ontology.     

Bhaskar and Bunge on Social Emergence

This article discusses the theories of social emergence developed by Roy Bhaskar and Mario Bunge. Bhaskar's concept of emergent causal power is shown to be ambiguous, and some of the difficulties of his depth-relational concept of social emergence are examined. It is argued that Bunge's systemic concept of emergent property is not only different, but also clearer and more consistent than Bhaskar's concept of emergent causal power. Despite its clarity and consistency, Bunge's definition of the concept of emergent property is shown to be too broad and analytically imprecise for the purposes of an emergentist social ontology. It is argued that Bunge's systemic account of social emergence can be developed further by using William Wimsatt's gradual approach to emergent phenomena and his four conditions of aggregativity of a systemic property. It is shown that these conditions provide useful conceptual tools for clarifying and investigating different kinds of mechanisms of social emergence and developing stronger varieties of the concept of emergent social property than that indicated in Bunge's definition of this concept.     

The Impossibility of Naturalism: The Antinomies of Bhaskar's Realism

From the publication of The Possibility of Naturalism, Bhaskar's critical naturalism or realism has argued for a dualistic social ontology of interpreting individuals and objective, 'real' social structures. In arguing for a dualistic ontology, Bhaskar commits himself to two antinomies; he insists that society is dependent on individuals but also independent of them, and that social action is always intentional but it also has non-intentional, material features. These antinomies are apparently resolved by appeals to emergence. In fact, the appeal to emergence is merely a disguised regression into reification and the only genuine path out of these antinomies is the adoption of a fully hermeneutic social theory in line with the positions of Winch and Gadamer.     

The Concept(s) of Trust in Late Modernity,the Relevance of Realist Social Theory

In this paper, we argue that trust is an important aspect of social reality, one that realist social theory has paid little attention to but which clearly resonates with a realist social ontology. Furthermore, the emergence of an interest in trust in specific subject fields such as organization theory indicates the growing significance of issues of trust as market liberalism has developed. As such, the emergence of an interest in trust provides support for Archer's characterisation of late modernity in The Reflexive Imperative (2012) as a period of heterogeneity and greater incongruity. Commenting on this provides an opportunity to discuss the issue of habit in relation to trust and also the importance of the analysis of integration as a means to explain problems of trust. The commentary draws on examples from finance.     

Why I am not an Individualist

In his defence of emergence, David Elder‐Vass assumes that my hermeneutic position represents a form of individualism. Although a common reading of my position, the claim that I am in individualist is incorrect; I, too, recognize the centrality of collective phenomena to social reality. In fact, there is a close convergence between emergence and the hermeneutic sociology I advocate. However, there also remains an important divide between us. Despite his care to avoid reification, Edler‐Vass descends into ontological dualism, conceptualizing society in terms of structure and agency.     

Determinate attitudes and indeterminate norms

The aim of this paper is to offer a version of social normative pragmatism – that is, the approach that takes norms to be the result of shared practices – that comes closer to social reality than its cousins in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. The purpose is presenting a framework that can be useful for social theorists sympathetic to normative concepts. This version introduces the concepts of the adoption of the normative stance, the projective structure of evaluation and a sketch of a theory of normative force in terms of accumulation of normative attitude. In order to motivate this conceptual tools, we present them as allowing us to overcome the traditional skeptical challenge put forward by Kripke.     

深圳社会工作模式生成的制度同构理论分析

深圳社会工作的发展可以说是＂三新＂：一个全新的专业服务,在一个全新的工作地点,聘用一批全新的工作队伍。在这样的环境下,深圳市在很短的时间里就建立起了社会工作服务体系。学者在总结深圳社工模式的成功之处时认为：深圳社工服务模式,是政府制定政策方向、提供财政及实务支持、建立执行架构、监管及改善机制;成立社工协会为行业发展服务,面向全国招聘专业社会工作人才,向民间社工组织购买社工服务;聘用香港资深社工为深圳社工督导,提供督导及培训工作。这也就是说,深圳模式最突出的特点是制度对现实的建构。但是制度又是如何建构现实的？笔者运用社会学制度主义中的制度同构理论对这一问题进行阐释。     

The Poverty of Ontological Reasoning

This article argues against ontology as an intelligible project for social theory. Ontological questions have proliferated in social thought in the past decades mainly as a way of recasting traditional sociological questions about individuals/society and structure/agency. Far from being an advance in our understanding, however, this form of reasoning has frequently brought confusion. This is demonstrated with detailed reference to a contribution from an ongoing debate, centred on the issue whether social structures are causally efficacious. I argue that the ontological project is mainly fuelled by a misconception of language and that, once this picture is exposed as incoherent, ontology loses its intelligibility.     

记忆研究的“社会-文化”范式:对“哈布瓦赫-阿斯曼”研究传统的解读

通过分析“哈布瓦赫-阿斯曼”研究路径中有关社会、文化等概念,可以得出一个较为清晰的记忆研究的“社会-文化”范式,从而弥补当下记忆研究无范式的缺陷。这一范式尤其体现在与神圣记忆密切相关的“社会框架论”、社会品质,以及卡农、神话、节日等概念中。从社会学角度看,能够促发人们回忆的社会力来自涂尔干所谓的“神圣社会”。哈布瓦赫记忆理论中的“社会框架论”和“社会品质”概念是涂尔干的“社会本体论”思想的核心表现,由此形成一种哈布瓦赫的“神圣记忆观”。扬·阿斯曼文化记忆理论中的重要概念“卡农”,也是一种神圣记忆。卡农等概念是扬·阿斯曼对哈布瓦赫的“社会框架论”的继承和推进。上述要素构成记忆研究的“社会-文化”范式的基础。从“取向”讨论转向“范式”分析,有助于推进社会记忆研究传统的生成和发展。     

A quantum leap for social theory

I discuss the revolutionary implications of Alexander Wendt's Quantum Mind and Social Science for social theory. These center on the significance given to society as a possibility space in which observable social reality amounts to quantum decoherent states in the system. I discuss how Wendt radicalises social constructivism and goes considerably beyond Bourdieu's conceptions of society as a field. A signature feature in Wendt's theory, the state as a hologram, comports well with the implied view of the social order in much public opinion and market research. In this respect, Wendt's theory is very attuned to the spirit of our times.     

Realism and Complexity

I will argue that from a CR perspective, social reality is complex. It just is not complex in the ways CT suggests. Even emergence, according to CR, is more complex and stronger than CT suggests. First wave CR is enough to advance the issue considerably, but I will also examine dialectical CR as a further attempt within CR to take account of complexity.     

影响性诉讼:社会转型与构建和谐社会的法治精灵

中国建设和谐社会正处于中国社会全面转型的历史时期。转型时期的中国社会既有新旧体制与机制的强力对垒,也有新旧观念和思维方式的激烈碰撞,更有各种复杂矛盾与疑难问题的集中爆发。由于人们法律意识及法治观念的逐渐增强,转型时期频繁发生的影响性诉讼成为人们观察和关注社会发展脉动的重要兴奋点。影响性诉讼对构建和谐社会具有重要意义和深刻影响:使人们对社会发展现实有无比清醒而理智的认识;对正在建设中的和谐社会法治提供助力并树立信心。     

"African American" as a new Social Representation

The use of African American as a new denomination for a group previously referred to as Black has rapidly become standard practice in American society. This paper analyzes how the introduction of African American in our ordinary language marks the elaboration of a new social reality. As the concept becomes part of our social life, it is transformed into a real "phenomenon" of social representation that formalizes behaviour and orients communication. Such a transformation requires that the new term infiltrates people's everyday lives sufficiently to concretize it into a common reality. The analysis presented here outlines three key processes in the emergence and formation of the social representation of African American. The first one is anchoring which familiarizes the new object by linking it with preexisting categories in our minds. The second process is objectification which assures the crystallization of the object. A figurative core is created to allow the projection of images. At this point people can talk about the object, and through communication the object takes on meaning. This naturalization is the third process to conclude the transformation of the object into a social reality. These steps have allowed African American to become the carrier for a modification of cognitions and broadening of attitudes concerning the group.     

The Secret Life of Things: Rethinking Social Ontology

Despite a recent resurgence of interest in social ontology, the standard conceptualization of social/cultural objects reiterates dichotomies such as nature and culture, subjectivity and objectivity: the objective components of a social/cultural environment are usually divided into their (symbolically vacuous) material substratum, natural or manufactured, and their imposed or assigned social import. Inert materiality and subjectively or intersubjectively assigned meanings and functions remain distinct as constitutive aspects of a reality that is intuitively experienced as a whole. In contrast—by means of examining a broad range of natural/cultural entities—I propose an experiential or visceral ontology of the social, which addresses the comprehensive nature of our experience of cultural objects, as well as their perpetual transmutability within the space between nature and culture, objectivity and subjectivity. This perspective allows for a cathexis of meaning in the material constitution of cultural entities—in contrast to a mere imposition of detachable layers of meaning—and suggests a reconsideration of our unexamined perception of social/political action as editorial supervision and correction. Moreover, I point out the centrality of the concept of practice for recovering the lived sense of social things, since practice, by virtue of its inalienable informality, constitutes the field of Protean renewal of this sense. I understand my approach as complementary to the body-turn in contemporary social theory, since I extend the postulation of meaningfulness in the objective aspect of subjective existence (i.e. the body) towards its lived surroundings, which are here perceived as engaged in a process of meaningful practiced reciprocations with corporeal subjectivities.     

伦:中国人之思想与社会的共同基础

“伦”字及其含义究竟属中国传统社会思想还是社会构成方式,以及它在中国社会学研究中占有什么地位,存有许多重要而未尽的讨论空间。作者首先梳理了近代以来中国重要思想家及社会学家的见解,尤其是他们对“五伦”的认识,以此廓清“伦”的社会学含义。在此基础之上,作者接着通过与西方社会学中关于自我、角色、社会网络、社会分层及不平等等方面的比较与对话,提出了“伦”自身所包含的意义、公理、相关定理及其现实社会运行与变异。对“伦”之社会学含义的层层解读,有助于明晰中国人与中国社会的基本特质、相应的运行方式及其机制,并形成一种解读中国人与中国社会的新途径。     

Re‐conceptualizing Abstract Conceptualization in Social Theory: The Case of the “Structure” Concept

I this paper, I draw on recent research on the radically embodied and perceptual bases of conceptualization in linguistics and cognitive science to develop a new way of reading and evaluating abstract concepts in social theory. I call this approach Sociological Idea Analysis. I argue that, in contrast to the traditional view of abstract concepts, which conceives them as amodal “presuppositions” removed from experience, abstract concepts are irreducibly grounded in experience and partake of non‐negotiable perceptual‐symbolic features from which a non‐propositional “logic” naturally follows. This implies that uncovering the imagistic bases of allegedly abstract notions should be a key part of theoretical evaluation of concepts in social theory. I provide a case study of the general category of “structure” in the social and human sciences to demonstrate the analytic utility of the approach.     

Organisation,Emergence and Cambridge Social Ontology

John Searle has mistakenly claimed that emergence is the central concept in the account of social ontology defended by Tony Lawson, the central figure in the project now regularly referred to as Cambridge Social Ontology. This is not the case. Rather, if any concept can be considered central for Lawson, it is organisation. In this paper, I explain how Searle could misunderstand Lawson and, in doing so, I bring out the importance of organisation for understanding how phenomena, both social and non-social, are constituted.