The Poverty of Ontological Reasoning |
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Authors: | LEONIDAS TSILIPAKOS |
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Institution: | Department of Sociology, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, U.K.leonidas.tsilipakos@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk |
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Abstract: | 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. |
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Keywords: | Ontology social structures Rom Harré Critical Realism Wittgenstein sense |
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