[Tuukka Kaidesoja accepted my invitation to write a answer to my give-and-take ( link ) of his recent article inwards Philosophy of the Soc...
[Tuukka Kaidesoja accepted my invitation to write a answer to my give-and-take (link) of his recent article inwards Philosophy of the Social Sciences, “Overcoming the Biases of Microfoundations: Social Mechanisms in addition to Collective Agents”. Currently Kaidesoja plant equally a post-doctoral researcher at the Finnish Academy Centre of Excellence inwards the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Department of Political in addition to Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland.He is the writer of Naturalizing Critical Realist Social Ontology. Thanks, Tuukka!]
Daniel Little defends “the theoretical possibility of attributing causal powers to meso-level social entities in addition to structures.” I handgrip that meso-level social entities similar groups in addition to organizations receive got causal powers that are non ontologically reducible to the causal powers of their components or the aggregates of the latter. In addition, Little argues for “the thought of an actor-centered sociology, according to which the marrow of social phenomena is solely made upward of the actions, interactions, in addition to states of hear of socially constituted private actors.” Though I similar the thought of actor-centered sociology, I receive got problems alongside the stance that “the marrow of social phenomena is solely made upward of the actions, interactions, in addition to states of hear of socially constituted private actors.”
The latter stance tin also endure stated inwards price of the ontological microfoundations of social facts insofar equally these microfoundations are thought to consist of socially constituted individuals, their actions in addition to interactions. Thus, inwards Little’s view, the ontologically microfoundational degree inwards social enquiry is ever the individual-level fifty-fifty though it is non required that “our explanations locomote on through the microfoundational level.” This is because at that topographic point are expert sociological explanations that advert to causal relations at the meso-level in addition to practice non specify the microfoundations of these relations. In addition, Little argues that sociological theories cannot endure reduced to theories most individuals. This stance presupposes a concept of theory-reduction that is used inwards philosophy of hear past times Jerry Fodor in addition to others. I volition come upward dorsum to this later.
Now, I believe that the ontologically microfoundational purpose of the individual-level tin endure questioned from 2 directions. Firstly, it tin endure argued that, inwards add-on to human individuals, artifacts in addition to technologies built in addition to used past times people belong to the microfoundations of the causal powers of many social entities. On this view, then, organizations are non simply “structured groups of individuals” but structured groups of human individuals in addition to the artifacts (e.g. strategy papers, organizational charts, written codes of conduct, archives, computers, soft-ware programs, information bases, mobile phones in addition to therefore on) that are used past times individuals inwards their social interactions. One ground for including artifacts (with causal powers in addition to affordances of their own) equally proper parts of roughly social entities (e.g. organizations) is that human members of these entities remove them inwards monastic enjoin to coordinate their interactions equally good equally to brand collective decisions and, possibly to a greater extent than controversially, to practice in addition to hold collective (or transactive) memories.
Secondly, I believe that at that topographic point are interesting sub-individual cognitive capacities in addition to processes that are potentially of import inwards agreement of roughly social phenomena. For example, the phenomenon of contextual priming inwards social noesis (i.e. a cognitive procedure inwards which the presence of sure enough events in addition to people automatically activates our internal knowledge of in addition to affects towards them that are relevant inwards responding to the situation) equally good equally unconscious faux of conduct of strangers may good endure of import factors inwards explaining roughly social phenomena. I mean value that it would endure misleading to say that cognitive processes of this sort belong to the individual-level due to the fact they bring house at the subconscious degree of cognitive processing.
I mean value that both of these points inquiry the stance that the individual-level should endure considered equally the ontologically microfoundational inwards the context of social research. My intention is not, however, to deny the importance of human individuals in addition to their actions in addition to interactions to whatever plausible social ontology.
Finally, I desire to dot that, inwards add-on to the concept of theory-reduction used inwards the context of philosophy of mind, at that topographic point is a dissimilar concept of “mechanistic reductive explanation” developed past times Mario Bunge, William Wimsatt in addition to others. When combined alongside causal powers theory, this concept is interesting since it enables 1 to combat non only that social entities receive got (weakly) emergent causal powers that are ontologically irreducible to the causal powers of their parts (and their aggregates), but also that these causal powers, their emergence in addition to endurance, may good endure mechanistically explainable inwards price of the causal powers, relations in addition to interactions of the components of social entities (e.g. human individuals in addition to their artifacts). It should endure emphasized that this stance does non entail that social scientific theories that advert to social entities alongside emergent causal powers should endure conceptually reducible to (or deductively derivable from) the theories that advert to the components of these entities. Rather, it is compatible alongside the stance that theories most human beings, artifacts in addition to social entities are continually developed at dissimilar levels of organization; conceptually adjusted to each other; in addition to sometimes connected via mechanistic reductive explanations. This sort of perspective to ontological emergence in addition to mechanistic reductive explanations allows, too, that the outcomes of macro-level social events in addition to processes tin endure legitimately explained past times referring to the interactions of the meso-level social entities (with emergent causal powers).
Thanks for the corking blog!
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