A Apartment Social Reality?

I've been inclined to speak virtually the social basis inwards price of levels or layers, amongst a few provisos -- multiple layers, ...

I've been inclined to speak virtually the social basis inwards price of levels or layers, amongst a few provisos -- multiple layers, causation across layers, fuzzy boundaries (link, link). But is this mayhap a misleading ontology? Would nosotros survive meliorate served yesteryear thinking of the social basis every bit "flat" -- involving processes too relations all at the same level? It sometimes appears that John Levi Martin has such an ontology inwards heed inwards link), too Doug Porpora envisions such a possibility inwards "Four Concepts of Structure" (link). So this is the thought I'd similar to explore here.

What would that apartment basis await like? Here is i endeavour at formulating a apartment social ontology.

The social basis exists every bit the embodiment of sets of private persons amongst powers, capacities, too actions too interactions, too who stand upwards inwards a vast attain of concrete social relationships amongst each other.

Here is a snippet from Porpora's article virtually construction mentioned inwards a higher house that seems to accept this stance inwards mind:

In contrast amongst the previous innovation of social structure, this i is non a version of sociological holism. It does non portray social construction every bit something that operates over the heads of human actors. Instead, social construction is a nexus of connections amid them, causally affecting their actions too inwards plow causally affected yesteryear them. The causal affects of the construction on individuals are manifested inwards surely structured interests, resources, powers, constraints too predicaments that are built into each seat yesteryear the spider web of relationships. These contain the textile circumstances inwards which people must deed too which motivate them to deed inwards surely ways. As they produce so, they alteration the relationships that bind them inwards both intended too unintended ways. (200)

What does this description leave of absence out? For starters, it leaves out things nosotros would accept said were higher levels of the social reality: families, organizations, social movements, institutions, economies, clubs, too states. And of course of report these are legitimate social constructs. But are they inherently "higher level"? Or are they compounds too extended aggregates of the lower-level materials merely mentioned -- individuals amongst powers, actions, too relations?

Playing this thought out, nosotros mightiness consider that a social crusade is a partially ordered grouping of individuals inwards association amongst each other. The organizations that telephone band them forwards are other groups of individuals, including their deliberative bodies too executives. The repressive organs of the state? -- notwithstanding other organized groups of individuals amongst powers too agency. And inwards fact the theory of strategic activity fields seems to lean inwards this administration (Fligstein too McAdam, link).

One of import consideration that mightiness come upwards forwards for rejecting the apartment ontology is the thought that at that topographic point are causal properties at a higher marker that don't attach to entities at the base of operations level.

This stance corresponds to the thought closed to sociologists accept of emergence. It is sometimes maintained that social structures accept properties at the structural marker that cannot survive reduced to the properties of the components of the structure. These are emergent properties. If this is so, too then nosotros volition immature lady of import explanations if nosotros decline to recognize the reality of social structures. And notwithstanding a social construction is patently a higher-level social entity than a grouping of coordinated individuals. Its higher-level standing is a resultant of this fact: it is composed of objects at marker 1; but it has properties that cannot survive explained or derived from objects at marker 1.

H5N1 related argue for rejecting the apartment ontology is the thought that structures, institutions, or value systems -- higher marker social things -- may accept legitimate causal properties that tin survive adequately discovered through report of these social things without to a greater extent than data virtually the base of operations marker (individuals inwards relations). This possibility doesn't necessarily imply that these are emergent properties, only that they are relatively autonomous from the base of operations level. Here again, it seems reasonable to telephone band these higher-level social entities -- too thus the apartment ontology isn't quite enough.

Another of import consideration is the evident fact that social compounds accept compositional structure. H5N1 fish is to a greater extent than than a collection of living cells; it has a stable construction too an internal arrangement that serves the needs of the fish organism. So it is solely appropriate to refer to fish too every bit living cells. And it seems right to discovery that something similar this is truthful of closed to social entities too -- authorities agencies, worship organizations, corporations.

Finally, it is difficult to dispute that social things similar kinship systems, trouble concern firms, too armies accept stable too knowable characteristics that tin survive studied empirically. We shouldn't adopt an ontology that excludes legitimate topics for empirical research.

So it seems that the parsimonious social ontology doesn't work. It forces us to overlook explanatory factors that are of import for explaining social outcomes. And it unreasonably asks us to ignore of import features of the social basis of which nosotros accept reasonably adept understanding. In fact, the apartment ontology is non far removed from the ontology associated amongst spare versions of methodological individualism.

So how mightiness a bounded innovation of higher-level social entities look? H5N1 formulation of a minimal multi-layer option to the apartment ontology mightiness become along these lines:

• The social basis consists of individuals too relations at the base of operations marker PLUS stable compounds of items at this marker which accept quasi-permanent properties too non-reducible causal powers that accept effects on items at the base of operations level.

Here the standard of higher-level standing inwards purpose is --

• possession of causal properties non reducible to [or needing reduction to] properties at the base of operations level.

By analogous reasoning, nosotros mightiness consider whether at that topographic point are to a greater extent than complex configurations of base of operations too marker 1 entities which themselves accept properties that are emergent from or autonomous from base of operations too marker 1. And so forth iteratively.

Are at that topographic point marker 2 entities yesteryear this criterion? For example, mightiness the terra firma survive a level-2 entity, inwards that it encompasses organizations too individuals too and it possesses novel causal properties non introduce at marker 1? In regulation this seems possible. The terra firma is a complex network of organizations too individuals. And it is logically possible that novel causal powers emerge that depend on both base of operations too marker 1, but that produce non require reduction to those lower-level properties.

So the linguistic communication of levels of the social appears to survive legitimate afterwards all. It gives us a conceptual vocabulary that captures composition too complexity, too it allows us to seat of import social causal powers that would non survive accessible to us on the apartment ontology.