Advocates anthropology as a science focused on social structure.

This paper replies to Porpora, King, and Varela's responses to my earlier paper “For Emergence”, focussing on the relationship between the concepts of social structure and social relations. It recognises the importance of identifying the mechanisms responsible whenever we make claims for the emergence of causal powers, and discusses the mechanism underlying one case of social structure: normative institutions. It also shows how critical realism reconciles the claims that both social structures and human individuals (...) have emergent causal powers that combine to produce actual social events. (shrink)

Social groups—like teams, committees, gender groups, and racial groups—play a central role in our lives and in philosophical inquiry. Here I develop and motivate a structuralist ontology of social groups centered on social structures (i.e., networks of relations that are constitutively dependent on social factors). The view delivers a picture that encompasses a diverse range of social groups, while maintaining important metaphysical and normative distinctions between groups of different kinds. It also meets the constraint that (...) not every arbitrary collection of people is a social group. In addition, the framework provides resources for developing a broader structuralist view in social ontology. (shrink)

The concept of social structure is ill defined in the literature despite the perennial problem and ongoing discussion about the relationship between agency and structure. In this paper I will provide an outline of what the term social structure means, but my main focus will be on emphasizing the value of the concept for nursing research and demonstrate how its erasure in some research negatively effects on our understanding of the nurses' role in clinical practice. (...) For example, qualitative research in nursing has largely focused on agency through such theories as phenomenology, hermeneutics, and symbolic interactionism. The result is that social structure may be erased or seen as epiphenomena of agency. My purpose is to provide a theoretical discussion of social structure and how such a discussion can help us to understand how nurses live and experience clinical practice. While not denying the importance of agency, I will argue that the thinned out approach to social structure places limits on our understanding of the constraints nurses experience in their working lives. The result is that nurses' attitudes and clinical failings are individualized, resulting in ever more calls for improved education, when a more thorough examination of structural issues may elucidate more fundamental problems. (shrink)

This paper summarizes and discusses three studies of patterns in the recall of persons in socially bounded communities. Individual sin three different communities (a graduate academic program, a religious fellowship, and a department in a formal organization) free-listed the names of persons in their respective communities. Results indicate that the individuals in each community share a common cognitive structure of community members that is based on the community’s social structure. These studies, combined with the results of other (...) research, strongly suggest that persons are organized in memory according to social structural principles and that affiliation and dominance are the principal dimensions of social cognition. Suggestions are offered for future research to test the generality of these findings. (shrink)

Starting from R. K. Merton's now classic criticism of 'holistic' functionalism, i.e. of a functionalism which postulates social unity, universality and functional in-dispensability, the author stresses certain implications of this criticism more than they have been stressed hitherto. Classical and holistic functionalism) from H. Spencer, B. Malinowski, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, etc to T. Parsons, postulates certain total unities (a global culture, an integrated system, etc.) in which each item (existence, actions, structures, etc.) is considered and defined on the grounds (...) of its consequences for the maintenance of the system as a whole; therefore holistic functionalism as a method is, in effect, the study of the consequences of the system on the items that compose it, since each of these items is defined within the sphere of the system and of its integrative functions. Merton's 'neo-functionalism', on the other hand, is remarkable not only in that it takes into account the 'dysfunctional' and 'nonfunctional' consequences of certain items on the system, but more especially because, within the context of functional analysis, it stresses the possible existence of structural substitutes and alternatives of functions, and therefore of latent structures which are foreign to objective functional consequences, as well as being able to deal with unanticipated and unexpected items and their consequences on the system. 'Neo-functionalism', which is susceptible of further development, is not limited to the study of the consequences of the system on its items: it can also reverse this scheme and study the consequences of certain items on the system. Merton's criticism of holistic functionalism therefore implies a broadening of the scientific resources of this method and a renewal of its interpretative scheme, thanks to which functional analysis ceases to appear as 'the* method of explaining sociology as a science, and becomes an interpretative method which complements the analysis of social structures and relations. Seen in this light the concept of structure becomes emancipated and independent of the concept of system and function; whereas, within the framework of universal functionalism, it was ancillary to the concept of function. Finally, latent structures and unconscious structures, conditions of possibility and subjective dispositions are favourable to social structures and social relations, not excluding those that are neither visible nor observable. This analysis, the author notes, is extremely meaningful and has great possibilities of development, especially in view of the structuralism recently to be noted in the human and social sciences: anthropology, history, linguistics, etc. (shrink)

The concept of social structure, present in social ontology since the 19th century, hasbeen used in various, not always clearly specified, meanings. The present use of the concepthas been decisively influenced by the elaborations in the hands of the so-called “newstructuralists” of the 1970s: Pierre Bourdieu, Roy Bhaskar and Anthony Giddens. To understandthe contemporary developments, it is necessary to be acquainted with its formative influences.In the paper, we compare the approaches of Bhaskar and Giddens, especially in the (...) context oftheir mutual compatibility and the challenges facing anyone wanting to develop their ownconcept of social structure based on the elaborations of the concept by Bhaskar and Giddens.The most fundamental issues appear to be especially the mode of existence of social structures,the heterogeneous character of different kinds of social structures, and the transition from theontology of the natural world to that of the social world by Bhaskar. (shrink)

A philosophically useful account of social structure must accommodate the fact that social structures play an important role in structural explanation. But what is a structural explanation? How do structural explanations function in the social sciences? This paper offers a way of thinking about structural explanation and sketches an account of social structure that connects social structures with structural explanation.

Imagine first the case of J (who might be anybody, jemand). J used to inhabit a social order, or rather an area within a social order, where socially approved roles were unusually well-defined. Responsibilities were allocated to each such role and each sphere of role-structured activity was clearly demarcated. These allocations and demarcations were embodied in and partly constituted by the expectations that others had learned to have of those who occupied each such role. For those who occupied (...) those roles to disappoint those expectations by failing to discharge their assigned responsibilities was to invite severe disapproval and other sanctions. To refuse to find one's place within the hierarchies of approved roles, or to have been refused a place, because judged unfit for any such role, was to be classified as socially deviant and irresponsible. The key moral concepts that education had inculcated into J were concepts of duty and responsibility. His fundamental moral beliefs were that each of us owes it to others to perform her or his assigned duties and to discharge her or his assigned responsibilities. A good human being performs those duties, discharges those responsibilities, and does not trespass into areas that are not her or his concern. A philosopher who comes across the likes of J will understand his attitudes as cultural parodies, in part of Plato (conceiving of justice as requiring ‘that each do her or his own work and not meddle with many things’ Republic 433a) and in part of Kant (doing one's duty just because it is one's duty and not for the sake of any further end), authors who had influenced J's school teachers. A sociologist will entertain the suspicion that in certain types of social order it may be only in the form of parodies that some types of concept can continue to find expression. But for the moment let us put this thought on one side and return to J. (shrink)

The simplest and no doubt the most persistent of the ideas held on the relationship between society and power, from Menenius Agrippa to Auguste Comte, is that of an analogy between the social body and the human body. Both these men deduced that power is nothing other than the supreme regulating function of all functional activities, as harmoniously integrated in society as they are in human physiology. Ethnographic study often strengthened this organicist conception through description of the various (...) class='Hi'>social functions as necessary or vital for the cohesion and the existence of primitive society. But historic societies provide a spectacle quite different from that of an integrated organism. In them social functions are not abstractions but are seen rather in the form of human groups whose relationships can scarcely be said to show an organic solidarity. Within these groups and working to set them against each other, powers have their own interests which they must protect against the inroads of ambitions. The permanence of certain functions (military, religious, and economic, for example) does not imply permanence in the structures which implement them or in the real or fictional power which accompanies them. Their meaning is ambivalent. Obviously, they contribute to the architecture of a society; they may have a latent content which is a disintegrating factor from the moment when their hierarchy no longer suits the changing stratifications of the social body. (shrink)

This study utilizing correlation, regression, confirmatory factor analyses, ANOVA, moderation and mediation analysis investigated connections of stereotypes, emotions, and sociocultural variables in a single-sample/single-group design. Prior to data processing, Georgian versions of the Stereotype Content Model questionnaires were validated through CFA. The study looked at Georgian students' attitudes to: representatives of German-speaking countries and representatives of English-speaking countries. Emotions predicted to these groups by social–structural antecedents—vitality and fear of assimilation—and stereotypes were admiration, pride, and sympathy. In addition, envy was (...) predicted for the English-speaking group. The prediction of envy is explained by moderation analysis according to which it is elicited by the interplay of warmth and competence, as well as fear of assimilation and competence. The former interaction mediates the link between social–structural antecedents to emotions. Thus, distant out-groups elicit envy as a result of their perceived vitality, fear of assimilation, warmth, and competence. Social–structural antecedents come forward to elicit emotions of envy independently as well as in interaction with stereotypes when small country representatives evaluate representatives of the influential group of English-speaking people. (shrink)

The view that Islamicate science went into decline while European science was getting started is still commonly held among historians of science and almost universal in general history and popular presentations. Different versions of the decline thesis make it start in the 11 th century with the work of Ibn al-Haytham and al-Ghaz ā l ī ; in the 13 th century with the sack of Baghdad, or at latest with the beginning of the “Scientific Revolution” in Europe. However, it (...) is now increasingly apparent that Islamicate science was healthy well into the period of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals. There are many reasons for the continued attraction of the decline theses. In addition to the inaccessibility of sources, these include mistaking the nature of credentialing in Islamicate science, and mistaking the nature of the sources in which original science was appearing. In this paper, I will sketch a more appropriate social structure for understanding Islamicate science by describing the institutional structures for training scientists and awarding credentials, and the practices of recording and transmitting research in writing. Taking the Safavid scholar Bahā ʾ al-D ī n al- ʿ Ā mil ī as an example, I will suggest that these structures supported an active research community well into the early modern period, further undermining the decline thesis. (shrink)

Advances in molecular technologies have the potential to help remedy health inequities through earlier detection and prevention; if, however, their delivery and uptake are not more carefully considered, there is a very real risk that existing inequities in access and use will be further exacerbated. We argue this risk relates to the way that information and knowledge about the technology is both acquired and shared, or not, between health practitioners and their patients.A healthcare system can be viewed as a complex (...) social network comprising individuals with different worldviews, hierarchies, professional cultures and subcultures and personal beliefs, both for those giving and receiving care. When healthcare practitioners are not perceived as knowledge equals, they would experience informational prejudices, and the result is that knowledge dissemination across and between them would be impeded. The uptake and delivery of a new technology may be inequitable as a result. Patients would also experience informational prejudice when they are viewed as not being able to understand the information that is presented to them, and information may be withheld.Informational prejudices driven by social relations and structures have thus far been underexplored in considering equitable implementation and uptake of new molecular technologies. Every healthcare interaction represents an opportunity for experiencing informational prejudice, and with it the risk of being inappropriately informed for undertaking such screening or testing. Making knowledge acquisition and information dissemination, and experiences of informational prejudice, explicit through sociologically framed investigations would extend our understandings of equity, and offer ways to affect network relationships and structures that support equity in delivery and uptake. (shrink)

Society and social structures play an important role in the formation and evaluation of concepts and practices in clinical ethics. This is evident in the ways the authors in this issue explore a wide range of arguments and concepts in clinical ethics including moral distress and conscience based practice, phenomenological interview techniques and gender dysphoria, continuous deep sedation (CDS) at the end of life, the notion of patient expertise, ethically permissible medical billing practices, the notion of selfhood and patient (...) centered care in dementia patients, and the definition of minimal risk as used in research regulations. (shrink)

The problem of race has typically been treated as a problem of individual or institutional prejudice. However, more attention needs to be paid to structural racism, which shows how racialized opportunity structures sustain racial injustice even when actors are not prejudiced. Because Catholic social thought treats social structures as mere aggregates of individual behavior, however, it is unable to explain how opportunity structures constrain human agency, how social positions condition the behaviors of people who occupy them, and (...) how harms may occur without intent. A critical realist approach to understanding social structure corrects the reductive tendencies of dominant perspectives on race, such as colorblindness and antiracism, and helps explain how nonracists can perpetuate racial injustice. An analysis of the case of residential segregation shows how the pursuit of individual goods in racialized opportunity structures like the housing market simultaneously hinders the common good. (shrink)

Conformity is an often criticized feature of human belief formation. Although generally regarded as a negative influence on reliability, it has not been widely studied. This paper attempts to determine the epistemic effects of conformity by analyzing a mathematical model of this behavior. In addition to investigating the effect of conformity on the reliability of individuals and groups, this paper attempts to determine the optimal structure for conformity. That is, supposing that conformity is inevitable, what is the best way (...) for conformity effects to occur? The paper finds that in some contexts conformity effects are reliability inducing and, more surprisingly even when it is counterproductive, not all methods for reducing its effect are helpful. These conclusions contribute to a larger discussion in social epistemology regarding the effect of social behavior on individual reliability. (shrink)

In many contemporary philosophical writings, what is most surprising to me is not the things asserted, nor those denied, but those not even mentioned . Several of these slighted topics are summed up in the title of this essay. At the age of twenty, when I was not reading any technical philosophers, nor any author who held an essentially social view of experience, I attempted to persuade myself of the adequacy of a non-social view, expressed partly in a (...) self-interest theory of motivation, and partly in an idea of perception as experience of things not themselves constituted by any sort of experiences. So far from succeeding in this attempt, I began to find reasons for regarding both motivation and perception as manifestations of a single principle, that of the overlapping or inter-individual unity of minds, not simply of human minds, but of mind on various levels of, nature, including inorganic nature. This overlapping I thought I found in experience itself, and not merely through speculation or postulation. Subsequent reading in philosophy has not shown me a basic error in Hhis early philosophizing, but only a vagueness and blurring of dis; Jinctions which, when taken into account, strengthen rather than weaken the case. (shrink)

Visual perception relies on stored information and environmental associations to arrive at a determinate representation of the world. This opens up the disturbing possibility that our visual experiences could themselves be subject to a kind of racial bias, simply in virtue of accurately encoding previously encountered environmental regularities. This possibility raises the following question: what, if anything, is wrong with beliefs grounded upon these prejudicial experiences? They are consistent with a range of epistemic norms, including evidentialist and reliabilist standards for (...) justification. I argue that we will struggle to locate a flaw with these sorts of perceptual beliefs so long as we focus our analysis at the level of the individual and her response to information. We should instead broaden our analysis to include the social structure within which the individual is located. Doing so lets us identify a problem with the way in which unjust social structures in particular “gerrymander” the regularities an individual is exposed to, and by extension the priors their visual system draws on. I argue that in this way, social structures can cap perceptual skill. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the view that the representational structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for implicitly biased behaviour is propositional—as opposed to associationist. The proposal under criticism moves from the claim that implicit biased behaviour can occasionally be modulated by logical and evidential considerations to the view that the structure of the implicit attitudes responsible for such biased behaviour is propositional. I argue, in particular, against the truth of this conditional. Sensitivity to logical and evidential (...) considerations, I contend, proves to be an inadequate criterion for establishing the true representational structure of implicit attitudes. Considerations of a different kind, which emphasize the challenges posed by the structural social injustice that implicit attitudes reflect, offer, I conclude, better support for deciding this issue in favour of an associationist view. (shrink)

The question of whether social structures are efficacious can be tackled by examining how they are produced. There are roles and rules, and there are people. Only the latter have the necessary powers to generate social worlds as products. Changing the social world can be achieved only by changing the rules and customs active people follow. Selectionist models of change also draw our attention to rules. Finally, there are obstacles to social change in `reductions' - the (...) minute social practices that shape actual social orders. (shrink)

Social problems such as racism, sexism, and inequality are often cited as structural rather than individual in nature. What does it mean to invoke a social structural explanation, and how do such explanations relate to individualistic ones? This article explores recent philosophical debates concerning the nature and usages of social structural explanation. I distinguish between two central kinds of social structural explanation: those that are autonomous from psychology, and those that are not. This distinction will help (...) clarify the explanatory power that each type of SSE has, points of convergence with methodological traditions such as critical theory and rational choice theory, and the difficulties that each type of SSE faces. (shrink)

We generalize the concept of a cooperative non-transferable utility game by introducing a socially structured game. In a socially structured game every coalition of players can organize themselves according to one or more internal organizations to generate payoffs. Each admissible internal organization on a coalition yields a set of payoffs attainable by the members of this coalition. The strengths of the players within an internal organization depend on the structure of the internal organization and are represented by an exogenously (...) given power vector. More powerful players have the power to take away payoffs of the less powerful players as long as those latter players are not able to guarantee their payoffs by forming a different internal organization within some coalition in which they have more power.We introduce the socially stable core as a solution concept that contains those payoffs that are both stable in an economic sense, i.e., belong to the core of the underlying cooperative game, and stable in a social sense, i.e., payoffs are sustained by a collection of internal organizations of coalitions for which power is distributed over all players in a balanced way. The socially stable core is a subset and therefore a refinement of the core. We show by means of examples that in many cases the socially stable core is a very small subset of the core.We will state conditions for which the socially stable core is non-empty. In order to derive this result, we formulate a new intersection theorem that generalizes the KKMS intersection theorem. We also discuss the relationship between social stability and the wellknown concept of balancedness for NTU-games, a sufficient condition for non-emptiness of the core. In particular we give an example of a socially structured game that satisfies social stability and therefore has a non-empty core, but whose induced NTU-game does not satisfy balancedness in the general sense of Billera. (shrink)

David Garland's The Culture of Control provides a powerful analysis of trends in crime and criminal justice policy over the last 30 years. This note re?examines two parts of the Garland thesis. First, it argues that punitive criminal justice policy is rooted in an authoritarian neoconservative politics that shares little with free?market ideology. Second, research on the collateral consequences of incarceration suggests that the penal system, at least in America, has become a significant influence on, rather than just a product (...) of, the social structure of late modernity. (shrink)

The standard theories of cooperation in humans, which depend on repeated interaction and reputation effects among self-regarding agents, are inadequate. Strong reciprocity, a predisposition to participate in costly cooperation and the punishment, fosters cooperation where self-regarding behaviors fail. The effectiveness of socially coordinated punishment depends on individual motivations to participate, which are based on strong reciprocity motives. The relative infrequency of high-cost punishment is a result of the ubiquity of strong reciprocity, not its absence.

Christian ethics has from the beginning been concerned with moral agency and culture, and Christian social ethics has acknowledged the power of social structures for the last 150 years. But ethics has yet to employ extensively the resources of that discipline that specializes in understanding structure and culture: sociology. Out of a concern to defend human freedom, Catholic social teaching has employed an individualistic approach that misdescribes the characteristics of social evil as little more than (...) the sum of individual choices and proposes individual conversion as a remedy. This book presents a refined sociological understanding of social structures and culture: critical realist sociology. It briefly describes the roots of critical realism in the natural sciences, its understanding of social structure and culture, and how structure and culture have causal impact on human decisions - through freedom, not cancelling it. It makes clear how, in most cases, people "go along" with the restrictions and opportunities offered them but, when there is sufficient frustration with these, how decisions can transform both structure and culture. The analysis is then applied in more detail to provide needed illumination in three areas: the ecological crisis, economic life, and virtue ethics. The core claims of the volume, offering an explanatory account of moral-agency-amidst-structure-and-culture for use in social ethics, would be of great interest to all those working in the field, both Catholic and Protestant. (shrink)

The results of two observational studies of clinical directorates (CDs) are presented. The paper exposes fresh perspectives about the management of hospitals and CDs, and suggests that the most important axis on which hospital decision-making rests continues to be profession rather than the CD, even though CDs are designed at least in part to mitigate professional tribalism and bridge professional divides. In empiricising social structural and cultural theories it seems clear that changes to the prescribed organisational framework, which CDs (...) represent, have had negligible effects on behaviour. This being the case, the paper questions the benefits alleged to have accrued from establishing CDs and calls for more effective, micro-behavioural change strategies than merely altering the structure. (shrink)

Cross-culturally two widely observed forms of social structure are individualism and ascribed hierarchies. Associated with these two types of social structure are a wide range of recurrent concomitant features. It is proposed that these two forms of social structure are common, in part, because they are associated with modular forms of understanding that lend intuitive support to them. In particular, it is proposed that individualistic open societies are associated with a folk-physics mode of construal (...) whereas closed societies are associated with a folk-biological mode of construal. These distinctions are illustrated with the European Enlightenment as a hypothesized transition from closed to open societies. (shrink)

Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure takes sociology in a new direction. It examines key aspects of social structure by using a fresh understanding of emotions categories. Through that synthesis emerge new perspectives on rationality, class structure, social action, conformity, basic rights, and social change. As well as giving an innovative view of social processes, J. M. Barbalet's study also reveals unappreciated aspects of emotions by considering fear, resentment, vengefulness, shame, and (...) confidence in the context of social structure. While much has been written on the social consequences of excessive or pathological emotions, this book demonstrates the centrality of emotions to routine operations of social interaction. Dr Barbalet also re-evaluates the nature of social theory, for once the importance of emotions to social processes becomes clear, the intellectual constitution of sociology, and therefore its history, must be rethought. (shrink)

This paper identifies experiential processes through which social structures become taken for granted, termed processes of “structure marginalization”. Passive processes of structure marginalization relegate social structures to the margin of experience without the use of higher-order cognitive acts such as evaluation and reflection. Examples include adapting to social structures via routine and habitual practices, a lack of conscious awareness of the complexity, historical formation, and other details of social structures, and rendering social structures (...) irrelevant when they are unreflectively judged to be of no value for achieving ends. Active processes of structure marginalization reflectively and discursively relegate social structures to marginal consciousness. Examples include the use of naturalistic and necessitarian explanations for the social order that implicitly justify it as inalterable or “just the way things are”, normative justifications for the status quo, and conscious awareness of one’s powerlessness to control social-structural conditions. Active processes of structure marginalization originate in passive processes. The goal of the typology is to explain, at the level of experience, why social structures typically remain unproblematic and unnoticed in everyday life, even during periods of social crisis and change or when existing structures produce harmful effects. (shrink)

Using a historical and biographical perspective, this paper examines the structural elements and cultural signs of contemporary social events and problems in Turkey in order to understand their basic features. Hermeneutics is used in order to understand contemporary Turkey by way of its historical background and prominent biographies. Two basic epic texts were interpreted using Gadamarian hermeneutics with the help of key concepts such as gaza1 and gaza cult. Semiotics is used to examine key concepts as binary opposites. Dialectics (...) is used to understand these concepts as the unity of binary opposites coexisting at the same time and place. It is concluded that the contemporary cultural values and biographies explored are linked to their historical past and Islam seems to be more influential on hybrid identities than on ethnic status. (shrink)