Accueil
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jtsb.12254
"
-Heikki Patomäki, "On the historicity of social ontology", Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Volume 50, Issue 4, December 2020, Pages 439-461.
https://academic.oup.com/cje/article-abstract/44/6/1365/5855083?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
"Lawson (2009, p. 258) acknowledges that there are similarities between his ontological position and the implications he draws from it, and key insights elaborated upon by classical pragmatist authors. He mainly invokes Charles S. Peirce’s pragmaticism, maintaining that both social ontology and pragmaticism are ‘fallibilist, non-foundationalist, non-reductionist (especially non-individualist), anti-sceptical, promoting a structured and processual ontology and much more’." (pp.1-2)
"I will focus on a comparison between Lawson’s and Mead’s processual ontologies, and more specifically on their conceptions of emergence.
The question may be asked, why Mead instead of Peirce, since Lawson makes explicit reference to the latter instead of the former ? The response is that Mead’s social theory of the self is in line with the characteristics that Lawson highlights in Peirce’s pragmaticism, in particular, the non-reductionism, anti-individualism, non-foundationalism and non-reductionism. But differently from Peirce, Mead’s pragmatist social theory culminates in an emergentist ontological position that seems to me to be more akin to Lawson’s conception of emergence. I, therefore, think that from a coherent and compelling account of the nature and significance of emergence in Lawson’s and Mead’s theories may arise some useful elements to foster a more comprehensive view of social ontology." (p.2)
"Why Mead instead of Dewey, whose social philosophy has recently been interpreted as a social ontology (Testa, 2017) or at least being considered as anticipating some of the insights that have been systematically set out in Lawson’s perspective on social ontology (Lawson, 2003B, p. 148 ; Pratten, 2019) ? There are two main reasons to prefer Mead to Dewey in this comparison with Lawson. The first reason is that differently from Dewey, Mead explicitly elaborated a conception of emergence that can be compared with that of Lawson. The second reason is to restore the right value of the contribution to the social theory of an author who has often been overshadowed by the more well-known, longer-lived and certainly more productive colleague and friend, Dewey. It is worth noting, in fact, that since 1891, Mead and Dewey established both a durable friendship and an intellectual collaboration, testified by the continuous exchange of ideas that contributed to define their psychological and philosophical theories [...] Dewey admitted his intellectual debts to Mead and highlighted the critical role Mead’s ideas played in the construction of his theories. He argued that Mead was a foundry of ideas, some of which, like that of the social nature of the self, Dewey later embraced in his own reflections." (p.2)
"Both Lawson and Mead are, in fact, engaged in the development of processual ontologies related to social reality. They elaborate a theory of the social realm as intrinsically dynamic and internally related, according to which change and becoming are inherent to the social domain, aspects of which are what they are in virtue of their relations to other aspects of the reality in which they stand. Even if Lawson and Mead seem apparently to have different notions of ‘the social’ and of ‘emergence’, Mead’s synthesis with respect to a possible integration of social-behavioural psychology with the theory of restricted relativity in reference to the emergent can be seen in many ways to be similar to Lawson’s elaboration of social ontology and his notion of emergence. On the one hand, Mead saw the principle of sociality as an explanatory principle of the dynamic interaction between alternating perspectives: it was an attempt to give an experiential reading of the temporality of thought. In doing so, he used a processual ontology that placed in the concrete present his functional and social interpretation of the development of human cognitive capacities and the emergence of novelty, including the self. In this reading, the self, namely an individual ‘able to become an object to himself’ [...], is essentially a social structure that emerges from social experience [...] On the other hand, Lawson and the Cambridge group defended a notion of emergence of considerable importance in differentiating themselves from other major contemporary projects in social ontology, such as John Searle’s. Lawson considers a community as ‘an emergent and also contingent component of a human-practice-dependent social reality in process’ (Lawson, 2012A, p. 371) and the human agents’ identities as also emergent from a previous social relational structure (Lawson, 1997, p. 62). It is not just that human beings as ‘open systems’ are dependent on communications and interactions, but they are also constituted by and realised in those interactive processes." (p.3)
"Mead’s bio-social account of the emergent can help to interpret the dynamic process of emergence of both the social realm and agents’ identities (as described by Lawson) from a dynamic non-reductive naturalistic perspective in which both the diachronicity and the priority of ‘habit’ over individual and collective intentionality play a central role for describing the ontogeny of social realities and selves. Such an account would contribute to strengthening Lawson’s social ontology as opposed to a conception of social ontology that ultimately tends towards a synchronic reductionist, atomistic and individualist vision, such as Searle’s, with which Lawson and Mead are confronted. Also, I will show how Lawson’s category of ‘social positioning’ can complement Mead’s ontogenetic explanation of changing social positions and his definition of ‘multiple selves’, helping to clarify this notion that is not entirely adequately developed by Mead himself and subject to a variety of interpretations in the secondary literature." (p.3)
-Guido Baggio, "Emergence, time and sociality. Comparing conceptions of process ontology", Cambridge Journal of Economics, Volume 44, Issue 6, November 2020, Pages 1365–1394.
"
-Heikki Patomäki, "On the historicity of social ontology", Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Volume 50, Issue 4, December 2020, Pages 439-461.
https://academic.oup.com/cje/article-abstract/44/6/1365/5855083?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
"Lawson (2009, p. 258) acknowledges that there are similarities between his ontological position and the implications he draws from it, and key insights elaborated upon by classical pragmatist authors. He mainly invokes Charles S. Peirce’s pragmaticism, maintaining that both social ontology and pragmaticism are ‘fallibilist, non-foundationalist, non-reductionist (especially non-individualist), anti-sceptical, promoting a structured and processual ontology and much more’." (pp.1-2)
"I will focus on a comparison between Lawson’s and Mead’s processual ontologies, and more specifically on their conceptions of emergence.
The question may be asked, why Mead instead of Peirce, since Lawson makes explicit reference to the latter instead of the former ? The response is that Mead’s social theory of the self is in line with the characteristics that Lawson highlights in Peirce’s pragmaticism, in particular, the non-reductionism, anti-individualism, non-foundationalism and non-reductionism. But differently from Peirce, Mead’s pragmatist social theory culminates in an emergentist ontological position that seems to me to be more akin to Lawson’s conception of emergence. I, therefore, think that from a coherent and compelling account of the nature and significance of emergence in Lawson’s and Mead’s theories may arise some useful elements to foster a more comprehensive view of social ontology." (p.2)
"Why Mead instead of Dewey, whose social philosophy has recently been interpreted as a social ontology (Testa, 2017) or at least being considered as anticipating some of the insights that have been systematically set out in Lawson’s perspective on social ontology (Lawson, 2003B, p. 148 ; Pratten, 2019) ? There are two main reasons to prefer Mead to Dewey in this comparison with Lawson. The first reason is that differently from Dewey, Mead explicitly elaborated a conception of emergence that can be compared with that of Lawson. The second reason is to restore the right value of the contribution to the social theory of an author who has often been overshadowed by the more well-known, longer-lived and certainly more productive colleague and friend, Dewey. It is worth noting, in fact, that since 1891, Mead and Dewey established both a durable friendship and an intellectual collaboration, testified by the continuous exchange of ideas that contributed to define their psychological and philosophical theories [...] Dewey admitted his intellectual debts to Mead and highlighted the critical role Mead’s ideas played in the construction of his theories. He argued that Mead was a foundry of ideas, some of which, like that of the social nature of the self, Dewey later embraced in his own reflections." (p.2)
"Both Lawson and Mead are, in fact, engaged in the development of processual ontologies related to social reality. They elaborate a theory of the social realm as intrinsically dynamic and internally related, according to which change and becoming are inherent to the social domain, aspects of which are what they are in virtue of their relations to other aspects of the reality in which they stand. Even if Lawson and Mead seem apparently to have different notions of ‘the social’ and of ‘emergence’, Mead’s synthesis with respect to a possible integration of social-behavioural psychology with the theory of restricted relativity in reference to the emergent can be seen in many ways to be similar to Lawson’s elaboration of social ontology and his notion of emergence. On the one hand, Mead saw the principle of sociality as an explanatory principle of the dynamic interaction between alternating perspectives: it was an attempt to give an experiential reading of the temporality of thought. In doing so, he used a processual ontology that placed in the concrete present his functional and social interpretation of the development of human cognitive capacities and the emergence of novelty, including the self. In this reading, the self, namely an individual ‘able to become an object to himself’ [...], is essentially a social structure that emerges from social experience [...] On the other hand, Lawson and the Cambridge group defended a notion of emergence of considerable importance in differentiating themselves from other major contemporary projects in social ontology, such as John Searle’s. Lawson considers a community as ‘an emergent and also contingent component of a human-practice-dependent social reality in process’ (Lawson, 2012A, p. 371) and the human agents’ identities as also emergent from a previous social relational structure (Lawson, 1997, p. 62). It is not just that human beings as ‘open systems’ are dependent on communications and interactions, but they are also constituted by and realised in those interactive processes." (p.3)
"Mead’s bio-social account of the emergent can help to interpret the dynamic process of emergence of both the social realm and agents’ identities (as described by Lawson) from a dynamic non-reductive naturalistic perspective in which both the diachronicity and the priority of ‘habit’ over individual and collective intentionality play a central role for describing the ontogeny of social realities and selves. Such an account would contribute to strengthening Lawson’s social ontology as opposed to a conception of social ontology that ultimately tends towards a synchronic reductionist, atomistic and individualist vision, such as Searle’s, with which Lawson and Mead are confronted. Also, I will show how Lawson’s category of ‘social positioning’ can complement Mead’s ontogenetic explanation of changing social positions and his definition of ‘multiple selves’, helping to clarify this notion that is not entirely adequately developed by Mead himself and subject to a variety of interpretations in the secondary literature." (p.3)
-Guido Baggio, "Emergence, time and sociality. Comparing conceptions of process ontology", Cambridge Journal of Economics, Volume 44, Issue 6, November 2020, Pages 1365–1394.
