photos: Niklas Luhman (top), Mario Bunge (bottom) One view that has been taken about the causal properties of social structures is that they are emergent: they are properties that appear only at a certain level of complexity, and do not pertain to the items of which the social structure is composed. This view has a …
Information technology and new human capabilities
For a billion or so of us on planet earth, we are immersed in a sea of ever-changing technology. How does technology shape us? And how do we shape technology? How do current technologies change our capacities as human beings? In what ways are we better able to fulfill our plans of life using the …
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Technology change
The past century has witnessed an amazing amount of technology change, and the pace seems to be quickening. How does a technology develop, and how do social conditions and institutions interact with this process? These aren't new questions, of course. There is a well developed field of the history of technology, with its own research …
Supervenience and social entities
What is the ontological status of social entities -- kinship systems, police departments, religious movements? And what is the status of causal powers of social entities? Do we need to "reduce" social entities to the compounds of individuals who make them up? And do we need to derive the causal properties of social entities from …
Democracy in the mirror
Why is democracy something people should strive for? And how are we doing with ours? Consider first the fundamentals. Why is there a role for democracy in any circumstances? Fundamentally democracy is a form of group decision-making. Political institutions are needed in circumstances in which decisions must be made that affect all members of a …
A peaceful world?
Many people around the world are celebrating Christmas this morning. A central wish around this holiday is "peace and good will for all." Why is enduring peace so difficult to achieve? What are the prospects for us in the twenty-first century? Peace and conflict are related, but they aren't precise opposites. Conflict between individuals and …
A pragmatist action theory
A theory of action is one component of a meta-framework for sociology. It is an organized set of ideas about what individuals are doing when they engage in interactions in the world, and what we think at the highest level of generality about why they behave as they do. Individuals within social interactions constitute the …
Protest in Wukan
A period of demonstration and protest in the Chinese village of Wukan has caught the attention of world media in the past several weeks (link, link). The village is in Guangdong, the dynamic coastal province. The demonstrations began in September against major land seizures by local government in alignment with developers, and became more intense in …
Global history?
A question that arises in historiography and the philosophy of history is that of the status of the notion of "global history." I've addressed the topic several times here in a limited way -- often by making the case for Eurasian history rather than French history or Japanese history. There the view is that expanding …
The sociology of ideas: Richard Rorty
Where do new ideas and directions of thought come from? Is it possible to set a context for important changes in intellectual culture, in the sciences or the humanities? Can we give any explanation for the development of individual thinkers' thought? These are the key questions that Neil Gross raises in his sociological biography of …
Understanding Society 