Is ontological individualism still a viable social ontology?
Over the years I've continued to advocate for the position of ontological individualism -- the idea that social entities, powers, and conditions are all constituted by the actions, thoughts, and mental frameworks of individual human beings, and nothing else. I'm no longer entirely confident that this is an adequate view of social ontology, because I also maintain that doing good social science requires researchers to work with a rich theory of the social actors who constitute the "substrate" of the social world. In particular, I maintain that we need to view social actors as "socially constituted" and "socially situated". This means, fundamentally, that individuals develop into actors through interaction and exposure with the communities and institutions with which they interact from childhood to adulthood -- thus coming to possess various features of motivation, cognition, and reasoning on the basis of which they act in the social world. Further, individuals exist within institutional, cultural, and normative settings that establish constraints, resources, opportunities, and limitations on their actions. Actors are "socially situated" in ways that profoundly affect their actions.
The diagram above represents a flat social ontology, with individuals and social entities in a range of locally instantiated relationships. As the arrows indicate, influence flows in all directions, from actors to structures and from structures to individual actors and between both structures and actors. (Here is a post from 2015 that considers the logic of a "flat social ontology"; link.)
So if individual actors depend on the local and historically particular social environments in which they exist -- environments that are themselves embodied by other actors -- then in what sense can we legitimately say that the individual level is more fundamental than the social level?
Two ideas seem to be true, and they are in tension with each other. On the one hand, most views about "priority of individuals" over social facts are unsupportable. Individuals are not temporally prior to social relations and influences; individuals are not causally prior to social influences (since each actor is formed and constrained by social relationships and practices); individuals cannot be characterized in terms that avoid "social" characteristics (semantic priority); and individuals are not explanatorily prior to social facts (since social facts must be invoked to describe and explain the individual's mentality and action).
But likewise, social structures, practices, and institutions are not strictly prior to individuals. Social influences on individuals at a time depend upon the actions, thoughts, and relationships of an indefinitely large group of individual actors. That is to say that social arrangements work through the actions and mentalities of the individuals who make them up. Further, social structures are not strictly speaking causally prior to individuals in any absolute sense -- it is not the case that social structures determine the actors, and in fact later iterations of social structures and institutions are changed as a result of the actions and non-actions of the actors themselves.
So it seems clear that individuals are shaped by social realities (practices, institutions, normative systems) and social realities are constituted, maintained, and changed by individuals. We cannot separate them into separate and independent causal factors.
This suggests that neither "individualism" nor "holism" will do as a basis for social ontology. Neither individual mentality and action nor the dictates and constraints of social facts persist by themselves. Instead, social actors depend upon existing social relationships and arrangements, and social facts depend upon individual actors which carry and transform them. We need to conceive of both individual actors and social arrangements as part of a single, iterative and diverse process of change and continuity. And, unfortunately, the label of ontological individualism does not capture the fullness of this set of processes.
Other theorists have tried to solve this problem. Anthony Giddens addresses this complexity through his effort to undermine the strict distinction between agent and structure. He challenges the framework itself -- the idea that "agents determine structures" and the idea that "structures determine agents". He introduces a new term to capture the complexity of the relationship between actors and structures, the idea of structuration. His 1979 collection of essays, Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social Analysis, provides a statement of some of his views. Here is how he frames his core concern in a key essay, “Agency, Structure”:
The principal issue with which I shall be concerned in this paper is that of connecting a notion of human action with structural explanation in social analysis. The making of such a connection, I shall argue, demands the following: a theory of the human agent, or of the subject; an account of the conditions and consequences of action; and an interpretation of ‘structure’ as somehow embroiled in both those conditions and consequences. (49)
Giddens faults much of sociology for having failed to conceptualize the social-structural context with sufficient nuance. He finds, for example, that Durkheim’s efforts to provide theoretical resources for describing the “external or objective” character of society were inadequate (51). The problem is that neither individualists nor structuralists have succeeded in expressing the inherent interdependence of the two poles. Give primacy to structures and the agents are “dopes” — robots controlled by structural conditions. Give primacy to individuals, and structures and institutions seem to disappear. Giddens' own view is that the two poles of structure and agency must be considered from within a common formulation:
I shall argue here that, in social theory, the notions of action and structure presuppose one another; but that recognition of this dependence, which is a dialectical relation, necessitates a reworking both of a series of concepts linked to each of these terms, and of the terms themselves. (53)
3 comments:
Agree. This is particularly evident in macroeconomics where the conventional approach is based on microfoundations, which assumes radical individualism in its theory of agents' rational choice regarding individual preferences.
Even though the models don't work, change is resisted because "the methodological debate is settled." However, so-called heterodox economists have not developed competing models capable of displacing the conventional ones that dominate academia, at least ones that measure up to conventional standards. Heterodox economists fire back that the conventional standards are the source of the problem. So progress is at an impass.
Evidence regarding theory and modeling in practice shows that the life and social sciences cannot be modeled like the natural sciences, or at least a way to do this satisfactorily has not been discovered. The reason for this appears to be based on the nature of the subject matter. Natural process are ergodic while life and social processes are not. And as Feynman reportedly remarked observed, physics would be a lot different if electrons had feelings.
It further appears that since the issue involves complex adaptive systems characterized by emergence, success in theory development necessitates mathematical modeling of complex systems. While work is progressing in this direction, we aren't there yet.
But even the edges of physics are fuzzy and many questions elude answers based on conventional modeling. While the standard model can explain the electromagnetic force, and the strong and weak forces theoretical, it cannot simultaneously explain gravity, which is required for a satisfactory unified field theory. Work continues.
So it is hardly surprising that other fields that are more subject to complexity cannot be model precisely — yet anyway. So we need to be more circumspect and indeed more humble before nature.
The dichotomy between individualism and holism likely points toward a dialectical relationship that involves a both/and relationship rather than an either/or one. But what the basis for that synthesis is, is not yet clear. One thing does seem clear though and that is pitting one against the other is not working. New insight is needed.
I'm glad you are exploring this issue because your occasional invocation of ontological individualism has always made me uncomfortable.
On the other hand the various alternative accounts you quote seem extremely problematic because they set up structures, "social entities", institutions, or whatever as mysteriously stable and distinct from the people in any social situation.
To resolve this problem we need a way of understanding the stability and mutability of social structure as a non-mysterious phenomenon that is immanent in individuals, but transcends any given individual.
I think a key to the needed understanding is given in your remark (paraphrasing Coleman) that "institutions ... depend... upon the coordinated expectations and actions of individual participants for their relative stability."
To move this toward an ontology, we can conceive of any given institution (in the most general sense) as a set of complementary expectations and patterns of action in the minds of its participants (whom I will call "carriers"). These sets are of course nested, overlapping, and vary along many gradients.
Also, of course, those expectations and patterns of action vary diachronically and so the institution changes -- sometimes without conscious intent by any participant, and sometimes very much due to conscious intervention.
For example any given language (a paradigmatic institution) varies across individuals geographically, by social class, and so forth. It typically contains multiple registers, is carried differently by different individuals, etc. None the less the language can be considered a single institution to the extent that all of its carriers are mutually intelligible -- which is to say, all its carriers have sufficiently complementary expectations and patterns of action.
This raises the remaining key point about the ontology of institutions: They must be self-sustaining. For example, a particular language is self-sustaining because individuals, to be understood and to understand others, must learn the complementary expectations and patterns of action that constitute the language. Enforcement of institutions for the most part isn't required, because typically individuals want to participate in institutions, so they want to maintain themselves as carriers of those institutions.
Individuals may leave an institution by adopting expectations and/or patterns of action that conflict with those that constitute the institution. Conversely, individuals may consciously or unconsciously recruit others to carry an institution (a very conscious example is evangelical faiths, a typically unconscious example is providing a word when someone else is groping for it). Individuals may create new institutions by persuading others to adopt a new, distinct, self-sustaining set of complementary expectations and patterns of action.
Stepping back from the details, I'd propose that in addition to individuals, a social ontology only needs institutions as defined above. Any given institution is carried by many individuals, and any given individual carries multiple institutions. Institutions are not mysterious intangible entities, they are immanent in their individual carriers in entirely ordinary ways.
Jed and Tom, Thanks very much for your many detailed and useful comments. Jed, the final paragraph of your comment (on institutions) is particularly apt. Tom, the connection you make to complex adaptive systems seems to me to be on the mark. I'll think carefully about both sets of comments. Dan
Understanding Society
Daniel Little
https://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2022/11/critical-realism-and-ontological.html
Critical realism and ontological individualism
Most critical realists would probably think that their philosophy of social science is flatly opposed to ontological individualism. However, I think that this opposition is unwarranted.
Consider a trivial illustration of the kind of recursive individual-social-individual process that I have in mind here. Consider the habit and norm of queuing in waiting for a bus, boarding a plane, or buying a ticket to a popular music concert. Queuing is not a unique solution to the problem of waiting for something. It is also possible for individuals within a group of people to use their elbows and voices to crowd to the front in order to be served earlier. But in some societies or cultural settings children have been given the example of "waiting your turn", lining up patiently, and conforming to the norms of polite fairness. These norms are internally realized through a process of socialization and maturation, with the result that the adult in the queuing society has both the habit and the norm of waiting for his or her turn. Further, non-conformists who break into the queue are discouraged by comments, jokes, and perhaps a quick jab with a folded umbrella. In this case adults were formed in their social norms by the previous generation of teachers and parents, and they in turn behave according to these norms and transmit them to the next generation. (Notice that this norm and behavior differs from the apparently similar situation of bidding on a work of art at an auction; in the auction case, the individuals do not wait for their turn, but rather attempt to prevail over the others through the level, speed, and aggressiveness of their bids.) Here we might say that the prevailing social norms of queueing-courtesy are a social factor that influences the behavior of individuals; but it is also evident that these norms themselves were reproduced by the prior behaviors and trainings offered by elders to the young. Further, the norm itself is malleable over time. If the younger generation develops a lower level of patience through incessant use of Twitter and cell phones, rule breakers may become more common until the norm of queueing has broken down altogether.
This example illustrates the premises of ontological individualism. The queueing norm is promulgated, sustained, and undermined by the various activities of the individuals who do various things throughout its life cycle: accept instruction, act compliantly, instruct the young, deviate from the norm. And the source of the causal power of the norm at a given time is straightforward as well: parents and teachers have influence over the behavior of the young, observant participants in the norm have some degree of motivation towards punishing noncompliant individuals, and ultimately other sources of motivation may lead to levels of noncompliance that bring about the collapse of the norm altogether.
Several points are worth underlining. First, ontological individualism is fully able to attribute causal powers to social assemblages, without being forced to provide reductionist accounts of how those powers derive ultimately from the actions and thoughts of individuals. OI is not a reductionist doctrine. Second, OI is not "atomistic", in the sense of assuming that individuals can be described as purely self-contained psychological systems. Rather, individuals are socially constituted through a process of social formation and maturation. This person is "polite", that person is "iconoclastic", and the third person is deferential to social "superiors". Each of these traits of psychology and motivation is a social product, reflecting the practices and norms that influenced the individual's formation. (This isn't to say that there is nothing "biological" underlying personality and social behavior.)
Several points can be drawn from this account. First, OI is not a reductionist doctrine -- any more than is "physicalism" when it comes to having a scientific theory of materials. We do not need to derive the properties of the metal alloy from a fundamental description of the atoms that constitute it. Second, OI is not an atomistic doctrine; it does not postulate that the constituents of social things are themselves pre-social and defined wholly in terms of individual characteristics. In a perfectly understandable sense the socially constituted individual is the product of the anterior social arrangements within which he or she developed from childhood to adulthood. And third, OI does not compel us to take an "as-if" stance on the question of the causal properties of social assemblages. The causal powers that we discover in certain kinds of bureaucratic organization are real and present in the world -- even though they are constituted and embodied by the actions, thoughts, and mental frameworks of the social actors who constitute them.
Now let's turn to critical realism and the position its practitioners take towards "individualism" and the relationship between actors and structures. Roy Bhaskar addresses these issues in The Possibility of Naturalism.
First, the ontological question about the relationship between "actors" and "society":
The model of the society/person connection I am proposing could be summarized as follows: people do not create society. For it always pre-exists them and is a necessary condition for their activity. Rather, society must be regarded as an ensemble of structures, practices and conventions which individuals reproduce or transform, but which would not exist unless they did so. Society does not exist independently of human activity (the error of reification). But it is not the product of it (the error of voluntarism). Now the processes whereby the stocks of skills, competences and habits appropriate to given social contexts, and necessary for the reproduction and/or transformation of society, are acquired and maintained could be generically referred to as socialization. It is important to stress that the reproduction and/ or transformation of society, though for the most part unconsciously achieved, is nevertheless still an achievement, a skilled accomplishment of active subjects, not a mechanical consequent of antecedent conditions. This model of the society/ person connection can be represented as below. (PON, 39)
This is a complicated statement. It affirms society exists as an ensemble of structures that individuals "reproduce or transform" and that "would not exist unless they did so". This is the key ontological statement: society depends upon the myriad individuals who inhabit it. The statement further claims that "society pre-exists the individual" -- that is, individuals are always born into some set of social arrangements, practices, norms, and structures, and these social facts help to form the individual's agency.
Here is the diagram to which Bhaskar refers (PON 40):
Francesco Di Iorio addresses many of these points in his contribution to Research Handbook of Analytical Sociology through his analysis of the relationship between critical realism and methodological individualism. Much of Di Iorio's analysis seems entirely correct. But, following Bhaskar, Di Iorio seems to postulate the absolute (temporal) priority of the social over the individual; and this seems to be incorrect.
According to critical realists, MI cannot account for the fact that the social world and its bounds exist independently of the individual interpretation of this world, that is, independently of the individual’s opinion about what she is free or not free to do. (Di Iorio 141)
It seems apparent, rather, that the relationship between the social world and the particular constitution of human actors at a given time is wholly recursive: social arrangements at ti causally influence individuals at ti; actions and transformations of individuals at ti+1 lead to change in social arrangements in ti+1; and so on. So neither social arrangements nor individual constitution are temporally prior; each is causally dependent upon the other at an earlier time period.
So it seems to me that there is nothing in the core doctrines of critical realism that precludes a social ontology along the lines of ontological individualism. OI is not reductionist; rather, it invites detailed investigation into the ways in which social arrangements both shape and are shaped by individual actors. And these relationships are sufficiently complex and iterative that it may be impossible to fully trace out the connections between surprising features of social institutions and the underlying states of the actors who constitute them. As a practical matter we may have confidence about beliefs about the properties of a social structure or institution, without having a clear idea of how these properties are created and reproduced by the individuals who constitute them. In this sense the social properties are weakly emergent from the individual-level processes -- a conclusion that is entirely compatible with a commitment to ontological individualism (link).
One of the most prominent critics of ontological individualism is Brian Epstein. His arguments are considered in earlier posts (link, link, link). Here is the conclusion I draw from his negative arguments about OI in the supervenience post:
Epstein's analysis is careful and convincing in its own terms. Given the modal specification of the meaning of supervenience (as offered by Jaegwon Kim and successors), Epstein makes a powerful case for believing that the social does not supervene upon the individual in a technical and specifiable sense. However, I'm not sure that very much follows from this finding. For researchers within the general school of thought of "actor-centered sociology", their research strategy is likely to remain one that seeks to sort out the mechanisms through which social outcomes of interest are created as a result of the actions and interactions of individuals. If Epstein's arguments are accepted, that implies that we should not couch that research strategy in terms of the idea of supervenience. But this does not invalidate the strategy, or the broad intuition about the relation between the social and the actions of locally situated actors upon which it rests. These are the intuitions that I try to express through the idea of "methodological localism"; link, link. And since I also want to argue for the possibility of "relative explanatory autonomy" for facts at the level of the social (for example, features of an organization; link), I am not too troubled by the failure of a view of the social and individual that denies strict determination of the former by the latter. (link)
It is evident that the concept of microfoundations has a close relationship to ontological individualism. Here are several efforts at reformulating the idea of microfoundations in a more flexible way (link, link). And here are several effort to provide an account of "microfoundations" for practices, norms, and social identities (link, link). This line of thought is intended to provide greater specificity of the recursive nature of "structure-actor-structure" that is expressed in the idea of methodological localism.
5 comments:
Thanks for sharing! It is interesting that critical realists intend to develop their strong idea without offering their fallible possibilities.
I remember that you early writing, Understanding Peasant China, agreed with CR but you recently develop a version of local realism by coordinating with analytical sociology and assemblage theory.
Hi, Dan:
Lots of critical stuff going 'round these days. My early exposure to this was critical thinking. This challenged us to examine and evaluate our thoughts: improving, where necessary, ideas and conclusions, before someone got hurt. Fast forward a decade or several, we got got critical race theory. Status quo folks---mostly conservative---do not like this rejection of conservative views, for obvious reasons. Now, I don't know how anyone can be critically realistic. If we qualify realism, critically, what does that mean? My own stance holds reality as contextual. We make it up as we go. Because we make the rules. And can. The kerfuffle over ethics and morality now is only more complex that in the centuries of the Classics. Finally(?), if any of this is true, whom, or what, should WE be critical of?
Dan, I would really find it helpful if it were possible to make a distinction between a quote from the beginning of the post and that which it precludes or it does not assert.
The respective quote is "... social entities, powers, and conditions are all constituted by the actions, thoughts, and mental frameworks of individual human beings, and nothing else" and my question is, what is the purpose of the last phrase ie. "... and nothing else".
What else could there have been?
Is this supposed to warrant away a social 'ether' or something like Hegel's Spirit? Is there some other alternative purpose I'm missing?
Thank you so much for these invaluable notes.
Respectfully,
Evan
There is a blog owner who asks: Are markets amoral? He then answers the question in fewer than fifty words, illustrating what we already knew. He does not want any response which is not supportive, ergo, none that challenge his view(s). His brief follows with indictment of markets as immoral. Again, something anyone has adduced, if they were paying attention. For these, and other instances of a lack of critical thinking, I leave that blog alone---seldom reading any of it. There is no point. One final comment on the market amorality issue: markets are not about any sort of morality. They are connected with economic gain. Usury, the levy of interest on money lended, has long been a means of amassing more, much more, than simple repayment of the loan could gain. Money lending has a long-standing reputation for this reason. So, my assessment is: Yawn. One must assess a totality of circumstances. Or stay home.
Hello, Evan, various people (including Searle as well as Bhaskar) maintain that there are strongly emergent social properties that have effects on individual action that cannot be understood in terms of microfoundations or any sort of complicated story of multiple actors. So "nothing else" simply states the view that there is no such thing as strong emergence (or, for that matter as you suggest, special social stuff or ether).