The Situational Logic of Social Actions

THE SITUATIONAL LOGIC OF SOCIAL ACTIONS

No part of this digital document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means. The publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this digital document, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained herein. This digital document is sold with the clear understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, medical or any other professional services.

THE SITUATIONAL LOGIC OF SOCIAL ACTIONS

JOHN DIXON RHYS DOGAN AND

ALAN SANDERSON

Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York

Copyright © 2009 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic, tape, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the Publisher. For permission to use material from this book please contact us: Telephone 631-231-7269; Fax 631-231-8175 Web Site: http://www.novapublishers.com NOTICE TO THE READER The Publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this book, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained in this book. The Publisher shall not be liable for any special, consequential, or exemplary damages resulting, in whole or in part, from the readers’ use of, or reliance upon, this material. Any parts of this book based on government reports are so indicated and copyright is claimed for those parts to the extent applicable to compilations of such works. Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice or recommendations contained in this book. In addition, no responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or otherwise contained in this publication. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF PUBLISHERS. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Dixon, John E., 1946 May 9The situational logic of social actions / John Dixon, Rhys Dogan, and Alan Sanderson. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-60741-210-6 (E-Book) 1. Social interaction. 2. Interpersonal relations. I. Dogan, Rhys. II. Sanderson, Alan. III. Title. HM1111.D59 2009 303.3'8--dc22 2008041203

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Ô   New York

To the late Professor Dame Mary Douglas For Tina, Piers and Aliki, Emily, Joseph and Samual. and Helen, Richard and Jennie

CONTENTS Preface

viii

Chapter 1

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

Chapter 2

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

Chapter 3

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

133

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

163

Chapter 4

1 79

Bibliography

191

About the Authors

253

Index

255

PREFACE The purpose of this book is to provide insights that make social interactions more predictable by better understanding how people come to the conclusion that a particular social action is both possible and desirable in a particular relational situation. This it does by demarcating and exploring the implications of a set of situational logics that are grounded in how a person can coherently choose not only to comprehend the actuality of a relational situation, but also to understand why social actions are carried out the way they are in that situation. Underpinning this study are two foundational principles. The first, attributable to Camus ([1942] 2005: 5), is that “for a man [sic] who does not cheat what he believes to be true determines his action”, as “man is always prey to his truths” (p. 30). The second principle, attributable to Frankl ([1948, 1975] 2000: 162), is that “the humanness of human behavior cannot be revealed unless we recognize that the real ‘cause’ of a given individual’s behavior is not a cause but, rather, a reason.” On this distinction, Frankl ([1948/1975] 2000: 162) muses: “If you cut onions you weep. Your tears have a cause. But you have no reason to weep.” This is very eclectic book, which draws upon concepts, frameworks, paradigms and theories from philosophy, sociology, social psychology, social anthropology, political science and economics. It is most likely that anyone who reads it will be knowledgeable in some but not all of these academic disciplines. This necessitated its distinctive style. First, it has copious footnotes. These serve three functions: to define (giving the reader all the technical definitions needed to make the text accessible); to elaborate (giving the reader an appreciation of any nuances); and to contextualize (giving all readers an appreciation of how subject matter is situated within a particular academic literature). Second, it has an extensive bibliography. Finally, it has a comprehensive thematic index of both the text and footnotes. We recognize that all readers import something into their reading, ranging along a continuum from innate prejudice to informed criticism, so that they may take away something—hopefully of value—from that reading. Our hope is that it will provoke social and human scientists out of their conceptual and methodological comfort zones. All authors have their debtors. Our debt to the thousand or so scholars whose work we have cited is obvious. Their individual contributions are clear from the citations in the text and footnotes. We would also like to thank Dr Will Hay, for his diligent reading of, and comments on, an early draft of the manuscript; Aliki Dixon and Gill Bunting, for their assistance in helping us access and portray the psychology literature; Eric Shields and

Preface

ix

Stephen Mendelsohn, for their willingness to respond to questions that sought to demarcate their epistemological and ontological dispositions; and Dr Mark Hyde, for his stimulating critical thinking about the philosophy of the social sciences. The authors also have debts to each other. Without John’s very considerable energy, commitment and capacity to synthesize a very diverse array of intellectual traditions, paradigms and concepts into a meta-theory of social action, this book would not have been written. Without Rhys’s depth and clarity of thinking on the philosophy of the social sciences, the social-reality disposition framework in Chapter 1 would not have been so clearly formulated. This very significant intellectual contribution occurred before illness overtook him, forcing him to leave academic life. Without Alan’s very significant intellectual contributions to Chapter 4, it would lack the depth it has. His clarity of thinking and breadth of reading are, additionally, reflected throughout. We must also thank the editorial team at Nova Science. Their professionalism is evidenced by the end product. Our final, overwhelming and utterly unrepayable debts are the very personal ones, which are expressed in our dedication.

Chapter 1

READING A RELATIONAL SITUATION: THE CONTENDING LENSES INTRODUCTION Before embarking on a social action1 (Marks 1986), an action-taker must have drawn two conclusions about envisaged social action.2 The first is that it is possible course of action, which requires the action taker to hold firm beliefs about the actuality—true essence or

1

Social actions are physical actions that are directed towards carrying out “any intention, aim, plan, purpose, and so on which encompasses another self,” who is taken to be “a perceiving, thinking, Moral, intentional, and behaving person,” and that follow the garnering of “the intentional or rational meaning of the other’s field of expression,” which, in turn, generates “expectations about the other’s acts and actions; and manifests an intention to invoke in another self certain experiences and intentions” (Rummel 1976: 9.2). They constitute a subset of human actions (conscious, purposeful and meaningful physical actions), which, in turn, constitute a subset human behaviors (physical actions that are carried out consciously or unconsciously, and voluntarily or involuntarily). Social actions develop into social interactions (sequences of social actions and reactions between individuals). These social interactions can be focused (“when individuals directly attend to what others say and do” (Giddens 2001: 92)—Goffman’s (1959, 1963) encounters—or unfocused “whenever individuals exhibit mutual awareness of one another’s presence” (Giddens 2001: 91)). Social interactions build social relations (relationships between individuals), which, in turn, build up groups (collections of individuals who have some common attribute or purpose, or who are connected by means of relatively stable patterns of social interactions) and social networks—Simmel’s ([1922] 1955: 126–27) “web of group affiliations”—which make up the world of people or the social world (the totality of human relationships). A social action is, thus, the fundamental building block of a social phenomenon (Durkheim [1895] 1982: 50–59), see also Weber ([1924] 1947), which Markey (1925–26): 733) “considered as including all behavior which influences or is influenced by organisms sufficiently alive to respond to one another,” although Johnson (2000) prefers to include under this rubric “identity (individual and collective), culture, symbols, ideas, norms, principles, narratives, and collectively held beliefs,” which should be should be treated as potential subjects of a person’s actions (Znaniecki [1940] 1968). 2 Weber ([1921] 1968) initiated the search for causal laws to explain social actions by reference to value and perceptual variables (Social Action Theory). On the relationship between ideas and action, he ([1915] 1948: 280) reflected: “Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly govern men’s [sic] conduct. Yet very frequently, the ‘world images’ that have been created by ‘ideas’ have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamics of the interest.” The Weberian approach “is seen as standing in a tradition of historico-cultural, qualitative analysis of the realm of the spirit and ideas” (Donaldson 1985: 107). Philosophy and psychology also have long-standing contending perspectives on what causes or motivates the taking of social actions (see, for example, Audi 1993, Brand and Walton 1976, Campbell 1996, Collins and Kusch 1998, Frese and Sabini 1985, Melden 1961, Mele 1997).

2

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

fundamental qualities—of the relational situation or social arena3 in which the social action is to take place. How he or she chooses to comprehend that social arena is contingent upon his or her points of view on how it can best be known and on to what the envisaged social actions of others4 in it can best be attributed. The second conclusion is that the envisaged social action in that arena is likely to have desirable consequences for the action taker in terms of his or her hopes, aspirations and goals. Thus, whether or how he or she wishes to engage with others in that arena is contingent upon the personally desirable consequences that he or she anticipates flowing from that engagement. The purpose of this book is to provide the reader with heuristic5 insights6 that make social interactions more predictable by better understanding how and why people come to the conclusion that a particular social action is both possible and desirable in a particular social arena.7 These insights are acquired from what people do and say—their social interactions— 3

Present in this arena are, contentiously, material objects and phenomena (which exist as objective facts, apart from the human mind, inclusive of social objects (material objects that have been assigned a function or role by a group of individuals who share a common intention and who have agreed to act accordingly because the experiencing individual behaves as if they exist (Searle 1995)), and of evocative objects (material objects that are “companions to our emotional lives and provocations to thought” (Turkle 2007: 3, but definitely see Proust [1913] 2002)); socially constructed propositions about determinate and indeterminate phenomena (which exist, as collectively agreed interpretative propositions, because a group of individuals agree to behave as if they exist (Berger and Luckmann 1966)); and individually constructed propositions about phenomena (which exist, as idiosyncratic interpretative propositions generated by transcendental acts by a perceiving mind, because the perceiving person behaves as if they exist (Husserl [1928] 1931, [1928] 1964)). Its environment is the broader economic, sociocultural and linguistic milieu of the host society. These are all integral to a person’s lifeworld (a phenomenological concept that emphasizes the meaning a person derives from his or her environmental interactions in a spatio-temporal world). Husserl’s ([1931] 1960) lifeworld is the taken-for-granted everyday world as lived in, which gives rise to the beliefs and meaning that justify attitudes to self, others and the objective world. Schutz and Luckmann’s (1973, 1989) life-world is the familiar physical world that is functionally meaningful. Habermas’s ([1981] 1985) lifeworld is the lived world of informal, culturallygrounded understandings and mutual accommodations, which constitute the shared values, and which develop through face-to-face contact with others over time. 4 Other people can be classified by their degree of importance to self: from significant others—those who are of great importance to a person’s life or well-being and who have a strong influence on his or her self-evaluation, self-identification and social status and role (Anderson and Cole 1990, McGuire and McGuire 1982)—to insignificant others—who tend to be categorized (by grouping them according to individually established common category attributes), stereotyped (by grouping them according to socially constructed common category attributes), subtyped (by separating out those who do not fit a stereotype), prototyped (by representing them abstractly in accordance with exemplar category attributes), and labeled (by branding them) (Fisk and Taylor 1991). 5 Derived from the same classical Greek root as Eureka! meaning “to find”. 6 These heuristic insights give rise to heuristics—decision rules-of-thumb—that form part of a heuristic process that facilitates the making of judgments (Kahneman et al. 1982). 7 The possible relationship between situation and action is explored in a variety of disciplines. In psychology, situationalism holds that the cause of behaviour can be found in the nature of the particular situation in which the individual finds him or herself, which makes personality an epiphenomenon without any explanatory power (Harré 1980, Mischel 1968, 1973). This study does not seek to contribute to that causation debate. It argues that situational factors at the very least guide social action by interconnecting meaning, purpose and action, and that personality impacts on a person’s adaptive capacity in different situations. In sociology, social situationalism holds that the reasons for social actions are to be found in the social situation in which they occur, because social context gives them meaning. This makes the action-taker an observer of, rather than an actor in, that social situation (Campbell 1996: 153): under social situationalism “human actors typically possess neither mind nor body ... the individual human being, who as a living, thinking actor was once at the very centre of the sociological stage, has been completely dissolved away, stripped of both mind and body, now no more than a ghost in the social machine” (p. 151); and that “micro-events determine the macro-social sphere and that the latter has no independence from the former” (methodological situationalism) (Sibeon 2004: 124, see also Knorr-Cetina 1981). This study acknowledges social situationalism as one coherent perspective on social actions, and does not seek to explain anything in the macro-social sphere. In economics, where

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

3

in that arena. This it does by demarcating and exploring the implications of a set of situational logics8 that are grounded in how a person can coherently choose not only to comprehend the actuality of a relational situation, but also to understand why social actions are carried out the way they are in that situation. A person when confronting a social arena has to decide whether or how best to engage in social interactions with those present. This means that he or she must read that situation in order to discover its logic for him or her, which provides the directional guidance that he or she needs about whether or how best to interact with others in that situation. This book’s fundamental contentions are seven-fold. The first is that a social action can be ascribed to, and thus can be predicted by, reference to how the action-taker discerns the logic of the situation in which that action is to take place, premised on all the actors involved thinking and acting as if they are cognitively consistent. Cognitive consistency theorists (Festinger 1957, Heider 1946, [1958] 1982, Osgood and Tannenbaum 1955) argue that a person strives to have thoughts, beliefs, expectations, attitudes and perceptions that fit together without contradiction beyond a tolerable level of cognitive tension. The second contention is that there is a limited set of competing lens through which a social arena can be read—these are mutually exclusive configurations of assumptions about what can be known in that arena, and what has explanatory power in it—that a cognitively consistent person can choose from, so as not only to comprehend the quintessence of its actuality in the best way (whether that be either an objective reading as a observer (perceiver) of only its material or objectively factual qualities, or a subjective reading of its material and immaterial qualities, which produces first-person mental discernments that are product of transcendental acts of a perceiving human mind9); but also to understand to what the social actions of others in it can best be ascribed (whether that be either to the internal factors present within the action-taker, grounded in his or her self-determined and authentic hopes, aspirations and goals, or to the factors external to the action taker that have shaped those intentions, grounded in the social, cultural, economic and linguistic situational influences). A cognitively consistent person can choose the best way to read a social arena by choosing to use one of four lenses, each of which enables him or her to comprehend that arena in a particular way:

situation has been given time connotations, “situationalism [is] the view that people isolate decisions and overweight immediate aspects of the situation relative to longer term concerns” (Ross and Nisbett 1991: 1, emphasis in original). This study does not explicitly engage with the issue of short-term/long-term decisionmaking. 8 Popper’s ([1957] 2004: 136–40, [1974] 1992: 117) use of the term “situational logic,” drawing upon Menger ([1883] 1963), focused only one form of rationality, namely, instrumental (means-ends) rationality (see also Jarvie 1998). 9 “The operation of the mind ... is not so much an aspect of our lives, but in a sense, it is our life” (Searle 2004: 6). To Berkeley ([1710] 1962: 38) the mind is “wherein ideas exist … whereby they are perceived.” Substance dualists believe that the mind exists in a nonmaterial realm (Eccles 1994, Popper and Eccles 1977). Metaphysical realists assert that “the existence of the mind is a contingent fact” (Stroll 2006: 12). Physicalists believe that the mind supervenes on the brain (Firth 2007, Pylyshyn 2007). Eliminativists believe that the mind does not exist (Feyeraband 1963, Rorty 1971). Somewhat facetiously, McCloskey (1998: 27) remarks: It is a postulate of modernism, largely unspoken and therefore unargued, that minds do not exist. The puzzle is that the modernist who examines his [sic] mind when getting dressed in the morning and assumes the existence of other minds when driving to work, claims to deny both as soon as he flicks on the lights at his laboratory.

4

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson •

•

•

•

As a domain that is material in form with objectively factual qualities, which can be described, explained and predicted by reference to objective data, the truth-value of which can be established by generally agreed enquiry procedures involving deductive logic and/or and inductive inference; and that is one in which those engaged have no real capacity to control how they conduct their social interactions, because the group rules or codes of conduct that define their social roles, and the roles of others, which justifies how they conduct their social actions and social relationships, have been defined, sanctioned and propagated exclusively by important others. As a domain that is subjectively experienced by individuals, the meaning of which is socially constructed (on the basis of a shared perspectives) by a process of discourse amongst those engaged, the truth-value of which can be established by reference to a consensus emerging from discourse, perhaps grounded in testimony; and that is one in which they have the capacity to influence how they conduct their social interactions, because the group rules or codes of conduct that define their social roles, and the roles of others, which justifies how they conduct their social actions and social relationships, are defined, sanctioned and propagated by discourse processes in which they can engage. As a domain that is subjectively experienced by individuals, the meaning of which is individually constructed on the basis of their personal experience, the truth-value of which can be established by reference to the beneficiality of that experience; and that is one in which they have the potential capacity to determine how they conduct their social interactions, because they can choose to draw upon their power of will, although the struggle of will to achieve authenticity may proved to be too much, so generating an inclination toward self-referentiality in the conduct of their social actions and social relationships. As a domain that is material in form with objectively factual qualities, which can be described, explained and predicted by reference to objective data, the truth-value of which can be established by generally agreed enquiry procedures involving deductive logic and/or inductive inference; and that is one in which those engaged have the capacity to determine how they conduct their social actions and social relationships, because they consider that such conduct can shaped in accordance with their hopes, aspirations and goals.

The third contention is that the lens through which a person chooses to read a social arena is established by how he or she wishes to engage with others in that arena for the purpose of mutual transactions. Prior to any social engagement, that person must decide the limits that he or she is prepared to accept on his or her individual autonomy, in terms of his or her individual decision sovereignty and self-determination of his or her social actions. This will determine his or her choice of relationship-arranging principle, and thus the status and role relationships that he or she wants with others. A cognitively consistent person who reads a social arena using what he or she considers to be the best lens, can, correspondingly, draw one of four conclusion about his or her best level of group incorporation in that arena: •

A person who reads a social arena as an objectively knowable material domain in which the group rules that govern the conduct of his or her social actions and social

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

•

•

•

5

relationships have been defined, sanctioned and propagated exclusively by important others, accepts that his or her position in that arena is established by them, which means he or she would seek a very high level of group incorporation. Thus, he or she accepts the idea of constraints, in the interest of the group, being imposed by important others on both his or her individual decision sovereignty and the determination of his or her social actions. A person who reads a social arena as a subjectively experienced domain, the meaning of which he or she socially constructs with others, in which he or she can, through discourse, influence the group rules that govern the conduct of his or her social actions and social relationships, presumes that his or her position in that arena is established by discussion, which means he or she would seek a relatively high level of group incorporation. Thus, he or she accepts the idea of constraints being consensually imposed by like-minded others on his or her individual decision sovereignty, but rejects the idea of any constraints being imposed on the determination of his or her social actions. A person who reads a social arena as a subjectively experienced domain, the meaning of which he or she individually constructs, in which he or she has the potential capacity to shape the conduct of his or her social actions and social relationships, by drawing upon his or her power of will, although the struggle of will to achieve authenticity may proved to be too much, so generating an inclination toward selfreferentiality, which means he or she accepts that that his or her position in that arena is self-constrained, which, in turn, means he or she would seek a relatively low level of group incorporation. Thus, he or she rejects the idea of any constraints being imposed by others on his or her individual decision sovereignty, but willingly selfimposes the constraints on his or her social actions that his or her past experience suggests others expect of him or her. A person who reads a social arena as an objectively knowable material domain, in which he or she can shape the conduct of his or her social actions and social relationships in accordance with his or her hopes, aspirations and goals, presumes that his or her position in that arena is self-determined, which means he or she would seek a very low level of group incorporation. Thus, he or she rejects the idea of any constraints being imposed by others on either his or her individual decision sovereignty or the determination of his or her social actions.

The fourth contention is that a cognitively consistent person who has decided that it is best to read a social arena using a particular lens, and who has, correspondingly, decided what the best level of group incorporation to strive for in that arena, can, correspondingly, draw one of the four following conclusion about the best mode of social engagement to be adopted in that arena: •

hierarchical, which guides him or her to believe that he or she must be loyal and duty-bound to important others, making his or her social actions and social relationships in that arena the product of a sense of duty and obligation;

6

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson •

•

•

egalitarian, which guides him or her to believe that he or she must make and express common commitments to like-minded others, making his or her social actions and social relationships in that arena the product of a sense of commendable collegiality; egocentric, which guides him or her to believe that he or she must approach social engagements wearily and reluctantly, mindful of what other people expect, making his or her social actions and social relationships in that arena the product of past experience and happenstance; or individualistic, which guides him or her to believe that he or she must author his or her own life in his or her own self-interest, making his or her social actions and social relationships in that arena the product of self-interest calculations.

The fifth contention is that in deciding what is the best relationship-arranging to adopt in a social arena, a cognitively consistent person has decided that it is best to be guided in that arena by the corresponding situational logic. This provides that person with a distinctive way of perceiving, feeling, thinking and acting—characteristic ways of acquiring, validating and using information; characteristic emotional patterns; and characteristic social behaviors—that constitute the basis of a stable orientation for social actions, and that together, produce the consistent set of social impressions that he or she must sustain, whether sincerely held or not, in order to build meanings and understandings that are compatible with those held by those with whom he or she wishes to engage. These contending situational logics constitute worldviews that enable a cognitively consistent person to be typified as: •

•

•

Homo hierarchus: those who see a social arena as an objectively knowable material domain, in which those engaged are considered to have no real capacity to shape how they conducts their social actions and social relationships, which means that their position in that arena is established by important others in the interest of the group. Their preference is for a very high level of group incorporation, which means they accept the idea of important others imposing indispensable constraints both on their individual decision sovereignty and on the determination of their social actions. This perspective guides them to believe that they must be loyal and duty-bound to important others—I must do what they say I must do. Homo sociologicus: those who see a social arena as a subjective domain, the meaning of which is socially constructed, in which those engaged are considered to have the capacity to influence how they conduct their social interactions, which means that their position in that arena is established by discussion. Their preference is for a relatively high level of group incorporation, which means they accept the idea of their individual decision sovereignty being constrained—by mutual agreement—by like-minded others, but they reject the idea of any constraints being imposed on the determination of their social actions. This perspective guides them to believe that he or she must make and express common commitments to like-minded others—I shall do what we say I should do. Homo existentialis: those who see a social arena as a subjective domain, the meaning of which is individually constructed, in which those engaged are considered to have the potential capacity to determine how they conducts their social interactions, which means that that their position in that arena is self-constrained. Their preference is for

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

•

7

a relatively low level of group incorporation, which means they reject the idea of others imposing any constraints on their individual decision sovereignty, but they willingly self-imposes the constraints on their social actions that their past experience suggests others expect of them. This perspective guides him or her to believe that he or she must approach social engagements wearily and reluctantly—I must do whatever I think necessary to meet life’s challenges and tragedies allotted by luck and destiny. Homo economicus: those who see a social arena as an objectively knowable material domain, in which those engaged are considered to have the capacity to determine how they conducts their social interactions, which means that their position in that arena is self-determined. Their preference is for a very low level of group incorporation, which means they reject the idea of any constraints being imposed by others on either their individual decision sovereignty and on the determination of their social actions. This perspective guides them to believe that they must author their own life in their own self-interest—I must do what is my best interest.

The sixth contention is that for a cognitively consistent person to change the lens through which a social arena is read—thereby be guided by a different situational logic—is a fraught process, necessitating him or her to choose a different relationship-arranging principle, and thus adopt a different set of status and role relationships with others in that arena. The process begins when a surprise brings into question that person’s set of assumptions about a social arena, and the social interactions that take place in it. With this comes an awareness that his or her chosen situational logic is increasingly less able to explain, interpret and predict what he or she is experiencing in that arena—because of fundamentally distorting flaws in these lens, all of which decry either the nonmaterial or the material dimensions of a social arena, and devalue either the internal (intra-personal) or the external (extra-personal) reasons for social actions. Thus, the desire grows to reformulate the chosen set of assumptions, so as to minimize the divergence of beliefs and certainties. Such a person would be willing to adopt a new lens through which to read, and garner directional guidance from, that social arena only if that change is likely to produces personal benefits that offset the personal costs associated with realigning, fundamentally, the set of expectations he or she has about his or her status and roles in that arena. Of crucial importance here are his or her attitudes toward those who read that arena differently, and who, thus, have accepted the validity of a different worldview. The point of despair is, however, reached when it is realized that none of these situational logics can provide an acceptable cognitive map of that social arena, one that ensures beliefs and certainties coincide. The final contention is that when a cognitively consistent person, ultimately, finds that none of the four distorting lens enables him or her to explain, interpret and predict what he or she is experiencing in a social arena, then that person must engage, alone and with likeminded others, in introspective and investigative processes that challenge and, ultimately, change their assumptions about that arena. From the resultant deeper situational knowledge gained of the material and ideational (immaterial) properties present in that arena flows new strategic directional guidance, which justifies a new set of strategic social actions by those involved:

8

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson •

•

•

•

Where the material and ideational properties present in a social arena stand, individually and together, in a necessary (mutually reinforcing) and complementary (mutually supportive) relationships, and, thus, provide mutual benefits, the situational logic is one of protecting those necessary complementarities, which guides the conduct of social actions toward maintaining ideational purity and strengthening those complementary relationships, irrespective of the power distribution amongst those involved. Where the material and ideational properties in a social arena stand, individually and together, in a necessary but incompatible (logically inconsistent) relationship, and, thus, generate tensions, the situational logic is one of compromising to limit those incompatibilities, which guides the conduct of social actions toward correcting any contradictions and the reducing any incompatibilities, although who compromises most depends on the bargaining power and negotiating strengths of those involved. Where the material and ideational properties in a social arena stand, individually and together, in a contingent (actualized only if particular social actions occur) but incompatible relationship, and, thus, are potentially capable of generating mutually exclusivity and competitive tensions, the situational logic is one of eliminating the contingent incompatibilities, which guides the conduct of social actions toward removing such incompatibilities, although what survives and what is eliminated depends on the power of those involved to advance and to protect their own interests. Where the material and ideational properties in a social arena stand, individually and together, in a contingent but complementary relationship, and, thus, are potentially capable of generating non-threatening opportunities, the situational logic is one of exploiting those contingent complementarities by pure opportunism, which guides the conduct of social actions toward the actualization of such complementarities, although who gains or losses most depends on the relative power of the those exploiting the opportunities.

RELATIONAL SITUATIONS IN THE WORLD OF PERSONS This chapter delineates a finite set of contending coherent beliefs about how best to describe, explain and understand a social arena, and to what the social actions of others in that arena can best be ascribed. It begins by demarcating a social arena within the broader social context. Marcel’s (1952: 164) “world of persons”10 is the aggregation of each constituent person’s social domain, which contains the myriad of mutual- or common-interest relationships that he 10

Each person in this world is taken in Lockean terms to be “a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it” (Locke [1690] 2004: II, 27, S. 9). His or her essential properties would include, contentiously, a bodily form with sensorial capacities and the capacity for self-movement; a first-person consciousness, a self-awareness and a diachronic sense of thematic identity; the ability to reason, so permitting the external environment to be interrogated in a way that generates experiences that can be meaningfully interpreted to provide the basis of cognition and behavior (Rogers 1961); the ability to have relationships with other human beings; and the capacity to be a moral agent, capable of purposive action.

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

9

or she has with others, whether permanent or temporary (Bernard (1926: 438). Social relationships can, according to Mills and Clark (1982, see also Clark and Mills 1993) be bifurcate into communal relationships (the product of other-centered and close social interactions between intimates—family members and romantic partners—and friends) and exchange relationships (the product of self-centered and superficial social interactions between acquaintances and strangers),11 although, as Kelley and Thibaut (1978) postulate, interdependent individuals may, over an extended time frame, undergo a prosocial transformation that changes an exchange relationship into a communal one. Bernard (1926: 438–39) distinguishes between exchange relationships where face-to-face contact occurs12 (giving rise to direct-contact assemblages, the members of which have a common purpose13), and exchange relationships where face-to-face contacts does not occur (giving rise to indirectcontact assemblages, the members of which have something in common, such as an attribute, but no appreciation of a common purpose). He further distinguishes between rational face-toface contact settings (giving rise to rational-type direct-contact assemblages, characterized as purposive economic, political and social organizations14 in which there are mutually recognized social relationships); and non-rational face-to-face contact settings (giving rise to non-rational-type direct-contact assemblages, characterized as gatherings where those engaged have a common purpose but no mutually recognized social relationships15). This study limits its scope to the exploration of social actions and focused interactions that are conducted on a face-to-face basis in a social arena delineated within a direct-contact assemblage that give rise to exchange relationships. Each such social arena is a network of people with whom a person can choose how best to engage or, indeed, not to engage, and constitutes a social engagement setting. This arena is located in time16 and is changing through time; past events influence not only a person’s perception of the emergent present but also the array of possible futures without necessarily 11

Morgan (2009) draws a similar distinction between friends and acquaintances, who he locates in space (such as neighbors, work-mates and professional advisors), and in time (such as fleeting, passing and coinciding encounters). 12 The process of face-to-face interaction Goffman (1959: 15) described as “the reciprocal influence of individuals upon another’s actions when in one another’s immediate physical presence.” 13 A direct-contact assemblage can be one of Archer’s (2000: 266) corporate agents, which has the capacity not only to articulate its own vested interests, but also to shape the environment for all its members, which enables it to active pursue those interests. 14 “There are many kinds of face-to-face associations, but the most numerous of these are the business associations and the multi-type organizations known as clubs. Of business, occupational, professional and other interest associations, such as corporations, firms of professional men, labor union locals, armies, etc., we need say but little. They are very common. They are also highly purposive in character. The behavior of their members is presumably controlled by highly rational considerations, and they make a considerable use of those aspects of science which apply most particularly to their objects in view” (Bernard 1926: 441). 15 Such assemblages lack of any permanency, definiteness of integration, or formality of organization, and can include gatherings of people for commercial, social, ceremonial and ritualistic transactions, and in audiences or crowds (rallies, demonstrations, or mobs): Crowds may be either voluntary or involuntary. That is, the members of the group may come together on purpose, or they may associate by accident, with all grades of aggregation and association between. It is usually some strong emotion or curiosity impulse which integrates a crowd. Emotion is especially dominant in the mob (Bernard 1926: 458). Membership is typically very fluid. However, those engaged understand its membership, leadership, and common purpose. The extent of participant activity differs according to purpose (Bernard 1926: 451–64). 16 Time permits a person to sequence and describe external events (Kant ([1781–87] 1956, Leibnitz [1716–1717] 1956). As time passes, it is lived through—consciously experienced—but it is not as a steady and homogeneous stream (Piaget [1946] 1969) and it not experienced the same way by different people. It is also a scarce resource that can be the object of social transactions.

10

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

determining them. The spatio-physical, temporal, sociocultural, economic and psychological factors present in this social engagement setting can impact consciously17 or unconsciously18 on a person’s cognitive disposition19 toward a social action by interconnecting meaning, 17

A conscious mental state is, contentiously, “a qualitative subjective, first-personal, airy-fairy, and touchy-feeling phenomenon” (Searle 2004: 88), which has been equated to “the dimensions of truth” (Leader 2007: 16). Consciousness is a single, well-defined, unified field of first-person awareness that has the qualities of, at least, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, subjectivity, unity, and intentionality (in the sense of being able to attach meaning to an object, which requires a mental state that is able to refer to, or to be about, something other than its), which enables a person to perceive self as separate from its environment (Blackmore 2003, Flanagan 1992, Lehrer 1991, McGinn 1982, Searle 1983, 2004). A distinction can be made between phenomenal mental states (associated with conscious perceptual, bodily-sensational, imaginative, or streams of thought experiences); introspective mental states (associated with self’s conscious direct examination of its own mental states and processes); and intentional mental states (associated with self’s conscious hopes, aspirations and goals directed at objects) (Farthing 1992, Flanagan 1992). Explanations of consciousness are various (Searle 2004). Mentalism holds that consciousness is a mental state (Fodor 1981), either because it exists as a product of a mind that, itself, exists in a nonmaterial realm as a nonphysical substance (entity) that is separate from the body and that is both autonomous and causally efficacious—Descartes’ ([1641] 1961, [1644] 1983) mind–body dichotomy—and cannot be fully explained in materialist terms (substance dualism) (Eccles 1994, Popper and Eccles 1977), or because the brain has nonmaterial (mental) as well physical properties (property dualism), which means that consciousness exists as a causally interactive mental property of the brain (Robinson 2003). Physicalism holds that the range of phenomena experienced as consciousness are the product of neurobiological states and processes taking place in the brain (Chalmers 1996, Kim 1998, Poland 1994)—as James (1890a: 231), a chronic sufferer of constipation (Walker and Zacharias 2007), remarked of consciousness: “whilst we think, our brain changes, and that, like the aurora borealis, its whole internal equilibrium shifts with every pulse of change.” Biological naturalists hold that consciousness, as a real phenomenon, is “just a qualitative, subjective first person process going on in the nervous system” at “a higher level than that of neurons and synapses,” which means that it cannot be reduced “to its neurobiological basis, because such a third-person reduction would leave out the first-person ontology of consciousness” (Searle 2004: 79, 87, 91). Mysterians “think that consciousness is a mystery that cannot be solved by our existing scientific methods; and some mysterians think we will never be able to understand how consciousness could be explained by brain processes” (Searle 2004: 102). See also McFarland 2007, McGinn 1989, Nagel 1986. 18 An unconscious (subconscious or metaconscious) mental state is a phenomenon that occurs without conscious awareness and as such that it defies any sort of introspection (Mollon 2000, Searle 2004) and can be contrasted to the temporary lack of any mental state—unconsciousness (an “interruption of awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings, lack of the ability to notice or respond to stimuli in the environment” (MedicineNet.com 2003)) To Freud ([1912] 1959, but see Grünbaum 1984), the unconscious is personal; the repository of suppressed and forgotten experiences and memories, which is the driver of human behavior over which a person has little control. To Jung ([1934] 1981, see also Hall and Nordby 1973), it is also the repository of inherited religious, spiritual, and mythological symbols and understandings, expressed through universal thought forms or mental images (archetypes) (collective unconsciousness): a part of the psyche which can be negatively distinguished from a personal unconscious by the fact that it does not, like the latter, owe its existence to personal experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition. While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity. Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes (Jung 1934). To Frankl ([1948/1975] 2000: 31) the unconscious can be “differentiated into unconscious instinctuality and unconscious spirituality.” 19 This is a mental phenomenon that constitutes a propositional attitude (a relational mental state that connects a person to a proposition in a way that involves holding particular attitudes (expectancies and value) towards and/or intentions (hopes, aspirations and goals) about that proposition) (Cresswell 1985, Lycan 1990, Rey 1997). Mentalism holds that mental states—the interior life of first-person experiences—can affect (by unknown processes) neurobiological states and processes taking place in the brain. It axiomatically accepts that mental states give rise to actions. How this occurs (mental causation) is an unresolved issue (Jackson 1996), although Eccles (1994: 5) hypothesizes that “mental events act by a quantal probability field to alter the probability of emission of vesicles from presynaptic vesicular grids.” Physicalism, which axiomatically accepts that the mind supervenes on the brain, making all mental states contingent upon physical phenomena (Firth 2007, Pylyshyn 2007), and considers, variously, that mental phenomena can be reconceptualized as behavioral phenomena, as all statements about mental phenomena are equivalent in meaning to statements

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

11

purpose and social action 20 (Audi 1993, McCelland and Fararo 2006). As Crumbaugh (1973: 29) observes: Man [sic] not only strives to perceive his environment as a meaningful totality, but he strives to find an interpretation which will reveal him as an individual with a purpose to fulfill … pointing up man’s distinctive ability to find meaning not merely in what is, but in what can be.

The outcome of any social interaction is the development and sustainment of a set of mutually recognized relationships—a state of connectedness—between those involved.21 This about behavioral dispositions (logical behaviorism) (Hempel 1980, Ryle 1949); can be identical to, but not reducible to, a physical event, because mental phenomena are not regulated by strict physical laws (anomalous monism or predicate dualism) (Davidson 1980); can be defined as the type of brain states that produce the type of functions fulfilled by mental phenomena (functionalism) (Armstrong 1968, Block 1980, Putman 1980); can be the product of mental states that are identical with brain states (identity theory) (Place 1956); can be ascribed to neurobiological states and processes (reductionism); can be considered to be illusory and thus do not exist (eliminativism) (Feyeraband 1963, Rorty 1971) (material monism). The unresolved issue for physicalism is, of course, the accommodation of first-person mental experiences that are unobservable and only individually knowable by experience (Thorpe 1962: 21), which suggest an irreducible, subjective state of awareness that is intrinsically mental (Searle 2004: 91), a proposition that “is likely to be repugnant to some people because of its dualistic implications” (Thorpe 1962: 24). Action theory in philosophy, however, challenges this mind-brain dichotomy by arguing that “the act of will and the action of the body are not two different states objectively known, connected by the bond of causality; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect, but they are one and the same thing” (Schopenhauer [1818/ 1844] 1969: I, 100) (dialectical monism); and that “‘willing’ is not the name of an action; and so not the name of any voluntary action either” (Wittgenstein 1953: 613). Thus, “the tie between desire, decision, intention etc. and the so-called physical act is ... ‘logical’ and not ‘contingent’.” (Stroll 2006: 157, see also Brand and Walton 1976, Donagan 1987, Melden 1961). 20 The interaction of meaning, purpose and action places consciousness at the point at which perceptual inputs (from external cues, prompts or stimuli) interface with behavioral outputs (the action responses) —the Input-Output Picture of consciousness—which, according to Hurley (1998: 2), “confuses the subpersonal-level distinction between causal input and causal output with the personal-level distinction between perception and action.” Mental phenomena (including intentional mental states) can, thus, shape and govern meaningful action (Mele 2003, Spiker 1989, see also Anderson et al. 1986, Kim 1993, but see Cunning 1999, Ryle 1949), on the premise that a person’s mental states can be directed onto tangible or intangible objects (Brand and Walton 1976, Donagan 1987, Searle 1983). Gestalt theory (Koffka 1935, Wertheimer 1945) emphasizes that it is the construction of meaning that a person gives the external cue, prompt or stimulus that governs his or her meaningful action response to it. Social learning theory (Bandura 1977, 1986, Miller and Dollard 1941, Rotter 1954, 1982) holds, following Alder (see Crosbie-Brunett and Lewis 1993), that an action-taker’s construction of meaning of, and his or her expectations, anticipations and predictions about, phenomena present in a social situation—social knowledge—has a significant influences on his or her actions in that situation, the mechanism involved being social learning reinforcement, punishment, extinction, and imitation (modeling). Action theory (Mele 1997, Holmstrom-Hintikka and Tuomela 1997) holds that desire and belief jointly cause an action. Reasoned action theory (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975) holds that the proximal cause of action can be found in intention, which is, in turn, the consequence of attitudes (the expectancy, and the value attached to the outcomes, of an action) and social norms (the complying with the wishes of significant others who believe that that action should be performed). Planned behavior theory (Ajzen 1991) adds a third causal factor, perceived behavioral control (the expected ease of performing that behavior), to which Ouellette and Wood (1998) have suggested adding previous behavior or habit as a causal factor. Mentalism thus overarches three broad theories of human behavior: cognitivism (behavior is the product of cognitive processes, such as perceptions, memory and decision making), that give rise to cognitions, such as beliefs, desires and motivations) (Heider [1958] 1982, Piaget 1955, 1968, Tolman 1922, 1948, Wundt [1874, 1902] 1904, [1896] 1897)); humanism (behaviour is connected to a person’s inner feelings and self-image (Maslow [1962] 1968, Rogers 1961)); and psychodynamism (behavior is determined by the unconscious mind and memories of past experiences (Erikson 1963, 1964, Freud [1929] 1971, 1957, Jung 1969). In contradistinction stands physicalism, which overarches two theories of behavior: radical behaviorism (behavior is a reflection of the frequency of the reinforcement effects of environmental stimuli without reference to emotions, memories and motives) (Pavlov 1927, Skinner 1938, 1953, 1973, Watson [1924] 1930, see also Graham 2007, Zuriff. 1985); and neurobiological determinism (behaviour is the product of neurobiological states and processes) (James 1890a, Rutter 2006, Wilson 1976, 1978).

12

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

connectedness portrays their interactions, particularly the meaning-content of those interactions for their self-assessed subjective worthiness, their dependence on each other, and their mutual interdependence.22

THE RELATIONAL INDIVIDUAL To any social arena, a person brings two identities: his or her personal identity23—the characteristics that makes him or her the person he or she is (Harré 1988)—and his or her social identity24—the set of mask25 he or she adopts for different group to which he or she 21

Pinker (2002: 65) observes that “social reality exists only within a group of people, but it depends on a cognitive ability present in each person to understand a public agreement to confer power and status, and to honor it as long as others do.” 22 Buber ([1923] 1958) argued that a person can adopt one of two attitudes toward another person: I-It or I-Thou. In an I-It relationship, a person perceives another person as an object having specific, isolated qualities and the relationship is one of separateness and detachment. In an I-Thou relationship, a person is aware of another person as having a unity of being with whom he or she can engage in a dialogue, with the resultant relationship being one of mutuality and reciprocity. The state of connectedness thus has degrees that are directly correlated with relative importance of the other person. Buber ([1923] 1958: 45) emphasized the importance of a person having someone who believe in him or her, which is a characteristic he describes as “confirming the other ... Confirming means accepting the whole potentiality of the other. I can recognize in him the person he has been created to become.” For Lévinas ([1961] 1969), the face-to-face encounter with another is a privileged phenomenon in which the other person's proximity and distance are both strongly felt. “The Other precisely reveals himself in his alerity not in a shock negating the I, but as the primordial phenomenon of gentleness” (Levinas [1961] 1969: 150). There is in this encounter an instant recognition of the transcendence and heteronomy of the other, which installs in self a responsibility for the other: I am responsible for the Other without waiting for reciprocity, were I to die for it. Reciprocity is his affair. It is precisely insofar as the relation between the Other and me is not reciprocal that I am subjection to the Other; and I am ‘subject’ essentially in this sense. It is I who support all ... The I always has one responsibility more than all the others (Levinas 1985: 95–98, emphasis in original) Rogers (1961: 32) observed “the safety of being liked and prized as a person seems a highly important element in a helping relationship.” He goes on: “if I accept the other person as something fixed, already diagnosed and classified ... then I am doing my part to confirm this limited hypothesis. If I accept him as a process of becoming, then I am doing what I can to confirm or make real his potential” (p. 48). 23 At a fundamental level, this embraces the characteristics that make a person “the same person across time and change” (Searle 2004: 205). These characteristics would include physiological continuity (the spatio-temporal continuity of a recognizable body); conscious state continuity (the continuous sequences of first-person awareness, because of the memory of consciously experienced past unique, personal experiences); and a sense-of-self continuity (the continuous first-person sense of what it is to be me) (Searle 2004: 196–206, see also Martin and Barresi 2003, Noonan 2003, Perry 1975, Rorty 1976). 24 Social identity theory holds that the membership of social groups is an important element of a person’s concept of self. It is concerned with why individuals identify with, adopt shared attitudes with, and behave as members of, social groups. It involves three key concepts: categorization (the assignment of self and others to meaningful categories, so a person can know the categories to which he or she belongs and who else is in them); identification (the identification of the groups to which a person perceives he or she belong, the membership of which becomes an essential aspect of that person); and comparison (the evaluation of self by compare with similar others) (Tajfel 1981, 1982, Tajfel. and Turner 1979, 1986; see also Abrams and Hogg 1990, Capozza and Brown 2000). 25 Jung argued that each person has a set of masks that constitutes “a compromise ... between the demands of the environment and the necessities of the individual’s inner constituents” (Jacobi 1962: 19). These masks have many hues, each designed to enable that person to play the role necessary to meet the demands of other people in different situations. Haselbach (1994: 45–46) elaborates on this idea: “Where life situations of individuals are segmented, where individuals fulfill different roles, where individuals have experienced, learned, and actually use different registers of behavior, we find plural identities. ... If ... we link ‘identity’ with development (of the personality), change (over time), interaction (with others), responsiveness and adaptation (to a variety of dissimilar situations encountered and to evaluations of these situations and of our responses by others, i.e. to the never-ending processes of calibration), we end up with plural identities of the individual and

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

13

belongings (Strauss 1959)—both of which have evolved over time in response to the challenges confronted in the natural, practical and discursive orders of the world in which they live.26 Accounting for personhood—what it means to be a person (Harre 1998, Rorty 1976)—according to Archer (2003: 119–21), involves three explanations. The first is “explaining the emergence of self-consciousness [the consciousness of self as separate from the environment, which reflects the] primacy of practice ... [and] which is prior and primitive to our sociality” (Archer 2000: 121). The second is explaining the emergence of self-identity (his or her sense of uniqueness and direction: who he or she is; is not; wants to become; does not want to become; and is expected to become (Erikson 1963. 1964, Evans 1967)), which reflects a person’s “a rich inner life ... [of which] our emotions are among the main constituents” (Archer 2000: 194)]. The third is explaining the emergence of social identity, which is “inextricably related to the emergent properties of the social structures and cultures in which we find ourselves” (Archer 2000: 258). As Foucault (1991) observed, a person tends to adopt in the construction of his or her own self-identity not only the way he or she identifies himself or herself, but also the way that he or she is identified by others27 (see also Bourdieu 1976, 1990). Each social arena provides the context within which a person internalizes elements of his or her emergent self-identity, through the development of relationships with others. This, thereby, develops that person’s emergent relational identity, as defined by reference to his or her significant social relationships (Ho 1995, Ho, Chan, Peng and Ng 2001). In the context of a group, this can lead to him or her identifying with ideas, beliefs and habits of its members (social identification) (Deaux 1996). All of these identities signify a person’s personality28 (his or her more or less stable cognitive, emotional and behavioral patterns, grounded in “biological inheritance, learned skills and the experiences through which he or she passes” (Rice 1969: 565) that distinguishes that person from another), which lie behind social actions, with a notion of identity, of those plural identities, that have a process character, something which one cannot possess but which is acted out, which one lives.” Archer (2000: 119, 311) postulates that a person’s causal powers are the product of past engagement with the world as a natural order (body-environment relations), where the concern is physical well being; as a practical order (subject-object relations), where the concern is performance achievement); and as a discursive order (subject-subject relations), where the concern is self-worth. 27 Nietzsche reflected: “‘I must allow myself to be known, then, and meanwhile know myself’” ([1886] 1998: 82, emphasis in original). Cooley ([1902] 1983) suggested that a person’s solipsistical self concept depends on perceived responses of others: what he or she believes others think of him or her, so he or she is reflected in their behavior: “Each to each a looking-glass/Reflects the other that doth pass” (p. 184). His ‘looking-glass’ theory of self, postulated that a person imagines how he or she appears to others, interprets what their reactions are to those perceptions, and then self-evaluates them, giving rise to positive or negative feelings, which impact on the development of his or her self concept. Mead (1934) described the me stage of the self process as when a person sees him or herself through the eyes of significant others, through communications and symbols, which enables him or her to embed collective values in to his or her conception of self. Rogers (1961) argued that this reliance on others is the product of a person’s strong need for their approval and a desire to have their unconditional positive regard (their unconditional and unreserved prizing of him or her). 28 Five personality perspectives can be identified: the psychoanalytic and neoanalytic perspective (personality is the product of the way in a person resolve unconscious and conscious tensions and conflicts (Adler [1929] 1969, Erikson 1963, 1964, Freud [1923] 1927, Horney 1937, Jung 1969, Kohut 1971)); the traits perspective (personality is the aggregation of a person’s distinguishing qualities or characteristics (Allport 1961, Cattell 1979, 1980, Eysenck 1970)); the pure cognitive perspective (personality is product of the way a person thinks (Kelly 1955)); the humanistic-existential perspective (personality is the product of a person’s creative, spontaneous and active subjective experiences (Maslow [1962] 1968, May 1958, 1967, 1883, Rogers 1961)); and the social-behavioristic perspective (personality is the product of what a person learns through experiences by (Bandura 1971, 1986, Rotter 1954, Rotter and Hochreich 1975, Skinner 1938, 1953, 1973)). For a philosophical perspective see Goldie 2004. 26

14

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

and which are observed by others across both social relationships and relational situations over time (Kassin 2003, Matthews et al. 2003, Ho [1998] 1999).29 As Cattell (1965: 117–18) succinctly remarks, personality is “that which tells what [a person] will do when placed in a given situation.” When a person confronts a social arena he or she must decide whether to, whether to continue to, or how best to engage with other people in that situation, in the light of his or her perspective on who’s who amongst the people in that situation and on what they, individually and collectively, can do for, or to, him or her. This engagement decision is contingent upon two factors. The first relates to how that person sees him or herself as a person (his or her self-concept30), in terms of his or her bodily self (bodily experiences and senses—Hume’s ([1739–40] 1978) bundle-of-perceptions perspective); self-identity (characteristics that give a sense of uniqueness combined with a sense of continuity and sameness); desired self (desired personal characteristics); self-extension (sense of identification with external objects, both physical and human); self-objects (mental representation of significant others to be copied, admired, idealized and mirrored); self-sentiment (prime, integrating motivations); self-esteem (feelings of self-worth); self-objectification (ability to perceive his or her capacities and limitations); presenting self (way of presenting self to others); self-image (learned role expectations and future role aspirations), which may not be consistent with his or her social image (what others perceive about him or her31) or social self (what he or she reveals to others); self-as-rational-coper (awareness of his or her problem-solving and goal-achieving capacities); self-as-knower (capacity to unify self); and true self (self-concept that is in harmony with his or her experiential feelings) (Allport 1955, Baumeister 1993, Bermúdez et al. 1995, Bem 1967, Cattell 1965, Kohut 1971, McGuire and McGuire 1982, Rogers 1961, Rosenberg 1979, Shoemaker 1963). The second engagement-decision factor relates to how that person sees him or herself in a social arena, in terms of his or her desired social role (role-making); the characteristic social impressions32 he or she wishes to portray to others (role-playing); the response to his or her chosen role that he or she anticipates from others (role response), the role expectations of others (role-set), and the roles into which others cast him or her (altercasting) (Goffman 1959, 1961, Rosenberg 1986, Weinstien and Deutschberger 1963). The product is a set of discernments about self and others that may well be rarely questioned and quite taken for granted, which enable a person to construct an 29

30

31

32

Psychological anthropologists, such as Benedict ([1934] 1989, [1946] 1989), Mead (1942) and Kardiner et al. (1945), sought to establish the nature of the interaction between the individual and his or her culture, and concluded, contentiously, that different cultures produce different socialization processes that, in turn, produce different personality types (Hsu 1961). In the mentalist tradition, Rosenberg (1979) defined the self-concept as “the totality of the individual’s thoughts and feelings having reference to himself [sic] as an object.” Allport (1955: 40) refers to it as “proprium,” which embraces “all aspects of personality that make for inward unity.” In the behaviorist tradition, Skinner (1971: 199) considered that “a self is a repertoire of behaviors appropriate to a given set of contingencies” (see also Rovane 1998). Neuroscience, however, “suggests that the self is best understood as a sort of illusion that the brain creates (Butler-Bowden 2007: 5, see also Sacks 1985, Ramachandran and Blakeslee 1998). For a discussion of the genesis and intellectual history of the concept of self see Taylor 1989 and Seigel 2004. “O wad some Power the giftie gie us /To see oursels as ithers see us!” Robert Burns, To a Louse (1786). The Johari window model of interpersonal awareness permits the identification of a person’s blind spots (what is known to others about a person that is unknown to that person) and façades (what is known to a person that is not known to others) (Luft and Ingham 1955). Goffman (1959) talks of impression management as the ways in which a person can seek to project particular self-image to others. He sought to explain how, by reference to theatrical metaphors, people in their social interactions strive to present an image of themselves in particular ways (dramaturgical analysis).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

15

assumptive world—a “cognitive map of the world out there” (Young 1979: 33)—that best makes sense of that social arena—thereby providing him or her with the best way of comprehending “the way that humans choose between multiple possible explanations of sensory and other input as they seek to conform the phenomenological with the real in order to act in such a way as to determine or respond to the world around them” (Snowden 2005).33

MAKING SENSE OF A SOCIAL ARENA The challenge that confronts every person grappling with a social-engagement decision is to make sense of the social arena in which that engagement is to take place. Inherent in any arena are “demand characteristics” or “demand qualities” (Wertheimer 1961), which are the demands that a situation place on those involved by posing questions the answers to which requires them to decided upon their possible and desirable courses of action. This requires each of them to make sense of that situation, thereby “becoming aware of a possibility [for action in it] against the background of reality” (p. 141). This entails cognitive ingenuity, given the elusive nature of sensory perception and of memory, which give rise more to an interpretation (or recreation) of the past than to a dependable record of it (Byatt and Wood 2007); given the intensely-felt human need to understand others, despite their authentic thoughts and feelings being inaccessible; and given that a person using his or her ordinary modes of thought34 is not always able to hold cognitions35 that fit together without contradiction.36 How a person chooses to describe, explain, and understand a social arena, and to predict the social actions of others in it, depends on the set of descriptive and normative propositions that he or she judges to be most appropriate for that arena. These shape how he or she understands not only its material environment—the material objects and phenomena present in it—but also its nonmaterial environment—the ideas that are product of transcendental acts 33

Adler ([1922] 1924, [1929] 1969, [1933] 1973) considered that a creative self has the capacity to create his or her own destiny, which involves interpreting his or her experiences and taking action on the basis of his or her guiding self-ideals (perceived goals that guide behavior) and style-of-life (unique ways of pursuing those goals). Piaget’s ([1936] 1963, [1963] 2001, 1968) constructivist theory of knowing argues that a person actively seeks to makes sense of the world, rather than merely being conditioned by it. He emphasized cognitive structure, which changes through the processes of adaptation, that is, assimilation (interpreting events in terms of existing cognitive structure) and accommodation (changing the cognitive structure to make sense of the environment). Cognitive development, thus, involves adapting to the environment. 34 On the presumption that a person is reasonably rational and thoughtful, and strives to make sense of what he or she thinks, feels and does: “the evidence indicates that human choices are orderly, although not always rational in the tradition sense of the word” (Kahneman and Tversky 1984: 344). 35 These are the outcome of the mental processes, such as attention, memory, reasoning and perception (visual, aural and tactile), and constitute the forms of knowing, perceiving, judging, reasoning and planning, through which information is synthesized so as to give rise to thoughts, beliefs, expectations, attitudes and perceptions. 36 Cognitive consistency theorists (Festinger 1957, Heider 1946, [1958] 1982, Osgood and Tannenbaum 1955) argue that a person seeks to ensure that cognitive inconsistency is kept within tolerable limits of cognitive tension, which compels that person to alter his or her cognitive process in a way that makes his or her cognitions more consistent. The alternative is to be in a state of dual consciousness, whereby a person simultaneously holds two apparently inconsistent sets of cognitions (Fenon 1961). For Johnson ([1995] 2000: 95, emphasis in original), this state “exists when people hold one set of BELIEFS based on mainstream CULTURE and a contradictory set of beliefs based on their experiences.” For Smith (2000: 371), however, the contrast is “between the world as we experience it and the world as we come to know it through the conceptual frameworks that science invents.”

16

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

of the perceiving human minds of those engaged in it. These propositions also shape how he or she explains the attitudes expressed and the social actions taken by others in that arena. Insights into the cognitive processes involved can be gained from Lewin’s (1948, 1952, 1972) concept of life space (a dynamic Gestalt psychological environment37 existing in a person’s mind). This deals with the world “as the individual sees it” (de Board 1978: 51), and consists of “his [sic] conscious and unconscious goals, dreams, hopes and fears, his past experiences and future expectations.38 The physical and social conditions are also important, limiting as they do the variety of possible life spaces and creating the boundary conditions of the psychological field” (de Board 1978: 53). A life space has four dimensions (de Board 1978): cognitive (existential or perceptual), affective (evaluation), relational (cathartic) and directive (intentional). These intermingle to provide the interface between a person’s perception of a social arena, and his or her specific assumptions about it. This enables that person to produce an appropriate personal construct39 of that arena: a hierarchically arranged sets of truths40 (genuine knowledge), truth propositions (knowledge claims), models of the individual (explanations of what it is to be a human being), human nature suppositions (the basic attitudes of people toward others),41 modes of reasoning (ways of acquiring genuine knowledge), and ethical principles (the basis for deciding what is moral conduct). These constituents become part of his or her immutable core values (enduring beliefs),42 adaptive attitudes (learned dispositions),43 or changeable opinions (unsubstantiated beliefs)44 (Parsons

37

This is a person’s holistic mental environment, constituted as set of conscious experiences that make up a system of dynamic relationships (Koffka 1935, Wertheimer 1945). 38 Jung ([1934] 1981) argued the importance of uniting the conscious and unconscious states of a person’s mind, so that his or her unique potential can be fulfilled (indivuation). 39 Insights can be gleaned form Kelly’s (1955) personal construct theory. This examines the ways in which a person constructs meaning about anticipated events. Personal construct systems comprise core constructs (important firmly held beliefs that are central to self-identity), peripheral constructs (relatively unimportant and changeable constructs), loose constructs (poorly defined and unstable beliefs that lead to erratic and perhaps invalid predictions), nonverbal constructs (unarticulated assumptions), preemptive constructs (constructions the elements of which do not apply to other constructions), propositional constructs (permeable constructions), superordinate constructs (freely chosen constructs that control other constructs) and subordinate constructs (constructs controlled by other constructs). These construct categories are the idiosyncratic means by which a person orders his or her social roles, in order to understand and explain the world he or she experiences, and to guide practical action in concrete situations and relationships. Kelly postulated that “a person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways by which he [sic] anticipates events” (1955, 1: 46); that “a person anticipates events by construing their replications” (p. 51); and that “each person characteristically evolves, for his [sic] convenience in anticipating events, a construction system embracing ordinal relationships between constructs” (p. 59). To the extent that a person can understand another person’s internal constructions of reality, he or she can predict what that person will do, and so be able to adjust his or her own social behavior accordingly (Kelly 1955). 40 “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true” (Aristotle [350 BC/1924/1953] 1994–2000: 4, 7). 41 Pinker (2002: 139ff) identifies four anxieties that influence people’s perception of human nature: that oppression and discrimination may be justified; that the improvement of the human condition may not be possible; that people may not be held responsible for their actions; and that life may not have a higher meaning and purpose. 42 Rokeach (1973: 5, see also 1968) defines a value as “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or endstate of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.” 43 Allport (1935, cited in Warren and Jahoda 1966: 24) considered an attitude to be “a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related.” To Eagly and Chaiken (1998: 269) it is “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.” It is a learned disposition: a cognitive response (a thought and belief), an affective response (a feeling), and a behavioral tendencies (an action predisposition). The French novelist and airman Antoine de

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

17

1995: 375). That person then uses this assumptive world to make sense of his or her interactions with others in that arena. A person’s assumptive world is assembled as a result of his or her interaction with other individuals. The product of that interaction, which builds up over time, is a particular meaning system that constitutes “whatever one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to [a group’s] members” (D’Andrade 1984: 89). Such meanings can be representational (knowledge and beliefs about the world expressed as true or false propositions), constructive (understandings about what people agree counts as what), directive (needs or obligations to do something) or evocative (distinct and well shared emotional states or feelings that are aroused45) (D’Andrade 1984: 96–101). They guide attitude formation and motivate social actions, thereby enabling a person to engage in a social arena as he or she imagines it to be (Geertz 1983). These cognitions may well be held without awareness of their hypothetical nature and with the presumption that that social arena really is the way internalized images depict it.46 The existence of shared basic assumptions is premised on groups of individuals agreeing on the best way of describing, explaining, understanding and judging the social arena in which they conduct their social relations. This allows them to construct a shared meaning about that situation, which provides them with the meaning-context for their social interactions. This is the product of discourse—in Foucaultian terms, “the practices that systematically form the objects of which [people] speak”—which can be drawn upon to explain or warrant social actions (Nightingale and Cromby 1999: 226). Discourse produces, according to Giddens (2001: 687), “a framework of thinking in a particular area of social life.” Each discourse takes place within a distinctive cognitive structure and can be “tied to specific institutions and actors” (Hajer 1993: 43–46). It produces meta-narratives—universal stories—that organize and justify a plurality of different stories; that contain true elements, although they may be incoherent chronologically or contradictory in the messages they transmit; and that can be condensed into icons that constitute the essential elements of a story that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world. These universal stories become part of the unquestioned habits of mind, that stock of taken-for-granted, commonsense or tacit knowledge (or prejudices to Durkheimians) upon which social actions are based. They “operate through inclusion and exclusion as homogenizing forces, marshalling heterogeneity

Saint-Exupéry shrewdly observed that “The meaning of things lies not in things themselves but in our attitudes to them.” These can be defined as beliefs based on grounds short of proof, which are held by an individual to be probable. Of these, Bacon ([1597–1625] 1972: 7) wryly observes: Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s [sic] minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves. 45 Emotions (Kegan 2007) are distinctive mental states, involving the interplay of culture and neurobiology, which are stimulated by emotion-eliciting events, and which have subjective or introspective elements (Turner 2007). They may be caused by physiological disturbances stimulated by such events (James 1884, see also Rolls 2006) interacting with their personal significance to the person concerned (Arnold 1969, Lazarous 1966), and their cognitive interpretation is informed by that person’s past experience (Schacter and Singer 1962). They can manifest as emotional expressions on the face and body and in the voice. These, arguably, have cathartic effects associated with the interaction of the emotion’s physiological manifestation, its motor expression and the subjective feeling it elicits (Calhoun and Solomen 1984, Kenney 1963, Sartre [1938] 1948). 46 Bacon ([1623] 1997) considered that people are inevitably imprisoned in their own theoretical frameworks, which cause them to be misled because of the way they view the world, akin to the plight of Plato’s ([c360 BC] 1955) imprisoned cave-dwellers shackled by their illusions of the outside world. 44

18

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

into ordered realms, silencing and excluding other discourses, other voices in the name of universal principles and general goals” (Storey 1993: 159). They are value oriented and intended to persuade. They contain both objective and normative meaning. Indeed, they become the social control frameworks “by which we justify our actions to others and call them to account to us for theirs” (Rayner 1991: 84). Shared constructions of meaning must be “intersubjectively shared, so that everyone assumes that others see the same things they see” (D’Andrade 1984: 115),47 thereby avoiding social parallax—a misconception of sameness caused by the existence of multiple understanding of reality (Finley and Norman 1997, Zizek 2006). Thus, as Shweder and Bourne (1984: 142) point out: “what one thinks about (e.g. other individuals) and how one thinks (e.g. “contexts and cases”) may be mediated by the worldview premises to which one is committed (e.g. holism) and by the metaphors by which one lives” (see also Draaisma 2000, Lakoff and Johnston 1980, Sacks 1979). Social relationships are, then, constitutive of who a person is, how he or she thinks, what he or she does, and who he or she is becoming. Making choices about the nature of the relationships a person wishes to have with others involves determining how he or she needs to make sense of a social arena. How this need is to be satisfied, in turn, determines how that person’s chooses to interpret information received about that arena and about how others behave in it. There are competing lens that a person can choose from to read a social arena in order to discover its logic for him or her. These provide the directional guidance he or she needs about whether or how best to socially interact with others in that arena. Embedded in that lens is an abstract basic structure: a set of interrelated assumptions held about how to comprehend the actuality of that arena, and about how to understand why social actions are carried out the way they are in that situation. Any such set of assumptions must be the product of a person’s preferred dispositions on epistemology (what is knowable and how it can be known); ontology (what exists and what has causal capacity48); methodology (the nature of 47

48

Intersubjectivity emphasizes shared cognition and consensus, leading to shared, common sense meanings jointly constructed by transacting people, which enables them to share both meaning and divergences of meaning (Crossley1996): “Using the same words is not enough to ensure mutual understanding: we must also use the same words for the same category of inner experiences; ultimately, we must have the same experiences in common” (Nietzsche [1886] 1998: 163, emphasis in original). In contention in the social and behavioral sciences is whether in the social world causal capacity should be understood in terms of determinism (Earman 1986), which, essentially, means that a social phenomenon has causes grounded in dependency relationships with one or more other phenomena. The metaphysics of causation [is] about the nature of the causal relata [sic], including (1.1) whether they are in spacetime (immanence), (1.2) how fine-grained they are (individuation), and (1.3) how many there are (adicity) ... [and] about the metaphysics of the causal relation, including (2.1) what is the difference between causally related and causally unrelated sequences (connection), (2.2) what is the difference between sequences related as cause to effect, and those related as effect to cause or as joint effects of a common cause (direction), and (2.3) what is the difference between sequences involving the cause, and those involving mere conditions (selection)” (Schaffer. [2003] 2007, emphasis in original). Causal or scientific determinism (see Butterfield 1998) posits a strictly mechanistic causal relationship in that every event has an unbroken chain of prior material occurrences: “all events and states of affairs are determined by antecedent causes and laws of nature” (Kabe 2002a: 284), that is, “the world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law” (Hoefer 2003, emphasis in original). Searle (2004: 151) explains: “the sufficient causes of an event are those that, in a particular context, are sufficient to determine that that event will occur. When we say the causes were sufficient we mean, given that those causes occurred, in that historical context, the event itself had to occur” (Leibniz’s ([1704/1764] 1996) Principle of Sufficient Reason—Ausreichenden Grund). Contrastingly, probablistic determinism holds that “causes raise the

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

19

investigation49 and explanation50); method of investigation (the techniques to be used to investigate specific phenomenon); theory (hypothetical causal explanations of specific phenomenon); and ethics (the moral principles that justify what constitutes acceptable standards of social actions51). This set of assumptions permits the assembling of the explanatory filter that guides that person’s attitudes and social actions, thereby enabling him or her to engage appropriately in the “selecting, organizing, interpreting, and making sense of complex social reality to provide guideposts for knowing, analyzing, judging, persuading, and acting” (D’Andrade 1984: 109).52 Such framing53 gives rise to “a stable mental state derived from a sense of continuity and order in events” (Bilton 1996: 665) (ontological security) by providing a “perspective from which an amorphous, ill-defined, problematic situation can be made sense of and acted on” (Rein and Schön 1993: 146; see also Goffman 1974: 10–11, Johnston and Klandermans 1995: 8). It has both cognitive-rational (objective meaning) and communicative-rational (normative meaning) components. In essence, then, a person seeking to interpret and evaluate the web of beliefs about a social arena must contemplate two fundamental sets of truth-seeking issues. The first relates to the concept of knowledge, which focuses on the limits on how human affairs in that arena can best be known—described, explained and understood (Chisholm 1989, Lucey 1996, Sosa 1994).54 Thomas and Znaniecki (1918–20) formulated the view that for a person there are two possible sides to the comprehension of any situation: an objective side, that which is independent of the perceiving person and which can be analyzed and explained rationally (objectivism)—en-so; and a subjective side, that which is the product of an immanent act in the perceiving human mind, conditioned by a person’s mental states that give rise to his or her feelings or interpretations (subjectivism)—pour-soi—such that he or she “has to take social probabilities of their effects, all else being equal” (Hitchcock [1997] 2002). Alternatively, indeterminism holds that “some events [are] entirely [materially] uncaused, or nondeterministically caused [by events], or [are] caused by agents and not deterministically caused by events” (Clarke [2000] 2004). 49 In contention is the appropriate unit of analysis for the social and behavioral sciences—social wholes (methodological holism), situations (methodological situationalism), interpersonal relationships (methodological relationalism), the action-taking individual (methodological individualism), or the actiontaking individual’s behaviors (methodological behaviourism) or mental properties or states (methodological solipsism). 50 In contention in the social and behavioral sciences is whether explanation can or should be understood in terms of causation (this accounts for a social phenomenon by reference to a dependency relationship with one or more other material phenomena, such that when a material cause occurs the material effect inevitably, or probably, follows), belonging to Appiah’s (2008) world of being (sinnewelt); reasons and motivations (this accounts for a social phenomenon by reference to the human motives that explain why it occurred), belonging to Appiah’s (2008) world of reasons (verstandenwelt) with its overlay of moral justification; or purpose (this accounts for a phenomenon by reference to its functions) (functionalism) (Wright 1971). 51 The focus of ethics is on the meaning of normative terms such as ‘good’, ‘right’ and ‘virtuous’ (Blackburn 2003, Stingl, 1997, Williams 2006), which involves critical evaluating the validity of moral claims regarding the ethicality of social actions (Gini 2006). These moral claims, of course, govern the lives of individuals—–they fashion self-identity—and they represent actuality (Hegel [1821] 1991: 190). Therefore, a person’s ethics can be regarded as a self-policing mechanism, which can stimulate self-control, motivate adherence to matters of principle, accentuate feelings, and give rise to particular lines of thought. However, such a pattern of idealistic impulses may require each moral agent to confront, or to obfuscate over, inconsistencies in their social actions that might be the outcome of a compromise arising from the imperatives of objective or subjective necessity. 52 “The greatest adaptive advantage of man [sic] is his capacity to modify his behavior as a function of the way in which he perceives and understands a situation” (Tajfel 1969: 81). 53 Goffman (1974: 15) defines a frame as “definitions of a situation [that] are built up in accordance with the principal of organization which governs events—or at least social ones—and our subjective involvement in them.”

20

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

meaning into account and interpret his [sic] experience not exclusively in terms of his own needs and wishes but also in terms of the traditions, customs, beliefs, and aspirations of his social milieu” (p. 230). The dilemma then confronted is well defined by Nagel (1979: 196, see also 1986): The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected.55

The second set of issues relates to what in a social arena can the social actions of another person best be ascribed: to factors that are present within that action taker (his or selfdetermined and authentic hopes, aspirations and goals) (Ross and Nisbett 1991); or to factors external to the action taker, namely, the group-elaborated (worked out) norms, roles, and practices that shape his or her hopes, aspirations and goals, which are grounded the social, cultural,56 politico-economic and linguistic57 milieu, and which constitute the group rules or code of conduct that give rise to “ordered social interrelationships, or the recurring patterns of social behavior”) (Parker 2000: 125, see also Nozick 1981).58 54

“Truth in human relations is of this more intangible and dubious order: hard to seize, harder to communicate” (Stevenson 1879). G. K. Chesterton ([1908] 2007: 97) captured the essence of this problem: The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. 56 This comprises, according to Scruton (2007: 3–4) “those customs and artifacts which are shared, and the sharing of which brings social cohesion ... [more broadly] all intellectual, emotional and behavioral features that are transmitted through learning and social interaction, rather than through genetic endowment” It is depicted by Schein (1991) as shared meaning at three levels: shared basic assumptions about existence, shared norms, and shared language and symbols. It consists of “a ‘tool kit’ of rituals, symbols, stories, and world-views” (Johnston and Klandermans 1995: 7) or “mental products” (Pye 1968: 218). Spiro (1984: 323) elaborates: “Cultural propositions are developed in the historical experience of social groups ... [and they] are encoded in the collective, rather than private, signs ... [which have] noncultural situational, ecological, economic, political, biological, emotional etc. as well as cultural (ideational) determinants.” 57 Language is a rule-based system of finite arbitrary sounds, gestures and symbols used to represent objects, concepts, emotions, ideas, and thoughts for the purpose of interpersonal communication (Searle 1969). It links thought—content-elements (meaning)—and sound—expression-elements (sounds and words); and involves a series of arbitrary but mutually intelligible linguistic signs, grounded in a historically constituted system of linguistic conventions (Culler 1976, Sebeok 1989) (natural language). Chomsky ([1955] 1975, 1965, but see also Pinker [1994] 1995) surmised that there is generically embedded in all humans a set innate principles of grammar—a universal grammer—shared by all natural languages (linguistic nativism). This constitutes an element of the modularity of the mind (the set of genetically embedded innate functional structures within the mind (Fodor 1983)). Pinker (2007: 3) argues that people have in their minds innate generative rules for linguistic combinatorial mechanisms and caches of emotions that constitute their innate conceptual frameworks (conceptual semantics), whose “design quirks give rise to fallacies, follies and foibles in the way that people reason about the conundrums of modern life.” “Our words and constructions disclose conceptions of physical reality and human social life that are similar in all cultures but different from the products of our science and scholarship” (p. 4). Wittgenstein (1953) argued that the linguistic rules that shape knowledge acquisition are intimately shared and, therefore, constitute the very essence of social interaction, which means that making sense of what others say is the product of a complex of interweaving of speech and action. 58 Attribution theory in psychology seeks to account for how a person explains—attributes reasons for—the behavior of self or others (Jones et al. 1972). It distinguishes between reasons that are internal or external to the person whose behavior is being explained (Heider [1958] 1982). Such attribution can be based on the multiple observations of covariation of the behavior to be explained and the possible causes (covariation 55

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

21

To convert beliefs (knowledge claims or alleged truths) into genuine knowledge (truths or certainties), thereby adding to new knowledge, requires the application of a truth-standard (truth-criterion) that enable judgments to be made about what constitutes sufficient justification—sufficient evidence59—to warrant the status of truth being assigned to a belief (Kirkham 1992, Moser, 1989, Vardy 2003a). However, as James ([1897] 1979: 15) pointed out, “no concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon.”60

EPISTEMOLOGY AND TRUTH Epistemology is concerned with the nature, extent, sources and legitimacy of knowledge. It investigates the nature and coherence of knowledge claims (Devitt 1984, Kirkham 1992, Moser 2002, White 1970). At issue, fundamentally, is whether: • •

truth is a property that can be investigated;61 truth is a unique extra-linguistic objective fact that is independent of the truth-seeker and awaits discovery;62

principle) (Kelley 1967, 1973) or on generalized causal propositional beliefs (causal schemata) (Kelley 1972). Attribution can be spontaneous (Weiner 1985). It can be prone to error or bias (Fiske and Taylor 1991, Kruglanski and Ajzen 1983), explainable in terms of motivational, cognitive, cultural and linguistic considerations (see, for example, Gilbert and Malone 1995, Hewstone and Augoustinos 1998, Miller et al. 1978, Tetlock and Manstead 1985). People tend to attribute behavior more to internal than to external factors, contrary to psychological evidence—the fundamental attribution error theory. A greater explanatory reliance on external information can, however, be found, when there is interest in learning about the situation, perhaps before a decision has to be made about entering a new situation (Krull and Erickson 1995). 59 Evidentialism holds that believing a truth claim is warranted if and only if the evidence supports so doing (Feldman and Conee 2004). Clearly, a truth proposition cannot be genuine knowledge if it is false. Does this mean that the evidence proffered as proof must be so secure as to be beyond all doubt, thereby giving rise to propositional certainty? Under the Platonic conception of knowledge, for a truth proposition to be genuine knowledge requires the evidence proffered as proof to give rise to propositional (absolute) certainty that can never become false. Descartes ([1641] 1975), in this tradition, held that nothing should be believed unless it is absolutely certain that it is true—de omnibus dubitandum (every thing is to be doubted)—(Cartesian doubt). This means that all beliefs should be treated as if they are false, which is a perspective that “depicts knowledge as if were identical with the kind of [tautological] certitude found in logic and mathematics” (Stroll 2006: 31), where knowledge is without factual content. The scientific conception of knowledge requires that, since all scientific explanations are factual generalizations based on past observations, the factual evidence proffered as proof can only ever be contingent, so “knowledge, from a scientific perspective, is a matter of the strength of the evidence in support of a particular assertion” (Stroll 2006: 31). 60 Indeed, Nietzsche posed the fundamental question: why is truth important? Why is there a “will to truth”? What is the value of this will? “Given that we want truth: why do we not prefer untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance?” ([1886] 1998: 5 emphasis in original). “However much value we may ascribe to truth, truthfulness, and altruism, it may be that we need to attribute a higher and more fundamental value to appearances, to the will to illusion, to egoism and desire” (p. 6). 61 Advocates of the deflationary theories of truth (redundancy theory, performative theory and presentential theory) (Kirkham 1992) assert that truth does not have a nature that can be investigated. To ascribe truth to a statement does not attribute a property called ‘truth’ to that statement, rather it asserts nothing more than the statement to which truth is ascribed: It is worthy of notice that the sentence “I smell the scent of violets” has the same content as the sentence “it is true that I smell the scent of violets”. So it seems, then, that nothing is added to the thought by my ascribing to it the property of truth. (Frege [1918] 1997: 326). 62 “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness [Diesseitigkeit] of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question” (Marx ([1845/1924] 2002: Sect 2).

22

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson •

•

truth is relative, because there are no intersubjective, generally recognized method for determining the truthfulness of a knowledge claim (cognitive relativism63), which makes the truth dependant upon the truth-standard applied, as established by the truth-knower’s sociocultural and linguistic milieu, gender and thus his or her cognitive status and circumstances (feminist epistemology) (Alcoff and Potter 1993, Duran 1991), and his or her mental characteristics or states that give rise to personal enlightenment; or truth cannot be established (skepticism64 and solipsism65), because, as Berkeley ([1710] 1962: 74) observed, the mind construes the world as it is experienced (sensedatum theory66) and there is “no necessary [causal] connexion” between the two, for the perception of an object—the idea of the object—cannot prove that the separate existence of the object “without the mind, or unperceived”, thereby, reducing physical objects to mental entities (mentalist monism), thereby denying the possibility of any genuine knowledge, leaving just beliefs and opinions.

Different truth-standards can be applied, of course, in different situation, because what counts as knowledge depends on the situation in which the truth-seeker has to make truth judgments. Which truth-criterion is adopted depends upon how the truth-seeker wishes to establish and conduct his or her social affairs in that situation: “the criterias [sic] for ‘truth’ depends on what group you belong to” (Dahl 1999: 181).

63

This holds that no set of epistemic norms is metaphysically privileged over another (Kirk 1999). This derives from a classical Greek noun, skepsis—meaning consideration, examination or inquiry. It is the proposition that no beliefs (knowledge claims or alleged truths) can be appraised to be certain, justified or reasonable (Unger 1975), which makes them indeterminate and, thus, judgments about material reality must be suspended (Pyrrhonism) (Annas and Barnes 1985, Hankinson 1995, Popkin 1979, Sextus Empicus [c.200] 1994). Any criterion used to judge beliefs can be challenged because a further criterion is needed to judge that criterion. Beliefs about external reality are based on sense knowledge—Thorpe’s (1962) experiencing—are always personal, immediate and mutable. Nietzsche’s ([1886] 1998) extreme form of skepticism— epistemological nihilism—maintains that nothing in the world has a real existence (Crosby 1988, Zupančić 2002): “existence must not be interpreted in terms of ‘purpose,’ ‘unity,’ ‘Being,’ or ‘truth’” (Stack (1977: 17). For the Nietzschean nihilist, there is no true world at all, for all claims to knowledge are entirely relative to the vagaries of a person’s thought and experience: “so what is truth?” Kierkegaard’s related proposition is that “in regard to every other reality external to the individual it can only be known through ‘thinking it’” (Stack 1977: 197, n. 19). 65 This is grounded in the principle that a person cannot know anything beyond self. It holds that only oneself alone (solus ipse) exists—the only center of consciousness—therefore, nothing at all exists apart from one’s own mental states (metaphysical solipsism) (Russell 1948: Part III, Ch. 2). 66 This holds that any perceptual experience involves awareness of sense-datum, regardless of whether that sensory perception is an experience of the object being perceived—“the only object of our awareness is that experienced by the brain”, which may be illusory (Searle 2004: 180, 181–84)—which means that all knowledge of the external world is grounded in potentially problematic sense data (Ayer 1953, Price 1932, Swartz 1965, but see also Searle 2004: 186–89, Austin 1962). The extreme position—methodological solipsism—holds that the content of a belief about the external world is fully determined by the mental properties or mental states of the believer (Wood 1962). 64

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

23

Contending Theories of Truth A person can know a truth only if he or she holds a belief that a proposition—a statement held to be true—perhaps asserted by others—is true,67 thereby making it a true belief (or genuine knowledge) for that person (BonJour 2002). Two truth-making principles can be identified. The first is the principle of causal explanation (statements of causation reporting lawful relations between one material phenomenon and another, so establishing an antecedently sufficient causal chain)68 (Campbell et al. 2007, Rubin 1994). This is grounded on the world being material and existing independently of the mind, which means empirical enquiry methods can be utilized to develop causal explanations that “makes truth true” (Psillos 2002: 167). Nomothetic methods presume that a knowledge claim is proffered as proven on the basis of logical and empirically confirmed relations between material phenomena. The second is the principle of understanding (the acquisition of insightful and significant meanings to be attached to material and nonmaterial phenomena gained from discussion and reflection), which asserts that the world “must be understood from within rather than explained from without” (Hollis 1994: 16). Idiographic methods presume that understanding derives from both individual and group interpretations of the meaning— perhaps associating the correct ideas with particular words used, knowing the correct use of language, or discerning the communicative goals sought by the communicator—which can “range from what is consciously and individually intended to what is communally and often unintendedly significant”69 (Hollis 1994: 17). There are five irreconcilable theories about truth (Blackburn 2005, Kirkham 1992). •

•

67

The correspondence theory sees truth as a knowledge claim that corresponds to, or is in agreement with some elements of, reality—an extra-linguistic fact—in a way that validates the proposition (Fumerton 2002, O’Connor 1994). It holds that “a belief is true when there is a corresponding fact, and is false when there is no corresponding fact” (Russell 1912: 129, see also 1948) (epistemological realism). The coherence theory sees truth as a knowledge claim that is logically consistent with, and mutually supported by, other knowledge claims, that attains a degree of knowledge-claim integration, and that offers the simplest explanations for multiple and divergent phenomena (Rescher 1973). It holds that a truth must fit into a system

There is “no direct relationship between proof on the one hand, and what we can or cannot doubt on the other” (Baggini 2002: 36), which means that a proposition can be evidentially unproven but psychologically certain to a person because he or she believes it to be true without any doubt. Doubt, of course, is a state of mind—a state of indecision or hesitancy about accepting the truthfulness of a proposition. 68 This strictly mechanistic view of causal relationship was originally argued by Leucippus and Democritus, the ancient Greek atomists (Taylor 1999), who considered that everything happens in accordance with laws of nature (Russell 1946: 86)—or in Humean terminology “necessity”—“the necessary connexion among events” (Hume [1777] 1902: 75). 69 Flaubert captured the essence of this in Madam Bovray ([1856/1857] 2006): Emma was like all his mistresses; and the charm of novelty, gradually falling away like a garment, laid bare the eternal monotony of passion, that has always the same forms and the same language. He did not distinguish, this man of so much experience, the difference of sentiment beneath the sameness of expression. Because lips libertine and venal had murmured such words to him, he believed but little in the candour of her’s; exaggerated speeches hiding mediocre affections must be discounted; as if the fullness of the soul did not sometimes overflow in the emptiest metaphors, since no one can ever give the exact measure of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sorrows; and since human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars.

24

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

•

•

•

or network of mutually consistent propositions, although, on this basis, the whole truth must be in accord with the whole of reality, which provides it with a status that is beyond judgment (Bradley [1893] 2005), thus the substantiation of a truth occurs through other knowledge claims. The consensus theory sees truth as something agreed upon by some specified group of experts even if it fails to describe reality (Peirce 1877). It holds that a belief is true if those who have investigated it agree that it is true, although, within this notion it is implicit that not all beliefs can be assigned a truth value. The pragmatism theory, which sees truth as instrumental and contingent upon the success of the practical consequences of an idea (Dewey [1895–1898] 1972, James [1897] 1979, [1907] 1995, [1909] 1979, Peirce 1877, Schiller [1903] 1912, [1907] 1912).70 It holds that a belief counts as true if it is useful to believe it to be true. As James ([1897] 1979} remarks: “our obligation to seek truth is part of our obligation to do what pays” (quoted in Russell 1946: 844). 71 The social constructivism theory considers truth to be socially constructed and thus contingent upon convention, human understanding, and social experience (Glasersfeld 1995).72 It holds that a belief is true if it is substantiated by discourse, which means that what is deemed to be true is contingent.

These truth theories do not offer a precise and irreconcilable division between those based on their objectivity or subjectivity. However, some truth-criteria embrace the notion of explanation more than understanding and vice-versa: the correspondence and coherence theories place an emphasis on objective criteria, whilst the social constructivism theory comfortably espouses subjective criteria, with the pragmatism and consensus theories drawing upon both.

Contending Ways of Justifying Knowledge Claims A knowledge claim can be justified or warranted in a seven ways: •

70

by evidence of sensory experience (a posteriori knowledge73) or of deductive reasoning (a priori knowledge74) (Kant [1781–87] 1956; see also Guyer 2006, Kitcher 1998);75

“The pragmatic method ... is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What differences would it make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true” (James [1907] 1995: 18). 71 On this, Russell (1946: 52) observed: “Modern definitions of truth, such as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialism as opposed to aristocracy.” 72 This relates to social constructionism (Berger and Luchman 1966, Gergen 1999, 2001, but see Searle 1995), which embraces those social theories that emphasize that social life is socially created; to cognitive pluralism, which is the proposition that there are a various ways that people individually and in groups can go about the business of reasoning (Wilson 1979); and to epistemic relativism, which is the proposition that what can be known is relative and, thus, one system of reasoning may be best for one group of people, perhaps in terms of reflective equilibrium or truth-generating capacity, while a quite different system might be best for another group (Goodman [1954] 1965). 73 A proposition is knowable a posteriori if it can be known to be true by means of inductive reasoning based on empirical experience or data.

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses •

•

• •

•

•

25

by reference to self-justifying knowledge claims that are beyond doubt, as a result of a combination of experience—Russell’s knowledge by acquaintance (Jager 1992, but see BonJor 1985)—and reason, which constitute a set of basic robust and unambiguous foundations—a set of foundational beliefs—that do not need further justification (foundationalism) (DePaul 2000, Moser 1989); by reference to sufficiently valid reasons that are grounded in cognitive processes of direct apprehension (sensory perception and memory) or of reasoning that has produced a high proportion of true beliefs (reliabilism) (Alston 1989, Goldman 1986, Shope 1983); by reference to the believer’s willingness to act in accordance with that belief on the basis of the axioms of probability theory (probabilism) (Rosenkrantz 1977); by reference to the knowledge claim not being made defective as a source of knowledge by being overridden or defeated by additional, previously unknown evidence (epistemic defeasibility) (Shope 1983); by unanimous agreement that a knowledge claim is true by all who have sufficient relevant knowledge or experience to judge it (consensual pragmatism) (Mounce 1997, Murphy 1990, Scheffler 1974); and by reference to a knowledge claim producing beneficial results for believers, after all matters are considered (instrumental pragmatism) (Mounce 1997, Murphy 1990, Scheffler 1974).

What a person can know about social world depends, then, on the standards of truth that person chooses to apply when endeavoring to gain genuine knowledge of such phenomena. As Lowell (1984) observes, “truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.” Once chosen, a truth-standard determines how he or she describes, explains, and understands the social world. The fundamental issue is: “you cannot search for X, whatever X may be, unless you are from the outset equipped with a good enough notion of what X is to provide you with criteria by which to judge whether you have found what you are looking for” (Welbourne 2001: 14).

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL DICHOTOMY: NATURALISM AND HERMENEUTICS The two approaches to epistemology offered by the philosophy of the social sciences are naturalism76 and hermeneutics77. Naturalism assumes that the world—including each individual present in it—is real, material and objectively knowable (Bhaskar [1979] 1998: 2– 3) and can be explained by the use of inductive inference and/or deductive logic that draws 74

A proposition is known a priori if it can be known to be true by means of deductive reasoning without reference to empirical experience or data. 75 Both these enquiry methods, to varying degrees, may provide criteria that validate or inform propositions that are advanced by all the truth theories. However, both the social constructivism and pragmatism truth theories confine and critique inductive inferences or deductive reasoning as they hold that outcomes of human subjectivity takes precedence over logic and factual objectivity. 76 This has connotations that relate to the regularities of nature, the discovery of which gives rise to natural laws. 77 This is derived from the Greek hermêneuô, meaning “to interpret or translate”.

26

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

only upon material evidence or luminous premises. Hermeneutics, in contrast, assumes that the meaningfulness of the world—including each individual present in it—can only be understood ideationally as they are subjectively experienced by the perceiving minds: “man is an animal suspended in a web of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be ... an interpretive one in search of meaning” (Geertz 1973: 5). These two distinctive epistemological approaches are reflected in a variety of dichotomous terminology (Berlin 1976, Braybrooke 1987, Ruben 1998), notably, objectivism (reality is independent of the mind—that is, “independent of human conception, speculation or fantasy” (Stroll 2006: 10)) versus subjectivism (reality is a set of first-person mental discernments); materialism (reality is constituted as material objects and phenomena) versus idealism78 (reality is constituted as ideas in the perceiving mind); or empiricism (knowledge is ultimately based on sensory experience) versus constructivism (knowledge is constructed by knowledge-seekers).79 The social epistemological debate is on whether social knowledge should be understood individualistically (knowledge claims can and should only be justified by reference to objective sensory experience, to reasoned deductions, or even to subjective first-person mental discernments grounded in intuition80, common sense81, or revealed wisdom82) or socially (knowledge claims can and should only be justified by reference to

78

A more accurate term would be “idea-ism” (Singer 1983: 91). This postulates that nothing exist independently of mental experiences (Hoernlé 1927), and so nothing exists independently of an idea in a perceiving person’s mind (mentalist monism). The mind is, thus, the most basic reality. This gives rise to: metaphysical idealism (ideas are the constituents of reality) (Berkeley [1710] 1962, [1713] 1948); subjective idealism (the mind is where ideas about reality exist and are perceived) (Berkeley [1710] 1962, [1713] 1948); transcendental idealism (the reality beyond empirical investigation—such as the Platonic Forms (Plato [390s-347 BC] 1997) (Theory of Forms)—timeless, stable, perfect, unchanging and intelligible ideal-forms of objects and concepts (such as Justice, Good and Beauty), the Cartesian mental substance (Descartes [1641] 1975), the Spinoxan God substance (Spinoza [1677] 1985), the Leibnizian monads (the non-physical, indivisible soul-like fundamental constituents of nature) (Leibniz [1714] 1973), and the Kantian noumena (Kant [1781–87] 1956)—can exist only as ideas in minds) (Kant [1781–87] 1956); absolute idealism (all of reality is embraced in a universal thought or experience; the Hegelian universal mind or rational consciousness (collective geist)) (Hegel [1807] 1977, [1816] 1969, [1817] 1991, [1817] 1970, see also Beiser 2005, Singer 1983); and theistic idealism (God is the source of ideas about reality) (Berkeley [1710] 1962, [1713] 1948), Plotinus (see Rist 1967), Spinoza [1677] 1985). Wittgenstein ([1922] 1961: 5.64) considered that idealism “coincides with pure realism.” 79 Orwell in 1984 ([1949] 1983: 205) captures the essence of these dichotomies when he has government agent O’Brien explaining to Winston Smith: You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you are seeing something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and no where else. 80 Bergson saw intuition is as an “instinct that has become disinterested, self-conscious, and capable of reflecting upon its object and of enlarging it indefinitely” (quoted in Russell 1946: 821). The feminist thought that extols intuition over reason centers it on an investigator’s self-identification with the outcomes from oppressive practices that have remained hidden in a framework of dominant enquiry mode constructed around preponderantly male norms (Harding 1986, 1991, Shepherd 1993). Shand (2002: 46) notes, however, that “intuitions are without exception sensuous, and therefore, no speculative knowledge is possible which reaches further than possible experience” (p. 46). 81 In the tradition of eighteenth-century Scottish realist philosophy, common sense—beliefs that come naturally to mind to all people, as responsible agents, based on memory, reason, moral sense and taste—carries its own authority, despite accepted perceptual fallibilities, because people, proceeding cautiously, are capable of knowing the world (Grave 1960, Moore 1959). 82 This is Aquinas’ ([1259–64] 1905) truths of revelation: “Wisdom ... conferred by God as a particular endowment” (Rofe 2001).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

27

expert authority or testimony83, consensus or tradition (received wisdom)) (Hollis 1994, Natanson 1963).

Naturalism Naturalism adheres to the doctrine of objectivism (Peikoff 1993), which postulates that a knowledge claim is epistemologically objective—a matter of fact—if the evidence for determining its truth value is material in form and, therefore, can be established by generally agreed enquiry procedures involving inductive inference (inferring conclusions about a category of things from observations of particular things in that category) and/or deductive logic (drawing logically valid conclusions from a set of premises). Truth or falsehood should, therefore, be established solely by reference to material objects or phenomena (Mill [1843] 1988).

On Knowledge Naturalist epistemology proposes two types of knowledge, differentiated on the basis of how a proposition can be known: synthetic—knowledge derived by inductive inference based on sensory experience (a posteriori knowledge); and analytic—knowledge derived by deductive logic without reference to sensory experience (a priori knowledge).84 Synthetic Knowledge Kantian synthetic propositions contain a posteriori (empirical or sensory experiencebased) knowledge that have been justified (found to be factually true) on the basis of inductive reasoning that involves empirical evidence (generalizing about a category from observed particulars in that category) (Hempel 1966)—empiricism—in the tradition of Galileo, Bacon, Locke, Berkeley and Hume (Atherton 1999).85 Thus, the archaic statement “all swans are white” is synthetic, because it rests on assumptions about the observed characteristics of the physical world (Williams and May 1996: 25). Crucially, the truthfulness of synthetic knowledge claims is asserted after the collection of a body of facts to which inductive reasoning is applied to generate probable generalizations, which rest on the probability of previous patterns of material observation being repeated in the future (Greene 1999: 63–71). This gives rise to new knowledge (Russell 1946: 222). Synthetic propositions are closely related to Leibniz’s “truths of fact”, or contingent truths (truth propositions that could be factually untrue) (Leibniz [1714] 1973, see also Jolley 2005), because they “would seem to be knowable only a posteriori, since it is unclear how pure thought or reason could tell us anything about the actual world” (Baehr 2006). Hume, a skeptical empiricist, denied the objective value of the concept of causation. He argued that an assertion explaining one material phenomenon in terms of another is based on confused logic. To him, causation had three components: priority (a cause must precede its 83

As Welbourne (2001: 125) observed, “the concept of knowledge enters our repertoire of concepts on the back of testimony.” See also Coady 1992. 84 “The a priori /a posteriori distinction is epistemological and should not be confused with the metaphysical distinction between the necessary and the contingent [truths] or the semantical or logical distinction between the analytic and the synthetic [propositions]” (Baehr 2006). 85 This presumes that how an object is experienced is how it is when it is not being experienced.

28

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

alleged effect), contiguity in time and space (a cause and its alleged effect must be spatiotemporally adjacent), and necessary connection (a cause must make its alleged effect happen) (Searle 2004: 137). On this basis, any proposition maintaining that it is a necessary truth that one material phenomenon must automatically follow another is, no matter how clever, based on a fallacious argument (Hume [1748] 1975: Sect. 12, Pt. 3)—his celebrated problem of induction (Searle 2004: 138–41, but see 142)—which led him to hold the proposition that causal pronouncements can only follow the empirical demonstration of constant conjunction. Two material phenomena, which exist at separate times, are, of course, discrete within human thought and one can be imagined without the other. Hume considered, however, that it is through a process of “habits of the mind” that people are influenced by previous observations into making connections between material phenomena independent of consistent external sensory perception thus, “custom, then, is the great guide of human life” (Hume [1748] 1975: S. 5, Pt. 1).86 Therefore, it is axiomatic “how use doth breed a habit in a man!” (Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona). The problem that dominates is whether an objective understanding of reality is achievable through the explanation and modification of sensory perceptions.87

Analytical Knowledge Kantian analytic propositions contain a priori (non-empirical) knowledge that has been justified (found to be logically valid) by being logically deduced from a set of premises (semantics and logic) without reference to experience—rationalism—in the tradition of Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes (Pereboom 1999). Sense experience is discounted as a source of knowledge, thereby rejecting “the world of sense in favor of the self-created world of pure thought” (Russell 1946: 93; see also Descartes [1637] 1951: Part III): “There is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses, except the intellect” (Leibniz [1704/1764] 1996, Bk. II: 111).88 Analytical knowledge grounded in the Platonic proposition that the most important truths are those available through reason (Plato [390s-347 BC] 1997: xiv], which means that they could never become false: “the Hellenic belief in deduction from luminous axioms derived from the mind of the philosopher” (Russell 1946: 58). Indeed, the Stoics held that “there are certain principles which are luminously obvious and are admitted by all men [sic]; these could be made, as in Euclid’s Elements, the basis of deduction” (Russell 1946: 292): “It is and it is impossible for it not to be” (Parmenides, quoted in Freeman 2003: 11). They present syllogistic reasoning or self-evident tautologies, whereby the truthfulness of a knowledge contention logically follows from either a set of a priori premises or axioms (statements accepted without proof, from which all other statements of a system can be derived, for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from them) or from its very 86

Hume was predisposed to the notion that natural instincts, which, he considered, no thought process can produce or prevent, shaped knowledge. Ideas or sensory impressions are thought able to agglomerate amongst individuals leading to the association of ideas that produces a level of commonality in human sensory perceptions (Scruton 1984: 124). 87 Nietzsche ([1886] 1998: 16 emphasis in original) thought not: “... people are actually saying that the external world is created by our sense organs? But then our body, as part of the external world, would be the creation of our sense organs! But then our very sense organs would be—the creation of our sense organs! It seems to me that this is a complete reductio ad absurdum [reduction to absurdity]: assuming that the concept causa sui [self-caused] is something completely absurd. It follows that the outer world is not the creation of our sense organs—?” 88 Hume ([1739] 1978: II, 3, S. 3, Para. 4), to the contrary, believed that “reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

29

definition (the predicate is in the subject, which means its opposite implies a contradiction). Analytical a priori propositions, which cannot be refuted by experience because they are beyond the scope of the senses to confirm, present transcendental deductions that can lead to a priori truths. Such propositions are closely related to Leibniz’s “truths of reason” ([1714] 1973) or logical necessities (propositions that must be true because their opposites are either contradictory or factually untrue), which means that all analytical propositions are necessary propositions but not all necessary propositions are analytical propositions (Stroll 2006: 32). Analytical knowledge offers a profound and strong demonstration of cause and effect and thus causal explanation. The deductive logic of analytic propositions can provides irrefutable grounds for knowledge claims about certain relationships. But the strength of the causal relationships they identify derives from the coherence of the definitions held within their premises. Thus, the truth of analytic statements rests on mathematical or linguistic definitions, not on the observable processes of the physical or social worlds. The issue is, however, in Aristotelian terms, “how do we know the first premises from which deduction must start? ... we must begin with something unproven, which must be known otherwise than by demonstration” (Russell 1946: 222). Unfortunately, mathematical description cannot be equated with empirical regularity, which means analytic statements can be logically valid, because they necessarily follow from the premises, but empirically untrue, because one or more of the premises are empirically false (Williams and May 1996: 25).89 Moreover, debate continues as to whether new knowledge is created by the deduction process. Russell thought not (1946: 222); Finch (1995: 152–53) agrees: “Deductions can be made in a system that has no content or meaning, provided the symbols are used consistently with each other. The deductive relations are also empty of meaning.” But, under the deductive closure principle it is argued, to the contrary, that if A knows X to be true and A correctly deduces Y from X, then A also knows Y to be true, which is new knowledge (Williams 1991).

Traditions Realism This is the long-standing proposition, advanced by Plato, that the external world exists when not being experience, and has properties and relations that are entirely independently of any human knowledge of or beliefs about their actuality (metaphysical realism), which gives it cognitive authority (Putman 1987, 1988, Rorty 1997, Searle 1995). What the senses perceive about the external world, despite accepted perceptual fallibilities, is true (epistemological realism) and portrays that world accurately (direct or naïve realism90), evidenced by the fact that different people can perceive the same object in the same way in all essentials (Searle 2004: 190–91). Realism does, however, accept the existence of unobservables (scientific realism) (Psillos 1999, Russell 1940).

89

Of syllogistic reasoning, Russell (1946: 456) identified the following defects in the context of the Scholastic method in the twelfth century and its Platonic predecessors: “indifference to facts and science, belief in reasoning in matter which only observation can decide, and an undue emphasis on verbal distinctions and subtleties.” Nietzsche ([1886] 1998: 13) is more condemning: synthetic a priori judgments should not ‘be possible’ at all: we have no right to them, in our mouths they are false judgments.” 90 “Naïve realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows that naïve realism is false. Therefore naïve realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false” (Russell 1940: 15).

30

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Realism, in the tradition of Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes, is “a theory concerned to generate a scientific account of ‘the facts as they really are’ ... [and] excludes the consideration of normative issues from theory in favor of a purely explanatory endeavor, based on the notion of the separation of facts and values” (Murray 1997: 730). A phenomenon can, thus, be explained by the discovery of its constituents and underlying processes, established by reference to objective truth-conditions (Alston, 2002, Devitt 1984, Dummett 1963, Wright 1987). Thus, meaning as truth depends upon factuality.

Rationalism Rationalism can be understood through the axiom “placing trust in reason” (Bunge 1996: 306).91 In its search for the truth, rationalism holds that reality is a system of cause and effect that can be deciphered by reason. It has two strands: radical and moderate. The dogmatic assumption of radical rationalism is that there can be only one perception of reality that accords with reason, which, by implication, leads to discomfiture with both empiricism and positivism (Bunge 1996: 306). Descartes’ philosophy is grounded in the epistemological issues connected with skepticism. He attempts to allow explanation to be free from a skepticism that leads to confusion and conflict. Human ideas can be innate—knowable in the mind acquired by pure reason—and thus sealed with validity, or they can be established through sensation—rooted in fractious and self-important notions (but see Locke [1690] 2004: Bk. 2). The individual is, thus, the ultimate arbitrator of truth as each person reaches his or her own decisions about the validity of truths and knowledge (Descartes [1641] 1961, see also Williams 2005). The moderate strand is an adaptable doctrine that accepts that reason is necessary, but acknowledges that different individuals may interpret rationality in different ways to comprehend phenomena fully.92 Whilst the human senses are not entirely ignored under the doctrine of rationalism, they are regarded as inferior to explanations derived through a process of deductive reasoning, which asserts that the validity of a conclusion follows from the logical deductions drawn from the postulated premises. On this basis, deductive reasoning produces contingent truths that are reliant on, firstly, the truthfulness of the premises from which the a priori knowledge is deduced;93 and secondly, the validity of the ceteris paribus (other things being equal) assumptions, which is only applicable in a closed system. Rationalism thus maintains that 91

This stands in contradistinction to the broader common-usage meaning of rational, as the use of the human intellect—involving reasoning and sense experience—to gain knowledge by seeking evidence for and against a knowledge claim (Chisholm 1989). 92 Insightfully, Mirowski (1991: 231 and 237) considers rationality to be a “sadly abused word ... a strange potage.” 93 When grounded in religio-mystical postulates, rationalism gives rise to some challenging propositions about the world. Lossky (1951), a Russian neo-Leibnizian idealist, in his religious-philosophical system explored causality and perfection. He postulated that there were three levels of reality: the real, the abstract and the concretely-ideal (the Kingdom of Spirit inhabited by non-material ideal beings or substantival agents). “Thus, as Losskii [sic] points out, the ‘world as a whole, including material nature, is the work of spirit or of beings that are akin to spirit. ... Considering the whole world in its systemic unity there ... must exist a principle which ‘is the source of the world’s plurality and of its original unification’ and which ‘does not contain any plurality in itself, and ... therefore ... stands above all systems. This principle is properly named the ‘Absolute’ and as such is the subject of no positive definition. ... According to [Lossky’s] hierarchical personalism, ‘the world as a system united by the Supreme Substance, Sophia [the Spirit or wisdom of God], is composed of an infinite multitude of smaller sub-systems governed by the appropriate substantival agents’ ” (Sergeev 1999: 4 and: 8). McTaggart (1927, see also Greach 2001), a British Hegelian absolute idealist metaphysician and personalist, argued that ultimate reality—absolute reality—is spiritual, and theorized that this reality is a community of

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

31

truths about the “really existing intelligible world that underlies the appearance of changing particulars that we experience” (Shand, 2002: 69) can be discovered through the methodical application of deductive reasoning. This proposition is grounded in Descartes’ observation that “it is only the things that I conceive clearly and distinctly which have the power to convince me completely” ([1641] 1961: 123). Thus, only the mind, divorced as it is from the body, can sanction certainty and truth: “I think, therefore, I am” 94 (Descartes, [1641] 1961: 82). To a rationalist, the world is, of necessity, logical. As Spinoza ([1677] 1985) observes, this condition reflects the nature of God, so denial of the theorem that is derived from the accepted axioms is an illogical contradiction implying God’s imperfection (see also Shand 2002: 87). Leibniz refined this principle to the acceptance of theorems after the application of sufficient reason by acknowledging that truths might be contingent, because God is under no compulsion to actualize all truths. Accordingly, it is enough for every fact to find its justification in a previous fact to justify fundamentally the necessary and logical process of causality. Thus, it is acknowledged that, although the world is perceived through a variety of perspectives, humanity can, through logic, still obtain “as much perfection as possible” (Leibniz, [1714] 1973: 187–88). Rationalism addresses one important imperative: cause and effect become explainable concepts offering declarations of greater value than a process of observation that is unable to move beyond mere correlation. Nevertheless, strong rationalism can still be held to be insufficient to explain fully the world, for theories that are the product of reason still demands empirical verification of their premises or predictions for their validation.

Empiricism This stresses the fundamental role of sensory experience as the foundation of all knowledge. To Lock ([1690] 2004), the human mind was a tabula rasa95—literally scraped tablet—awaiting inscription from aspects of experience. As he ([1690] 2004: Bk. 2, Ch. 1, Sect. 19) observed: “No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.” Locke classified experiences as being of two kinds. The first kind are the external sensations that exist in external objects that awake sensible qualities in the observer’s minds (Alexander 1985, Lowe 2005, McGinn 1983). These sensations he divided into primary qualities, which are “utterly inseparable” from the external objects that are their source—their fundamental (mind-independent) qualities (such as space-occupancy attributes); and secondary qualities, which are “nothing in the objects themselves but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities”—their sensual (mind-dependent) qualities (such as colors, tastes, touches, smells and sounds) (Locke [1690] 2004: Bk. 2, Ch. 1, Sect. 19). The second kind are

selves—each self constituting a spirit that is defined by its perceptions of self and others—and every self loves every other self whom it perceives directly or indirectly (S. 470). 94 Rendered in Latin as cogito ergo sum in Section 7 of Part I of Principles of Philosophy (1644) and in French as je pense, donc je suis in Part IV of Méditations Metaphysiques (1647). 95 As Locke ([1690] 2004: II, 1, S. 19) expressed it: “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience.” Helvétius in De l’Esprit (1758) argued the extreme position: complete environmental determinism. Evolutionary psychologists argue, of course, that the human mind could never be blank as if has been forged over time by the processes of Darwinian natural selection (see Pinker 2002)

32

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

the internal sensations, which can be termed reflection and which are responsible for the ideas—“whatever is the object of the understanding when a man [sic] thinks” (Locke [1690] 2004: Bk. 2, Ch. 1, Sect. 19)—produced as a result of sensation data. In a similar manner, ideas are subdivided into simple and complex, with the latter being compounds of a simple notion that cannot be reduced further, for instance, the idea of a color. Furthermore, an idea is understood as representing an epistemological relationship between two entities (the representative theory of perception96): the idea that the knower has of an object and the object itself (Shand 2002: 111–13). In this relationship, “all men are liable to error, and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it” (Locke [1690] 2004: Bk. 4, Ch. 20, Sect. 17). Berkeley ([1710] 1962) rejected the Humean notion of primary and secondary qualities in external objects and maintained that there is nothing but mind-dependent qualities, which makes ideas rather than physical matter that are the constituents of reality (metaphysical idealism) and that all ideas, as first-person mental thoughts, are of a subjective nature, hence the Berkeleyan proposition esse est percipi—to be is to be perceived (metaphysical subjectivism97). Thus, he observes that “they are neither finite quantities, nor quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them the ghosts of departed quantities?” (Berkeley [1734] 2004: S. 35). So, Berkeley was committed to the notion that people’s intelligible thought must refer to what they have comprehended through their personal experience; consciousness is thus prior to existence. This led him to conclude (1710 [1962]: 74), drawing upon Gorgias, the fifth century BC sophist (cited in Russell 1946: 98), that “if there were external bodies, it is impossible we should ever come to know it; and if there were not, we might have the very same reasons to think there were that we have now” (Warnock 1962). Whilst Berkeley neglected to address the designation of objects that are not perceived, his suppositions are comprehensive enough to permit a mild form of subjectivism to be part of his explanatory methodology. Kant ([1781–87] 1956), in his search for the universal rules of understanding about the nature of experience, advance the view that the world of sensory experience is actively shaped by the mind, which categorizes and organizes all received sensory data in terms of space, time and causation, making the knowledge of objects the knowledge of appearances— things-as-they-are (phenomena), beyond which is the realm that is inaccessible to the senses, and thus only the thinkable—but unknowable—and metaphysically speculative, things-inthemselves (noumena).98 Early empiricism grounded causal explanation in the sensory perception of incorrigible empirical observation, whereby the world itself provides stimuli that are directly open to human sensory perception and do not require a pre-existent theoretical frame of reference. Evolving from this eighteenth century sense-datum theorizing, three fundamental

96

“According to the representative theory of perception, we spend our conscious lives as if we are inside a movie theater. We can see pictures of the real world on the screen of the movie theatre, but we can never go beyond the inside of the movie theatre to see the real world itself, because the movie theatre is entirely in our mind” (Searle 2004: 185, but see also 186–89). 97 This is “the view that the knowing subject creates its objects by an act of consciousness, essentially that existence finds its source in a form of consciousness” (Thorn 2001). 98 Bradley’s (1893) neo-Kantian distinction was between mind-constituted appearances (where objects with properties stand in causal relations in time and space), which he saw as incoherent and illusory, and reality (akin to Hegel’s Absolute), which he saw as a single Cosmic Experience.

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

33

suppositions are discernible, which, together, define contemporary empiricism (Scruton 1985: 123): •

•

•

that the only available basis of knowledge is facts grounded in sensory experience, but they are unable to generate further necessary truths, as they can only establish what is known to be true and, by implication, what is not true; and that there cannot be a priori proof for any matter of fact, as knowledge is contingent upon sensory experience,99 which means that the principle of induction is the only source of a factual proposition; and that propositions advanced after empirical enquiry are only true by virtue of their inherent ideas, which means that reason is nothing but the relationship between different notions.

As Hollis (1994: 45–6) remarks about empiricism: Its plausible starting point is that the world exists independently of us, that perception gives knowledge of some particular items of its furniture and that there is no way of knowing independently of experience what else it contains.

This epistemology is grounded in the principles of materialism (or physicalism); essentialism (whereby, for any specific kind of material object or phenomenon there is a set of characteristics or properties that any such object or phenomenon of that specific kind must have)100 (see Hallett. 1991); and reductionism (whereby, complex material objects or phenomena can be explained by reference to, or as a consequence of, less complex material objects or phenomena). Thus, only human behavior, as opposed to human intention, can be the subject of empirical observation, as mental states or processes cannot be observed, and thus cannot be distinguished from, or made independent of, bodily material processes. Empiricism contends that genuine knowledge rests on the Humean principle of induction (Hollis 1994: 45), “which seeks to reach principles inductively from observations of particular facts” (Russell 1946: 58). It offers causal pronouncements following the empirical demonstration of constant conjunction, or regular correlation. Systematic knowledge, then, is composed of generalizations based on observed regularities that enable prediction, and serve as contingent explanations based on the probability that future correlations between cause and effect would reflect the patterns observed in previous instances. Thus, many theories are labelled as laws that cannot be sustained by the epistemological limitations of the inductive inference from which they derive, let alone the apparent contingent nature of the universe

99

Russell [1912) conceived objects as logical constructions inferred from sense-data (inferential realism): “[T]he real table, if there is one, is not the same as what we immediately experience by sight or touch or hearing. The real table, if there is one, is not immediately known to us at all, but must be an inference from what is immediately known” (p. 46). 100 Fuss (1989: x—xii) argues that essentialism is most commonly understood as a belief in the real, true essence of things, the invariable and fixed properties which define the 'whatness' of a given entity ... Importantly, essentialism is typically defined in opposition to difference. ... The opposition is a helpful one in that it reminds us that a complex system of cultural, social, psychical, and historical differences, and not a set of pre-existent human essences, position and constitute the subject. However, the binary articulation of essentialism and difference can also be restrictive, even obfuscating, in that it allows us to ignore or deny the differences within essentialism.

34

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

proposed by Heisenberg uncertainty principle101 (Rae 1986: 53–62). Laws, then, are merely theories with an unblemished predictive history: “beyond the constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference from one to the other, we have no notion of any necessity or connexion (Hume [1777] 1902: 82). Thus, theories provide as-if explanations of the world that may be true in so far as they are capable of exact prediction, but contingent in so far as they are ultimately unprovable (Hollis 1994: 59). As Gribbin (2005: 156) remarks: “Note that a theory can never be proved right. The best that can ever be said is that it has passed all the tests applied so far.” Central to early empiricist epistemology was the distinction between what Hume ([1777] 1902: Sect. 4, Part I) termed “matters of fact” and “relations of ideas,” which reflects the Kantian distinction between synthetic and analytic knowledge. Thus, empiricist epistemology confronts a twin dilemma. It is unable to judge the truth or falsehood of analytical statements that are not grounded in observation, although such statements may offer a profound and strong demonstration of cause and effect, of causal explanation, and of prediction. With respect to synthetic statements derived by inductive inference, empiricism can offer reasonably reliable predictions, but only a weak and contingent correlation of cause and effect, which means it cannot identify unambiguous causal relationships (Williams and May 1996: 25). These uncertainties and ambiguities were captured by Newton’s own admission (cited in Greene 1999: 57) that whilst he had identified the regular effects of gravity, he could not explain gravity itself: It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter, should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact. That Gravity should be innate, inherent and essential to matter so that one body may act upon another at a distance thro’ a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed, from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no Man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or nonmaterial, I have left to the consideration of my readers.

Epistemological Positions Positivism This emphasizes, in the tradition of Comte, Condorcet, Mill, Spenser and Taine, that genuine knowledge can be produced by reference to material evidence derive by means of observation and experimentation, comprehended within the bounds of science. It was originally associated with the empiricist principle of induction (Comte [1830–42] 1896, Condorcet [1795] 1955), but more recently it has come to embraced hypothetico-deductivism (empirically testing theory-grounded hypothesized deductions) and the inductive-hypotheticodeductive spiral or research wheel (empirically testing observation-grounded hypothesized deductions) (Cattell 1965, Friedman 1955, Lipsey and Chrystal [1953] 1995, Nesselroade and Cattell 1988, Wallace 1969, 1971). It encourages the use of statistical analysis to identify

101

This holds that it is impossible to know both the exact position and the exact velocity of an object at the same time (Cassidy 1991: 226ff).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

35

patterns in the observable behaviors of individuals and groups of individuals.102 Under strict positivism, however, the explanatory burden must rest on the individual-level characteristics statistically associated with various forms of group behavior, and not on any unobservable processes related to the interaction of individuals within groups, such processes being excluded a priori by the empiricist epistemology of this methodology. It rejects unobservable processes as unknowable.

Verificationism This stresses that the truth value of a knowledge claim is established by reference to supporting (confirming) empirical evidence (Hume [1748] 1975, Locke [1690] 2004, Quine 1951). This hypothetico-deductive model essentially commences with observation, and proceeds through deductive logic to formulate analytic assumptions that provide verifiable explanatory propositions the truthfulness of which can be tested using empirical evidence. It thus makes use of theory to hypothesize causal explanations, which, if they are consistent with observed outcomes, can demonstrate very high rates of successful prediction (Hempel 1966, Lipsey and Chrystal [1953] 1995). Verificationism does not claim that the theoretical causal explanations derived from verified hypotheses have the status of confirmed knowledge claims. However, despite the pragmatic appeal of the hypothetical-deductive model, it remains an attempt to overcome the epistemological barriers to empirical explanation. The epistemological status of theory within the positivist tradition rests on the assumption that social knowledge can be attained through the techniques applicable to the physical sciences. However, the use of theory to manage the problem of explanation identified in naturalist epistemology has been subject to particular criticisms. These various criticisms, and associated developments, are well represented by the claims of the logical positivists for incorrigible verification as the only basis for genuine knowledge and Popper’s (1935/1959) 2000) attack on the notion of pre-theoretical observations. Logical Positivism This stresses, in the tradition of Ayer, Carnap, and Schlick, that propositions are only meaningful to the extent that they can be empirically verified by means of observation and testing. It brings into focus the relationships between the constituent elements of a complex system of thought, and provides a mechanism by which the correlations between cause and effect offered by induction can be translated into a coherent, if unproven or unprovable, causal explanation. In its purest form, logical positivism (alternatively, logical empiricism or neopositivism) emerged as a response to the significant influence of Romanticism103 on 102

Mills ([1959] 1970) took issue with what he called abstract empiricism in sociological research, arguing that numerical data needs theoretical and historical contextualization to give it sociological meaning (see also Bannister 1987). 103 This was an eclectic pan-European movement in the arts and philosophy that began in Germany and England in the 1770s. It is characterized by its reaction against the age of reason with its emphasis on imagination, feelings, and intuitions (Abrams 1971, see also Higgins and Solomon 1993). It featured the philosophy of Hegel, Schelling, Schlegel, von Hardenberg, and Schleiermacher. It rebelled against the “barren rationalism of John Locke and the ‘Age of Reason’, partly ... to discover some principles of unity (or ‘Oneness’), some common hidden truth perceived, cherished and guarded by ... representatives of the Hermeneutic tradition through the ages” (Newsome 1997: 178–79). It argued that the creative arts and the wisdom of the great religions could act as an inspiration to free people’s subjective feelings and so inspire a vision of idyllic pre-

36

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

nineteenth century German philosophy of science. It was a school of thought, pursued during the early part of the twentieth century in the work of the Vienna Circle of philosophers, mathematicians and natural scientists, which aimed to connect positivism with empiricism (Frank 1949). Most particularly, it was concerned to overcome the rigid division between the physical or natural sciences (geisteswissenschaften) and the social or cultural sciences (kulturwissenschaften). Whilst the most vociferous criticisms of the logical positivists were directed against the hermeneutic epistemology of Dilthey and Heidegger, they also questioned the hypothetico-deductive model of the emergent verificationist form of positivism. The logical positivists contended that the problem of inductive inference, notably its incapacity to identify causal relationships, denied any epistemological legitimacy to the unverifiable theoretical statements that served as probabilistic guides to explanation. Rooted in radical empiricism104 (phenomenalism105), they restricted knowledge claims to the analytic propositions of mathematics and the incorrigible evidence of sense experience (Lewis 1946). Logical positivism sought to manage the distinctions, ambiguities and dilemmas posed by analytic and synthetic propositions, deductive and inductive inference, explanation and prediction through theory. Quite simply, deductive logic and inductive inference provide a mechanism by which the correlations between cause and effect offered by induction can be translated into a coherent, if unproven or unprovable, explanation (Ayer 1959). Its essential epistemological objectives are twofold: to establish a very clear demarcation between observation statements and theory statements; and to expunge from any enquiry process unverifiable theoretical explanations, particularly those based on the assumed operation of unobservable processes or phenomena (Carnap [1928] 1969: 108–9). This task was to be carried out by “their making the impossibility of metaphysics depends not upon the nature of what could be known but upon the nature of what could be said” (Ayer 1959: 11): if a statement cannot be verified it is meaningless. As Ayer ([1936] 1975: 28) remarked: The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability. We say that a sentence is factually significant to any person, if, and only if, he [sic] knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express—that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true or reject it as being false.

Hence, the precise distinction between the analytic and the synthetic resolves the tension within Hume’s philosophy, which regards a priori propositions as matters of fact and the stuff of real existence. So, logical positivists can designate as trivial Hume’s statement that “it is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger” ([1739] 2004: Bk. 2, Pt. 3). Having established a separation between analytic and synthetic propositions, logical positivism, in attempting to offer a general set of methodological rules that would be the same for natural and social sciences, found, axiomatically, that “all metaphysical, ethical and theological doctrines are meaningless. This

industrial communities bound together in a union of blood and soil. Its emphasis was, thus, on an organic concept of nature (Silz 1929) and “upon mind as opposed to matter” (Russell 1946: 730). 104 “To be radical, empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced” (James 1912). 105 This postulates that knowledge claims about the physical world can be reduced to claims about possible sensory perceptions of it (Lewis 1946).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

37

conclusion was inevitable, not because of any defect of logical thought, but because these strands of thought were unverifiable” (Scruton 1984: 278). Ayer’s ([1936] 1975) verification principle holds that a knowledge claim (proposition or statement) is meaningless either if it is not true by definition or if, in principle, its truth value cannot be empirically established, which requires all the evidence needed to establish beyond doubt its truth value to be available—his strong sense of empirical verifiability. This has its origins in the thinking of Wittgenstein, and lead to the necessity of distinguishing between observational and theoretical non-analytic statements. To resolve this dilemma, Ayer (1959) proposed limiting the concept of verification to verification in principle and weak or probabilistic verification, which requires only that some evidence be available to determine contingently a knowledge claim’s truth value—his weak sense of empirical verifiability. This avoids both the trap of denying the meaningful premises in empirical propositions, which cannot be verified due to the existing limits of experience and the danger of conclusive verification or falsification when observation can only reach a conclusion that is more or less probable. So, for Ayer, thinking logically takes him to the conclusion that “all empirical observations are hypotheses because there is no way of absolutely confirming or refuting such propositions” (Shand 2002: 248). However, this prescriptive rule returns logical positivism to the contradiction that is central to the uncertainties of induction: “if an induction is worth making, it may be wrong” (Russell 1927: 83). Whilst knowledge is recognized as a causal explanation of observations that lead to empirical laws stating universal truths, nevertheless as these generalizations are only ratified through a positive experience how can their truth be guaranteed? (Scruton 1984: 126). Logical positivists, thus, link knowledge to meaning and claim that only empirically verified statements have epistemological meaning (Carnap [1928] 1969). The logic of this position can be summarized as follows: if meaning is derived from knowledge, and knowledge from verification, then statements that cannot be verified, cannot be considered knowledge, and, therefore, cannot have any meaning epistemologically (Ayer [1936] 1975). This attempt to restrict the foundations of knowledge to hypotheses verified by observation alone, forced the logical positivists to abandon causal explanation. Thus, “denying not only that we could identify any form of natural necessity in the world but that, in principle, we could never come to know the real world” (Williams and May 1996: 27). The implication of this extreme empiricism is to require the abandonment of virtually the entire knowledge base of the physical, human and social sciences. This is because the predictive power of science rests not on the verified hypotheses grounded in theory, but on the causal relations imputed from the verification of these constitutive hypotheses. Further, the theories constructed to explain causal relationships—the source of the predictive power of empirical knowledge—are not merely rendered epistemologically curious (already accepted by Newton himself), but meaningless. Clearly, the observed capacity of theory to provide consistent prediction made this position untenable. Despite the heroic failure of logical positivism, it inspired a key development in naturalist epistemology: the recognition by Popper (Ackermann 1976: 43–64) of the theoretical nature of observation.

Falsificationism This stresses that only a knowledge claim that can, in principle, be falsified (disproved) can, in principle, be true, and that the truth value of a knowledge claims is established by the absence of disproving empirical evidence (Popper ([1935/1959] 2000, 1979). Popper was

38

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

concerned to refute what he considered the unfalsifiable contentions of self-referential systems of thought (such as Marxism and Freudianism) and the myriad collection of authoritarian political ideologies. He, therefore, shared the logical positivists’ desire to find a methodological defense against unsubstantiated causal explanations of reality. However, his project required the possibility of truth-like explanation, and forced his adoption of a strongly realist position (Stokes 1998: 99–105). Popper’s falsificationalism argued for a deductive procedure under which the consistency of the proposed theoretical system must first be established before, as a second stage, its analytical and synthetic elements, can be distinguished. Then, the new theory can be compared to other theories, so as to ensure that it advances existing knowledge, before, as the final element in Popper’s, the new theory is rigorously tested. As it can explain all the content of the existing theory, if it survives attempts to falsify it can be adopted as highly corroborated. However, this process does not result in the discovery of the truth, rather that the best unfalsified theory has been chosen. Therefore, Popper acknowledged, even though he is a metaphysical realist, that theories can only be tested in the idiom of current critical awareness of reality (Popper [1935/1959] 2000, 1979). Although realism is an essential pre-requisite for the denial of particular claims to knowledge, Popper has still to confront the problem of inductive inference and the uncertainties of epistemology ([1935/1959] 2000: 111): The empirical basis of objective science has thus nothing ‘absolute’ about it. Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The structure of its theories rises, as it were, above the swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or ‘given’ base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.

Fallibilism went further than the logical positivism in addressing these epistemological uncertainties. It holds that all knowledge claims are vulnerable during their unknowable provisional stage prior to certitude being established, which makes knowledge contingent and provisional. Not only did Popper deny the certainty of inductive inference, he also challenged the very observation statements it placed at the heart of genuine knowledge: “the belief that we can start with pure observation alone, without anything in the nature of a theory is absurd” (Popper [1962] 1969: 35). The core of his epistemological position is that human sensory perception, and therefore observation, is not only irredeemably theory-laden, but also essentially conjecturalist. As Ackerman (1976: 44) points out: On this view there is no immediate experience, as idealists hold; the feeling that we have some kind of direct perception is due to the facility given by our practised decoding of sensory information, as well as by innate genetically determined skills which have been honed by the process of evolutionary development. ... The mind frequently looks for clues to support a priori conjectures derived from evolutionary development and incorporated into hereditary transmission. The mind does not simply accumulate and then inductively test sense experiences.

In other words, sensory perceptions are conditioned by cultural and linguistic education. People possess a neurological tendency to extrapolate from these preconditions of experience

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

39

and to search for expected patterns of sensory perception. Thus, the gamekeeper sees a dozen species of mallard, whereas the child sees ‘cuddly ducks.’ What people see is a function of what they expect to see: observation is shaped by expectation of phenomena based on previous knowledge and reflection. These theoretical preconceptions are ubiquitous and the very act of observation is constrained by the conjectural possibilities shaped by people’s existing body of knowledge. The notion of incorrigible observation, then, appears as naïve. This has implications for the hypothetico-deductive model, as well as for logical positivism, because it makes observation itself a complex process of theoretical interpretation. The theoretical preconceptions drawn from extant knowledge—explanatory theories—can be used not only to devise meaningful tests, but also to define what constitute empirical corroboration. This process of corroboration is based on conjectures about the relationship of new sense data to existing structures of causal explanation. The result of these insights is to invert the propositions of the logical positivists: if meaning depends on knowledge, and knowledge depends on corroboration, and corroboration depends on theory, then meaning depends on theory. Thus, the pessimism of the logical positivists becomes fallibilism under Popper (Stokes 1998: 42). Ultimately, then, Popper claimed that the process of causal explanation rests on the intersubjective agreement of those engaged in the causal-explanation enquiry as to what constitutes a definitive test of any hypothesis (Burke 1983: 64). Causal explanation—the explanandum—must be a logical consequence of its explanatory variables—the explicans— and falsifiable propositions derived from the logical relationship between the two must be posed (Ackermann 1976: 18). It is this requirement for clear statements of falsifiability that demarcates scientific and non-scientific knowledge: only non-falsified, but falsifiable, statements can be considered scientific knowledge. As a consequence, knowledge proceeds through an iterative process of conjecture by which theories can only be fully falsified deductively, in the sense that they depend on the identification of deductively crucial observations that would be deemed to demonstrate the logical incoherence of particular clusters of theoretical contention. Falsification is, thus, not a wholly empirical process, but one that rests on methodological rules about the type of observation that should render a hypothesis null. Knowledge, therefore, is defined in terms of the capacity to determine the categories of falsification. As Ackermann (1976:18) argues: Falsifiability is a logical notion: a sentence or statement is falsifiable if it is incompatible with some clearly defined basic statements representing possible observations. ... Falsification is actually deciding that a falsifiable sentence is false—and this will depend on methodological rules which we adopt and which set out the decisions to be made as to whether a sentence is falsified given that certain observations are made.

The Popperian epistemological legacy is complex. First, he demonstrated the theoretical nature of observation, and the social and psychological dimensions of scientific enquiry. Second, he placed hypothetico-deductive model firmly within the realist framework of naturalism. However, his realism was based on the recognition of the immutability of epistemological uncertainty, which demands a suspension of judgment on unfalsifiable knowledge claims. This principle of verisimilitude drove him to a strict methodological falsificationism that precluded not only the final confirmation of theory, but also the a posteriori evaluation of theory, whereby a single instance of methodological falsification

40

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

forced the rejection of the conjectured causal explanation. Ultimately, even methodological falsification falls subject to the logic of induction, since the demonstration of past falsifiability, however sophisticated the methodology, can only imply future falsification through inductive inference (Burke 1983: 59). In other words, the very epistemological uncertainties that inspired Popper’s rigorous methodological falsification undermined the methodological solution he offered for them.

Implications Kant ([1781–87] 1956) maintained that a posteriori knowledge of objects is of importance but “is of only practical application, since it has not the slightest effect in enlarging theoretical knowledge of these objects as insight into their nature by pure reason” ([1781–87] 1956: 58). Thus, causal explanation through a posteriori knowledge is limited to immediate appearances resulting in Kant concluding that “the highest good is a synthesis of concepts” ([1781–87] 1956: 117). This led him to propose ([1781–87] 1956) the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge (beliefs that are not verifiable by experience or true by definition but are known with certainty to be true, thereby constituting new knowledge). To this end he recommended self-reflection over the effects of both rationalism and empiricism “on common sense” to “avoid the error of a crude and unpracticed judgement” ([1781–87] 1956: 167). Nevertheless, this assertion still leaves the dilemma that analytical a priori propositions cannot be proven empirically and synthetic a posteriori propositions can always be denied without contradiction, thereby making Kant's attempt to create a method of ratioempiricism through synergy inconclusive. Peirce (1877), however, advanced the epistemological fusion proposition a century later with his absolute belief that the best possible interpretation of reality comes from the product of individual cognitive processes being subjected to systematic and rigorous testing. Thus, the deductive reasoning processes that are pivotal to the generation of a priori knowledge are held by Peirce to owe their elaboration to a posteriori reasoning. Indeed, Peirce (1877: 8) went further: “what is more wholesome than any particular belief is integrity of belief, and that to avoid looking into the support of any belief from a fear that it may turn out rotten is quite as immoral as it is disadvantageous.” Similarly, the design of empirical research is informed by the content of theories making an irrefutable argument for the interdependence of both modes of reasoning. While both the deductive and the inductive forms of naturalism address the problem of causality in different ways (Popper [1935/1959] 2000), neither can identify unambiguous causal relationships, although naturalism is able to offer reasonably reliable predictions (Williams and May 1996). In view of the deficiencies in both inductive inference and deductive logic, they may well be relegated to the function of suggesting scenarios that might make the people aware of how reality may be explored. Furthermore, freed from the belief that each approach offers the best available enquiry method, it becomes possible to envisage them as complementary explanatory frameworks that enable people to reach a pragmatic solution on issue of truth in relation to a specific social phenomena, thereby contributing to their understanding of the social world.

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

41

Hermeneutics Hermeneutics assumes that the social world lack fixity and certainty because it grounds knowledge in a person’s conscious perceptions (Brentano [1874] 1995): “the social world must be understood from within, rather than explained from without” (Hollis 1994: 16, see also Baert 1998, Giddens 1990, 1991). The evidence for determining the truth value of social knowledge claim is subjective106—“truth from a human perspective” (Wiggins 1991: 120, see also Luntley 1995)—in that a person interprets social phenomena to decide their meaning (Hollis 1994). Thus, of course, such genuine knowledge may not correspond to material reality (Bretano [1874] 1973, see also Scruton 1984: 255–57).

On Knowledge The doctrine of subjectivism postulates that a knowledge claim is epistemologically subjective if the evidence for determining its truth value exists only in the human mind, derived from practice, language and discourse (Winch [1958] 1990).107 Thus, knowledge is unique to an individual. The truth or falsehood of a knowledge claim is, therefore, established solely by reference to its personal beneficiality, to the individual testimony of others, to the consensus view of others, or to self-justifying common sense or received, or revealed wisdom, which involves a process of personal reflection and rumination that draws upon material and immaterial evidence, that takes place within a sociocultural and linguistic milieu, and that involves the use of reasoning (not only induction and deduction, but also abduction 108 and retroduction109) as well as intuition. Hermeneutics embraces: •

•

106

antirealism, which holds that reality does not exist independently of the mind, and that the truthfulness of a knowledge claim depends upon the circumstances that would justify its assertion (its assertability-conditions) (Alston, 2002, Devitt 1984, Devitt and Sterelny 1987, Dummett 1963, Wright 1987); relativism, which holds “that there are no grounds for postulating or investigating a reality independent of the knower; that there is no ultimate truth and, therefore, no

Freud ([1929] 1971), Knorr-Cetina (1981) Harding (1986; 1991) and Shepherd (1993) maintain that subjectivism extends beyond the recognition of the relevance of human feelings, beliefs and interests. 107 Miller and Fredericks (1994: 93–94) observe: “the genuine problem of indeterminacy for the human sciences does not lie at the level of debates concerning ‘hermeneutic’ vs ‘scientific empirical’ views of human action, but rather at the level of specific methodological techniques that ultimately are the constitutive elements for determining the existence (or lack of it) of indeterminant translations ..., we are not arguing that the definition of methodology as the application of specific techniques and procedures is sufficient to resolve indeterminacy in all situations, but only that it is a necessary condition both to establish its existence and to demonstrate possible ways of reducing it.” This suggest, as King et al. (1994) argue, that qualitative interpretive research methods should conform to the logic of inductive inference. Examples of conforming methodologies are Cressey’s (1953: 22) analytical induction, which, focuses on the systematic, sequential and exhaustive examination of an array of cases to provide generalizations; and Glasser and Strauss’s (1967) grounded theory, which argues for the generation of theory inductively from a body of qualitative data. 108 This form of reasoning is a thought process by which a causal hypothesis is inferred from a body of evidence about a phenomenon that would, if correct, provide the best explanation for that evidence (inference to best explanation) (Lipton [1991] 2004). It, thus, identifies the best explanation for a phenomenon, given all the evidence under consideration (Kapitan, 1992). 109 This form of reasoning involves drawing causal inferences from a body of evidence related to one phenomenon, to explain the cause of another phenomenon (Edwards 1967). It is contingent upon observed concomitances, which may be merely coincidental.

42

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

•

•

•

•

•

grounds for presuming that any one truth claim is ‘better’ than any other” (Nightingale and Cromby 1999: 228, see also Baghramian 2004); perspectivism, which holds that “the external world is interpreted through alternative systems of beliefs and concepts and that there is no means of establishing that one view is necessarily “any better than another” (Nightingale and Cromby 1999: 227); multiculturalation of meaning, which holds that there are a multiplicity of interpretation of meaning reflecting the diversity of cultural contexts (Gergen and Thatchenkey 1998); indexicality, which holds that any interpretation of words and concepts is dependant on their relation with other words and concepts, and on the context of their use (Forbes 1989); reflexivity, which holds that the act of being self-aware, reflective, and hence reflexive, about the ways a knowledge seeker’s personal values, experiences, interests and beliefs have shaped the knowledge obtained (Bartlett and Suber 1987): “the connection between knowledge and social life” (Giddens 2001: 697); and narrative knowledge, which holds that knowledge can take the form of story-telling, perhaps involving legends and myths—little narratives110—which provide a “network of powerful symbols that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world” (Midgley 2003: 1) that shapes meaning and justify knowledge claims (Lyotard 1979, Tsoukas 1998).

Hermeneutics contends that knowledge is generated by acts of ideation (the product of transcendental acts in the perceiving mind of a person engaged in reflection and rumination, conditioned by his or her mental characteristics or states that give rise to personal temperaments, interests, tastes, feelings, interpretations and prejudices, and shaped by the prevalent sociocultural and linguistic milieu). It rests on intersubjectively shared symbols that allow for the sharing (reciprocity) of perspectives (Schutz [1932] 1967). However, this preacquaintance of the individual with the social is both active and contextually variable, which makes it dependant on the relationship between sensory perception, memory and communications. This connects thought to object, and requires acts of reflexive interpretation to ensure the appropriate contextualization of meaning (Blumer 1969, Garfinkel [1967] 1984; Wittgenstein 1953). To Garfinkel, an individual make sense of what others say by reflecting on actual, ordinary activities (practical actions, practical circumstances, commonsense knowledge of social structures, and practical reasoning) (ethnomethodology). This enables that person to work out what to do, as distinct from what to think (contemplative or theoretical thinking) (Byron 2004). To Blumer, drawing upon Mead’s (1934, 1938) proposition that self awareness arises through the process of role-taking (social behaviorism) (Cook 1977), an individual takes meaning about the social world—every day life—by making sense of what others say through symbolic communications, which involve the interaction of language, identity and societal values, achieved by means of interactive processes that underpin the construction, negotiation, presentation and affirmation of self (symbolic interactionalism). To Wittgenstein (1953), deriving meaning about the social world and making sense of what others say is the product of the complex of interwoven speech and 110

This stands in contradistinction to modernism’s totalizing meta-narratives and grand theories (Mills [1959] 1970), which postmodernists assert have lost credibility (Harvey 1992, Lyotard 1979).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

43

action that are ordered in praxis in a way that makes sense to the participants (language games). If the social world can only be understood subjectively then, by implication, one person’s truth is just as valid as another’s, and so each person can create reality in a metaphysical domain that is incapable of being addressed by the naturalist methods of enquiry. The dichotomy between truth and reality is deemed an irrelevance and problems of objectivity do not arise (Bunge 1996: 330), because facts flowing from naturalist methods do not contribute much to the understanding of the social world. In this scenario, as Kant ([1781–87] 1956, see also O’Neill 1989) reasoned, any ultimate reality cannot be known. This imposes restrictions on “the scope of human reason” (Callinicos 1999: 31).111 What, then, is knowable is relative—both across time and across individuals (epistemic relativism)—which means that people in different groups (societies) have very different approaches to reasoning and to belief confirmation and belief systems (social relativism) (Hollis and Lukes 1982, Stich 1990).

Traditions Moderate Subjectivism This holds that what a person can know about the social world is dependent on his or her reflective perceptions, perhaps defined and interpreted by comparing and contrasting them with the perceptions held by others (Dilthey [1883] 1988, Schleirmacher [1805–10] 1977). Radical Subjectivism This holds that what a person can known about the social world is the product of his or her engagement in social interactions and discourses that continually constructed and reconstructed his or her perceptions of that world (Murphy 1980). Epistemological Positions Epistemological Hermeneutics This stresses the divining of the meaning of individual subjectivity through comparison and contrast with the meaning of others’ subjectivity, in the tradition of Schleiermacher and Dilthey. Modern hermeneutics originated with the work of Schleiermacher ([1799] 1988; see also Palmer 1969, Richardson 1998, Sorrentino 1992), which combined the Kantian search for universal rules of understanding of experience with Romanticism’s recognition of the uniquely human consciousness (Ricoeur 1981: 46). Thus, he attempted to develop a general system of interpretation of human meaning derived from the methods of theological exegesis and classical philology. The duality of the hermeneutic task was reflected in Schleiermacher’s distinction between grammatical interpretations (which are concerned with the language rules that define the range of meanings available to the individual) and psychological interpretations (which are based on the meanings construed by individual authors within a 111

Berkeleyan notions of subjectivism, which relied on God as the source of ideas or sensations in the mind, were reinterpreted by Husserl, who sought to isolate pure consciousness by means of a methodology that excluded reflexive and speculative thought from descriptions of mental conditions (Husserl [1929] 1981). Subsequently, Sartre rejected both an objectivist and subjectivist philosophy in developing a position of human intentionality of consciousness (Sartre [1960] 1976).

44

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

culture) (Ricoeur 1981: 47). Whilst Schleiermacher continued to espouse the universality of general hermeneutic methodology, the primary focus of divination and comparison related to the psychological dimension of meaning at the individual level. However, the subjectivity of the individual was not directly accessible, and could only be approached through the individual in a social setting: “we never directly grasp individuality, but grasp only its difference from others and ourselves” (Ricoeur 1981: 47). Thus, Schleiermacher’s epistemology can be characterized as structured subjectivity. This universal methodology for the investigation of interpretation requires a recognition of objective (critical) grammatical or cultural structures that enables the divination of individual subjectivity, through comparison with the meanings commonly held by others within a given culture, which enables the investigator “to understand an author as well as and even better than he understands himself” (Ricoeur 1981: 46). The early hermeneutic epistemology pioneered by Schleiermacher was developed by Dilthey (1910). He located the distinctiveness of the human sciences in “a primordial capacity to transpose oneself into the mental life of others,” through language, such that “man [sic] is not radically alien to man because he offers signs of his own existence” (Ricoeur 1981: 49). It is this social dimension of human consciousness that allows the unique relationship between object and subject within the human and social sciences. Knowledge of others is possible because social existence produces forms of life—regularized human activities, expressions, emotions and prejudices that are mutually intelligible to the participants within a particular culture or society. Indeed, these patterns of communicable feelings and discernments, or structured acquisitions (acquis), are essential to the construction of meaningful social life; they constitute the bed-rock of cultural phenomena, such as literature. Thus, an individual gains self-knowledge through interaction with the forms of life that constitutes human culture. Dilthey claimed that the very possibility of individual self-knowledge rests on the capacity for self-interpretation: self-knowledge112 derives from the iterative interrogation of meaning based on the manner in which the forms of life apparent in historical society are returned to the individual by others. Thus, individual self-interpretations (knowledge claims) are the product of historically structured signs and expressions that become collectively meaningful (genuine knowledge) through mutual recognition. These processes of mutual recognition constitute the objectifications of life, or history. However, objectifications are dynamic and creative, as well as durable over time. As Ricoeur (1981: 52) remarks: Acquired meanings, present values and distant goals constantly structure the dynamic of life, according to the three temporal dimensions of past, present and future. Man learns about himself only through his acts, through the exteriorization of his life and through the effects it produces on others. He comes to know himself only by the detour of understanding, which is, as always, an interpretation.

Existentialism Kierkegaard, considered by many to be the father of existentialism, had as his project to contradict the notion of totality or the progression of understanding that proceeds from the self to the entire human species and, finally, to the “absolute idea” (Wahl 1949: 3). Crucially,

112

Nietzsche, by his own admission, had “an ungovernable distrust of the possibility of self-knowledge” ([1886] 1998: 170, emphasis in original).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

45

he grounded epistemology in the self-knowledge of human beings ([1846] 1941). In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of Schopenhauer in the metaphysical idealist tradition. To Schopenhauer the world is a manifestation of will—“the world is my idea” (Schopenhauer [1818/1844] 1969: 1) and “no will: no idea, no world” (Schopenhauer [1851] 1970: 56)—his doctrine of the primacy of will (see also Young 2005). He saw Kant’s phenomenal world as the appearance or expression of will, while Kant’s noumenal world he saw as the world of will. This latter world is not, however, beyond a person’s ken. Indeed, he argued that “a way from within stands open to us to [the] real inner nature of things” (Schopenhauer [1818/1844] 1969: 5), which involves reflecting on the inner experiences of acts of willing. Once a person realizes that his or her inner nature is will, them he or she will recognise that same will not only in those phenomena that are quite similar to his [sic] own, in men and animals, as their innermost nature, but continued reflection will lead him to recognise the force that shoots and vegetates in the plant, indeed the force by which the crystal is formed, the force that turns the magnet … all these he will recognise as different only in the phenomenon, but the same according to their inner nature (Schopenhauer [1818/1844] 1969: 46).

Hence, “my body is the phenomenal form of my will [how the will appears in the phenomenal world], my will is the noumenal form of my body [the will is the inner nature of the body]: my body is ‘appearance’' [natura naturata], my will ‘thing in itself’ [natura naturans]” (Schopenhauer [1851] 1970: 56). Will is, thus, the real world—the life force or the will to exist (wille)—of which the intellect is the servant not master: what a person believes, then, to be real is the basis for reasoning. The real world is, thus, the self who has an idea. All knowledge is based on immediate personal experience: “Our existence has no foundation on which to rest except the transient present” (Schopenhauer [1851] 1970: 52); and “that which has been no longer is; it as little exists as does that which has never been. But everything that is in the next moment has been. Thus the most insignificant present has over the most significant past the advantage of actuality, which means that the former bears to the latter the relation of something to nothing” (Schopenhauer [1851] 1970: 51). Knowledge, then, is embedded in the lived existence of subjectively aware human beings. It is grounded in the belief that the individual has a private self—a private inner world with mental processes that use a private language113 capable of determining the truthfulness of an experience (for example, deciding that an object is, as a matter of fact, red) independently of the experience itself (seeing an object that generates the sense-data associated with the color red) (see Humphrey 2006; for a philosophical rebuttal see Wittgenstein 1953, see also Gazzaniga et al. 2002, Kripke 1982, Price 1932). It follows from this existential isolation of individual consciousness that knowledge cannot be truly shared, merely that the knowledge of one person may shape the experiences that inform knowledge formation by another. Thus, the world of persons must contain a multitude of subjective truths grounded in first-person mental discernments, which render the notion of objective truth paradoxical, and thereby problematic (Warnock 1970: 8–9). As Kierkegaard [1846] 1941: 185) explained: When subjectivity, inwardness, is the truth, the truth becomes objectively a paradox; and the fact that the truth is objectively a paradox shows in its turn that subjectivity is the truth. For 113

“Thought, says Plato, is a silent speech of the soul with itself” (Peirce 1984: 172).

46

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson the objective situation (of entertaining a paradoxical thought) is repellent, and the expression for the objective repulsion constitutes the tension and the measure of the corresponding inwardness. The paradoxical character of the truth is its objective uncertainty.

The subjective constitution of knowledge has three key implications for objective knowledge. It must be illusory and science a myth, being merely the domination of another’s knowledge, which must be inauthentic because it is externally generated. It must, therefore, as a proposition, be viewed as essentially political and, antithetical to genuine freedom.114 It can, as a chimera, provide no objective basis for moral choice. These consequences of subjective knowledge shape the nature of the human condition and, thereby, the context of knowledge acquisition. This existentialist imperative shapes epistemology: no clear distinction can be made between evaluation and description: “perceptions are altogether permeated with valuations (useful or harmful, hence acceptable or unacceptable)” (Nietzsche [1895] 1967: 78). Kierkegaard ([1845] 1940) notes the danger of the feeling of dread—the fear of nothingness—that derives from existential isolation can lead to the denial of both reality and meaning (see also Sartre [1943] 1957). Nietzsche sought to explain the myth of objectivity in terms of the essential human need to dominate the social and physical environment: “our cognitive apparatus is an abstracting and falsifying mechanism directed not toward knowledge, but toward mastery and possession” (Nietzsche [1895] 1967: 120). Heidegger saw the task of analyzing the problem of self-knowledge arising from the self in the everyday world being seen as an entity unconscious of its own existence. Thus he argued that “all conventional, objectifying representations of a capsulelike psyche, subject, person, ego or consciousness in psychology and psychopathology must be abandoned in favor of an entirely different understanding. The new view of the basic constitution of the human being may be called dasein or being-in-the-world” (Heidegger [1927] 1996: 47). This he defined as what it is that each person is, which is product of his or her factuality (the past through which his or her present is constituted), existentiality (his or her sense of freedom about the future) and fallenness (his or her capacity to focus on the mundane present moment by ignoring both the past and the future). To Heidegger, self knowledge required the recognition of past determinants, the acknowledgement of present concerns, and an alertness to future possibilities. Sartre’s conviction was that people must create their own meaning in what he saw as a meaningless world. His commitment was to the domain of human existence—its essences or intellectual constructs—the analysis of which he premised on an epistemological approach that begins with a detailed ontological analysis of Being. The initial task for this enquiry is to draw a distinction between what denotes the reality of the familiar forms, which make up everyday sensory perceptions (such as furniture, buildings and people), and what denotes reality within the metaphysical domain. This latter, higher level of reality consists of three modes of existence: being-in-itself, which applies to the Being that has no consciousness of existence (non-human inert objects); being-for-itself, which is the type of existence that

114

To existentialists, such freedom is the freedom to search for one’s self-identity, to leave behind persistent selfdelusions (preferring commitment to uncertainty, fiction to doubt, assent to denial, and passing judgments to doing justice), rooted in bad faith; and to decide one’s own fate, and so be able to determine one’s own destiny, for which personal responsibility is accepted. This transcends both the classical understanding of freedom (being able to live an objectively desirable life) and the libertarian understanding of freedom (being free from the control, interference or exploitation of others).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

47

individual consciousness has that leads to the making of choices about values and meanings that arise from the constant movement of intentional awareness; and being-for-others (le pour-autrui), which involves the process of intersubjective relations between individuals that provide them with fundamental understandings about their world. Predominately, understanding reality within the metaphysical domain only comes after the reality of familiar forms is understood. Sartre can be identified with the immediacy of stripping away both sentimental and objective speculations about reality. Thus, he propounded the belief that only a reality divested of its various descriptions is accessible. In this space, Being is indefinable, unknowable and unattainable, thereby making reality speculation misleading in any quest for genuine human engagement (Shand 2002: 230–31). Knowledge, then, is, ultimately, unique to the individual.

Phenomenology This stresses, in the tradition of Brentano, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Schutz and Sartre (Hammond et al. 1991), that objects are objects of experience, akin to Kant’s phenomena, which makes reality relative and subjective. Understanding, thus, necessitates an investigation of the relationship between the objective and subjective realms, by drawing on the process by which an individual conceives and interprets aspects of his or her experience of the world as distinct and meaningful, on the basis of his or her experience of it constituted in and by consciousness, which requires the analysis and explication of the structures of conscious experience. Phenomenology has come to embrace (Embree et al. 1996, Moran 2000, Thévenaz 1962) •

•

•

•

115

realistic phenomenology, which explores meaningfulness by understanding the structure of consciousness and intentionality115, as it is brought into being by consciousness (Husserl and Merleau-Ponty); constitutive phenomenology, which explores meaningfulness by understanding how the immediate experience of objects is constituted in a person’s consciousness (Husserl); existential phenomenology, which explores meaningfulness by searching the immediacy of lived experience—by observing and analyzing daseim (being-there) and lebenswelt (lifeworld)—for the basic presuppositions of knowledge (Heidegger, Levinas, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre); social phenomenology, which explores meaningfulness about what others say—as individually constructed meaning—by utilizing meaning contexts that reflects patterns of subjective meaning acquired through intersubjective everyday experiences (Schutz);

“Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to content, direction towards an object … Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they [sic] do not do so in the same way. On presentation, something is presented, in judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on” (Bretano [1874] 1995: 35).

48

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson •

• •

generative historicist phenomenology, which explores meaningfulness by understanding how meaning grounded in personal experience is generated in collective-experience processes (Husserl); genetic phenomenology, which explores meaningfulness by understanding the genesis of meanings grounded in a person’s stream of experience (Husserl); and hermeneutic phenomenology, which explores meaningfulness on the premise that all forms of human awareness are interpretive, thereby requiring the exploration of the role of language, the nature of questioning, and the phenomenology of human conversation, and of the significance in human understanding of prejudice, historically, and tradition, thereby embracing myth, religion, art, and language (Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur).

Bretano’s [1874] 1973) original and fundamental contribution was the proposition that knowledge is provided by conscious perceptions that are mediated by intentionality, as the human mind could only be understood from the viewpoint of the first person. Husserl, Bretano’s pupil, developed phenomenology with the aim, similar to that of Descartes, of “establishing a unified certain foundation for all knowledge” (Shand, 2002: 218, see also Smith 2006). Initially, he pursued this goal by studying logic, which led him to reject positivist explanations, as they relied on the mechanical application of reason to deduce logical consequences. Instead of universal naturalistic analysis restricted to the appearance of phenomena, Husserl advocated focusing on the understanding of essences through conceptualization and self-reflection (Husserl [1929] 1981; see also Gordon 1991: 612). Intentionality, as a distinguishing feature of human mental processes, defines some mental acts (such as hopes, aspirations and goals), but predominant states of emotion (such as happiness or anxiety), can only be accommodated if temporary states of mind—moods116— are regarded as the object of intention (Shand 2002: 220).117 Arising from this theoretical framework, phenomenology has discovered its unit analysis to be a mental act (methodological solipsism) that is capable of revealing the essence of knowledge, which constitutes its datum (Scruton 1985: 258). Phenomenological inquiry, then, is concerned only with the human experience; the past experiences that influence the meaning taken from the external world. In this paradigm, the world is knowable by a person through meanings that describe the appearances of objects and, unless this realm is transcended, at this level he or she would also perceive certain and necessary truths. So, a person can participate in a world informed by sense data that can assume some degree of intersubjectivity through language, culture and a pattern of common sense that has evolved from the commonalities of social experience internalized as recipes for social actions. The heart of phenomenology is located in its method of reduction. The eidetic reduction sees past—or through—the particularity of undifferentiated lived experience that gives rise to concreteness of meaning, toward the iconic universal—eidos. The idea of this phenomenological essence is not some immutable human nature, for that would be 116

117

Thayer (1996: 3) defines this as “a background feeling that persists over time,” which is ephemeral and elusive by nature, which has energy and tension dimensions, and which does not always have an identifiable cause. “The terminological expression … for designating the basic character of being as consciousness, as consciousness of something, is intentionality. In the unreflective holding of some object or other in consciousness, we are turned or directed towards it: our ‘intentio’ goes out towards it” (Husserl [1931] 1960: 15).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

49

committing the fallacy of essentialism. Husserl ([1929] 1981) could support the Cartesian position by maintaining a separation between the intrinsic elements of a person’s mental states from extraneous encumbrances. The presuppositions a person possesses concerning the designation of mental phenomena are to be bracketed off or suspended from his or her belief or judgment, so as to allow him or her to deliberate on pure phenomena. Such an enhanced reflective awareness, which is facilitated by his or her own intuitive intellectual vision, excludes existing theories and assumptions to achieve a phenomenological attitude that can comprehend the essence of the reduced objects of consciousness (Shand 2002). The phenomenological method of bracketing contributes to an enhanced understanding about the way an individual may interact when involved in activities that are geared to achieve other people’s objectives, and about how these background expectancies can produce practices that phenomenologists consider positivists mistakenly attribute to normative or ruleguided social actions. This attribute is the outcome from an approach that is a priori by nature, as essential meanings are apprehended by excluding, or making them prior to, all information from our habitualized layered consciousness. Even the individual ego118 must be bracketed off and replaced by the transcendental ego, which “simply places an existentially independent reality under intelligible categories or concepts and so makes that reality an object for consciousness” (Shand 2002: 228).119 Husserl prioritization of the idea of essence, recognizable in his method of bracketing, makes phenomenology a branch of eidetic science, which is concerned with people’s recollection and retention. He takes the stream of consciousness120 to be chaotic and temporally naïve: “Indeed, when I immerse myself in my stream of consciousness, in my duration, I do not find any clearly differential experiences at all” (Schutz [1932] 1967: 133). Mental life presupposes an act of ideation, whereby the individual reflects on the passage of time and events, and identifies experiences that are discrete, and placed in the past, present or future (Husserl [1928] 1931: 140). Acts of ideation are constituted by the attentional activities of the ego, notably retention (whereby experience is captured within the stream of consciousness) and recollection or reproduction (whereby retention is constituted as meaningful memory) (Husserl, [1928] 1964: 51–52). The exact distinction between retention and recollection is provided by Husserl ([1928] 1964: 161): Retention itself is not an act of looking back which makes an object of the phase which has expired. Because I have the phase which has expired in hand, I live through the one actually present, take it—thanks to retention—‘in addition to’ and am directed to what is coming. ... But because I have this phase in hand, I can turn my regard toward it in a new act which— depending on whether the living experience which has expired is being generated in a new

118

In terms of the Freudian set of mind metaphors, the ego is a set of functions in the rational part of the mind that provide realistic direction for impulses by seeking to balance primitive short-term drives (the pleasure-seeking id) with long-term consequences (the monitoring and regulating superego) (Freud [1923] 1927, 1936, see also Cramer 1991, Freud [1936] 1948). 119 It is axiomatic that Husserl’s transcendental ego cannot form part of existentialist philosophy, as the subjectivism within this doctrine of intentions suggests that objects can be moved into a passive and pure realm of consciousness, which in existentialist thought cannot exist. 120 “Consciousness ... does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as ‘chain’ or ‘train’ do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life” (James 1890b).

50

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson primal datum (therefore, is an impression), or whether, already completed, it moves as a whole ‘into the past’—we call a reflection (immanent perception) or recollection.121

The pre-phenomenal objects of retention and recollection constitute multi-characteristic (polythetic) acts of discrete individual experience. These are synthesized by the reflective glance into single-characteristic (monothetic) configurations of meaning, which make up a person’s stock of knowledge, constituted as schemes of interpretation, or meaning-contexts; the taken for granted assumptions and meanings attached to experience (Schutz [1932] 1967: 75–77). Knowledge is, thus, always indeterminate, tentative, and incomplete and always inclined to question assumptions by returning repeatedly to lived experience. It involves “the ordering of a lived experience within the total configuration of experience [through] a synthesis of recognition, [and the association of a lived experience with] an objectification already on hand within the store of experience” (Schutz [1932] 1967: 83). However, whilst knowledge is stratified through the continuing process of retention and recollection, immediate perceptions and interpretations reflect the current use made by the ego of objectifications, or meaning contexts, derived from past retention and recollection. Thus, “the meaning of a lived experience undergoes modifications depending on the particular kind of attention the ego gives to that lived experience ... the meaning of a lived experience is different depending on the moment from which the ego is observing it” (Schutz [1932] 1967: 73–74). Knowledge is not only unique to the individual, but unique to the individual at a specific point in time: it is, thus, both subjective and relative. Phenomenology, by acknowledging the possibility of objective knowledge, accepts the objectivity of Kant’s analytical knowledge: mathematics and semiotics offer unproblematic knowledge systems derived from the notion of non-contradiction: “A sign has an ‘objective meaning’ within its sign system when it can be intelligibly coordinated to what it designates within that system independently of whoever is using the sign or interpreting it” (Schutz [1932] 1967: 123). Crucially, however, phenomenology also proposes a synthetic objective knowledge based on the notions of reciprocity (Simmel [1908] 1950) and intersubjectivity. Indeed, the explication of objective knowledge represents a primary ambition of the phenomenological project, and involves the following argument: “Constituted as it is within the unique stream of consciousness of each individual, [intended meaning] is essentially inaccessible to every other individual” (Schutz [1932] 1967: 99). However, “the listener notices that the speaker is expressing certain subjective experiences of his [sic] and in that sense may be said to notice them; but he himself does not live through these experiences—his perception is ‘external’ rather than ‘internal’” (Husserl [1928], cited in Schutz [1932] 1967: 10). The objective meaning of a statement in German can be established by any individual cognizant of the grammar and vocabulary of the German language, however the assumed consciousness of the speaker encourages the observer to seek the “intended meaning” of the statement itself: what the speaker meant by the statement (Schutz [1932] 1967: 112). Whilst the observer cannot penetrate the exact meaning of another’s statement, face-to-face 121

This distinction is summarized by Schutz ([1932] 1967: 49): It is, therefore, by virtue of retention that the multiplicity of the running-off of duration is constituted: the present Now differs from the earlier Now if only because retention, as the being-still-conscious of the justhaving-been, is carried out in a Now in whose constitution it partakes. On the other hand, the identity of the object and objective time itself is constituted in recollection (reproduction).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

51

conversation can allow the gap between objective and subjective meaning to be bridged with varying degrees of approximation. Simultaneous social relations increase the observer’s capacity to grasp the meaning contexts indicated by the objective terminology offered by the speaker (Schutz [1932] 1967: 128), assisted by past experience of the speaker, appropriateness of response, bodily gestures and the apparent success or failure of clarification. Thus, the possibility of subjective knowledge depends on the observer’s proximity to the speaker’s complete field of expression. According to Schutz ([1932] 1967: 166): First of all I grasp the ‘objective meaning’ of your words, the meaning which they would have had, had they been spoken by you or anyone else. But second, of course, there is the subjective meaning, namely, what is going on in your mind as you speak. In order to get your subjective meaning, I must picture to myself your stream of consciousness as flowing side by side with my own. Within this picture I must interpret and construct your intentional Acts as you choose your words. To the extent that you and I can mutually experience this simultaneity, ... to that extent we can live in each other’s subjective context’s of meaning.

Thus, the spatial relationship—the horizon—between the observer and speaker determines the relationship between objective and subjective knowledge. Phenomenology distinguishes between consociates, contemporaries, and predecessors: the possibility of subjective knowledge essentially fades with the horizon, to be overtaken by either objective knowledge or objectifications, ideal-types derived from the life experience of the individual. Objective knowledge emerges as the sine quo non of epistemology: it is the only assured, though limited, basis for social knowledge. Subjective knowledge offers definitive understanding of social actions, but is only partially accessible through the approximation of simultaneity. The intended meanings of remote contemporaries and predecessors can only be approached through an analysis of the objective meaning of the cultural artifacts they produce, or through the application of schemes of interpretation or meaning contexts “already on hand within the store of experience” (Schutz [1932] 1967: 83). Thus, a person’s taken-forgranted stock of knowledge, or natural attitude (Schutz [1932] 1967: 83), reflects patterns of subjective meaning acquired through interaction with consociates, which are then utilized to interpret the meaning contexts implied by the objective cultural artifacts offered by contemporaries and predecessors.

Linguistic Epistemology Whilst the hermeneutic tradition generally recognized the epistemological salience of language, linguistic epistemology per se only emerged with the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein ([1922] 1961, 1953, [1956] 1978). Whereas phenomenology conceptualizes language as an objective mechanism for the approximate communication of subjective meaning (Berger and Luckmann 1966: 51), Wittgenstein reversed this epistemological logic and argued that the objective rules of language are prerequisite of knowledge itself: “That the world is my world shows itself in the fact that the limits of my language (of the only language I can understand) mean the limits of my world” (Wittgenstein, [1922] 1961: 5.62, but see Pinker [1994] 1995). Language gives pictures of the world and consists of pictures of reality. The limits of language are the limits of thought: “What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence” (Wittgenstein [1922] 1961: iv). Furthermore,

52

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

the linguistic rules that shape knowledge acquisition are intersubjective and, therefore, “the very existence of concepts depends on group-life” (Winch [1958] 1990: 44). These propositions imply that the natural attitude (Husserl [1931] 1960) is rooted in the objective reality of language rules. Linguistic epistemology stresses the importance of learning the rules of language that govern the social meaning associated with any social action (Wittgenstein [1922] 1961). These language rules vary from culture-to-culture, and from time-to-time. They shape knowledge acquisition, because they are intersubjectively shared and rooted in a taken-forgranted stock of tacit knowledge. Whilst two or more individuals can undertake new activities, and agree new linguistic conventions, this merely indicates the group-dependency of language and meaning. Indeed, “speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life” (Wittgenstein 1953: 23; see also Garver 1994). A person understands what other do linguistically in everyday life—when, for instance, they give orders, ask a question, or translate from one language to another—as distinct and meaningful phenomena, because they satisfy certain definitional rules, which serve to constitute them in the context of a particular form of life. The relationship between language and reality (Devitt and Sterelny [1987] 1998) is the focus of Wittgenstein’s three major contributions to epistemology. His Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus (1922) builds on the logic of Frege ([1884] 1980) and Whitehead and Russell ([1910–13] 1925–27). It views ordinary language as ambiguous, due the multitude of objects associated with individual words, and the root of philosophical confusion. His logical atomism, which conceives the world as a collection of discrete atomistic factual propositions—simple, independent and irreducible constituents of meaning (the picture theory of meaning)—that required linguistic clarity, sought to establish an ideal logical syntax, whereby: In order to avoid these errors [caused by sentences in ordinary language having a misleading surface form], we must employ a symbolism which excludes them, by not applying the same sign in different symbols and by not applying signs in the same way which signify in different ways. A symbolism, that is to say, which obeys the rules of logical grammar—of logical syntax (Wittgenstein [1922] 1961: 3.325, see also Griffin 1964).

It, thus, utilized mathematical logic in the attempt to construct an ideal language able to overcome the ambiguities associated with ordinary language. In contrast, the later Wittgenstein (1953, 1969) privileged ordinary language—thought is limited by language—and made the intelligibility of language rules the key both to meaning. —meaning of a word is grounded in its use in the language, which links it to behavior and context—and to epistemological certainty. Crucially, he argued that to grasp the meaning of the word “swan” is not to grasp the essence of “swanness,” but rather to apply correctly the everyday definition of the term at a given cultural moment. The essence of the latter Wittgenstein is captured by his rejoinder to philosophy: “Don’t think, but look!” (1953: 66). He explained language and its conceptions of meanings (Finch 1995: 57–58) as imperatives (rules, obligations and commands); as constructions (concepts, uses and sciencemathematics); as customs (ceremonies, myths and rituals); as physiognomies (pictures, design and art-architecture); and as activities (such as commanding, questioning, recounting or chatting).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

53

Language rules are considered to have acquired epistemological significance because, as Wittgenstein (1953: 119) states: The aim of philosophy is to give a correct description and thus to arrive at an accurate understanding of the world, and (2) such a description is not scientific in nature. ... Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by language.

The use of the word “rule” and the use of the word “same” are interwoven (as are the use of “proposition” and the use of the term “true”) (Wittgenstein 1953: I, 225). Hence: “The rule can only seem to me to produce all its consequence in advance if I draw them as a matter of course. As much as it is a matter of course for me to call this colour ‘blue’” (Wittgenstein 1953: I, 238).

Implications The dilemma for hermeneutics is that the knowledge it generates is not only socioculturally specific and subject to severe relativism, but also dynamic and open to constant revision. The former makes explanation contingent on culture, whereas the latter makes prediction problematic. There is, therefore, no “best” or “most justified” mode of reasoning in the search for genuine knowledge (Davidson 1984, Goodman 1965, Hollis and Lukes 1982, Mackie 1977).

Truth and the Social World: An Epistemological Perspective The concept of truth is fundamental to people’s social existence, as it determines what they can known and what they can learn about the social world in which they find themselves. Their social interactions require them to be able to determine the truthfulness of the knowledge claims that others assert to be true. However, beyond this expansive supposition, lies the uncomfortable realization that truth can be comfortably interpreted by those who have a predilection toward multifarious standards of truthfulness. Thus, social knowledge claims need to be treated as provisional and contingent, as argued by fallibilists (such as Peirce, Popper). This provides a foundation for consideration of how contending epistemological standpoints can acknowledge the fundamental legitimacy of alternative perspectives. Following Peirce (1932a, 1932b, see also Mounce 1997: 42), a distinction must be made between truth (the condition that must be meet if a particular knowledge claim is to be accepted as true) and reality (everything, whether observable or not, that is accessible or understandable by any system of analysis). Within the human conceptualization of truth and reality, there are multiple methodologies that can be used to adjudicate on what constitutes genuine knowledge, which should not be confused with Feyerabend’s (1975) contemporary assertion that the limitations of all methodologies only leads to the one rule “anything goes.” The distinct explanation-focused naturalist epistemology—grounded in realism with its focus on objective truth-conditions—stands in contradistinction to understanding-focused hermeneutic epistemology—grounded in antirealism, with its focus on assertabilityconditions. But they are not substitutes. The total separation of truth and reality would, as Williams and May (1996: 105) note, “open up the whole question of the relationship between values and scientific practice.” The pragmatic alternative (Peirce 1932a, 1932b) is to adopt

54

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

the position that individuals reach common meanings that constitute the truth, whilst also being part of reality and reality being part of them (Habermas 2003). Such a proposal avoids the paradox within relativism, or the idea that beliefs or judgments do not need to meet independent standards, by maintaining that, through the assiduous and continuous testing of theories, truth can gradually evolve toward reality. Thus, naturalist and hermeneutic epistemologies co-exist as the epistemological foundations upon which people describe, explain and understand their social domain in the world of persons.

ONTOLOGY AND REALITY Ontology122 is the philosophical investigation of existence or being. The task of understanding ontological notions begins with the distinction between pure philosophical and applied scientific ontology. Pure philosophical ontology “is concerned with the meaning of the concept of being, with the question why there is something rather than nothing, and the modal ontological status of the actual world” (Jacquette 2002: 3–4). It is, thus, a foundational study that proceeds to the assertion of the existence of particular theoretical entities: Pure philosophical ontology, indispensable as groundwork, is only the first major step toward a complete fully integrated ontology. When we know what it means for something to exist, we can then proceed to the details of applied scientific ontology, defending the choice of a particular domain of existent entities (Dale 2002: xi)

Applied scientific ontology aims to determine the ontological questions and answers relevant to “specific areas of thought and discourse whose meanings require the positing of a particular choice of entities” (Jacquette 2002: 5). Ontology, thus, seeks to provide a consistent account of the world in its totality and of the status of the categories of phenomena that possess causal efficacy. It considers the veracity and reliability of explanations based on different notions of causality. What has the power of producing a human action has long been the concern of philosophy (Hobbes [1642] 1949, [1651] 1996, Hume [1748] 1975, Kant [1788] 1906, see also Dennett 2004, Fischer 1989, 1994, Hasker 1999, Hospers 1966, Kane 1996, 2002a, Peters 1997, Searle 2001 2006, Slimansky 2002, Singer 2001, Strawson 1986, Wegner 2003, Wolf 1994). In the words of the twelfth-century Persian poet, Jalalu’ddin Rumi (1956: 77): “There is a disputation that will continue till Mankind is raised from the dead between the necessitarians and the partisans of free will.” Free will is the proposition that a person is free to determine and control his or her own actions, because he or she has the capacity to perform actions consciously (knowingly and responsibly123) and voluntarily (unconstrained by the freedom-limiting punitive, oppressive, coercive, compulsive, manipulative or social conditioning factors over which he or she has no control) that are chosen from an array of 122 123

This is derived from the classical Greek ontos meaning “being” and logos meaning “reasoned speech.” Pettit (2001: 12) considers that “to be fully fit to be held responsible for a certain choice is to be such that no matter what you do, you willfully deserve blame should the action be bad and fully deserve praise should the action be good. … And your action in a given case will be free so far as it materializes in a way that enables you to count as fully fit to be held responsible.” Thus, to be held responsible for a choice of action, the action

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

55

alternative courses of action, which means that he or she “could have chosen or acted otherwise” (Kane 2002b: 5). This stands in contradistinction to determinism (Butterfield 1998), which seeks to explain social actions in terms of determining conditions over which the action-taker has little or no control. Such determining conditions can be bifurcated into those that are external to the action-taker, such as fate or destiny (logical fatalism), the mystical forces or God’s will (divine determinism124), the stars (astrological determinism125), the environment in which the action is to take place (environmental determinism126), or the situation in which the action is to take place (situational determinism or situationalism127), economic processes and relations (economic determinism), the group beliefs, tendencies and practices that an action-taker adopts to become integrated into that group (social determinism), culturally specific cognitive structures expressed cultural acts and artifacts (cultural determinism), and thought- and behavior-shaping language the language used to shape the way an action-taker creates meaning about, and behaves in, the world (linguistic determinism)—or those that are internal to the action-taker—such as his or her psychological makeup (psychological determinism128), physiological or neurobiological makeup (physical, physiological or neurobiological determinism129) or heredity (hereditarianism130), which determines the genetics makeup (genetic determinism131). There are two strands of determinism. Hard determinism holds that consciously performed actions are subject to predetermination and thus have antecedently sufficient prior cause such that every event is the necessary outcome of its specific preceding causes, which are, in turn, the inevitable taker must have been aware of the alternatives courses of action at the time of making the decision, must have been capable of evaluating those options, and must not have been the victim of unwelcome duress (pp. 13–14). 124 This posits that a person’s actions are determined by divine agency, a manifestation the divine nature of allpowerful God. Occasionalists (such as Ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, La Forge and Malebranche) believe that God is the only true causal agent, one who is able to cause both bodily and mental states by exercising, on occasions, his necessary efficacious power (Fakhry 1958, Malebranche [1774–75] 1980, Nadler 1993, but see also Teresa and Kolodieichuk 2007). Spinoza’s ([1677] 1985) belief in divine determinacy is grounded in the proposition that there is only one substance—God (theistic monism)—and thus a person’s physical body and thoughts are simply aspects of the infinity of God, which means that his or her actions are a necessary manifestation of God, hence there is no room for free will, although a person may consider him or herself to have free will simply because he or she is conscious of his or her actions, and unaware of their causation by God. 125 This posits that a person’s actions are determined by the motion and relative position of celestial bodies: One school of [classical astrological] thought (exemplified by Vettius Valens) (late second century A. D.), held that the lives of individuals are strictly destined by the agency of the heavenly bodies … [which] can infallibly forecast all details of each life (Inwood 2003: 341). To this proposition, d’Ascoli (1487) added, according to Milman ([1855] 2006: 469), “the [determining] stars themselves were subject to the enchantment of malignant spirits.” 126 This posits that a person’s actions are determined by the reinforcement effects of environmental stimuli. Indeed, Watson ([1924] 1930) boasted that given a dozen healthy children he could mold them into an adult of his choice. 127 This posits that a person’s actions are determined by the nature of the particular situation in which particular actions are to take place (Harré 1980, Mischel 1968, 1973). 128 This posits that a person’s actions are determined by mental states or events that are the product of psychological laws (Berenson 1976: 116–17, Lucas 1970: 78–83), which means that he or she must always act in accordance with either their strongest desire (orectic psychological determinism) or their best reason (rational psychological determinism). Popper’s (1945: 89) psychologically reductionist psychologism holds that “all laws of social life must be ultimately reducible to the psychological laws of ‘human nature’.” 129 This posits that a person’s actions are determined by physiological (neurobiological) processes occurring in the brain (Lucas 1970: 84–89). 130 This posits that that a person’s actions are determined by any human property that is capable of being inherited or genetically transmitted from one generation to another. 131 This posits that a person’s actions are determined by his or her inherited genetic make-up, with particular genes being responsible for particular behaviors (Wilson 1976, 1978).

56

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

consequence of yet previous causes: “the occurrence of the determined event is inevitable or necessary, given the determining conditions” (Kane 2002b: 5, emphasis in original). This makes free will just an illusion. Soft determinism accepts, following the Humean conceptualization of causation, that “causation does not give rise to compulsion or constraint or indeed to any form of necessity” (Stroll 2006: 160), and thus it permits space for the causal capacity of free will. As Schopenhauer ([1839] 1999) epigrammed: “A man can surely do what he wills to do, but he cannot determine what he wills.” This makes soft determinism compatible with free will (compatibilism) in that free will can be exercised in the absence of freedom-limiting conditions (constraints or impediments that prevent actions being taken) (classical compatiblism). Thus, free will is the freedom to act in whatever way a person is inclined and able to do in any situation, which means he or she could have chosen to act differently if so willed (Neilson 2002, Skinner 2002). To be able to have chosen to act differently in any situation, however, requires freedom of will, whereby a person is able to will whatever he or she wishes to will. This is compatible with determinism only on the presumption that what matters is that a person takes ownership of, or is committed to, the wills he or she has—regardless of the sources from which they were acquired—and is free to act accordingly (hierarchical motivation) (Frankfurt [1971] 2002). In contrast, incompatibilism hold that free will is incompatible with determinism, because, if determinism is true then as consequence a person is not causa sui and, thus, not solely responsible for the way he or she is—so he or she is not a genuinely free agent, which means that free-will either exists, because determinism is not true (libertarian incompatibilism), or it is an illusion, because determinism is true (hard determinism). Indeterminism posits that a person has free will because his or her actions are exempt from prior-event causality (libertarian free-will or metaphysical freedom), because, in the dualist tradition, his or her mental states either are not strictly materially determined (naturalistic libertarianism) or are totally exempt from material determination (supernatural libertarianism), which means actions are the result of personal desires, intentions and beliefs, without reference to any events, processes or states of affairs relating to the action-taker (agent-causation or immanent causation) (Chisholm 2002)— thereby making actions attributable to reasons or motives that explain but either do not cause those actions132 (simple indeterministic libertarianism), or do not inevitably cause them133 (event-causal libertarianism) (Kane 2002b, [2001] 2002c).

THE ONTOLOGICAL DICHOTOMY: STRUCTURE AND AGENCY In the social sciences the ontological debate has focused on whether social actions can best be ascribed, in reductionist terms, to the internal agental dimension of social actions; or, in holist terms, to the external structural dimension of social actions. These contending

132

This construction of indeterminism avoids the need to explain how intentional mental states can cause physical actions (mental causation). 133 This construction of indeterminism is consistent with the proposition that reasons for action are its causes, albeit, not inevitably and thus only indeterminately.

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

57

ontological positions impose different methodological constraints on the explanation and understanding of the social world and the actions people take in it (Kincaid 1996).134

Agency Agency posits that social actions can best be ascribed to an action-taker’s self-determined set of hopes, aspirations and goals, which identifies the courses of action that he or she judges to be personally acceptable and required. The presumption is that the action-taker can selfdetermine these intentional mental states, because he or she is capable of individual selfrule135 and individual authenticity136, albeit with the limits of his or her intrinsic properties137. In terms of an action-taker’s social action choice, then, agentists would adhere to the tenets of free will. They would be incompatibilists in terms of the determining conditions external to the action-taker (such as, the environmental, situational, socio-cultural, economic and linguistic conditions), thereby giving those determining conditions no capacity to shape the content of action-taker’s hopes, aspirations and goals and, thus, to influence the course of action he or she chooses to follow. They would, however, be compatibilists in terms of determining conditions internal to the individual (such as, psychological, physiological or hereditary conditions), thereby giving those determining conditions a constraining or enabling capacity to shape the content of action-taker’s hopes, aspirations and goals, and, thus, a constraining or enabling capacity to influence the course of action he or she chooses to follow. As Mill expressed it ([1859] 1963, Vol. 8: 879): “human beings in society have no properties but those which are derived from, and which may be resolved into, the laws of the nature of individual men” (see also Bentham [1789] 1970: ch. I, sec. 4). This means that “individuals ... act more or less appropriately in the light of their dispositions and understanding of their situation” (Watkins 1968: 270). This reduces the causal status of a social phenomenon to an epiphenomenon: “a mere aggregate consequence of individual activities, incapable of acting back to influence individual people” (Archer 1995: 4).

On the Social World Agency ontology is firmly grounded in ontological individualism, the proposition that whilst individuals exist, social wholes (collections of individuals, such as families, groups, organizations and societies) do not. It embraces nominalism (particulars are all that exist, making universals—features that are shared by many different particulars—merely ideas or 134

Hollis (1977) critically reviews the various metaphysical views of human nature—“models of man”—embedded in sociology, economics, and psychology, and identifies and addresses the challenge of articulating a “model of man” that can accommodates an autonomous self who can be the subject for empirical explanation. 135 This requires the action-taker to have deliberative and choice independence (that is, to be free from the interference of others in the determination of desires and choice prefereces); and to have self-rule capacity (that is, to have the ability to think rationally, to exercise self-control, and to be free from debilitating pathologies and self-deception) (Arneson 1991, Dworkin 1989, see also Berofsky 1995, Haworth 1986, Meyers 1989, Young 1986). 136 This requires the action-taker to have substantive independence, to have procedural independence, and to be able to be critically self-reflective, which means having the capacity to reflect upon and endorse a set of desires (Benson 1987, Christman 1989, 1991, Frankfurt [1971] 2002, Haworth 1986, Stoljar 2000, Wolff 1970). 137 These can be properties associated with the body, which reflects its biological inheritance, or with first-person awareness, which is grounded memories of consciously experienced past personal experiences and an acquired sense-of-self.

58

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

concepts that have no independent existence138) (Armstrong 1978, 1989, 2000, Ockham [c1329] 1974); social atomism (discrete individuals are the constituents of social wholes, knowledge of which is limited to what is knowable about those individuals)139 (Watkins 1957, Weissman 2000); and reductionism (all complex systems can be fully understood in terms of their components) (Charles and Lennon 1992, Ryan 1970).

Metaphysical Individualism This holds that the existence of the social wholes is contingent on the social nature—the patterns of social relationships—of the individuals whose social actions come together to sustain their existence. Thus, a social whole is nothing more than a mereological sum—the aggregate of its members. Social wholes and phenomena can, thus, be reduced to the social actions of individuals. Methodological Individualism This140 (Elster 1982, Hayek 1942, 1943, 1944, 1953, Watkins 1952, 1968, Weber ([1921] 1968, Mises [1949] 1996, [1962] 2006) holds that human social life is best, or most appropriately, understood by analysis at the microscopic level of the social actions of individuals who constitute the basic units of social wholes.141 Thus, facts about the social wholes and social phenomena—social facts—can be completely explained or predicted, in a reductionist way, by the reference to the facts about its constituent members—their traits and intentions—essentially, their wishes, desires, beliefs, or will—that give rise to their social actions, which Parsons’ (1937: 43–51) referred to as “the action frame of reference” in socialscientific explanation. This means that social phenomena can only be explained by showing how they result from social actions that are the product of the intentional mental states that motivate the action takers.142 Indeed, without knowing why people take the social actions they do, there can be no understanding of why social phenomena occur. As Weber ([1921] 1968: 13) remarked: “collectives must be treated as solely the resultants and modes of organization of the particular acts of individual persons, since these alone can be treated as agents in a course of subjectively understandable action.”143 This led Popper (1974: 14) to assign the 138

Universals, nominalists argue, cannot be material, because the only feature that particulars have in common is that they are covered by the same term, therefore it is language, rather than independent reality, that underlies perceived likeness: “a whole which has parts has no reality of its own, but is a mere word, the reality is in the parts” (Roscelin of Compiègn cited in Russell 1946: 457). 139 “The properties of the mass are dependent upon the attributes of its component parts” (Spencer [1851] 1995: 1). 140 The term methodological individualism was first used in English by Schumpeter (1908). 141 On this proposition Elster 1982: 463) commented: “To explain social institutions and social change is to show how they arise as the result of the actions and interaction of individuals. This view, often referred to as methodological individualism, is in my view trivially true.” 142 Not to so show, Watkins (1957: 106) argued, is to provide only an “unfinished or half-way explanations” of social phenomena, although, as Udehn (2001: 216) observes, simply because social phenomena can be explained in a particular way “does not imply the methodological rule that they should be explained this way.” Moreover, explanations at the at the level of intentional mental states, the so-called “rock-bottom explanations,” may well be effected by cognitive biases that function almost entirely at a subintentional level (Sperber 1997), thereby giving rise to deeper levels of explanation. Physicalist would, of course, assert that genetically-determined physiological and neurological structures and processes offer the only “rock-bottom explanations” of human behavior and thus of social phenomena. 143 Parker (2007: 2) points out that methodological individualism should not be confused or conflated with individual agency, positivism, rationality, and homeostatis. Whilst Weber ([1921] 1968) sought to privilege the causal efficacy of action-theoretic mechanisms (Alexander 1987) to enhance understanding of social phenomena, he did not privilege the individual over the social in terms of the content of action-takers’

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

59

social world primarily to a theoretical realm dealing with ideas and problems; nothing more than a mereological sum—the aggregate of its members. Therefore, those who undertake to study the social world from this ontological position would adopt a process that proceeds from the position of the micro (elucidating the action-takers’ hopes, aspirations and goals that explain social actions) to the macro (so as to explain the patterns of social interactions that build up groups and social networks that make up the social world and give rise to the social phenomena in it).

Traditions Individualism This tradition, which has its origins in diverse ideas of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, John Stuart Mill, Humboldt, Godwin, Nietzsche, Proudhon, Stirner, Sartre and Hayek, privileges the individual over the social (Bunge 1996, McCann 2004), and places emphasis on personal autonomy, personal liberty and the need for the collective to justify any imposition of restrictions on that liberty. Unqualified individualism postulates that all explanations of social actions must be expressed solely in terms of agent-caused intentional mental states (hopes, aspirations and goals). This is in the reductionist-atomism tradition, following Hobbes and Menger (Lukes 1968, Udehn 2001), premised on individual psychology being fully a-social or pre-social; as Hobbes ([1642] 1949: 8: 1) asserted: “consider men [sic] as if but even now sprung out of the earth, and suddainly [sic] (like Mushromes [sic]) come to full maturity without all kind of engagement to each other.” Agent-causation requires personal autonomy—grounded in selfrule and authenticity—with emphasis placed on the reasons for undertaking social actions being an expression of his or her authentic self, independent of his or her place in a metaphysical or social order. This means that the specific contents of the action taker’s intentional mental states are completely self-determined—limited only by his or her intrinsic properties—and thus not depend at all on the environmental or situational considerations (narrow mental content) (see Fodor 1987, 1991, Kripke 1979, Loar 1988, White 1991, but see also Burge 1979, 1986, 1989, Putnam 1975, Stalnaker 1989, 1990, Wilson 1995). To achieve such control over their intentional mental states requires a person to be able to access and understand his or her our own such mental states, without being able to draw inference from observing those mental states, and without having anything or anyone to mediate between his or her self-ascribed beliefs and the object of those beliefs (Russell 1917). This presumes that an action taker has the capacity to critically reflect on his or her intentions, which generates self-knowledge (Cassam 1994, Wright, et al. 1998) that, with the first-person authority with which they are held, privileges a presumption of truth (Jackson 1973, but see Ryle 1949, Wright 1989). Libertarian individualism (Hayek 1948, 1960, Humbolt [1791] 1969, Locke [1690] 2004, Milton [1644] 1949, Nock [1924] 1991, Nozick 1974, see also Vallentyne and Steiner 2000a, 2000b) holds that agents have the right to full self-ownership144, thereby making all human intentional mental states: “it is a tremendous misunderstanding to think that an ‘individualistic’ method should involve what is in any conceivable sense an individualistic system of values” (Weber [1921] 1968: 18, emphasis in original). 144 This holds that agents have full rights over the use of their body; full rights to transfer those rights to others; full payment immunities for the possession and execution of those rights (Vallentyne 2001: 1–2).

60

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

interactions voluntary, reflecting their right to act in a self-interested manner.145 According to Locke ([1689] 1960: 287 emphasis in original) humans are naturally in “a State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions … as they think fit … without asking leave, or depending on the Will of any other Man.” Hayek (1960) recognized the supreme importance of individual autonomy—rightful self-governance—or negative freedom.146 He propounded true individualism, “which regards man not as highly rational and intelligent but as a very irrational and fallible being, whose individual errors are corrected only in the course of a social process, and which aims at making the best of a very imperfect material” (Hayek (1948: 9). A little later he adds: “the famous presumption that each man knows his interests best ... is neither plausible nor necessary for the [true] individualist’s conclusions” (p. 15). Existential individualism (Heideggar ([1927] 1967, Kierkegaard [1845] 1940, Nietzsche [1871] 1993, [1878] 1994, [1883] 1968, [1886] 1998, Sartre [1943] 1957, Schopenhauer [1813] 1974, [1818/1844] 1969) holds that people need to live in the way they find most valid and fulfilling, which requires them to have freedom—what Camus ([1942] 2005: 55, emphasis in original) called “the freedom to be”—the inescapable condition required for any action and experience—to search for their own self-identity. There is a recognition that the individual is a self-determining agent who is ultimately accountable for his or her own destiny and character, and who engages in struggle to achieve an authenticity. To Kierkegaard ([1845] 1940), the awareness of individuality, temporality and nothingness means that a person is characterized by concern, marked by both fear of death and anxiety about nothingness, which when confronted creates an opportunity for that person to create his or her own human nature. Heidegger called for individual authenticity, so that a person’s true self can be revealed (Heideggar ([1927] 1967). For Sartre ([1960] 1976), the notion of authenticity focuses on the need for a person to make choices in the full awareness that he or she can create his or her own character. Whilst he ([1943] 1957) recognized that there are the facts about a person that cannot be changed at any given point in time by acts of will—his or her facticity, an act of will can change his or her situation and thus the prevailing set expectations of self and others.

Utilitarianism This tradition, grounded in the works of Bentham, Bernoulli, John Stuart Mill and Spencer, holds that that all explanations of social actions must be expressed solely in terms of 145

A distinction can be drawn between left-wing, right-wing, and paternal libertarianism. All three schools hold that agents are full self-owners. Right-libertarianism, however, holds that natural resources can be privately appropriated as a matter right, whereas left-libertarianism requires that such private appropriation is permissible only with the permission of, or after compensation has been paid to, society (Vallentyne 2001: 1). Libertarian paternalism accepts that people can be nudged into doing what is in their best interest by a rearrangement of the “choice archicteure” that sets their choice decision context (Thaler and Sunstein 2008). 146 Berlin (1969) drew the distinction between negative and positive freedom. Negative freedom is the right of selfdetermination: freedom from control, interference or exploitation, identified with the Hobbesian idea of the absence of constraint or obstacles (see also Miller 1991). It is based on three premises: that individuals require the private space to identify appropriate personal goals and ambitions; that personal goals and ambitions have value only if they are freely chosen; and that voluntary action—choice and personal responsibility—enables individuals to meet important spiritual needs. Positive freedom is the right to be able to take control of one’s life: freedom to choose and realize desired outcomes, achieved by empowerment, which is an inherently collective pursuit, identified with Rousseau’s notion of moral self-government. It is also based on three premises: that all individuals have capacities or latent, but desirable, qualities; that positive freedom consists of the realization of these capacities, which may therefore be conceptualized, in the broader sense, as personal autonomy; and that social conditions are the decisive influence on the realization of these capacities.

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

61

states of mind about the actual or expected utility147 of its consequences: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do” (Bentham [1789] 1970: 2, emphasis in original). This is utilitarianism’s pleasure principle148— (psychological utilitarianism149). Bentham ([1789] 1970) considered that social actions are made explicable by reference to a hedonic or utility calculation,150 premised on the proposition that an individual seeks to enhance his or her pleasure and avoid any pain, following the Epicurian tradition, which Frankl ([1948/1975] 2000: 89) describes as the “will to pleasure.” Thus, the maximization of personal well-being is the only goal that people are motivated to pursues (psychological hedonism or egoism), and, indeed, should pursue (evaluative hedonism), as established by what they perceives as giving value to any pursuit (reflective hedonism).151 Personal sacrifices for others—altruism (Scott and Seglow 2007)— can only be justified by reference to their own self-interest, which, of course, converts a sacrifice into a gain. Mill, whilst unequivocal about the appropriateness of utility calculation, argued that some pleasures are of a discernable finer quality than others, so he applied the following condition ([1861] 1968: 14): “but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded in the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. Those interests I contend, authorize the subjection of individual spontaneity to external control, only in respect to those actions of each, which concern the interest of other people.” Mill, thus, refined the doctrine of utilitarianism by recognizing differences in the quality and quantity of particular anticipated pleasures, for he considered intellectual gratification to be more important than physical sensations, and that altruistic social actions could satisfy individual desires. Utilitarianism, thus, sustains the supremacy of individual hedonism and egoism.

Personalism This tradition has its antecedents in the philosophical, theological and psychological thoughts of Grote, Lotze, Newman and Schleiermacher, but is firmly grounded in late nineteenth and twentieth century works of Bowne, Brightman, Buber, Lotze, Maritain, Mournier, and Scheler (Bengtsson 2006, Burrow 1999). It defends both the concept and the reality of persons, and resists all forms of depersonalization, thereby affirming the absolute value of human beings and the significance, uniqueness, and inviolability of those 147

Bernoulli ([1738] 1954) considered that utility (usefulness, desirability or satisfaction) is individually experienced intuitively, and, thus, would differ between individuals. “By the Principle of Utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question” (Bentham [1789] 1970: 2). 149 This is manifest as Edwards’ (1954) theory of subjectively expected utility and von Winterfeldt and Edwards’ (1986) theory of multi-attribute utility, and is an important constituent of Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) theory of reasoned action, Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior, and Rotter’s expectancy-reinforcement value theory (Rotter 1954, 1981, 1982, Rotter et al. 1972). 150 Bentham’s utility calculus “sum up all the values of all the pleasures on the one side, and those of all the pains on the other” ([1789] 1970: 4). He measured the amount of pain in accordance with seven criteria—intensity, duration, certainty, extent, propinquity, fecundity and purity—and took into consideration the merits of various kind of pleasure (such as, those associated with sensation, possession, skill, friendship, reputation, power and malevolence) and demerits of various kind of pain (such as, those associated with want, disappointment and regret) (Bentham [1789] 1970). 151 What brings meaning to this endeavor is the human essence of striving to persevere in being—conatus—which generates a self-conscious desire in a person (Hampshire 2005). Therefore, when needs are satisfied by the striving of the individual, his or her well-being is enhanced in the process (Scruton 1984: 57). 148

62

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

characteristics they possesses that uniquely shape their cognitions, behaviors and social actions and interactions—their personalities.152 “To Personalism, personality is the supreme value” (Flewelling 1915: 23). Thus, persons and their interpersonal relationships should be placed at the center of social theory and practice. It denies both individualism’s emphasis on mutual isolation and the sociobology’s reduction of a person to his or her biological processes.

Sociobology This tradition has its historical roots in Darwin’s theory of evolution (Darwin [1859] 2006, see also Darwin [1871] 2004, [1872] 1965, Delger 1991, Dennett 1984, 2004, Peters 1997, Richards 1987) and his principles of natural selection (see, for example, Ardrey 1961, 1967, 1970, 1976). It holds that the origin and maintenance of behavior can be explained by physiological structures and processes that are the product of successful environmental adaption intergenerationally transmitted by the process of natural selection) (Wilson 1976). Human beings—as biological organisms153 that are the outcome of cooperation amongst mutually compatible but selfish genes intent on executing strategies, even altruistic ones, to replicate themselves—are “survival machines, robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes” (Dawkins 1976: iv).154 Behavioral geneticists (Rutter 2006), however, are beginning to consider that nature and nurture are not incompatible and that what is important is the interaction between the two. Genetic make-up, in this context, creates propensities, which unfold differently because of environmental factors. A person does not, by and large, carry genes for different patterns of behavior for life. This means that a person is not mechanistically at the mercy of his or her genetic make-up—biology is not destiny—but rather that that make-up makes him or her more or less susceptible to the consequences of particular factors in his or her environment. In other words, although physiological events occurring in the brain appear to be biologically determined, they might be explained by how the body has experienced the world. Evolutionary psychology advances the more specific proposition that human behavior can be explained by reference to neurophysiological structures and processes155 (Buss 1999, 152

As Protagorasn remarked: “Of all things the measure is man, of the things that are, that [or ‘how’] they are, and of things that are not, that [or ‘how’] they are not” (Freeman 1983: DK80b1). In other words, a person’s sensory perceptions and beliefs are true for that person. 153 Frankl ([1948/1975] 2000: 95–96) quoting an uncited source suggests that a man [sic] is “nothing but a complex biochemical mechanism powered by a combustion system which energizes computers with prodigious storage facilities for retaining encoded information.” 154 For a review of the sociobiology discourse see: Arnhart 1998, Barkow et al. 1992, Hauser 2006, Hinde 2002, Wilson 1976, 1978; but see Francis 2004, Gould 2002, Lumsden and Wilson 1981, Pinker 2002, de Waal 2006; and also Brenan 2003, Caplan 1978, Dennett 2002, Kitcher 1885, Lewontin et al. 1984, Ridley 1997, 2003. 155 Dostoevesky’s ([1880] 1948: 664) Dmitri Kazamazov describes his understanding of neural functioning in a way that captures the imagination: Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head—that is, these nerves are there in the brain ... (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering ... that is, you see, I look at something with my eyes and then they begin quivering, those little tails ... and when they quiver, then an image appears ... it doesn’t appear at once, but an instant, a second, passes ... and then something like a moment appears; that is, not a moment—devil take the moment!—but an image; that is, an object, or an action, damn it! That’s why I see and then think, because of those tails, not at all because I’ve got a soul, and that I am some sort of image and likeness. All that is nonsense! Ratkin [a visiting academic] explained it all to me yesterday, brother, and it simply bowled me over. It’s magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A new man’s arising—that I understand ... And yet I am sorry to loose God!

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

63

but see also Richardson 2007). Their reductionist-essentialist proposition is that the causes of human behavior can be found in a person’s neurobiology of the brain156 (neurobiological or physical determinism) (Wilson 1976, 1978, but see Rutter 2006). Epiphenomenalists (such as Huxley, James, and Maudsley) take this proposition to the extreme by arguing that neurobiological processes taking place in the brain are the sufficient and complete cause of human behaviors, a bi-product of which is the human mind experiencing mental states (Caston 1997, Hyslop 1998, James 1890a, Rivas and van Dongen [2001] 2003).157

Social Action Attributions Social Actions Grounded in Rational Self-interest This is premised on a social action being the product of a self-interested utility calculation (Sen 1987). It is grounded in the work of Hobbes, Manderville and Machiavelli. The starting point for understanding human behavior is, according to Hume [1739–40] 1978: II, 3), pathos—passions, desires, tastes and preferences—taken to be beyond logical disagreement and moral dispute, for the individual—and only the individual—can determine and define the requisites of the good life. How these passions are satisfied is the realm of logas—reason or instrumental rationality: “Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of will ... reason is and ought only to be the slave of passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them” (Sect. 3). Each person has, according to Rand (1965, see also 1957), a rational egotistical belief in self-determination. He or she is presumed to be isolated, self-determining “Robinson Crusoe” agent (Urry et al. 2007: 96), with the necessary hopes, beliefs and desires needed to take self-interested and self-seeking social actions, unaffected in any way by what others say and do. Free will permits a person to choose what is best for him or her (metaphysical libertarianism) (Kane 2002b).158 Social actions can, thus, best be ascribed to a person’s self-interest calculations159 (rational-choice or rational-action theory160 (Arrow 1954, Buchanan and Tullock 1962, Downs 1957, but see

156

The metaphors for that have been used to characterize the brain include: an enchanted loom (Sherrington [1937– 38] 1978: 178)) and cerebral scripts and scores (Sacks 1985: 148). 157 La Mettrie (1748) anticipated this somewhat earlier: In fact, if what thinks in my brain is not a part of this organ and therefore of the whole body, why does my blood boil, and the fever of my mind pass into my veins, when lying quietly in bed, I am forming the plan of some work or carrying on an abstract calculation? ... In short, if the nerve-tension which causes pain occasions also the fever by which the distracted mind looses its will-power, and if, conversely, the mind too much excited, disturbs the body ..., if an agitation rouses my desire and my ardent wish for what, a moment ago, I cared nothing about, and if in their turn certain brain impressions excite the same longing and the same desires, then why should we regard as double what is manifestly one being? Yet as Nietzsche observes: “The yearning for ‘freedom of the will’ in the superlative metaphysical sense that unfortunately still prevails in the minds of the half-educated, the yearning to bear complete and final responsibility for one’s own actions and to relieve God, the world, one’s ancestors, coincidence, society from it—this is really nothing less than being the same causa sui and, with a daring greater than Münchhausen’s [Raspe’s adventure-hero in Baron Münchhausen’s Narrative of his Marvellous Travel and Campaigns in Russia (1785)] dragging yourself and into existence” ([1886] 1998: 21) 159 Expected utility theory proposes that a rational action is the action that yields the highest expected utility of all possible actions, after allowing for the probability of the occurrence of each possible action’s outcomes (Fishburn 1982, Savage 1954) 160 “The crowning glory of this rational choice theory is the construct of ‘general equilibrium’ ... [which] contains no testable propositions. This makes its status as a scientific theory extremely questionable.” (Urry et al. 2007: 96–97).

64

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Tversky and Kahneman 1981, 1986) or bounded rationality161 (Kahneman 2003)) or to his or her self-interested responses, under conditions of uncertainty, to the decisions of others, when costs and benefits of those responses depend upon the uncommunicated decisions made by others162 (game theory (Cournot [1838] 1927, von Neumann and Morganstern [1944] 1953, but see also Howard, 1971, 1999)).

Social Actions Grounded in the Search for Identity and Authenticity This is premised on a social action being grounded in a person’s search for his or her essence—essential characteristics or a sense of who he or she is—and for self-fulfillment, which is achievable by giving priority to his or her immediate personal experience of aloneness, death, and moral responsibility, thereby stressing his or her perception of being alienated from self and others (see Guignon 2004). It is grounded in the existential notion that individuals simply exist—“existence comes before essence” (Sartre [1946] 1973: 44): “Man [sic] simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing—as he wills to be after that leap toward existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself” (Sartre [1946] 1973: 28). So, the existence-precedes-essence process recognizes a person as having jurisdiction over his or her own awareness of the purposeful possibilities of his or her actuality. To May (1967: 8, see also, 1953, 1983), “the human dilemma is that which arises out of man’s [sic] capacity to experience himself as both subject and object at the same time:” a product of people simultaneously living in world of biological needs and drives (umweld), the world of interrelationships (mitweld), and world of self-awareness and self-relatedness (eigenwelt). It is, then, up to them to use their unbridled freedom to decide their own fate, and so determine their own destiny—their purpose for being—for which they alone are responsible. Social actions can, thus, best be ascribed to a person’s search for authenticity. Implications Agency’s dilemma is that it can apparently explain the empirically strong correlation between individual social action and free choice, but it cannot explain outliers that are not the product of individual intention (Williams and May 1996).

Structuralism Structuralism posits that social actions can best be ascribed to group-elaborated (worked out) norms, roles and practices, as these identify the courses of action judged to by a group to be acceptable and required, which constitute the prevailing group rules or code of conduct. The presumption is that the action-taker’s hopes, aspirations and goals can be molded by

161

162

“Agents are postulated to have only partial rather than complete information, and the amount of information available may vary across agents. There is still a universal rule of decision making, namely that agents maximize, subject to the information which they have” (Urry et al. 2007: 97). It is crucial to recognize that, strictly construed, game theory has never sought to offer a general theory of rational social action. Indeed, the standard definition of a game-theoretic equilibrium—the Nash solution— explicitly excludes any communication between the players and when communication occur it does not work (Heath 2001).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

65

these group elaborations.163 In terms of an action-taker’s social action choice, structuralists would adhere to the tenets of soft determinism—albeit with the rhetorical overlay of hard determinism. As soft determinists, they would be compatibilists, in that the action-taker can, ultimately, exercise his or her free will, constrained or enabled by his or her internal determining conditions (such as, psychological, physiological or hereditary conditions), to diminish or reject the capacity of these group-elaborations to shape the content of his or her hopes, aspirations and goals and, thus, to influence the course of social action he or she chooses to follow. However, these group-elaborations are considered to be such that they overwhelm voluntarism (individuals being the self-determining agents of their actions) as the reasons for social actions (structural determinism). Social actions are, thus, taken to be “only comprehensible in relation to his or her [the action-taker’s] social formation and existence” (Bryant 1985: 19, see also Robey 1973).

On the Social World Structuralism adheres to ontological holism (Armstrong 1989, Simmel 1910–11), which holds that social wholes exist as independent entities formed by or within systems of relations amongst their constituent membership. This is firmly grounded in immanent realism (that universals are abstractions that permit the grouping of the likenesses of particulars into a single whole, so as to represent that which is necessary to their constitution, and that exist outside the mind164 (Armstrong 1978, 2000)). As Durkheim ([1895] 1962: xvii) observed: “whenever certain elements combine, and thereby produce, by the fact of their combination, new phenomena, it is plain that these phenomena reside not in the original elements but in the totality formed by their union.”165 Metaphysical Holism This holds that the social wholes both exist, and are more than their mereological sum, in that they consist not only of individuals, but also of their interrelationships: All structuralists recognize as fundamental the contrast between structures and aggregates, the former being wholes, the latter composites formed of elements that are independent of the complexes into which they enter. … [The] elements of a structure are subordinated to laws, and it is in terms of these laws that the structure qua whole or system is defined. … These laws confer on the whole as such overall properties distinct from the properties of its elements (Piaget 1970: 7, emphasis in original).

163

Hence the view that “structuralism is a set of principles for studying the mental superstructure” (Harris 1979: 166) and “all our human properties and powers, beyond our biological constitution, [are] the gifts of society” (Archer 2000: 4). 164 This stands in contrast to transcendental realism, which holds that universals represent an objective reality that exists outside the mind and are prior to, and independent of, particulars (Loux 2002). 165 Hegel [1806] 1998, [1807] 1977) saw an integral relationship existing between the personal and the social when he postulated that minds are an abstraction from, and a participant in, the social (group) mind (the independent collective mind of a social group): “I that is a We, and the We that is an I” (Hegel [1807] 1977: 177). He argued that an organic (rational) community is one in which individual and collective interests are rationally in harmony. This manifests as a state—whose citizens choose to obey and support it as the ultimate form of society—making it a Divine idea—the social mind incarnate. Hegel considered that conditions of full selfhood can be met only in such a law-governed social situation. For an exploration of the impact this Hegelian concept has had on social-psychological theorizing see Farr 1996, Karpf 1932.

66

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

These interrelationships give rise to social institutions grounded in shared norms, roles, and practices.

Methodological Holism This holds that human social life is best, or most appropriately, understood by analysis at the macroscopic level of the social institutions, values, practices and processes.166 This can extend to an analysis of the social context in which action-takers formulate the intentional mental states that give rise to their social actions (see Ryan 1970): “most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of the malleability of their original endowment” (Benedict [1934] 1959: 278); “we are forced to conclude that human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions” (Mead [1935] 1963: 280); and “much of what is commonly called ‘human nature’ is merely culture thrown against a screen of nerves, glands, sense organs, muscles etc.” (White, quoted in Delger 1991: 209). As Bhaskar ([1979] 1998: 25) remarks: “societies are irreducible to people,” which means they cannot be identified with human intentions, cannot be reduced to human intentions, cannot be explained in terms of human intentions, and cannot be reconstructed from human intentions. Durkheim ([1895] 1962: 105–6) makes the point: If we begin with the individual in seeking to explain phenomena, we shall be able to understand nothing of what takes place in the group. Individual natures are merely the indeterminate material that the social factor molds and transforms. Their contribution consists exclusively in very general attitudes, in vague and consequently plastic predispositions.

This means that individuals are considered to have little capacity to determine their lives. It is, moreover, axiomatically taken to be difficult, if not impossible, for one person to transform social institutions and processes (Baert 1998: 11). Therefore, those who undertake to study the social world from this ontological position would adopt a process that proceeds from the position of the macro (elucidating the socio-cultural, economic and linguistic factors that shape the patterns of social interactions that build up groups and social networks that make up the social world and give rise to the social phenomena in it) to the micro (so as to explain the action-takers’ intentional mental states that give rise to social actions).

Traditions Natural Laws and the Natural Social Order This tradition is grounded in Comte’s ([1830–42] 1896) positivist167 philosophy, which sought to identify the invariant laws governing a society, in acknowledgement of the interrelated nature of social phenomena, and which asserted that, apart from brief transitory periods, a society reflects the necessary order that is in nature—its basic uniformities or regularities (natural laws). This drew upon three propositions. The first was voiced by Aristotle ([350 BC/1924/1953] 1994–2000) and Plato ([390s–347 BC] 1997), who postulated that real or natural kinds of groupings are posited by nature rather than arbitrary classifications imposed as a result of the feelings of individuals: “knowledge is of invariant or 166

Parker (2007: 2) points out methodological holism should not be confused or conflated with subjectivism, nonrationality, or historicism (the proposition that history can be resolved into a single narrative direction). 167 Comte used this term in the sense opposite to negativist rather as a synonym for empiricism.

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

67

unchanging universal necessary truths” and that these necessary truths must be married to “ontologically suitable objects” (Shand, 2002: 33). The second was offered by Quesnay, who argued in Le Tableau Économique (1758) that “all social facts are linked together in the bond of eternal, immutable, ineluctable, inevitable laws, which individuals and government would obey if they were once known to them” (cited in Randall 1940: 323). The third was proffered by Condorcet ([1795] 1955), who asserted that socioeconomic phenomena can be explained by mathematical methods. There was a social order, Comte argued, with natural laws that governed relationships between institutional and cultural forms, which made society an organic whole. He conceived that there these natural laws could explain social phenomena by reference to autonomous structures that were discoverable by the application of positivist thinking.168

Historical Materialism This tradition is premised on the primacy of economic processes and relations as determinant of how particular forms of society are responsible for observed social phenomena—the materialist conception of history (Marx and Engels [1845–46] 1932, see also Labriola [1896] 1908). Plekhanov ([1897] 2004: Sect. V, emphasis in original) explains: Thus, man makes history in striving to satisfy his needs. These needs, of course, are originally imposed by nature; but they are later considerably modified quantitatively and qualitatively by the character of the artificial environment. The productive forces at man’s disposal determine all his social relations. First of all, the state of the productive forces determines the relations in which men stand towards each other in the social process of production, that is, their economic relations. These relations naturally give rise to definite interests, which are expressed in Law. “Every system of law protects a definite interest,” Labriola says. The development of productive forces divides society into classes, whose interests are not only different, but in many—and, moreover, essential—aspects are diametrically antagonistic. ... Lastly, social relations, determined by the given state of productive forces, give rise to common morality, the morality, that is, that guides people in their common, everyday life.

Development and change in human societies is attributable to the way in which individuals as workers—the proletariat—collectively engage in work and their actual social actions and material life conditions. As Marx ([1859] 1999: i) observed: In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. 169 168

169

In Comte’s ([1830–42] 1896) view, human intellectual development had moved historically through three mutually exclusive phases: (1) the theological phase: when knowledge of nature was based on super-natural absolute knowledge—objects have their own will (animism), divine wills are imposed on objects (polytheism), and the will of God is imposed on objects (monotheism); (2) the metaphysical phase: when knowledge of nature was based on abstract thought grounded in abstract principles or forces of origin; and (3) the positive phase: when knowledge of nature is based on the discovery of laws of phenomena, achieved by the application of reasoned observation. Lukács ([1923] 1971) saw Marx’s proletariat as both the subject and object of history and as embodying class consciousness as revolutionary subjectivity.

68

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Structural Functionalism This tradition is premised on social systems being coherent, bounded and fundamentally relational constructs, functioning like organisms with individuals working together to maintain and reproduce them. Its “primary concern is with explaining the existence and continuity of structural elements, in terms of their contribution to the rest of the system” (Donaldson 1985: 28). It is grounded in the work of Parsons, Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski. To Parsons (1951: 5–6), a social system is: a plurality of individual actors interacting with each other in a situation which has at least a physical or environmental aspect, actors who are motivated in terms of a tendency to the ‘optimization of gratification’ and whose relation to their situations, including each other, is defined and mediated in terms of a system of culturally structured and shared symbols.

Structural functionalism places particular emphasis on function (notably, systemic adaption, goal attainment, integration and pattern maintenance), interdependence, consensus, equilibrium, and evolutionary change within a social system. Social order170 (relatively stable patterns of institutional arrangements, interactions and customs that are capable of continually reproducing those conditions necessary for their continued existence) (Wrong 1994) is considered to be grounded in voluntary social cooperative action (Wrong 1994, see also Saussure [1916] 1974). “People act on the basis of their values; their social actions are oriented and constrained by the values and norms of individuals around them [the normative order]; and these norms and values are the basis of social order” (Knapp 1994: 191–92). A social system, thus, consists of parts, each of which have their own functions and work together, because individuals share values and norms that permit generally agreed upon means for accomplishing ends, so as to promote social stability.

Anthropological Structuralism This tradition is premised on the proposition that the underlying meaning embedded in human thought can be discovered by examining expressed cultural acts: “[anthropological] structuralism [places] emphasis on cultural universals embedded in the psychic unity of humankind” (Barnard 2003: 132).171 It is grounded in the work of Lévi-Strauss, Needham and Leach. Lévi-Strauss ([1962] 1963) considered, in the dualist tradition, that a human being is, at one and the same time, an organism and as an intellect, with the latter being the source of human nature—l’esprit humain.172 As his object of analysis, he took the intellect, which, according to Leach (1970: 42), he conceived as “a kind of algebraic matrix of possible 170

According to Strauss (1978: 56), social order is “something at which members of any society, any organization, must work. For the shared agreements ... are not binding for all time ... review is called for ... the bases of concerted action (social arrangement) must be constituted continually, or ‘worked out’.” 171 “For the structuralism that Lévi-Strauss developed … the almost countless discrete elements that together make up a culture constitute a sign system. … The discrete bits of culture that we can distinguish are not meaningful in themselves, but draw their meaning from the sign system in which they function and, more in particular, from their differences from other signs” (Bertens 2001: 61). 172 To Lévi-Strauss ([1958/1963] 1969: 140, 142) explanations relating to the human spirit needed to transcend human emotions: Actually, impulses and emotions explain nothing: they are always results, either of the power of the body or the impotence of the mind. In both cases they are consequences, never causes. The latter can be sought only in the organism, which is the exclusive concern of biology, or in the intellect, which is the sole way offered to psychology, and to anthropology as well.

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

69

permutations and combinations.” This is an unconscious mental state to which he attributed the characteristics of order, regularity and pattern. Systems of beliefs and customs are considered to be the basis for understanding these cognitive structures. They determine how a person relates to the group norms, roles and practices. This means, ultimately, that patterns of social interaction are manifestations of cognitive structures into which systems of beliefs and customs are embedded (Lévi-Strauss [1958/1963] 1974).

Linguistic Structuralism This tradition is premised on language being a set of rules to which any individual speaking that language must submit, which shapes his or her cognitions and behaviors. It is grounded in the work of Saussaure and Bloomfield. Saussaure ([1916/1959] 1974) focused on the underlying system of language (la langue), namely: semiotics—how the elements of language (pre-verbal, vocal, rhythmic and sign elements) related to each other at particular points in time (synchronically) rather than throughout their historical development (diachronically)—and symbolism—how language is rule governed and subject to social and culture influences—and their interplay. He argued that linguistic signs comprise the signifier—the form the sign takes (such as the sound pattern of a word)—and the signified— the concept the sign represents (such as the meaning of the word). As a group convention, these language rules enable a person within a language group to acquire meaning about the nature of social interactions, social relationships and social phenomena from making sense of what others say. Bloomfield (1933, see also Hall 1987), contrastingly, advocated the study of linguistic phenomena in sociocultural and historical isolation, emphasizing the development of formal models of language, the importance of empirical description, and the need to deal objectively with physically observable social phenomena. He developed a behavioristic approach to linguistics. Post-structuralism This tradition is premised on individuals being shaped by sociological, psychological and linguistic structures that, in turn, have been shaped by rule-governed systems over which they have no control (Belsey 2002, Williams 2005). It is grounded in the work of Foucault, Derrida and Lacan. Foucault (1966, 1969) argued that the human condition cannot be explained by reference to any underlying objective social structure, because no social environment can be investigated objectively, as it is impossible to step outside the discourse that gives a meaning to the collectively elaborated rules, norms, customs and practices. Derrida (1976, 1978), influenced by Heidegger and Nietzsche, argued that any discourse has multiple interpretations, making the possibility of a final and complete interpretation impossible. To Lacan, the individual is the creation of language, which enables him or her to experience the world meaningfully (Dor 2001). A person’s understanding of his or her body and the world at large is grounded in the language he or she has acquired. This gives language a major role in the way he or she constructs meaning, and allows the Freudian unconscious, which Lacan considered is structured like a language without a grammar, to enter into that understanding and dissolve essential distinctions between the subjective and the objective: For Lacan, Freud’s central insight was not ... that the unconscious exists, but that it has structure, that this structure affects in innumerable ways what we say and do, and that in thus betraying itself it becomes accessible to analysis (Bowie 1979: 118).

70

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

The self is considered by post-structuralists to be incoherent, disjointed, and decentered. It is a mere site in which various sociocultural constructs and discursive formations are created and sustained by the power structures within a given sociocultural environment. Any meaning attached to the social world is derived from self-reflexive discourses that acknowledge the inherently fragmented, diverse, tenuous, ambiguous and culture-specific nature of knowledge, which is always changing and contestable, so it can never have a finality and completeness.

Social Action Attributions Social Actions Grounded in Economic Participation This is premised on the Marxian proposition that social actions have their roots in the relations of production: “the mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life processes in general.” (Marx [1859] 2001: 7) (economic determinism173). Because individuals are, essentially, productive beings who, by their very nature, cooperate in a process of collective, freely chosen labor, they are the product of the prevailing mode of production, which, in turn, is the product of the nature of the dominant economic structure—capitalism, socialism and communisms (Marx and Engels [1848/1969] 2002), see also Cohen 1988, 2001, Dupré 1966). As Marx ([1859] 1999: i) observed: “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men [sic] that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” Thus, “man is not an abstract being squatting outside the world ... the real nature of man is the totality of social relations” (Marx [1845] 1989: 66) but rather “individuals are ... embodiments of particular classrelations and class interests” ([1867] 1993: I, 10). Marx maintained that social actions are determined by economic pressures that shape the structural relations in everyday life. Under capitalism, these relations are based on conflict between an exploitative class—important economic others—with its profit imperatives, and workers’ interests, which are focused on improving their economic condition. The resultant class conflict provides a theoretical approach that brought about by class struggle. This higher dialectic “consists not merely in producing and apprehending the determination as an opposite and limiting factor, but in producing and apprehending the positive content and result which it contains; and it is this alone which makes it a development and immanent progression” (Hegel [1821] 1991: 60).174 This analysis offers a framework that explores long-term historical transformation and social evaluation, which also appraises of the notion of individual identity in the context of collective consciousness (Hobsbawn 1997: 83, see also Durkheim [1895] 1982). Social actions can, thus, best be ascribed to powerful economic pressures.

173

174

Althusser (1962, [1965] 1969), drawing upon Marx and Engel’s ambivalence about any reductionist interpretation of their work, advanced the propositions that social wholes at a certain place and stage in their development have economic, political, ideological and theoretical sets of practices, each with their own relative autonomy, according to the limits set by their place in the totality, and each thus contributing to the structural causality of the social whole (structural Marxism). Hegelian dialectical logic holds that any given thesis (an initial situation) contains within itself contradictory aspects—its antithesis (a negation of that initial situation), which requires a movement towards a resolution—a synthesis (a unification of thesis and synthesis) (Hegel [1816] 1969).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

71

Social Actions Grounded in Social Participation This is premised the propositions that “the beliefs, tendencies and practices of the group taken collectively” (Durkheim [1895] 1982: 54)—the social facts that materialize in particular physical environments—are able to shape its members’ cognitive structures and, thereby, their social actions (social determinism). The human mind is taken to be a tabula rasa, and thus it “has no inherent structure and can be inscribed at will by society or ourselves” (Pinker 2002: 2, Dahrendorf 1968). Durkheim ([1895] 1982) argued that basic categories of thought—mental representations of the world—arise from social participation175 (his theory of the social origin of mind) (Bergson 2004). These representations “are not only external to the individual but are, moreover, endowed with coercive power, by virtue of which they impose themselves upon him, independent of his individual will” (Pinker 2002: 2), so determining the way a person articulates, denotes, and interpret social relationships, thereby inhibiting and stimulating social actions. The key to the transmission of social facts is socialization (the process whereby people acquire and internalizes the rules of behavior and system of beliefs, values and attitudes that equip him or her to identify and function as a member of a social group176) (Durkin 1995). This produces a collective conscience—“the body of beliefs and sentiments common to the average member of a society” (Durkheim ([1895] 1982: 126)—that creates a sense of group belonging and hence a feeling of moral obligation to live up to its expectations: When I fulfill my obligations as brother, husband, or citizen, when I execute my contracts, I perform duties which are defined, externally to myself and my acts, in law and in custom. Even if they conform to my own sentiments and I feel their reality subjectively, such reality is still objective, for I did not create them; I merely inherited them through my education (Durkheim [1895] 1962: 1).

This adaption process takes place when a person move into social environments that have their own group rules and norms defined, sanctioned and propagated by important others, the violation of which attracts penalties. Social actions can, thus, best be ascribed to group values and attitudes an action-taker adopts in order to become integrated into that group.

Social Actions Grounded in Cultural Participation This is premised on Lévi-Strauss’s belief that underlying all social actions are fundamental universal cognitive structures that are culturally specific in their contents (LéviStrauss [1958/1963] 1974) (cultural determinism). These deep structures produced and reproduced meaning within a culture—a system of symbolic communication expressed in a culture’s practices, phenomena and activities (such as mythology, kinship, food preparation, religious rites, games, literary and non-literary texts, and entertainment). Understanding these deep structures can only be achieved by reducing them to their relevant constituent parts, 175

176

Durhkeim ([1912] 2001) talked of collective representations (“the ideas, beliefs, and values elaborated by a collectivity and that are not reducible to individual constituents”) (Gac Sanit (online) 2006: 335). Eysenck (1967, 1970) considers that although a person has genetically determined predispositions towards particular behaviors, such behaviors can be changed—new behaviors learnt—as a result of socialization, because of the rewards or punishments dispensed by authority figures. Individuals, however, differ in the extent to which they learn and conform to social rules, with rule violation being most problematic for an introvert (the quiet, introspective person who prefers a well-ordered life oriented towards the inner reality of the self) to whom the idea of violating rules creates a sense of guilt and anxiety (Eysenck and Eysenck 1985).

72

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

thereby permitting the discovery of their operating principles (Lévi-Strauss [1958] 1968). This constitutes the “deep grammar” of a culture, which originates in the human mind of its constituent members as learnt language and cultural practices that operate unconsciously on them. Social actions can, thus, best be ascribed to culturally induced cognitions (ideas, beliefs and a way of life) and patterns of social behavior (customs and practices) that give a person’s life meaning and order (see, for example, Alexander 2003).

Social Actions Grounded in Linguistic Participation This is premised on the proposition that the use of a particular language shapes the way people think about and behave in the social world177 (linguistic determinism): The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds (Whorf 1956: 214).

And: Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. ... The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group (Sapir 1958: 69)

Harré (1980, 1983) considered that human reality has a practical (physical) and an expressive (conversational) dimension, of which the latter tends to be dominant: “the fundamental human reality is a conversation” (1983: 20). “I take the array of individuals as a primary human reality. I take the conversations in which those individuals engage as completing the primary structure, bringing into being the social and psychological reality. Conversation is to be thought of as creating a social world just as causality generates a physical one” (Harré 1983: 65). “Nothing [is] in the mind that was not first in the conversation” (Harré 1983: 116). He (1988: 42) advanced the proposition that “the private experience of a human being is shaped and ordered in learning to speak and write ... That ordering is expressed in language and other intentional, norm-gathering practices.” Language, then, is a dynamic activity that affects, and is affected by, cultural practices (Barthes [1975] 1977), making it a collectively derived objective cultural artifact: “One lives in a public world where one learns to use language in accordance with the prevailing social use of words. These practices instruct us in how to use terms applying to such things as tables, other people, astral bodies, and various institutions” (Stroll 2002: 119). This makes speech-acts (Searle 1969, Tsohatzidis 1994) or acts of communication (Austin 1962) “the primary entities in which minds become personalized, as private discourses” (Harré and Gillett 1994: 36), and thus “the minds of individuals are privatized practices condensing like fog out of the public conversation into material nuclei, their bodies” (Harré 1988: 50). Harré and Gillett (1994: 36) develop this point: “[The] structures of discourse in which psychological phenomena, such as 177

In nineteenth-century Germany, Herder, Hegel, and von Humbolt recognized the importance of language as the medium by which a society shaped its members (Markova 1983).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

73

remembering, displays of emotion, avowals of attitudes, attribution of causality and responsibility, and so on, are created under the control of conventions of right or wrong performance.” Social actions can, thus, best be ascribed to the language people use to shape the way he or she thinks about—creates meaning—and behaves in the world.

Implications Structuralism’s dilemma is that it might be able to explain the empirically strong correlation between people’s social actions and the group of which they are part, but it cannot unambiguously explain outliers derived from acts of choice by free individuals unencumbered by social norms and practices (Williams and May 1996).

Truth and the Social World: An Ontological Perspective Where social enquiry is conducted within a social setting, those in truth-regulating groups and networks, who are concerned that truths-claims about what exists and what has causal capacity in that setting, are in a position to reject such truth claims because they are based on a “false” ontological premises, without offering any adequate analysis that overturns their case for being genuine knowledge. This is particularly apparent where it is firmly held that “science cannot attain objective, representational knowledge” (Bohman 1991: 131), either because the “facts” it offers are as relative and vague as any other singular elucidation, or because the premises underpinning the enquiry hypotheses are indeterminate.

THE CONTENDING SOCIAL-REALITY DISPOSITIONS Comprehending the actuality of a social arena—its social reality—requires a person to hold a standpoint or disposition on how it can best be known and to what social actions within it can best be ascribed. There is an incontrovertible epistemological bifurcation. There are those who adhere to naturalist epistemology and, thus, consider a social arena to be exclusively material in form with objectively factual qualities, which gives rise to objective data, from which conclusions can be drawn about what is, and can be, known with confidence about that social arena and about the reasons for social actions of those present in it. Then there are those who adhere to hermeneutic epistemology and, thus, consider a social arena as having both material and immaterial qualities, which produces first-person mental discernments, which gives rise to subjective data, from which can be drawn the meaning that they and others attach to a social arena and to the social actions of those present in it. There is also an incontrovertible ontological bifurcation. There are those who adhere to agency ontology and, thus, believe that social actions can best be ascribed and predicted on the basis of what action-takers’ self-determined set of hopes, aspirations and goals. Then there are those who adhere to structuralist ontology and, thus, believe that social actions can best be ascribed and predicted on the basis of group-elaborated norms, roles and practices that molds an action-taker’s hopes, aspirations and goals. From these dichotomies can be deduced an inclusive set of configurations of epistemological and ontological assumptions that produces a synoptic classification that is

74

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

both mutually exclusive and exhaustive (in Kierkegaardian terms, it does “exhaust its object”178 (Kierkegaard [1843] 1941: 56): naturalist structuralism, hermeneutic structuralism, hermeneutic agency and naturalist agency (see Figure 1.1).179 Each of these dispositions establishes distinctive and coherent, but mutually incompatible, ways of comprehending a social arena. This permits the categorization of contending standpoints on how the social world can best be described, explained and understood and to what social actions within it can best be ascribed, according to their epistemological and ontological assumptions (Dixon 2003). It also permits the categorization of ideas (concepts and theories) (Dixon and Dogan 2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2003d, 2004, 2005; Dixon, Dogan and Carrier, 2005; Dixon, Dogan and Kouzmin, 2005; Dixon and Hyde 2003, Dixon, Sanderson and Dogan, 2005, Dixon, Sanderson and Tripathi, 2006, 2007). This social-reality disposition framework demarcates a logical configuration of epistemological and ontological dispositions. They are monolithic categories, each being defined in terms of the features common to all members in each category. In any classificatory exercise there is always the danger of reification, when an abstract category becomes concrete as if it is reality. Whitehead (1925: 75 and 77) referred to this phenomenon as the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, which is recognized and acknowledged. Grounded as it is in rationalism, this social-reality disposition framework presents the deductive conclusions drawn from a priori axioms that constitute a set of fundamental, robust and unambiguous foundations. This means that the framework is logically true, because it is premised on the definitional certitude of epistemological and ontological dichotomies. Empiricists can, of course, declare the ascendancy of the correspondence theory over the coherence theory of truth and, then, assert that the framework can only be judged to be true— corresponds to reality—on the basis of convincing evidence that individuals are cognitively consistency. The empirically established existence of cognitive inconsistency does not, of course, refute the logical truth of this social-reality dispositions framework.

Naturalist Structuralism This disposition is grounded in two propositions. The first is that a social arena is entirely material in form with objectively factual qualities. These can be described, explained and predicted by reference to objective data, the truth-value of which can be only established by generally agreed objective enquiry procedures involving inductive inference and/or deductive logic that draws only upon material evidence or luminous premises. From these factual qualities, conclusions can be drawn about what is, and can be, known with confidence about that social arena and about the reasons for the social actions taken by those present. The second proposition is that that arena exists as perceptible, structurally functional and stable patterns of interpersonal relationships, which give rise to social institutions that reflect 178

Of classification, Kierkegaard ([1843] 1941: 56) remarked: A wit has said that one might divide mankind into officers, serving-maids and chimney sweeps. To my mind this remark is not only witty but profound, and it would require a great speculative talent to devise a better classification. When a classification does not ideally exhaust its object, a haphazard classification is altogether preferable, because it sets imagination in motion. 179 William of Ockham, with razor in hand, would undoubtedly be satisfied as plurality should not be posited without necessity——the principle of parsimony: pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate (Adams 1987).

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

75

interdependence and can sustain social order. This means that the social actions of those present are best, or most appropriately, explained by analyzing the economic and social factors that shape the perceived patterns of social interactions by molding the social roles and social practices that influence, if not determine, the intentional mental state that give rise to social actions. Those engaged in this arena are considered to have no capacity to control how they conduct their interpersonal transactions. This is because the rules of behavior and the system of beliefs, values and attitudes that define what are the socially accepted courses of action and, accordingly, their and others’ social roles, are taken be beyond the capacity of an individual to change, being exclusively sanctioned, propagated and enforced by those engaged in that arena who others have come to accept as having the authority to do so. Thus, when confronted with the need to make sense of a social arena, the user of this lens draws conclusions about that arena, and about his or her position in it, after analyzing the material objects and phenomena he or she perceives, probing the norms expressed, and weighing up the observed social roles and practices adopted by the important others present. This then establishes the form of social interaction that he or she believes to be necessary in order to be acceptable to the important others present.

Hermeneutic Structuralism This disposition is grounded in two propositions. The first is that a social arena is subjectively experienced by those who engage in it, the meaningfulness and significance of which is socially constructed by a process of self-reflexive discourse amongst those engaged, one that acknowledges that knowledge can never be final and complete. This involves the intersubjective sharing of authentic testimonies that draw upon their encounters with the material and their feelings and discernments, the truth-value of which can only be established by reference to consensus. From these social constructs, conclusions can be drawn about what is, and can be, known with confidence about that arena and about the reasons for the social actions taken by those present. The second proposition is that that arena exist as a site in which various sociocultural constructs and discursive formations are created and sustained, giving rise to sets of common beliefs, worked-out norms, and agreed social roles and practices, all of which bestow meaning to those present, who would, otherwise, be incoherent, disjointed, and decentered. This means that that the social actions of those present are best, or most appropriately, understood by reflecting on sociological, psychological and linguistic factors that influence, if not determine, the cognitive structures that give rise to social actions. Those engaged in this arena are considered to have the capacity to influence how they conduct their interpersonal transactions. This is because they are taken to be able and willing to engage fully in the discourse processes that give rise to the rules of behavior and the system of beliefs, values and attitudes that define what are the socially accepted courses of action, and, accordingly, their and others person’s social roles. Thus, when confronted with the need to make sense of a social arena, the user of this lens draws conclusions about that arena, and about his or her position in it, after engaging in discourse with the other actors present that enables him or her to socially construct the meaning of his or her first-person experiences in that arena, and of the motivations behind the observed behavior adopted by the others present. This then establishes the form of social interaction that he or she believes to be

76

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

necessary in order to be accepted by those present with whom they share a set of common understandings and values.

Hermeneutic Agency This disposition is grounded in two propositions. The first is that a social arena is subjectively experienced by those who engage in it, the meaning and significance of which is individually constructed on the basis of self-knowledge, which is the product of reflecting on inner, lived and conscious inimitable first-person experiences, which draw upon their encounters with the material and their feelings and discernments, the truth-value of which can be established by reference to the personal beneficiality of that experience. From these individual constructs, conclusions can be drawn about what, if anything, is, and can be, known with any confidence about that arena and about the reasons for the social actions taken by those present. The second proposition is that is all that is knowable about that arena is the existence of self, with the almost inevitable sense of the immediate personal experience of aloneness, death, and even moral responsibility, and of the on-going challenge of living a life in the most valid and fulfilling way possible in the face of what fate and destiny may have in store. Those engaged in this arena are considered to have, at best, the potential capacity to influence how they conduct their interpersonal transactions. This is because they can never fully predict even their own social actions, because whilst they may accept that they can, if they so wish, choose to draw upon their power of will actualize their potential, they may also accept that the struggle to achieve the desired self-identity and authenticity that such an act of will involves may proved to be too much. Given they consider that no one can ever understand another’s social actions, they are inclined toward self-referentiality in their social relationships. Thus, when confronted with the need to make sense of a social arena, the user of this lens draws conclusions about that arena, and about his or her position in it, after he or she has individually constructed the meaning of his or her inimitable first-person experiences in that arena, and of the motivations behind the observed behaviors adopted by the others present. This then establishes the form of social interaction that he or she believes to be necessary in order to be tolerated by those present.

Naturalist Agency This disposition is grounded in two propositions. The first is that a social arena is entirely material in form with objectively factual qualities. These can be described, explained and predicted by reference to objective data, the truth-value of which can be only established by generally agreed objective enquiry procedures involving inductive inference and/or deductive logic that draws only upon material evidence or luminous premises. From these factual qualities, conclusions can be drawn about what is, and can be, known with confidence about that social arena and about the reasons for the social actions taken by those present. The second proposition is that that arena’s existence is contingent on the known patterns of social relationships amongst those present, whose social actions come together to sustain its existence. This means that that the social actions of those present are best, or most appropriately, explained, essentially, by the reference to their revealed wishes and desires.

Reading a Relational Situation: The Contending Lenses

77

Those engaged in this arena are considered to have the capacity to determine how they conduct their interpersonal transactions. This is because they are taken to be able and willing to author their social actions and social relationships, which they consider to be exclusive domain of their own self-determined set of hopes, aspirations and goals. Thus, when confronted with the need to make sense of a social arena, the user of this lens draws conclusions about that arena, and about his or her position in it, after analyzing the material objects and phenomena he or she perceives, and probing the motivations behind the observed behavior adopted by the others present. This then establishes the form of social interaction that he or she believes to be necessary in order to exploit the self-interested material opportunities that he or she has identified and evaluated.

CONCLUSION This chapter has explicated and critically reviewed the competing ways that a social arena can best be coherently described, explained and understood and that social actions within it can best be ascribed It has identified, from the epistemological and ontological dichotomies drawn in the philosophy of social sciences, a set of four mutually exclusive and mutually incompatible social-reality dispositions: naturalist structuralism, naturalist agency, hermeneutic structuralism and hermeneutic agency. These constitute the contending lens through which a cognitively consistent person can choose to frame a social arena. This, it must be emphasized, is not to suggest that such a person would necessarily have the same epistemological or ontological preferences in all social arenas. Indeed, the very point is that he or she can choose the lens through which a particular arena is to be observed and interrogated. Once a social-reality disposition has been adopted for a particular social arena, then there are a set of core values, attitudes and opinions that flow from it, which become the salient constituents of that person’s cognitive system when he or she is in that arena. This brings to the fore how a person chooses his or her preferred lens.

Chapter 2

ENGAGING WITH OTHERS: CHOOSING THE BEST LENS INTRODUCTION Understanding how a person chooses the lens through which a social arena is observed (described in the moment) and interrogated (understood in context, explained or accounted for, and judged morally) is fundamental to this study. Advanced in this chapter are two propositions. The first is that the choice of lens is the product of how a person wishes to engage, for the purpose of mutual transactions, in focused interactions with others on a faceto-face basis in a social arena delineated within a direct-contact assemblage. The second is that in making this lens choice, a cognitively consistent person accepts the validity of a set of distinctive propositions—a guiding situational logic—about that arena. This choice of guiding situational logic, in turn, enables that person to build a coherent assumptive world that constitutes how he or she wishes to represent that it both to self and others, thereby reflecting who he or she is, what he or she stands for, and the social impressions that he or she wishes to portray to others in that arena.

ENGAGING WITH OTHERS: THE CALCULUS A person grappling with a transactional, face-to-face engagement decision a social arena must first decide whether or how best to engage with other people in that arena. This means that that person must make best sense of that arena, for only then can he or she understand: Why that arena is the way it is? What it is about that arena that justifies its continuance or discontinuance? Why he or she should engage with others in that arena? What would justify his or her efforts to sustain or change that arena? These questions defy simple answers. It is, however, only when a person recognizes the clues that constitute the essence of acceptable answers that he or she can then begin to understand whether, and how, he or she wishes to engage transactionally with others in that arena. Prior to any such engagement with others, a person must decide the limits that he or she is prepared to accept on his or her individual autonomy, for this establishes the status and role

80

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

relationships that he or she is willing to have with them. This will establish what thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and expectations he or she must accept and sustain, whether sincerely held or not, in order to build an assumptive world that is compatible with that of those with whom he or she wishes to engage. Insights into this choice calculus can be gained from Cicero’s [44 BC] 1971: 61] understanding of the power180 one person can have over another: Men [sic] subject themselves to the dominion and power of others for several reasons. They are attracted by goodwill, or by generous benefits received, or by a person’s imposing rank, or in the hope that it will prove advantageous to them, or through fear that they may be compelled by force to comply, or they may be enticed by the hope and promise of a hand-out, or finally, and this is frequently to be observed in this state of ours, they may be bribed.

Social exchange theory (Blau 1964, Cook 1987, Ekah 1974, Homans 1958, Thibaut and Kelley 1959) offers an explanation for the development of status and role relationships in terms of negotiated exchanges, which is grounded in two basic propositions. The first is that the exchange of social and material resources is a fundamental form of human interaction. The second is that a person makes a social-engagement decision on the basis of the net believed or anticipated personal benefits involved, with non-engagement or disengagement occurring when the anticipated costs incurred are perceived to exceed the anticipated benefits. The benefits of social engagement are the personal needs that could be satisfied, including the need: • • •

•

180

for inclusion, control and affection, or to be in control (Schutz 1958); to regain the security of the family through transference181 (Freud 1922: 80); to understand better a specific social arena, whether by acquiring information from others, by having one’s beliefs and understandings confirmed by others (Newcombe 1956), or by reducing cognitive uncertainty by having one’s beliefs and understandings reassuringly endorsed by others (Festinger 1950, 1954, Gerard 1963, Gerard and Rabbie 1961, Schachter 1959, Wills 1981); and for social support, in the form of social interaction (Gerwitz 1969), social approval (Shrauger 1975), and mutual goal achievement (Sherif et al. 1961).

Power relates to the ability to make people do what they would not otherwise have chosen to do (Weber [1921] 1968: 53, but see Lukes 1974). This can be achieved by means of force (the actual use of force), coercion (the threat of force, which creates a situation in which the choice is between doing what is demanded or suffering the threatened unappealing consequences), manipulation (the use of information, ideas or argument to induce obedience by creating a dependency relationship), persuasion (the use of authority over matters of belief to gain the self-determined and willing subordination of a person’s judgment or will to acknowledged experts, using information, ideas and argument), and authority (the use of the acquired right to control action, which may be de jure (justified) authority or de facto (recognized effective) authority). French and Raven (1959) offer a power taxonomy from a ‘power-over’ perspective: position or legitimate power (individuals comply because they believe that those exercising power have the right to have power over them), expert power (individuals comply because they believe that those exercising power have superior knowledge and skills), personal or referent power (individuals comply because they are attracted by, and identify with, the person exercising power), resource or reward power (individuals comply to receive benefits from the person exercising power) and physical or coercive power (individuals comply to avoid punishment). Hales’ (2001) power categories are knowledge, economic and normative. Boulder (1990) distinguishes between destructive threat power, constructive exchange power, and integrative power. 181 This is the mechanism postulated by Freud (1922: 80) whereby in order to regain the security of the family a person’s emotional energy (libido) is transferred to an authority figure, who replaces his or her identified childhood ego ideal, usually the same-sex parent (Billig 1976).

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

81

The costs of social engagement are the personal costs that could be incurred, including: • the dissatisfactions that result from an social engagement, such as primary tensions experienced because of either initial unfamiliarity (Borman 1975, Thibaut and Kelley 1959) or the lack of social skills (Cook 1977a); • the personal investment costs, whether financial or material (Foa and Foa 1971), time (Heider [1958] 1982), or personal, such as the cost of self-disclosure or selfrevelation (Journard 1971); • the anxieties of social rejection, whether outright (Pepitone and Wilpinski 1960) or partial, such as by a group ignoring a members inputs (Zander and Cohen 1955); • the misgivings about interference, the feared detrimental impact of the actions of others (Kelley 1979); and • the qualms about the imposition of unacceptable constraints on social actions, whether intended to eliminate conflict-engendering interference or to maintain norm conformity (Brehm 1976, Brehm and Brehm 1981). In making a social-engagement decision, it is assumed that the decision-maker is not only consistent (in the same circumstances the same decision choice would be made), but also inherently relational. His or her decision choice may well sum up a lifetime of past hopes dashed and expectations fulfilled, which means he or she may well be abandon a course of social action in the future, according to changed circumstances. Indeed, a person may choose to change the way they wish to engage with other people in the same social arena, or to engage differently with the same people in different arenas. He or she is, thus, presumed to be fully empowered to choose how to relate to others. Essentially, this means that a person confronting a social arena brings to it a set of perceptions about self and others that are potentially changeable by acts of will on the basis of net personal benefits. In other words, relational situations precede relationships.182

RELATIONSHIP-ARRANGING PRINCIPLES: THE OPTIONS A person chooses the social-engagement process for a social arena that enables him or her to interact with others within the limits of the constraints that he or she is willing to let them place on his or her individual autonomy in that situation. Culture Theory’s183 proposition is that how a person reacts to other people in a social arena depends on how a

182

Ho (1998) considers that relationships can precede relational situations where there is relationship dominance, that is, where a person’s disposition towards particular interpersonal relationships is more important than situational factors in determining his or her social actions. This is caused by that person‘s culturally determined perceptions of the supreme importance of his or her relationships with particular other people. The general framework Ho develops for the analysis of social actions under these circumstances he calls methodological relationalism (Ho 1998, Ho and Peng 1998, Ho, Chan and Zhang 2001, Ho, Peng, Lai and Chan 2001). 183 Cultural Theory (Douglas 1970, 1978, 1982, 1994, 1999, Thompson, et al. 1990, see also Dixon 2003) began as a neo-Durkheimian typology of shared meaning systems, which Cultural Theorists call, variously, cultural biases, ways of life or social solidarities, which derive from a person’s social engagement preferences. It has developed into a theory of metacultural differentiation and viability.

82

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

person chooses to interact with them in it.184 It provides a framework that classifies relationship-arranging principles—the ways a person can relate to others in a social arena— according the amount of individual autonomy preferred by that person. Autonomy is defined, two dimensionally, as the degree of individual decision sovereignty185 (the extent to which individual choice is willingly subjugated to group determination) and the degree of selfdetermination of social actions186 (the extent to which group-imposed constraints on individual social actions are acceptable). A person when deciding his or her preferred degree of individual decision sovereignty can choose between two options. One is to sustain a high degree of individual decision sovereignty by limiting group incorporation, thereby choosing to be an active (or influencing) participant in a group, which “implies an engagement with an environment by ‘doing’ or acting in it” (McKinney 1981: 359), and, thus, choosing to build interpersonal relationships that acknowledge the primacy of internal dimension of social actions—thereby adopting an agental ontology standpoint. The alternative is to accept a low degree of individual decision sovereignty, so as to sustain a high degree of group incorporation, thereby choosing to be a reactive or passive participant in a social arena, which “implies ‘being done to’ [“being acted upon” or “being chosen” (McKinney 1981: 360)] by the environment” (p. 359), and, thus, choosing to build interpersonal relationships that acknowledge the primacy of the external dimension of social actions—thereby adopting a structural ontology standpoint. Social-engagement processes, whether premised on either agency or structuralist ontological standpoints, can be further bifurcated. A person when determining his or her preferred degree of self-determination of his or her social actions in a social arena can, again, choose between two options. One is to accept external constraints on his or her selfdetermination of his or her social actions, thereby choosing inequality as the best relationship arranging principle in that arena. The alternative is to limit such constraints, thereby choosing equality as the best relationship-arranging principle in that arena. From these dichotomies, a set of four relationship-arranging principles can be deduced: •

•

184

A person can choose a very high level of incorporation into a group of individuals, and thereby willingly accepting the necessity of external constraints on his or her individual decision sovereignty and on the determination of his or her social actions (the collectivized-inequality relationship-arranging principle). A person can choose a relatively high level of incorporation into a group of individuals, and thereby willingly accepting the necessity of external constraints on his or her individual decision sovereignty, but rejecting the need for external constraints to be imposed on the determination of his or her social actions (the associative-equality relationship-arranging principle).

A person may, of course, choose not to engage with others in a particular situation, thereby becoming, in Cultural Theory terms, a hermit or isolate. This is a person who “by definition, isolates himself [sic] from both the processes of group dynamics and the imposition of prescriptions on himself and on others” (Schwarz and Thompson 1990: 79, n. 14, see also Dixon 2003: 12, n. 33). Orlofsky (1976) talks of individuals who are nearly or completely withdrawn from all social situations as isolated individuals who are nonassertive, lack social skills, and lack trust in themselves and others. 185 Cultural theorists refer to this as the group or social incorporation dimension (Douglas 1978, see also Dixon 2003: 10, n. 28. 186 Cultural theorists refer to this as the grid or individuation dimension (Douglas 1978, see also Dixon 2003: 11, n. 30.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens •

•

83

A person can choose a relatively low level of incorporation into a group of individuals, and thereby rejecting the need for external constraints to be imposed on his or her individual decision sovereignty, but willingly accepting the necessity of external constraints on the determination of his or her social actions (the egocentricinequality relationship-arranging principle). A person can chose a very low level of incorporation into a group of individuals, thereby rejecting the need for external constraints on either his or her individual decision sovereignty or the determination of his or her social actions (the individualized-equality relationship-arranging principle).

Collectivized-Inequality Relationship-Arranging Principle This relationship-arranging principle would be chosen by a person who has chosen the situational logic informed by the naturalist-structuralist social-reality disposition to best comprehend a social arena. To this person, that arena is an objectively knowable material domain, in which the group-elaborated norms, roles, and practices that govern the conduct of his or her social actions and interpersonal relationships have been defined, sanctioned and promulgated exclusively by important others, in expectation that his or her position in that arena can be decided by them. He or she would, thus, choose a social-engagement process that acknowledges the sanctity of the pre-existing codes of conduct. The expectation is that by impressing important others he or she can attain the uppermost position possible in that arena. Thus, that person would seek to establish hierarchical relationships with others in that arena.

Associative-Equality Relationship-Arranging Principle This relationship-arranging principle would be chosen by a person who has chosen the situational logic informed by the hermeneutic-structuralist social-reality disposition to best comprehend a social arena. To this person, that arena is a domain to be subjectively experienced, the meaning of which is socially constructed. It is one in which he or she can influence the group-elaborated norms, roles, and practices that govern the conduct of his or her social actions and interpersonal relationships through discourse processes in which he or she can freely and effectively participate. The expectation is that he or she can negotiate his or her position in that arena. He or she would, thus, choose a social-engagement process that would enable him or her to negotiate a mutually agreed position in that arena. Thus, that person would choose to establish egalitarian relationships with others in that arena.

Egocentric-Inequality Relationship-Arranging Principle This relationship-arranging principle would be chosen by a person who has chosen the situational logic informed by the hermeneutic-agency social-reality disposition to best comprehend a social arena. To this person, that arena is a domain subjectively experienced, the meaning of which is individually constructed, in which he or she has the potential

84

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

capacity to shape the conduct of his or her social actions and social relationships, although the struggle of will to achieve authenticity may proved to be too much, so generating an inclination toward self-referentiality. The expectation is that his or her position in that arena can be self-determined by the self-imposition of those constraints on his or her social actions that he or she considers others would expect. He or she would, thus, choose a socialengagement process that would indulge his or her self-referentiality, so enabling him or her to position him or herself in that arena as he or she sees fit. Thus, that person would choose to establish egocentric relationships with others in that situation.

Individualized-Equality Relationship-Arranging Principle This relationship-arranging principle would be chosen by a person who has chosen the situational logic informed by the naturalist-agency social-reality disposition to best comprehend a social arena. To this person, that arena is an objectively knowable material domain, in which he or she can shape the conduct of his or her social actions and interpersonal relationships. The expectation is that his or her position in that arena can be selfdetermined in accordance with his or her wishes and desires. He or she would, thus, choose a social-engagement process that would enables him or her to bargain for a position in that arena that would best promote his or her self-interest. Thus, that person would choose to establish individualistic relationships with others in that situation.

FRAMING A RELATIONAL SITUATION TO BEST ADVANTAGE To enable a person to choose the best social-engagement process to adopt in a particular social arena requires that he or she chooses the most appropriate way of taking meaning from, and making sense of, that arena. This choice of framing mode permits that person to share with others with whom he or she has chosen to engage a body of compatible knowledge and beliefs187—an array of understandings about what counts as what, an appreciation of the group and individual rights and obligations, and a set of acceptable feelings that can be aroused by any emotion-eliciting events—and to carry out the social actions that he or she deems to be appropriate to the situation.188 This indicates what that person needs to accept as true about a particular social arena, which is, perhaps, as much a statement of belonging as of belief. On the basis of the four social-reality disposition and the four social-engagement principles, there are four contending sets of logically deduced propositions—contending 187

Crow's Law (attributed to John Crow, sometime Reader in English at King’s College, London, and Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh) states: “Do not believe what you wish to believe, until you perceive what you ought to have perceived” (cited in Vickers 2002: 203). 188 By taking the most appropriate meaning from a situation, a person can more effectively engage in Berne’s game playing ([1964] 1992, see also Harris [1967] 1996), as a normal part of a social interaction. This involves “an ongoing series of complimentary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome” (p. 18), usually producing enhanced emotional satisfaction or control, which entails an exchange of symbolic emotional strokes between people who feel the need to get the recognition or attention they want by acting like an authoritative Parent, a rational Adult or a coquettish Child (transactional analysis). These Bernian ego states, parallel, respectively, Freud’s ego states of superego, ego and id.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

85

situational logics—about the nature of a social arena and of the behaviors, emotions and values of self and others in it, namely: •

•

•

•

hierarchical, which guides a person to believe that he or she must be loyal and dutybound to important others, thereby making his or her social actions and interpersonal relationships in that arena the product of a sense of duty and obligation; egalitarian, which guides a person to believe that he or she must make and express common commitments to like-minded others, thereby making his or her social actions and interpersonal relationships in that arena the product of a sense of commendable collegiality; egocentric, which guides a person to believe that he or she must approach social engagements wearily and reluctantly, mindful of what other people expect, thereby making his or her social actions and interpersonal relationships in that arena the product of past experience and happenstance; or individualistic, which guides a person to believe that he or she must author his or her own life in his or her own self-interest, thereby making his or her social actions and interpersonal relationships in that arena the product of self-interest calculations.

These situational logics are, of course, abstract189 associational190 thought constructs— paradigms or sets of beliefs about the social world that are neither right nor wrong (Guba and Lincoln 1994)—and they are examples of Marshall’s (1998: 292) “ideas-types.”191 They are designed to assist in understanding, rather than in explaining, the nature of a social action by reference to how the action-taker discerns the logic of the situation in which that action is to take place, premised on all the actors involved thinking and acting as if they are cognitively consistent. They provide a way of learning about social interactions, by comparing the social actions actually occurring in a social arena with those predicted by one or more of those situational logics.

189

Weber ([1903/1917] 1949) argued that no analytical construct can embrace the infinite diversity of particular phenomena, which makes selection and abstraction unavoidable. 190 The interrelationship between thoughts can be associational (mentally linked or associated), sequential (stand in a sequence relation) or causal (stand in a determinant or cause-effect relation) (Dubin 1978). 191 Other ideas-type constructs include Weber’s ideal-type constructs, which are derived from discernible phenomena, the construction of which he ([1903/1917] 1949: 90) described as follows: An ideal-type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present, and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified thought-construct. Then there are his derivative pure-type constructs, which exhibit “the highest possible degree of logical integration by virtue of their complete adequacy on the level of meaning” (Weber [1924]1947: 110). An example of such a construct can be found in economics, which Weber ([1924] 1947: 111) considered “always asks what course of action would take place if it were purely rational and oriented to economic ends alone” (see also Mises [1949] 1996), premised on the action-takers having perfect information and being selfinterestedly rational in their decision making (see, for example, Harford 2007). Bendix’s (1989: 131–34) thoughtful critique of Weber’s ideal-types is insightful: For every time an ideal-type is formulated, the simplifications and exaggerations remove the type from the reality, which is contradictory rather than consistent, mixed rather than pure, and complex rather than simple. Hence, the work of relating the construct to the reality still needs to be performed—after the ideal type is formulated (p. 134). Empiricists who treat Weber’s ideal types as hypothetical explanatory models to be tested against material reality entirely missed his point (Hekman 1983).

86

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

These situational logics provide a practical basis for a person to engage in a judgmental heuristic process192 (Chen and Chaiken 1999, Chaiken et al. 1989)—one that facilitate the making of timely and sound judgments about how and why action-takers have come to the conclusion that particular social actions are both possible and desirable in a particular social arena—thereby making social interactions between the judgment-maker and action-takers more predictable, because the judgment-maker is better able to understands the internal construction of the meaning that action-takers take from that arena and from the social actions of others in it. Such judgments are made on the basis of the meaning the judgment-maker takes from what the action-takers say and do in that arena (Kelly 1955), premised on all the actors involved thinking and acting as if they are cognitively consistent in the way they comprehend that situation. These situational logics constitute open concepts, because their connotative meaning (their implied associational connections and emotional overtones)—the all-inclusive membership conditions of its denotation—cannot be specified. Each can, however, be understood as a ideational depiction of a social arena, one that permits a person to portray coherently to self and others the nature of that arena and of the behaviors, emotions and values of self and others in it, without any connotations of that portrayal being an empirical average description of, or a normative benchmark to be applied to, that arena. As a set, these situational logics constitute a typology that is an example of McKinney’s 1966: 18, also 6) “constructive-type typology” (“a purposive, planned selection, abstraction, combination, and (sometimes) accentuation of a set of criteria with empirical referents that serve as a basis for comparison of empirical cases”) intended for comparative and predictive purposes. It is constituted as a set of polythetic categories (defined in terms of the features likely to belong to particulars in that category) formed in accordance with a number of properties such that no one property is to be present for every member of that category, that each member possesses a large but unspecified proportion of the chosen properties, and each property is more commonly found among members of the category than among members of another category (Gross and Rayner 1985: 58). These situational logics are mentalist in orientation, because they are premised on a social action being attributable to the action-taker’s intentional mental states (Spiker 1989). As abstract associational thought constructs, they each constitute contending hypothetical worldviews, which may well be held without awareness of their hypothetical nature and with the presumption that a social arena really is the way that their internalized and institutionalized images depict it (Etzioni 1968: 178–79). They each embody meta-narratives, which organize and justify different stories that contain essential elements that are considered 192

This, under the heuristic-systematic model (Bohner et al. 1995, Chen and Chaiken 1999, Chaiken et al. 1989), means that a decision-maker engages in heuristic social-information processing, using heuristic rules of inference as judgmental decision rules-of-thumb (the heuristic) (Kahneman et al. 1982). The applicability of any heuristic in a given situation is signaled by the garnering of corresponding heuristic clues—information, whether linguistic or behavioral (non-verbal) (Eagly and Chaiken 1993). Indeed, whether a decision rule-ofthum is grounds for making sound or sufficient judgments depends on the veracity of the heuristic and the capacity of the judgment-maker to garner the heuristic clues accurately and comprehensively (heuristic perspicacity), to bring the heuristic readily and accurately to mind in response to the perception of those heuristic clues (memory capacity), and to know when enough heuristic clues have been collected and processed to give that person sufficient confidence in the soundness of his or her judgment (judgmental capacity). This depends on how personally important any judgment made is to the judgment-maker, and on the extent to which he or she is personally accountable for any judgments made. See Eagly and Chaiken 1993, Tversky and Kahneman 1972, 1973, 1974, Kahneman and Tversky 1979.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

87

to be true, so becoming habits of mind, or part of the stock of taken-for-granted, commonsense or tacit knowledge, that guides decisions about what social actions should be taken. They, thus, each constitute the basis of a stable orientation for social actions. They also constitute a set of mnemonic devices, which enable a person to preserve knowledge and beliefs in a way that can be readily recalled and recognized as required to describe, explain, understand and judge a social arena. Followers of a particular situational logic can manifest as Archer’s (1995, 2000) corporate agents, which have “capacities for articulating shared interests, organizing for collective action, generating social movements and exercising corporate influence in decision-making” (Archer 2000: 266), because, as a group, they are motivated by at least one common issue or vested interest, or they work together to achieve a common objective. They adopt distinctive ways of perceiving, feeling, thinking and acting. These are, most notably, characteristic ways of acquiring, validating and using information; characteristic emotional patterns; and characteristic social actions.193 Together, these produce a consistent set of social impressions. They are not, however, a set of Jungian-like psychological types that seek to categorize people according to their primary modes of psychological functioning (Jung [1921] 1923). There is, of course, an ever-present danger of reification, when followers of a situational logic becoming personified and, thus, becomes more than role-playing actors in a social arena (Whitehead 1925).

HOMO HIERARCHUS AND THE HIERARCHICAL SITUATIONAL LOGIC Homo hierarchus are the actors in a social arena who believe that that arena is best understood as a material domain, which makes it objectively knowable by experts; that the social actions of others are best ascribed to a set of pre-existing group norms, roles, and practices, which have been defined, sanctioned and propagated by important others (authority figures); and that it is their own best interest to seek a very high level of group incorporation, which means that they are willing to accept the necessary group constraints on both their decision sovereignty and their self-determination of their social actions. Thus, when confronted with the need to make sense of a social arena, they draw conclusions about that arena, and about their position in it, after analyzing the material objects and phenomena they perceive, and probing the norms expressed, and weighing up the observed roles and practices adopted by the important others present. This then establishes the form of the social interactions that they believe to be necessary in order to be acceptable to the important others 193

When actually observed in individuals, psychologists refer to these characteristics as traits (Boeree 2003, Matthews et al. 2003). Allport (1937: 295) defined a person’s traits as: “a generalized and focalized neuropsychic system (peculiar to the person), with the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent, and to initiate and guide consistent (equivalent) forms of adaptive and expressive behavior.” He subsequently (1961) distinguished between cardinal, central and secondary traits. Cattell (1979, 1980) distinguishes between environmental-mold (learnt) traits, and constitutional (biologically determined) traits. Eysenck (1967, 1970) preferred to infer traits from observable habitual behaviors (habits), and so was able to empirically identify the important personality traits as character (will), temperament (emotions), intellect (intelligence) and physique (bodily endowment and configuration).

88

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

present. In so doing, they have decided that the status and role relationships they want with other people in this arena are hierarchical. Homo hierarchus have, thus, accepted the aptness of the hierarchical situational logic in that arena. Their salient decision-making risks194 are twofold. First, an arena may not be fully explainable solely by reference to what important others have identified, using inductive and deductive reasoning, as the epistemologically objective material objects and phenomena present in that arena, and the inferences they have drawn from those material facts to determine the statuses and roles of those present. This makes their knowledge provisional, contingent and subject to multifarious standards of truthfulness. Second, the behavioral responses they predict from others in that arena will not be forthcoming from individuals who are unencumbered by any adherence to the hierarchically determined, pre-existing group norms, roles, and practices that constitute the rules by which they and others are expected to conduct themselves. By following the hierarchical situational logic, homo hierarchus have judged that the net rewards of social engagement in a particular social arena can be maximized by acquiring the status and role clarity that follows from joining what they consider to be an ascribed and pattern-maintaining hierarchical group of people. Social engagement is, thus, on the basis of particular set of believed or anticipated benefits—namely, the satisfaction of their need to regain the security of the family through transference; their need for social approval; their need to control others, reflecting their need to be feel competent and responsible; their need to be controlled, reflecting their need to be submissive; their need for inclusion, reflecting their need to feel significant and worthwhile; and their need to reduce cognitive uncertainty, so as to better understand that social arena, achieved by gaining reassurance from trusted others— maximally exceed a particular set of believed or anticipated costs—namely, the possible loss of self-esteem195 through outright social rejection; the personal investment cost incurred, whether monetary or material; and the group imposition of unacceptable constraints on social actions, whether intended to eliminate conflict-engendering interference associated with the desire either to limit the detrimental personal impact of the behavior of others, or to maintain norm conformity. The group homo hierarchus expect to join is one in which everyone is assigned a known place—my place in the group is determined by them and that determines my destiny.196 These institutionalized, hierarchical classifications not only keep people apart but also regulate their interactions, by making them subject to the demands of socially imposed roles—I am what they say I am.197 Life’s ends are pre-selected—I will do whatever they judge to be in my best interest—and the means are prescribed—my priorities are determined by what they expect of 194

Etymologically, the word risk from the early Italian risicare, meaning “to dare” (Bernstein 1996: 8). “So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do. It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities; a fraction of which our pretensions are the denominator and the numerator our success: thus, Self-esteem=Success/Pretensions. Such a fraction may be increased as well by diminishing the denominator as by increasing the numerator. To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them gratified; and where disappointment is incessant and the struggle unending, this is what men will always do” (James 1890a: 311–12). 196 Parkin (1971) suggests that there are two reasons why a person accepts his or her place in a hierarchical social group. The first is deference, which presumes the “social order as an organic entity in which each person has a proper part to play, however humble. Inequality is seen as inevitable as well as just, some men being inherently fitted for positions of power and privilege” (Parkin 1971: 85, see also Newby 1977). The second is aspirational, which presumes that the social group can created opportunities for self-advancement and social promotion (Parkin 1971: 85). 195

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

89

me; my future concerns are determined by what they decide is important for me; and what I am committed to is decided by them. Self-interest is, then, subordinated to the interests of the group, as determined by important others, and, thus, cooperation prevails.198 Interpersonal relationships in a hierarchical group are governed by the hierarchically determined set of group norms, roles, and practices (Deutsch and Gerard 1955) that constitutes the known and accepted basis upon which people conduct their interpersonal relationships; a set of entrenched codes of conduct (Dumont 1970, Hart [1961] 1994, Hetcher 2004, Raz 1975).199 These are understood as patterns of hierarchically endorsed social actions maintained by acts of obedience200 (Milgram 1963, 1974, see also Blass 2004);201 by the tensions of social pressure202 and conformity203 (Asch 1951, 1956; Bond, and Smith 1996); by a desire to benefit from others’ knowledge and judgment; and by a desire to coordinate what might otherwise be arbitrary choices. In terms of Riesman’s (1950) inner-other directedness dichotomy, homo hierarchus would have an other-directedness orientation, preferring to seek approval and acceptance from important others (authority figures). In essence, their life goal is winning approval from those perceived to be authority figures, so as to be recognized as members of a hierarchical group. They would be willing to seek the satisfaction of their salient personal needs without 197

As Nietzsche ([1886] 1998: 166) reflected: “hierarchy is virtually determined by how deeply people can suffer.” 198 Some social psychologists argue that a person chooses to go beyond direct self interest by exhibiting prosocial behaviors, such as making altruistic decisions and acting to improve the situation of others (Kelley and Thibaut 1978, Rusbult and Van Lange 1996), because he or she has a predisposition to do so. This is rooted in his or her social interaction experiences, a consequence of having, for example, a preference for a social-value orientation (involving specific patterns of outcomes for self and others) (McClintock 1972); a preference for pursuing common goals (Pruitt and Kimmel 1977); a belief in the honesty and cooperative intentions of others (Yamagishi 1988); a concern with future consequences (Stratham et al. 1994); a relatively high degree of satisfaction derived from engaging in a relationship; or a commitment to group norms that deal with the distribution of outcomes (distributive justice) or with procedural issues (procedural justice) (see, for example, Adams 1965, Thibaut and Walker 1975). 199 In terms of Lockwood’s (1966) social imagery ideal-types, this broadly corresponds to the deferentialtraditionalist worldview. 200 Milgram's (1963, 1974) classic experiment revealed that people will follow orders even when another person is physically threatened and showed how much and how easily obedience to authority can be obtained. Such obedience is grounded, Miligram argued, in a person’s belief that authorities are trustworthy, credible and legitimate, thus obeying orders becomes a matter of loyalty and duty. This leads not only to a strong desire to please them, and a great reluctance to be disobedient, but also to an enhanced capacity to externalize responsibility for the consequences of such obedient behavior. 201 As Nietzsche reflected ([1886] 1998: 85, emphasis in original): “Considering, then, that obedience has until now been bred and practices best and longest among humans, we can surely assume that everyone on average is born with a need to obey, as a formal conscience that decrees: ‘Thou shalt do certain things without question, refrain from certain things without question’, in short ‘thou shalt’.” 202 Adorno et al.’s (1950) enunciation of the authoritarian personality is insightful. The authoritarian is characterized by a rigid adherence to conventional values; a readiness to punish others so as to achieve their conformity with social mores; an arrogance toward those considered to be inferior; a capacity for prejudice; and an unwillingness to tolerate ambiguity; an extreme degree of conformity or over-deferentiality to authority; and a submissiveness both to positional authority figures and to the group’s moral authority. 203 A distinction can be drawn between authentic conformity (when a person’s beliefs and actions are in accord with the prevailing group norms) and inauthentic conformity (when a person’s actions are in accordance with prevailing group norms that do not correspond to his or her own personal beliefs or indeed, may be directly the opposite of their actual preferences) (Harvey 1999). Asch’s (1956) classic study revealed that people will conform to group opinion even when the group is demonstrably wrong. They do so in order to gain approval and acceptance (normative social influence), to acquire more information (informational social influence), or to ape the social actions of those in their social reference group whom they admire and to whom they can relate (behavior aping).

90

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

engaging in overt competition. These needs are prioritized as physiological, safety (security), social (affiliation) and esteem (Maslow 1970); identity, security and stimulation (Ardrey 1967); existence, relatedness and growth (Alderfer 1972); competence (White 1959); and achievement, power and affiliation (McCelland 1961, see also McCelland et al. 1953). Social status is homo hierarchus’s currency of selfhood, which makes them prone to status anxiety (Batton 2004) if, for any reason, important others begin to question their capacity to live up to social expectations Homo hierarchus can definitely be placed at the externalist end of the Levenson’s locusof-control spectrum (1981: 49–52, see also Gore and Rotter 1963, Strickland 1965), amongst those who see control as external, residing in important others. A hierarchical group is one where external authority is accepted as the principal determinant of what is expected of a person—as Rousseau ([1755] 1993: 33–4) remarked “people once accustomed to masters are not in a condition to do without them.” It, thus, has a group-defining and group-identifying code of conduct, the acceptance of which imposes constraints on individual autonomy. Such acceptance is predicated on a person having a strong desire to find a sense of belonging in a known hierarchical group that is based on positional authority, reinforced by ceremonies that highlight differences. This is expressed through orderly differentiation—with status graduations based on explicit material characteristics, such as age, gender, educational attainment and professional rank—the rules for which establish a sense of social identity. Homo hierarchus have, indeed, a need for the materialization of rank, a kind of sign language that tells others where in the group they are situated.

On Truth The warranting of a social knowledge claim for homo hierarchus can only involve applying objective truth criteria—those grounded in the correspondence, coherence, consensus and pragmatism theories of truth. So, a knowledge claim has sufficient justification if it is supported by a fact that is grounded in sensory experience; that has been deduced by reasoning, perhaps based on self-justified premises; that has been gained by using a reliable direct apprehension process; that has been derived in accordance with the axioms of probability theory; that has yet to be refuted; or that is deemed to be true by the consensus of knowledgeable experts, or because knowledgeable experts judge that it is materially beneficial for the group to believe the knowledge claim to be true. Homo hierarchus, therefore, deny their proximity to the unknowable and seek to distance their proximity to the unknown by accepting sense-data or reasoned evidence proffered by acknowledged experts.

On Human Essence For homo hierarchus, the explanations of what is to be a human being must be informed by one or more of the following propositions:

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens •

•

91

individuals are essentially logical moral beings seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, but with the capacity to rise above their feelings and passions (Aristippus the Elder, Aristotle, Epicurus, Hieronymus of Cardia, Kant, Plato and Socrates); and individuals are always striving for radical harmony (inclusive harmony, as distinct from exclusive sameness)204 that begins with self and radiates outward to the familial, social, political and cosmic realms, achieved by means of correct behavior, loyalty and sincerity (Confucius [Kongfuzi]).

On Human Nature People are considered by homo hierarchus to be sinful, with a basic instinct for pleasure seeking. Homo hierarchus would readily accept C. S. Lewis’s (1944) judgment: I believe that in all men’s [sic] lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. … Of all the passions the passion for the Inner Ring is most skilful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.

They would also accept Machiavelli’s ([1531] 1969: 111–12) verdict that people are “ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain”; that “all men are wicked and that they will always give vent to the malignity that is in their minds when opportunity offers”; and that “men are always more ready for evil than for good” [1513] 1977: 304, 306).205 And they would agree with Hobbes’ (([1651] 1996: 89) belief that man in a state of nature lived a life that was brutish, short and nasty: “during the time men lived without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man ….” Redemption—realizing excellence or perfection in those human states (such as acquiring knowledge and achievements) or properties (such as accepting other-regarding duties) that are central to human nature (Hurka 1993)—comes from them doing what is morally right (perfectionism). This is achieved by conforming to the requisite norms of a hierarchical group, best accomplished by the habit of self-control206. The conduct of both self-regarding and otherregarding duties provides them with a set the norms that determine how they should live so as to promote excellence in life (Hurka 1993). This means that, within everybody, reason has to struggle to regulate and resolve contrary and conflicting emotions. Because emotions are considered by homo hierarchus to be primitive, dangerous and irrational, the best life is one lived by a person who has mastered self, as he or she is wellordered and forever free of emotions such as desire, joy, fear, and sorrow. In the face of unpleasant events, such a person is steadfast, with the right and immovable strength of mind, 204

Harmony is the quintessence of Confucian reality: “Reality is the embodiment of structures, structures are the embodiment of properties, properties are the embodiment of harmony, harmony is the embodiment of congruity” (Guanzi (4th century B. C.) quoted in Picken 1960: 589). 205 Zimbardo (2006) explores the role that situations have in leading people into evil. 206 Snyder and deBono (1987) found that people who are motivated to carry out a high level of self-monitoring of their own social actions, in order to comply with the social expectations of others, are more socially adjusted than individuals who disregard social conventions.

92

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

which gives him or her the patience needed to endure all that can happen without complaint. Such a person is also courteous and considerate to others. He or she has learnt wisdom from experience. This proposition has its Western intellectual antecedents in elements of stoicism (Sandbach 1975): “with its celebration of public service, resistance to tyranny and stress on emotional restraint and endurance, even to the extent of committing suicide for one’s ideals” (Freeman 2003: 69). Its Eastern antecedents are in Buddhism, under which the seeking of liberation from agitations (klesas) is stressed (Streng 1967) and in Confucian thought, under which the self-cultivation of mental calmness is an ideal to be sought (Fingarette 1972, Ivanhoe 1993). Moral goodness and happiness is, then, achievable only if a person is the embodiment of perfect rationality, and if he or she avoids emotions or passions—the source of vice—that are, at root, false value judgments (Fisher 2002). The ideal is for everyone to have the right set of emotions cultivated by moral education (Aristotle) (Ackrill 1981) and mastery over bodily passion—thereby becoming Socrates’ perfect Orphic saints—(Russell 1946: 111, see also Fisher 2002), so as “to avoid mental disturbances when excessive emotions fail to obey reason” (Cicero [44 BC] 1971: 34). This enables everyone to attain the Platonic wise, brave, self-controlled, and, thus, well-ordered self (Plato [c380s BC] 1952; see also Robinson 1995, Vardey and Grosch 1999). Human beings in Confucian thought are interconnected ethical agents (Chan 1963, Ivanhoe 1993). A person should aspire to personal responsibility in everyday affairs and moral perfection in ethical deeds through self-cultivation. This is a highly valued aspiration, one that is associated at the personal level with having a balanced and integrated personality, and a self-effacing manner, thereby enabling a person to have a true harmoniousness (jen), which shapes the nature of personal relationship experienced, and is associated at the social level with the achievement of clarity and harmony. That a person must relinquish his or her belief in free will and self-determination, and come to accept that external forces control him or her, is axiomatic to homo hierarchus. This renders the notion of free will as the capacity of individuals to conform to prevailing preexisting group norms, roles, and practices. Only then will a person become more responsive to those controlling forces that reinforce what is naturally acceptable to everybody, namely, more orderly and mannerly social actions. This would bring to an end the normlessness and unpredictability of the relatively random world in which they live (Skinner 1971). Social actions, then, are predictable because a person’s choice decisions are made on the basis of reasoned and logical thought processes constrained by the known, hierarchical group norms, roles, and practices. Each group member is also be dominated by a sense of duty—an adherence to binding normative imperative (Zimmerman 1996)—that justifies and necessitates a social action. As Aurelius ([167] 1998: VI) remarked: “I do that which is my duty to do. Nothing else distracts me; for it would be either something that is inanimate and irrational, or somebody who is misled and ignorant of the way.” Duty, according to Hegel, is the relationship of the individual to the collective (Russell 1946: 764) that makes a person free: “I should do my duty for duty’s sake, and when I do my duty it is in a true sense my own objectivity which I am bringing to realization. In doing my duty, I am by myself and free” (Hegel (1821) 1991: S.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

93

133). Mazzini ([1860] 1907: 15) asserted that the principle of duty is superior to the principle of happiness and well-being as the primary aim of human existence207: We must convince men [sic] that they, the sons [sic] of one only God, must obey one only law, here on earth; that each one of them must live, not for himself, but for others; that the object of their life is not to be more or less happy, but to make themselves and others better.

But, as Frederick the Great is purported to have remarked: “Above the rank of General, obedience ends and responsibility begins (cited in Fest 2003: 23). By human temperament, homo hierarchus can only be characterized as one of Burton’s phlegmatics ([1621] 2001, drawing upon Hyppocrates’ typology (see Jouanna [1992] 1999). To homo hierarchus, a person’s moral worth can only be measured by the social actions undertaken from a sense of duty. Life’s meaning, thus, depends on doing one’s duty: who a person becomes, then, is contingent upon to whom that person is bound and obligated.

On Ethics and Morality The guide to moral conduct—the moral principles that justify what constitutes acceptable social actions—for homo hierarchus can only be the rightness of social actions—a deontological ethical proposition (Fried 1978). Thus, moral principles must emphasize moral rules or laws. These moral directives express the requirements of the moral rule-givers, which create a moral obligation—a sense of duty—on the moral rule-takers, who are expected to act according to what is right—do what is permitted or acceptable, and not do what is forbidden or unacceptable. Such ethical propositions, Blackburn (2001: 60) observes, “take us beyond what we admire, or regret, or prefer or even what we want other individuals to prefer. They take us to thoughts about what is due. They take us to demands.”208 When a person acknowledges a moral obligation, he or she accepts a moral imperative that gives discrete inherent value to loyalty, duty and even deference209, and that requires the necessary moral action to be undertaken. Schiller ([1793] 2005) would add that more moral reach would be achieved if that required moral action was done with grace and dignity, thereby reflecting the harmonious unity between reason and passion (see also Beiser 2005). This provides the foundation for act-centered morality (what should I do?). This centers morality in the public realm where actions affect others. The moral consideration that bears on the rightness of a social action is the authority of the moral rule-giver. This is premised on the proposition that the individual enters into some form of psychological contract—an unwritten sets of mutual expectations and understandings that establishes the moral authority of rule-givers over the rule-takers, grounded “in respect,

207

Ogden Nash ([1935] 2000) identified the tension: “O Duty,/ Why hast thou not he visage of a sweetie or a cutie?/Why glitter thy spectacles so ominously?/Why art thou clad so abominously?”… O Duty, Duty!/How noble a man should I be hadst thou the visage of a sweetie or a cutie!” 208 As Nietzsche [1886] 1998: 167) aphorizes: “Signs of nobility: never think of reducing our duties into duties for everyone; not to want to transfer or share our responsibility; to count our privileges and their exercise among our duties.” 209 Deferential social actions, of course, may not imply deferential attitudes, for they may merely involve meeting social expectations in an unequal power relationship (see, for example, Newby 1977).

94

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

honour or (as the Romans called it) piety” (Scruton 2001: 23).210 Such moral authority may be granted as a divine right, as a response to fear, or in the hope of self-improvement. The divine command theory holds that a social action is right only if God approves it, and, thus, what is right is obedience to the divine will (Quinn 1999). The content of divinely inspired moral obligations may be diversely informed. They may drawn or deduced from revealed theology, the position held by William of Ockham (Adams 1987), or from divine prophecy (Rahman 1958), whether explained supernaturally or naturally (Aquinas [1256–59] 1952, [1266–73] 1948, Maimonides [c1190] 1969). Supernatural prophecy is based on revelation by a God providing some important but otherwise unknowable set of truths211 (Dulles 1983; Mitchell 1980), which define what it takes for a human being to obtain salvation (Brandon 1962), thereby demarcating a particular set of moral laws. Natural theology is based on knowledge of what is good for a person is derived by use of his or her cognitive resources to ascertain the purpose of human existence, which Aquinas ([1266–73] 1948) considered included to live, to reproduce, to learn, to have an ordered society, and to worship God. This would then enable them to discover the universal natural laws that can be deduced from primary and secondary precepts or duties (Longford 1985: 204), derived by examining the common human nature and its purposes (Kretzmann and Stump 1993, Weber [1915] 1946). These would enable a person to fulfill his or her nature and to make the most of his or her individual intention. Hierarchical elites in the state, and later in society, have emerged as the alternative moral law-givers. Divine Right of Kings theory (Bossuet [1679] 1906, Figgis [1896] 1965, but see Locke [1688] 1960) argued that monarchs rule because they were chosen by God to do so, which gave them the exclusive right to exercise supreme sovereignty—to impose duties and obligations—over their subjects. Machiavelli ([1532] 1977) explored virtù212 (the proficiency of a ruler in the use power, as the source of authority, quickly and effectively to do whatever is necessary to secure the safety and continued prosperity of the group, so as to attain honor and glory), which he consistently linked with responsibility. The retention of power is 210

Kant ([1788] 1906, see also [1785] 2003) argued that any obligations that flow from a rule-giver empowered this way can only be considered an hypothetical moral imperative (“which expresses the practical necessity of an action as a means to the advancement of happiness … as a means to another purpose” (Kant [1788] 1906: 39), until its objective necessity has been rationally established by the rule-taker without reference to ends. Only then can that obligation be considered a categorical imperative (a generalized moral discernment “which declares an action to be objectively necessary in itself without reference to a purpose” (Kant [1788] 1906: 38). Only then can it be considered intrinsically right to perform the requisite duties. His deontological propositions are, thus, threefold. First, “to have moral worth, an action must be done from duty” ([1788] 1906: 18, n. 1). Second, “that an action done from duty derives its moral worth … merely on the principle of volition by which the action has taken place, without regard to any object of desire” ([1788] 1906: 18–19). Third, “duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the law [that is, “I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become universal law” ([1788] 1906: 21, see also Vardey and Grosch 1999: 57–58, Taylor 1975: 88)—moral universability. This echoes of the words of the first century BC Jewish Sage, Beit Hillel: “What is hateful to you, don’t do to your friend” (Mesechta Shabbat 31a) and is often cast into the popular saying “do unto others in the way you expect them to do to yourself.” Thus, determining the morality of a social action involves invoking a valid universal principle (applicable to everybody at all times and in all places), which provide justifiable motivation—a moral obligation or imperative—for that action to be taken (ethical prescriptivism) (Hare 1952, 1963, 1997). 211 The sixteenth century Jesuit theologian, Luis de Molina ([1588–89] 1988), argued that three forms of knowledge can be attributed to God. The first is natural knowledge, which He knows by virtue of His very nature or essence. The second is free knowledge, which He knows by His knowledge of His own will to act. The third is middle knowledge, which is His foreknowledge of conditional future contingents and counterfactuals. 212 Derived from virtus in Italian, literally meaning virtue, but best translated as prowess (Warburton [1998] 2006: 39).

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

95

conditional upon a ruler having the vision to acknowledge duties to citizens and the knowledge, skills and attributes to ensure the maintenance of stability, the certainty of order, and the continuance of the status quo. Thus, for as long as citizens do not feel robbed of their property or honour through neglect of the obligations that power confers, “they remain content” (Machiavelli, [1532] 1977: 58). Hobbes ([1651] 1996) concluded that human action is governed by aversions (especially, the fear of death) and appetites (especially, the desire for power). Therefore, deontological ethical propositions must apply in the public sphere, where social actions are the product of people seeking to establish realistic relationships with the monarch, so as to avoid breaches of the social contract that has advanced humanity from the chaos of the natural laws of nature. Without a Commonwealth, or Leviathan,213 citizens would experience “no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” ([1651] 1996: 89). Burke ([1790] 1993), who shared Hobbes pessimism about human nature, held a brief for a code of order and stability—“society requires …[that] the inclinations of men [sic] should frequently be thwarted, their will be controlled, and their passions brought kin to subjection, This can only be done by a power outside of themselves” (p. 189). Thus, he placed emphasis on the well-ordered state. This is one that has evolved through the wisdom of ages, the product of a slowly evolving and traditionally informed pattern of governance, grounded in shared traditions, beliefs and habits that are instantiated and passed on through extant social institutions, and that acts as a moral mainstay: “custom reconciles us to everything” (Burke [1756] 1987: 148). Citizens thus enter into a special relationship with their society, which Burke ([1790] 1993: 96) envisaged would ultimately achieve “a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection.” Bradley’s ([1876] 1988) proposition was that society is the primary source of ethics: “the end of moral activity lies in a person finding his or her station or position in life and then carrying out its duties” (cited in Vardey and Grosch 1999: 75). Thus, “the individual comes to fulfillment by identifying with and conforming to the norms of the society in which he or she lives this is a moral action which the individual makes and in identifying with society’s values, the individual becomes moral” (cited in Vardey and Grosch 1999: 74). Confucius gave ethical primacy to relationships (of self to others) (Shun and Wong 2004) and emphasized benevolence (the affectionate concern for the wellbeing of close others) (ren), righteousness (the sense of rightness exercised in coping with changing life circumstances) (yi), and propriety (li) (the proper daily social patterns of conduct and relations in particular circumstances) (Confucius [5th century BC] 1992). Together, these give rise to “effortless power coordinating social activity in a civilized community” (Fingarette 1972: 12). This is not too dissimilar to Bayle ([1606] 1965) assertion that a person’s duties are to the inviolable individuality of others. Machiavelli, Hobbs, Burke and Plato reflected explicitly, and Bradley and Confucius did so by implication, on an elite’s manipulation of a person to achieve favorable ends. By means of a system of obligations and duties that ensures a compliant populace, the elite’s purpose has always been to maintain power and the uphold the existing group; to preserve social order or social harmony, perhaps through individual fulfillment; and even to perpetuate existing

213

This is Yiddish for a monstrous sea creature cowed by Yahweh.

96

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

social divisions and sectional interests.214 This intention imposes upon the elite (the moral rule-givers)—moral obligations with respect to the manipulated (the moral rule-takers)— noblesse oblige—making the latter not just a means but also an end in the framing of the intent. Indeed, as binding normative requirements, all social actions so justified must be performed; not to do so would be wrong, so justifying criticism and condemnation (Zimmerman 1996). If certain social actions are considered to be intrinsically right or wrong, then a person could be faced with moral dilemma if a forbidden result is a concomitant arising from a right social action. Fried (1978: 20) deals with this moral dilemma by proposing a system of categorical norms “concerned with what we do, rather than with what we allow to happen.” Therefore, even if this moral dilemma was foreseeable, then “it does not violate the categorical prohibition” (p. 21). Thus, in part, categorical norms are absolute, in that “they point out certain acts we must not perform.” However, they also “do not state that a certain state of the world is of such supreme importance that the value of everything else must be judged by its tendency to produce that state” (p. 11). So, a complex relationship is proposed between the judgments of the deontological system and the agent’s evaluative judgment on “producing good in the world, but without violating the absolute norms of right and wrong” (Fried 1978: 11). By introducing the intention of the agent into the gap that exists between judgments of right and wrong and the state of affairs in the world, Fried (1978: 27) recognizes that “we relate to the world as human beings as we pursue our purposes in the world.” In this process the theory of status quo duties, compiled by Ross (1930), provides the means to corroborate that, in a particular set of circumstances, the individual can have an intuitive awareness of irreducible moral properties—absolute moral truths—with respect to rightness or wrongness (ethical intuitionism215). Therefore, it is possible to refine binding normative requirements, provided any absolute element within the categorical norms is respected, as a person may then fashion his or her intentions so that they do not contravene these absolutes. However, the concept of a premeditated action remains problematic in defining ethical obligations. What is honorable about me is that I am loyal and obedient. Personal moral responsibility for a social action can, of course, be diminished by reference to duty and obligation, although it can be right to ignore a duty or obligation if there is a proportionate justification (Hoose 1987).

214

215

“The noble type of person feels himself [sic] as determining values—he does not need approval, he judges that ‘what is harmful to me is harmful per se’, he knows that he is the one who causes things to be revered in the first place, he creates values. Everything he knows of himself he reveres: this kind of moral code is selfglorifying. In the foreground is a feeling of fullness. Of overflowing power, of happiness in great tension, an awareness of a wealth that would like to bestow and share—the noble person will also help the unfortunate, but not, or not entirely, out of pity, but rather from the urgency created by an excess of power” (Nietzsche [1886] 1998: 154, emphasis in original). This is the proposition that there are objective moral truths some of which can be known through a process of innate intellectual awareness or direct apprehension (Moore 1903). Shaftsbury ([1711] 1978) and Hutcheson ([1755] 2000) both argued that individuals have a moral sense, a unique capacity for moral perception.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

97

On Trust The granting of trust216—the basis for believing in the honesty and reliability of others and in the validity of their knowledge claims—by homo hierarchus can only be preceded by the confirmation that those being trusted adhere to a fundamentally common set of innate moral values. Moralistic trust is a feeling, as well as a judgment and a disposition to act, that binds people together (Uslaner 2002). It is based upon “some sort of belief in the goodwill of the other” (Seligman 1997: 43). It must involve positive feelings, at one pole, and negative ones, at the other, premised on a belief that no one should try to take advantage of anyone else (Silver 1989: 276). The moral dimension of trust is important because it is a statement about how people should behave. Only if a person is confident that those to whom trust is to be extended share a moral belief that reinforces honest social actions, will trust be extended to them. Trust between individuals can only, then, be extended on the basis of presumed obligations of truster and presumed responsibilities of the trusted.

On Power and Compliance Making people do what they would not otherwise have done must, according to homo hierarchus, involve the use of legitimate power (French and Raven 1959), threat power (Boulder 1990), or expert or knowledge power (French and Raven 1959, Hales 2001). Rules must be directive, thereby they must “ask, command, demand, permit [and] caution” (Onuf 1989: 86). Mamadouh (1999: 143) characterizes the situation as: they decide what we should do. Jensen (1999: 174; see also Jensen 1998) reverses this: we are entitled to decide what they must do. The use of such power is expected to solicit voluntary compliance on the basis of a cognitive commitment derived from logical calculations made in the context of structural processes (such as rules and procedures prescribed by those in or with authority). Such obedience must become a habit, grounded in a sense of duty to obey a sanctioned command, although some self-sacrificing altruistic supererogatory actions—those considered to be above and beyond the call of duty—can be refrained from without blame and without imputation of character defect (Heyd 1982). It is, however, quite unjustifiable for anyone within a hierarchical group to operate outside its rules or not to accept his or her place in that hierarchy, as they would both violate accepted social expectations, because conformity is a moral obligation—an imperative that must be obeyed. This sense of obligation may be constrained by any limits a person is willing to impose unilaterally upon his or her conformity with accepted social expectations.

216

There are contending perspectives on how trust can best be understood (Mayer et al. 1995, McAllister 1995). A useful distinction can be drawn between particularist trust—the particular trust one person has of another person—and generalist trust—the general trust one person has of everyone else, individually as well as collectively in institutions. Stolle (1998: 500) argues that the extension of trust from a person’s own group to the larger society occurs through “mechanisms not yet clearly understood.” An even more sceptically, Rosenblum (1998: 45, 48) calls the purported link “an airy ‘liberal expectancy’” that remains “unexplained.”

98

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

On Decision Making Decision analysis can only involve, according to homo hierarchus, searching for alternative means to hierarchically determined ends, prioritized by their importance, urgency and values contestability. Decision-making must, thus, be focused on making satisfactorily choices (Simon [1947] 1960, 1956, Gigerenzer 1991, Gigerenzer and Goldstein 1996).217 Pugh and Hickson (1996: 134) describe the satisficing decision-making process as envisaged by Simon: In this process decision-makers are content with gross simplifications, taking into account only those comparatively few relevant factors which their minds can manage to encompass. ‘Most human decision making whether individual or organizational, is concerned with the discovery and selection of satisfactory alternatives; only in exceptional cases is it concerned with the discovery and selection of optimal alternatives’.

The preferred mode of reasoning favored is functionally analytical (Hoppe 2000), albeit with a bounded rationality (Simon [1947] 1960, [1947] 1976, 1956, 1957, 1982) under which goals are hierarchically determined and decision making is focused on working out a satisfactorily efficient and effective solution in the absence of complete information. Any solutions so identified are presumed to be amenable to group implementation, involving the manipulation of control, constraint and leverage factors that can be built into a set of social action plans for implementation. Any judgments that need to be made should be limited, wherever possible, to Vickers’ (1983) reality judgments: What is out there? What is the problem? What predictions can be made? Decision-making, wherever possible, should be computational (Thompson 1967), on the premises of certainty about both outcome preferences and cause-effect relations. Ordered and appropriate group intervention is presumed to lead to the right results. Uncertainties that are grounded in the lack of knowledge of future events can be converted to factual risk probabilities by experts drawing upon empirical evidence to give them some degree of likelihood (Bernstein 1996, Rescher 1994, Shrader-Frechette 1985): Socrates’ “likeness to truth” (eikos) (cited in Sambursky 1956: 36). Success in the face of risk would be expected. High risks can be taken, but only after the relevant authority figures have decided upon their ethical acceptability. The management of risk, however, must be left to the experts, who must be unencumbered by moral considerations. Any decision made can only be considered to have been agreed upon by the application of a natural (or other idealized) standard (what someone ought to agree with, by reference to some extra-personal ideal, such as ‘divine right,’ ‘the queen’s pleasure,’ or ‘the public interest’). This makes consent—the removal of moral or legal objections to, or liability for, the performance of an act, an arrangement or an expectation, thereby justifying or legitimizing them (Beran 1987)—hypothetical. This, in turn, presumes, of course, that such a standard can be met. The intent of group decision-making is, thus, to produce a meaningful (satisfactory) interpretation of available objective information that would facilitate satisficing decision-making, premised on the accepted need for reason to be constrained by hierarchically determined values and beliefs.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

99

HOMO SOCIOLOGICUS AND THE EGALITARIAN SITUATIONAL LOGIC Homo sociologicus are the actors in a social arena who believe that that arena is best understood as a domain that has to be subjectively experienced, which is made understandable by discourse processes in which they can freely and effectively participate; that the social actions of others are best ascribed to a set of group-negotiated norms, roles, and practices to which all those present have agreed; and that it is their own best interest to seek a relatively high level of group incorporation, which means that they are willing to negotiate group constraints on their decision sovereignty, but they reject the imposition of any group constrains on their social actions. Thus, when confronted with the need to make sense of a social arena, they draw conclusions about that arena, and about their position in it, after they engage in discourse with the other actors present, which enable them to socially construct the meaning of their first-person experiences in that arena, and of the motivations behind the observed behaviors adopted by the others present. This then establishes the form of the social interactions that they believe to be necessary in order to be accepted by those present with whom they share a set of common understandings and values. In so doing, they have decided that the status and role relationships they want with other people in this arena are egalitarian. Homo sociologicus have, thus, accepted the aptness of the egalitarian situational logic in that arena. Their salient decision-making risks are twofold. First, an arena may not be fully explainable solely by reference to epistemologically subjective knowledge about the objects and the determinant and indeterminant phenomena present in that arena with which they have first-person experience, the meanings of which they socially construct with others, and to the socially constructed statuses and roles that have been consigned to those present. This makes their knowledge subject to severe relativism and open to constant revision, thereby making prediction problematic. Second, the behavioral responses they predict from others in that arena will not be forthcoming from individuals who are not motivated by the jointly affirmed group norms, roles, and practices that constitute the rules by which people should conduct their affairs. By following the egalitarian situational logic, homo sociologicus have judged that the net rewards of social engagement in a particular social arena would be maximized by negotiating their role in what they consider to be an unranked group of committed people.218 Social engagement is, thus, on the basis of a particular set of believed or anticipated benefits— namely, the satisfaction of their need to have a better understanding of a social arena, by having their beliefs, opinions and attitudes validated by their acceptance by others, or by reducing cognitive uncertainty by seeking reassurance from others; their need for social support, in the form of social interaction, or for mutual goal achievement; and their need for inclusion—exceeds a particular set of believed or anticipated costs—namely, the primary 217

Schwartz’s (2004) satisficer is a person who is willing to live with decisions that are good enough, which means he or she can make choices without excessive agonizing and without being plagued by post-decision regrets. 218 Insights into the underlying psychology can be gleaned for Hoffer’s ([1951] 1989) study of group identification. A person, for example, joins a revolutionary mass movement to take on “holy causes” that allows him or her to become a complete and secure self: “True believers are not intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but are those craving to be rid of an unwanted self. They are followers, not because of a desire for selfadvancement, but because it can satisfy their passion for self-renunciation!” (p. 12). Taking on a cause creates a sense of belonging and camaraderie that generates new pride, purpose, confidence and hope.

100

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

tensions experienced because of initial unfamiliarity or because of the lack of social skills; the personal investment cost incurred, whether personal, such as self-disclosure or self-revelation, or time; the potential loss of self-esteem through social rejection, whether outright or partial, such as by being ignored by others; and the imposition of unacceptable constraints on social actions, whether intended to eliminate conflict-engendering interference associated with the desire either to limit the detrimental personal impact of the behavior of others or to maintain norm conformity. The group homo sociologicus expect to join is one in which everyone belongs and is committed, but no one has a preordained place—my place in the group is determined by us and we determine my destiny. A person’s place is, thus, negotiated—I am what I say to others. Life’s ends are negotiated—I will do whatever we judge to be in my best interest—and the means are negotiated—my priorities are determined by what we expect of me; my future concerns are determined by what we decide is important for me; and to what I am committed is decided by us. Self-interest is, then, subordinated to the negotiated interests of others, and, thus, cooperation prevails.219 In essence, an egalitarian group places high value on personal relationships and on being seen to be trustworthy, dependable, popular, and very committed to a common ensemble of precepts, concepts, ideas and values derived from discourse.220 It may well be that respect is identified with agape, even philia. A righteous fervor may well prevail, which gives rise to a group affirmation of opposition to the outside world. In terms of Riesman’s (1950) inner-other directedness dichotomy, homo sociologicus would have an other-directedness orientation, preferring to seek the approval and acceptance of others. Seeking to win recognition and acclaim from like-minded others thus becomes their life goal, so as to satisfy their salient needs at the expense of self-disclosure or self– revelation. These needs are prioritized as social (affiliation or acceptance), esteem (selfworth) and self-actualization (fulfillment a distinctive psychological potential, or full humanness) (Maslow 1970, 1971); identity, security and stimulation (Ardrey 1967); existence, relatedness and growth (Alderfer 1972); and achievement, power and affiliation (McCelland 1961, McCelland et al. 1953). Social vows are homo sociologicus’s currency of selfhood, which makes them prone to rejection anxiety. Homo sociologicus can be placed toward the internalist end of the Levenson’s locus-ofcontrol spectrum (1981: 49–52), amongst those who tend to accept responsibility for their social actions and consider they are in control of their lives and destinies, largely through their own personal effort, ability and initiative. A significant constituent of the identity of homo sociologicus—their sense of who they are—is derived from belonging to an egalitarian 219

Social psychologists talk of the prosocial personality, the elements of which include (Davis 1994, Graziano and Eisenberg 1997, Lerner 1980, Oliner and Oliner 1988, Penner et al. 1995, Rotter 1966, Staub 1974 ): a high degree of social responsibility; a belief in a world in which people get what they deserve (a just-world belief); and a disposition towards empathy. Adler ([1922] 1924, [1929] 1969, [1933] 1973) emphasized the importance of cooperative effort to a person striving, as his or her ultimate personality-defining and behaviordirecting purpose in life, for perfection or completion. This necessitates him or her acting in accordance with his or her social interest, conceptualized as “a striving for a form of community which must be thought of as everlasting, as it could be thought of if mankind has reached its goal of perfection” (Adler [1933] 1973: 34– 35). Essentially, by striving for the goals of others, a person also helps him or herself: “We remain open to the other and welcome him [sic] as a host would welcome a guest, according to his own meaning, whose life is respected as equally valid as one’s own” (Brennan 1969: 10, see also Sampson 1993). 220 In terms of Lockwood’s (1966) social imagery ideal-types, this broadly corresponds to the traditional-proletarian worldview.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

101

group that is based on voluntarism and personal authority. Such a group portrays exclusivism, for it has strong barriers identifying and separating insiders from strangers. These are akin to Scharpf’s (1991: 297) “boundaries of distrust and irrelevance.” Group boundaries are typically protected by the repetition and fixity of ritual, participation in which is taken as evidence of loyalty and commitment. Collins (1981: 944) elaborates: “The actual structures in the social world, especially centered on the network upholding property and authority, involve continuous monitoring by individuals of each other’s group loyalties. Since the social world can involve quite a few lines of authority and sets of coalitions, the task of monitoring them can be extremely complex.” Egalitarian groups have no explicit and pre-determined rules or protocols telling people how to behave. No person has the positional authority to exercise control over another person, which can only by achieved by the use of persuasion. Thus, internal conflicts are difficult to resolve, making these groups intrinsically factional. Members are inclined to blame their difficulties on interlopers and traitors within, who they consider have been corrupted by the outside world, on the ground that anti-social actions deserves to be blamed and punished (Sher 1987). This is akin to Scharpf’s (1991: 297) “opportunism for guile.” As a consequence, the more defiant is their posture toward outsiders, the less they gain external recognition. Thus, compromise becomes more unthinkable; negotiations become less possible. An inclination toward conspiracy theory prevails in egalitarian groups, where there is always distrust of those who have been corrupted by power-hungry and inequitable social institutions, whether they are in markets or hierarchies. The main anxiety is the fear of secession by the faithful, which would weaken group authority and encourage a tendency to invoke the principle of inequality. This places the egalitarian group at the mercy of defectors. Schism is thus part of their reality, as there is no way to settle disputes except by expulsion. It generates a facade of invulnerability and inherent morality, a close-mindedness that manifests itself in group rationalizations, outsider stereotyping, and strong pressure toward uniformity. The three pillars that typify an egalitarian group are, thus, the protective boundary, the threat of defection, and the principles of equality and nondiscrimination, with ambiguity being the consequence. This creates a social context in which the external group boundary is, typically, the dominant consideration. The social experience of the individual is, then, shaped by the “we” versus “them” mentality. The suspicion of outsider infiltration or of insider betrayal is rampant (Altman and Baruch 1998: 773). Socialization is based on passively and actively resisting all types of power and authority.

On Truth The warranting of a social knowledge claim for homo sociologicus can only involve applying subjective truth criteria—those grounded in the pragmatism and social constructivism theories of truth. So, a knowledge claim has sufficient justification if it is deemed to be true by the consensus judgment emerging from discourse, or if there is consensus agreement that socially beneficial consequences will result from believing it to be true. Homo sociologicus thus seek to reduce their proximity to the unknown and the unknowable by engaging in social discourse.

102

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

On Human Essence For homo sociologicus, the explanations of what it is to be a human being must be informed by one or both of the following propositions: • •

individuals are cultural artifacts, the product of self-reflexive and inherently culturally specific discourses221 (Barthes, Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard); and. individuals are transient interpretations, the product of the interwoven speech and action222 (Mead and Wittgenstein).

On Human Nature People are considered by homo sociologicus to be inherently good with a capacity for real moral progress: in Rousseau words, “man is naturally good, only by institutions is he made bad”223 (cited in Russell 1946: 714); and the words of (Aquinas ([1264] 1974: 127) “it is clear that there is in man a natural aptitude to virtuous action.” Hutcheson ([1755] 2000) “spoke to the best potentialities of human nature” (cited in Carey 2000: viii) and saw man as having a unique facility for moral perceptions and a disposition toward benevolence. Human nature must be taken to be circumstantial—a product of a person’s social formations, shaped, in varying degrees, by culture and circumstance—and, thus, other-referential, thereby making it informed by comparisons with the virtuousness of others. Those who prefer to affirm the virtuous qualities established by the received wisdom of divine revelation are forever striving for those qualities that will lead to salvation: the right knowledge, the right speech and the right conduct. Those who prefer to socially construct and affirm their own set of virtuous qualities may look to philosophical traditions that emphasize cooperation for inspiration. The communitarian tradition (Etzioni 1998), for example, has as its underpinning value notions the principles of justice, equality and fairness, which means that individuals have identities that are intimately related to group membership and are forever striving for robust common ends, involving benevolence (Hutcheson) and a just and legitimate civil order (Rousseau). Another example is the philosophical communism tradition (Taylor 1982), which embraces notions of collective action—cooperation within a group—as a means of achieving higher ideals, whereby individuals are essentially creative, altruistic and gregarious beings (Saint221

This makes a person one of Archer (2000: 4) “society’s being” whose properties and powers are “the gift of society.” 222 This makes a person “the linguistically socialized product of having acquired a theory of self” enshrined in language (Archer 2000: 105): “all the recognizable properties of human beings come from joining in ‘society’s conversations’ ” (Archer 2000: 87, see also Harré 1983: 20). Selfhood is, thus, “a theory [of ‘self’] which we learn by participating in society’s conversations: it is a meaning we appropriate” by a process of “discursive socialization” (Archer 2000: 87, 98). Thus, the self “is dissolved into discursive structures” (Archer 2000: 34) and life is but a “a tissue of contingent relationships, a web which stretches backward and forward through past and future time” (Rorty 1986b: 14–15), making the self a “a network of beliefs, desires and emotions with nothing behind it—no substrata behind the attributes—[albeit one that is] constantly reweaving itself” in the face of environmental pressures (Rorty 1985: 217). 223 Rousseau, inspired by John Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada (1670), proffered in support the example of the “noble savage”: “nothing can be more gentle than [man] in his primitive state” ([1755] 1994: 61). His “savage man,” who lived a solitary and peaceful life concerned only with meeting basic human needs, became aggressive, jealous and competitive only when confronted with the curtailed freedom and inequalities that inevitably emerged when people began to live in social groups and to establish fixed relations with others.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

103

Simon and, Fourier). There is also the utopianism tradition (Kateb 1963), which is dominated by eclectic visions of idealistic schemes of social perfection (Plato, Augustine of Hippo, Mozi, More, Burton, Campanella, Bacon, Swift and Howells). Free will can only be discovered collectively, and only exercised individually in the context of critical group discourses that produces a shared meaning of what constitutes virtuous social actions. In the spirit of the “civilization and discontent” tradition of Lacan, Ardorno and Foucault, nothing great can ever be done without passion or emotion (Taylor 1975): “Emotions help conveying intentions, may influence users, make interactions more ‘comfortable’, constitute meaning and serve as a means to establish social relationships” (Moldt and Scheve 2001). By human temperament, homo sociologicus can only be characterized as one of Burton’s cholerics ([1621] 2001, drawing upon Hyppocrates’ typology (see Jouanna [1992] 1999). To homo sociologicus, a person’s moral worth is measured by the virtuousness of the social actions undertaken. Life’s meaning, therefore, depends on being virtuous, which is contingent upon with whom one engages: who a person becomes, then, is contingent upon with whom that person willingly talks and interacts.

On Ethics and Morality The guide to moral conduct for homo sociologicus can only be the virtuousness of social actions that follows a person having virtuous character traits. Virtue is, thus, a disposition that precedes the choice of a right course of social action. The focus of Nicomachean (Aristotelian) virtue ethics (Aristotle [350 BC] 2004, see also Freeman 2003)—ethicai aretai—is excellence of character, which means he or she will habitually display virtuous social actions. A virtuous person is naturally predisposed to act in the virtuous way, for virtuous reasons, and will feel pleasure in doing so, for he or she will by so doing become a flourishing person.224 Such a person develops and exercises his or her various natural capacities (developmentalism (Kraut 2007))—whether they are physical, sensory, cognitive, affective or social—which is the ultimate human purpose. To achieve this, according to Aristotle, requires the right intellectual virtues, so that a person is able to reflect on what he or she knows and to reason properly about how to act: if we declare that the function of man is a certain form of life, and define that form of life as the exercise of the soul’s faculties and activities in association with rational principle, and say that the function of a good man is to perform these activities well and rightly, and if a function is well performed when it is performed in accordance with its own proper excellence—from these premises it follows that the Good of man is the active exercise of his soul’s faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them (Aristotle [350 BC] 2004: I, 7) 224

A flourishing person would have attained Maslow’s (1970, 1971) self-actualization or full humanness, achieved by engaging and experiencing life with full absorption; by making life-choices that advance personal growth; by listening to self’s inner voice; by taking responsibility for thoughts and feelings; by making most of personal abilities; by uncovering and dispelling psychological defenses; and by seeing people in their best light. He or she will also have achieved authentic happiness (Seligman 2003) as a result of complete character development, which is the product of cultivating and nurturing the personal strengths of, among other things, originality, valor, integrity, loyalty, kindness and fairness.

104

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

The importance of the context in which ethical character traits and right courses of social actions manifest is emphasized by Aristotle (Johnston 1997): In one of his most oft-quoted remarks, the importance of which one cannot overestimate, Aristotle gives the key point: ‘We do not mean a man who lives his life in isolation, but a man who also lives with parents, children, a wife, and friends and fellow citizens generally, since man is by nature a social and political being’ (1097b). Human beings, in other words, derive their identity—their sense of self—and thus their moral purposes from their participation in an existing community, the world of parents, ancestors, friends, customs, institutions, and laws. In a tradition that goes back at least as far as Homer, Aristotle has no room for the notion that there is an individual existence prior to or independent of the community. Thus, whatever ethical enquiry involves, it must take into account the essential social and political basis of human life.

What justifies a virtuous person’s choice of the right course of social action is the shared moral experience and consciousness in a particular sociocultural milieu, which makes relative both morality and its derivative, virtuous social actions (moral relativism225). The construction of this set of moral principles reflect sequential Wittgensteinian language games played out over time in a way that enables those engaged to make sense of the emergent standards of acceptable social actions, thereby enhancing their moral understanding (Johnston 1989). The principles of virtue or character ethics centers the morality discourse on personal conduct, whether in the private or public realms, which provides the foundation of a personcentered morality (what sort of person should I be?) (Crisp and Slote 1997, MacIntyre 1981). Virtue ethics underlines the absolute relevance of the human qualities over abstract ethical principles. It is premised on a moral act being one voluntarily conducted in accordance with a set of jointly affirmed group norms about what it is to be a human being seeking to realize his or her full potential, accompanied by good intentions and the right emotions and feelings (Vardey 2003b: 43–44, see also Meilaender 1984).226 This would make the qualities of mind227 (intellectual virtues), character (moral virtues) and even the soul central to ethics (MacIntyre 1985, also Grote 1876, Ridley 1997). Ethical propositions, made de rigueur by jointly affirmed group norms, must, then, emphasize virtueness of character. These provide justifiable motivations for social actions. Not to act virtuously justifies self-criticism and self-condemnation. This means, in the Rousseauian tradition, “we have therefore only to follow feelings [inclining us to serve the group interest] rather than reason [urging us to selfishness] in order to be virtuous” (Russell 225

226

227

This is the proposition that there are no general principles or objective truths in ethics, just a diversity of particularist moral judgments across time, place and individuals (descriptive relativism); that there is no single true or most justified morality (meta-ethical relativism) (Foot 1978a); and that it impossible for individuals from different cultures with different ethical views to engage in moral reasoning, as morality is largely a matter of non-rational personal or culturally determined preference (Benedict [1934] 1989, [1934] 1959). The virtuous character traits identified by Aristotle ([350 BC] 2004), Plato [390s–47 BC] 1997 and Cicero ([44 BC] 2000) are wisdom, justice, courage, temperance, honesty, prudence, honorability, greatness of soul and fittingness. Nineteenth century Romanticism (Bowie 1997, Raisanovsky 1995) would insist on including the ideal of community, love and self-realization in the context of, or with reference to, some common purpose (Taylor 1979). Ross (1930) would add keeping promises made, not harming others, and gratitude to benefactors. To Hume ([1777] 1902): “It is in the nature and, indeed, the definition of virtue, that it is a quality of the mind agreeable to or approved by everyone who considers or contemplates it” (p. 261, n. 1). Such a quality of mind

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

105

1946: 719). Conscience, then, “is in all circumstances an infallible guide to right action” (Russell 1946: 719). What is honorable about me is that my actions are virtuous. Personal moral responsibility for a social action can, of course, be diminished by assertion of the absolute rightness of that action because it accords with jointly affirmed set of group norms.

On Trust The granting of trust by homo sociologicus can only be preceded by the building up of mutual expectations of reciprocity—goodwill (Ring and van de Ven 1992)—achieved through the intersubjective sharing of experience. The symbols used to signal trustworthiness must have a shared common meaning for all involved, which can only be achieved following participation in an intersubjective communication process that socially constructs roles, norms and expectations (Bacharach and Gambetta 1977, 2001). If homo sociologicus are confident that the signals of trustworthiness given by those they wishes to trust have been understood, then trust will extended to them.

On Power and Compliance Making people do what they would not otherwise have done can only involve, for homo sociologicus, the use of personal or referent power (French and Raven 1959), integrative power (Boulder 1990), or normative power (Hales 2001). Rules must be instructive, thereby they must state the beliefs to be accepted (Onuf 1989: 85; but see also 120). Mamadouh (1999: 142) characterizes the situation as: we should decide what we want to do. The use of such power is expected to solicit voluntary compliance on the basis of moral commitment (Etzioni 1961). Such compliance is grounded in a sense of moral commitment to obey an instruction that is accord with jointly affirmed norms. It is, thus, unacceptable and unjustifiable for anyone within an egalitarian group to operate outside its rules. This would violate its shared behavior expectations, giving rise to shameful social actions, which would diminish trustworthiness, dependability and popularity, and would suggest that anyone who transgresses has a less than full commitment to jointly affirmed norms. A shared moral commitment is an imperative that demands compliance. This sense of moral commitment may be constrained by any limits a person is willing to impose, unilaterally, upon his or her adherence to the affirmed norms.

On Decision Making Decision analysis to homo sociologicus can only involve a collegial, harmonious and trustworthy process in which people continually strive to unearth the sensible and practicable good as agreed by group consensus. Any judgments that need to be made should be limited, must be “useful to others” (p. 269, n. 1), “useful to the person himself [sic]” (p. 269, n. 2), and “immediately agreeable to others” (p. 269, n. 3).

106

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

wherever possible, to Vickers’ (1983) value judgments: What values and norms are best applied? What ought to be? The preferred mode of reasoning favored is communicative-value rationality (Hoppe 2000). The process requires all committed actors to be empowered and enabled to make and challenges arguments. This makes good argument and the validity of normative judgments the final authority (Bakhtin [1930s] 1981, Foucault 1978, Gergen and Thatchenkey 1998). Such reasoning involves the use of intersubjective communications to construct agreed mutual understandings (de Haven-Smith 1988: 85). This reasoning should be informed by critical theory (Adorno and Horkheimer [1947] 1972, Held 1980, How 2003), which holds that: “Reason includes not only our capacity for logical inference, but also our ability to conduct inquiry, to solve problems, to evaluate, to criticize, to deliberate about how we should act, and to reach an understanding of ourselves, other people, and the world” (Lakoff and Johnson 1999: 3–4). It brings into question the notion of disinterested rationality, as the truth is always provisional, which makes its meaning contingent, and privileges Hegalian dialectical rationality. This logic of contradiction enables contradictions—embedded in a thesis and an antithesis—to become a new synthesis—thereby conserving both the thesis and the antithesis while simultaneously abolishing them. Decision-making, wherever possible, should emphasize compromise on the premise that disagreement about ends is inevitable. It must be focused on value-related problem dimensions. Acceptable solutions, where sought and once identified, are presumed to be amenable to group intervention, with the group-endorsed ends being so crucial that they justify the means used to achieve them, after fully rationalizing and justifying any ethical risks involved. Uncertainties that are grounded in the lack of knowledge of future events can be converted to subjective risk probabilities by those who are affected by, or are concerned about, them. They can only be to be considered as constituting negative-sum games. The conditions, if any, under which it is ethically acceptable to impose risks on others must be specified and agreed to by those effected. Risks are thus to be minimized and highly politicized. Any decision made can only be considered to have been agreed upon by the application of the expressed preferences standard involving the direct consent (Schwarz and Thompson 1990: 67) of everyone concerned or affected. This presumes, of course, that those who need to give their consent are sufficiently engaged in the decision-making processes to know their preferences. The intent of group decision-making is, thus, to produce a meaningful (consensus) interpretation of subjective, socially constructed information that would facilitate compromise decision-making, premised on the agreed need to achieve the sensible and practicable good.

HOMO EXISTENTIALIS AND THE EGOCENTRIC SITUATIONAL LOGIC Homo existentialis are the actors in a social arena who believe that that arena cannot be understood, because nothing can be known with any certainty; that the reasons for social actions of others cannot be known to them, because the true feelings of, and the beliefs held

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

107

by, others are unknowable; and that it is their own best interest to seek a relatively low level of group incorporation, which means they want to limit any group constraints on their decision sovereignty, although they are willing to self-impose constraints on their social actions that past experience suggests others expect of them. Thus, when confronted with the need to make sense of a social arena, they draw conclusions about that arena, and about their position in it, after they have individually constructed the meaning of their inimitable firstperson experiences in that arena, and of the motivations behind the observed behaviors adopted by the others present. This then establishes the form of the social interactions that they believe to be necessary in order to be tolerated by those present. In so doing, they have decided that the status and role relationships they want with other people in this arena are egocentric. Homo existentialis have, thus, accepted the aptness of the egocentric situational logic in that arena. Their salient decision-making risks are twofold. First, an arena may not be fully explainable solely by reference to epistemologically subjective knowledge about the objects and the determinant and indeterminant phenomena present in that arena with which they have had first-person experience, the meanings of which they individually construct, and to the individually constructed statuses and roles they have assigned themselves on the basis of what they consider others expect of them in that arena, This makes their knowledge subject to severe relativism and open to constant revision, thereby making prediction problematic. Second, the behavioral responses they anticipate from others may not justify their weary and reluctant approach to social engagement, for their taken-for-granted stock of knowledge— their natural attitude (Husserl [1931] 1960)—which, whilst never complete, may be so near as to provide high probability of prediction, which could make explanation and understanding the social actions of others far less problematic than they imagine, particularly with respect to human motivation and the group-elaborated norms, roles, and practices that gives rise to the codes of conduct by which people conduct their affairs. This may, indeed, justify bolder social actions. By following the egocentric situational logic, homo existentialis have judged that the net rewards of social engagement in a particular social arena would be maximized by a weary and reluctant engagement with what they consider to be a group of unknowable and unpredictable people. Social engagement is, thus, on the basis of a particular set of the believed or anticipated benefits—namely, the satisfaction of the need to control, by having a sense of control, whether by being in control, by actually gaining control by being brought into a state of subjugation (Schutz 1958), or by not feeling out of control—exceeds the believed or anticipated costs—namely, the imposition of unacceptable constraints on social actions, whether intended to eliminate conflict-engendering interference associated with the desire either to limit the detrimental personal impact of the behavior of others (Kelley 1979) or to maintain norm conformity (Brehm 1976, Brehm and Brehm 1981); the primary tensions experienced because of initial unfamiliarity (Borman 1975, Thibaut and Kelley 1959) or the lack of social skills (Cook 1977a); or the loss of self-esteem because of social rejection, whether outright (Pepitone and Wilpinski 1960) or partial, such as by being ignored by others (Zander and Cohen 1955). The group homo existentialis expect to join, because engagement sometimes cannot be avoided, despite it being one of life’s absurdities, is, on the basis of past experience, one in which no one expects to belongs but everyone understands their place. Anyone at any time can, however, exercise their will—my place in the group is determined by events outside my control, unless I choose to exercise my will to determine my destiny. Engagement with any

108

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

group can, of course, only be illusory, perhaps mythical, and certainly antithetical to genuine freedom—I am what I think I am. Life’s ends can only be transient and capricious—I will do whatever luck and circumstance dictate—and the means are unknowable—my priorities are determined by what life’s trials and tribulations require of me; my future concerns are determined by circumstances and opportunities; and what I am committed to depends on what I have to do, unavoidably, to address life’s challenges. Self-interest is, then, subordinated to providence and luck, and, thus, whether cooperation or competition prevails is in the hands of fate. All that is knowable to homo existentialis is what is in their own field of contemporaneous consciousness, which cannot be escaped: “my experience alone is real” (Finch 1995: 175, n. 4); “the world is my world” (Wittgenstein [1922] 1961: 5.62); “I am my world” (Wittgenstein [1922] 1961: 5.63); “I do not know whether anyone else has what I have when I have a direct experience of the senses” (Finch 1995: 175, n. 4). Sartre ([1946] 1973: 23) argued that the social is unknowable and founded “upon pure subjectivity—upon the Cartesian ‘I think’.” This, according to Russell (1946: 622), makes knowledge intellectually individualistic, which means “we must begin from the subjective [because it] is the absolute truth of consciousness as it attains to itself” (Sartre [1946] 1973: 26). A person can proclaim his or her own existence and nature, but, at best, is uncertain about the existence and nature of other people and other things. The sense of strangeness—of unreality—is pervasive. To seek to share knowledge of the personal experiences of others is futile, as no experience can be fully shared by between individuals. This means that social relations cannot provide a definitive explanation of anyone’s behavior. In Gray’s (2002: 12) words: “‘Humanity’ does not exist. There are only humans, driven by conflicting needs and illusions and subject to every kind of infirmity of will and judgment.” They, thus, continually strive to deal with the real by discerning the true reality as it becomes or manifests; the existential self seeks to explore the ways experience and shapes individuality (Douglas and Johnson 1977, Kotarba 1984, Kotarba. and Johnson 2002, Manning 1973, Kotarba. and Fontana 1884, Zubiri 2003):228 “in what we do we recognize what we are” (Schopenhauer [1839] 1999: 109), and “I am myself and my circumstances” 229 (Ortega y Gasset [1929–31] 2002: 53). Homo existentialis’s enduring belief is that events in life can never be entirely under anyone’s control. People struggle to stay afloat on the currents of social and collective actions that they can do little to influence. They battle the world rather than, or sometimes in order to, conquer it. There is no point in always seeking to explain events and anticipate the future. Indeed, a person’s very existence is entirely accidental. Perhaps, it is a product of random mutation, nothing more than a lucky throw of the cosmic dice. In the words of the iconic Forrest Gump: “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floatin’ around accidental-like on a breeze. But I think maybe it’s both, maybe both happening at the same time” (Rosa 1998).

228

Allport (1955), an existential psychologist, considers that a person is always in a state of becoming; always striving towards unity of self (proprium), which means his or her personality is continually evolving and changing as a product of both biology and the environment; always interpreting situational influences and acquiring learned predispositions that, when combined with his or her internal cognitive and motivational structures and processes (such as physique, intelligence, temperament, reflexes, drives, habits, skills, beliefs, intentions, attitudes, values and traits) determine the appropriate behavioral responses. 229 “Man has no nature; what he has is history” (Ortega y Gasset [1935] 2001: 23).

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

109

In terms of Riesman’s (1950) inner-other directedness dichotomy, homo existentialis would have an inner-directedness orientation, preferring to act independently and in accordance with their personal moral code. In essence, their life goal is to survive despite the odds that fate inevitably decrees. This places a premium on Maslow’s (1970) physiological and safety (security) needs (quintessentially, fear, hunger and sex) and his self-actualization needs. On the Levenson’s locus-of-control spectrum (1981: 49–52), homo existentialis would certainly be among the externalists, who willingly see uncontrollable forces molding whatever happens to them.230 This may well be a true belief in the external control forces with which that they have to contend, as they see fit, or it may be a convenient belief that enables them to ascribe whatever outcomes they experience, whether desirable in consequence or not, to luck, fate or the powers that be. Social cynicism is the homo existentialis’s currency of selfhood, which makes them prone to anxiety about the knowability of the world and the people who inhabit it. Homo existentialis are intent on standing in isolation with an ingrained sense of aloneness and unsureness about who they are (McMahon 1979, Ortega y Gasset [1935] 2001)— Wilson’s ([1956] 1957: 11 and 118) “hole-in-the-corner man” or “man outside.” This total solitude generates detachment—“a sense of strangeness, of unreality” (Wilson ([1956] 1957: 15)—and disconnection—“non-acceptance of life, of human life lived by human beings in a human society … such a life is a dream, it is not real” (p. 18)—that focuses awareness of the existential human condition—the human soul in its direst straits—with all its paradoxes, ambiguities and absurdities: “there is no significance in human life beyond what humans themselves invest in it” (Davies 1992: 21, see also Janicaud 2005). This existential essence is captured in the fictional writings of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as Henri Barbusse, Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Franz Kafka; is echoed the poems of Thom Gunn and José Ortega y Gasset; and is replete in the music of Gustav Mahler, Dimitri Shostakovich even the blitzkrieg music of The Ramones Standing in isolation and alone does, however, give homo existentialis freedom to choose, without the constraints of norms and customs. Only individuals, alone, can decide their own fate and, thus, must accept responsible for what they become. Social actions are the product of choices made possible because life is lived in a state of consciousness. After all, selfhood and intentionality are the features that define human beings, even though the latter may, in some circumstances, be a trick of sensory perception that reflect spur-of-the-moment actions being the outcome of a sequence of unconscious responses (Libet et al. 1983, 1999; Libet 1985; see also Dennett 1993).

On Truth The warranting of a social knowledge claim for homo existentialis can only involve applying the subjective truth criterion grounded in the pragmatism theory of truth. As reality’s features are revealed, they are individually assembled by homo existentialis in accordance

230

Jorge Luis Borges’ The Lottery in Babylon (1964) captures the specter of eternally determined roles and symbols descending, mysteriously, on passive individuals to determine their fate.

110

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

with what they have a will to believe is real.231 In the Pyrrhonian tradition (Hankinson 1995, Montaigne [1563–92] 1957), knowledge claims about an unknowable world cannot be confirmed or disproved, as no evidence or experience can possibly be considered as proof. The social world, then, lacks any reassuring certitude because it is considered to be beyond the play of rationality. Truth is, as Nietzsche observed, only “a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms—in short an aggregation of human relationships which, poetically and rhetorically heighten, become protracted popular usage, pose as fixed, canonical, obligatory. Truth’s illusions whose illusoriness is overlooked” (cited in Hayman 1997: 21–22).232 So, a knowledge claim has sufficient justification if the consequences of accepting it to be true are personally judged to be beneficial: “something is only true to the extent that it is practical to believe in it” (Jackson 2001: 57). Homo existentialis accept few objective truths, which mean that their beliefs are rarely in full accord with material reality. What matters, then, is whether a person’s view of the world is useful or not. Homo existentialis, thus, readily accept their proximity to the unknown and the unknowable.

On Human Essence For homo existentialis, the explanations of what it is to be a human being must be informed by one or more of the following propositions: •

•

• • • •

•

231

individuals are shaped by the necessity of enduring the challenge of human existence, which makes them essentially unique beings free to choose who they are and who they want to become (Kierkegaard and Sartre); individuals live a life devoid of meaning, for life’s meaning cannot be derived from any moral or religious principles because, as unsubstantiatable statements of moral beliefs, they have no validity (Bakunin, Chernyshevskii, Herzen and Nietzsche); individuals are born free with no general obligation to obey the commands of others as nobody is fit to rule over them (Godwin, Kropotkin and Proudhon); individuals seek peace (nirvana) though abandonment of self and self-reunification (Guatama); individuals seek spiritual awakening and harmony through liberation from false self (Upanishads and Sutras); individuals seek to become a sage (zhengren) or authentic individuals (zhenren) by mirroring the harmony with effortless action (wuwei) and naturalness (ziran) to achieved in nature (dao), which is achieved by bringing reason (yin) and intuition (yan) together (Yijing and Daodejing); and individuals seek the real truth about themselves from intuitive insights and have compassion as the real kernel of their being (Bodhidarma).

To James (1896, Sect. IV), people had the will to believe anything: “Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?” 232 Indeed, Nietzsche ([1886] 1998) challenged the proposition that knowing the truth produces better life outcomes. He acknowledged that there can be dangerous knowledge, which can make life unbearable.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

111

On Human Nature People are considered by homo existentialis to be self-referential, because the self is the center of life—the center of existence—albeit with a sense of resigned acceptance of human finitude (Heideggar ([1927] 1967). It is up to them to define their own identity—essential characteristics—in the course of living out their lives in the most authentic and fulfilling way possible. They can choose to use their unbridled freedom to decide their own fate—their purpose for being—for which they alone are responsible.233 To do so they must face up to life’s tragedies and take control of their own existence with clarity and intensity. Finding the way is, thus, far more important than seeking the truth. The seeds of this existential proposition can be found in Schopenhauer’s ([1813] 1974, [1818/1844] 1969) relations between will234 and volitional phenomena. Schopenhauer understood will as being the human essence—the will-to-live—embodied in the desire to exist in a world of representation, manifesting as aimless, nay irrational, yet pulsating yearnings, desires, cravings, and strivings: … existence … is a constant hurrying for the present into the dead past, a constant dying … it is clear that, as our walking is admittedly merely a constantly prevented falling, the life of our body is only a constantly prevented dying, an ever postponed death: finally, in some way, the activity of our minds is a constantly deferred ennui. Every breath we draw wards off the death that is constantly intruding upon us (Schopenhauer [1813] 1974: 139).

Individuals are, therefore, condemned to live in a pointless realm of insatiable desire, as human intellect is, in most respects, a slave of will. Indeed, will is seen by Schopenhauer as the source of all suffering: “There arises within him [man] a horror of the nature of which his own phenomenal experience is an expression, the kernel and inner nature of that world which is recognized as full of misery” (cited in Russell 1946: 784). To Schopenhauer, detachment from self is the prerequisite for self-knowledge, the path to freedom: freedom from obstacles to action (physical freedom), from extreme passions (intellectual freedom) and from motivational influence (moral freedom) (Schopenheuer [1839] 1985). Nietzsche offered a very different description of will, one that he positively associates with power. His notion of will, which he conceived as the primary human motivating force— “will a self and thou shall become a self” (cited in Jackson 2001: 48)—indicates the epistemological problems that derive from the sirens of objective knowledge: “The belief that the world as it should be really exists is a belief of those unproductive individuals who do not wish to create the world as it should be. The will to truth is the impotence of the will to power” (Nietzsche [1895] 1967: 56; see also [1878] 1994). It explains the desire to pursue the unattainable goal of objective knowledge as a tool of domination and control: “the longing for a handle or support, … which even if it does not create religion, metaphysics, creeds of every sort, nevertheless conserves them” (p. 62). This “instinct for freedom” (Nietzsche cited in Hayman 1997: 42) is the desire for worldly success and power over others—the incarnate will 233

234

The ambivalent relationship between fate, free will and choice is explored in Denis Diderot’s Jacques le Fataliste et son Maître ([1771–73] 1999), while the serendipitous relationship between destiny, luck and choice are illuminated by Paulo Coelho in his The Alchemist ([1988] 1995). Wills (1990: 93), calling upon the authority of Dihle (1982), argues that “the notion of will, as used by many philosophical doctrines from the early Scholastics through to Schopenhaurer and Nietzche, was first articulated by St Augustine.”

112

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

to power—that is the psychological drive that explains human efforts and motivates social actions, whether consciously or otherwise. His notion of ürbermensch—Overman, Superman, or, as Hayman (1997: 34) prefers, Superior Man, which is reminiscent of Aristotle’s man of virtue—is a challenge to the boldness of humanity. Within every person there is a potential hero or genius; only inertia sustains mediocrity. Nietzsche proposed that people should strive to suppress their desires for a timid virtuous conformity in a safe and well ordered society. By means of this process, each person can overcome the fallacy of the human condition: as Zarathrustra235 declares in the proclamation “my suffering and my fellow-suffering—what matter about them! Do I strive after happiness? I strive after my work!” (Nietzsche, [1883] 1968: 364). Each person can exercise their prerogatives of choice by discovering their “will to power” (Nietzsche [1883] 1968: 164), which Frankl ([1948/1975] 2000: 138) characterizes as overcoming “a certain inner condition, namely, the feeling of inferiority … by developing the striving for superiority.” This abstract construct can overthrow the language of obedience and fulfill Zarathrustra’s proposition that “even in the will of the servant found I the will of the master” (Nietzsche [1883] 1968: 165). If will is exercised, the notion of nihilism236 may assume a category that describes a transitional stage of human awareness, as beliefs about social distinctions, meanings and the dichotomy that distinguishes truth from falsity begin to fade.237 That human beings are, according to Kierkegaard ([1844] 1980, [1845] 1940), left contemplating the absurdity of living a life with no reason or purpose, where the self is just a contingent fact engulfed by the infinite, is a product of his insistence on the uniqueness of the individual; his complete adherence to subjectivity, freedom, and passion; his linking of anxiety to sin and radical choice; and his grounding of despair in a self experiencing the imbalance between the infinite and finite—the temporal and eternal—that is comes with a lack of faith in God. He noted both the danger of the feeling of dread and of the fear of nothingness that derives from this existential isolation, which can, however, lead to the opportunity for individuals to create their own natures, through the choices they make in the absence of absolute universal standards. In his search for the meaning of authenticity, Heidegger conceived the self in the everyday world as an entity, unconscious of its own existence, and inhabiting the “domain of Everyman” (Wahl 1949: 11–12). Thus, pre-established norms of behavior and social conventions in a world of representation distort the conscience that renders the individual resolute in their own responsibility by placing an assumed guilt on those that deviate from social values. Heidegger argued that these guilt-laden notions of vulgar conscience can and must be challenged as the individual searches for his or her authenticity, whereby conscience reveals the true self.238 It is only through a sense of anguish about, or the dread of, the 235

Zarathrustra is the hero in Neitzsche’s best known book, Thus, Spoke Zarathustra ([1883] 1967). Nietzsche saw nihilism as existential meaninglessness, pointlessness, futility and absurdity; as the outcome of an indifference to creativity, and encouraged by hypocrisy and the fear of condemnation; and as encompassed in Zarathustra’s statement “sombre is human life, and as yet without meaning: a buffoon may be fateful to it” ([1883] 1968: 7). 237 Greek tragedy suggests that, at the extreme, this striving for the will-to-power to create the world as it should be can be self-destructive, if the pride and arrogance that follows its attainment become addictive, and the transgressor develops feelings of invincibility, causing him or her to construct individually the meaning of reality as he or she prefers it to be, thereby sowing the seeds of his or her subsequent ruination (Hubris Syndrome) (see, for example, Owen 2007). 238 “It seems that gradually, painfully, the individual explores what is behind the masks he presents to the world, even behind the masks with which he has been deceiving himself. … Thus to an increasing degree he becomes 236

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

113

“background of Nothingness” that being “detaches itself as a sort of rupture” (Wahl 1949: 12–13). Those who exist, having experienced this forceful dislocation, must contemplate “being for death” (Wahl 1949: 14) when all possibilities become possible. For Sartre ([1960] 1976), the notion of authenticity is fundamental to people’s need to make choices throughout their lives in the full awareness that they can create all aspects of their characters (but see Brown 1988). He gave pre-eminence to existence of a type that is exemplified by the kind of Being that belongs to humanity. The satisfaction of human needs constitutes “praxis, as the praxis of an organization which reproduces its life by reorganizing the environment is man—man making himself in remaking himself” (Sartre [1960] 1976: 329).239 Sartre recognized people as conscious subjects living nothing else but their own conscious existence without any association to human essence or social structure. To him, individuals experience the reality of the familiar forms that are structured in accordance with human meanings. They are held prisoner by their own mental constructs—Sartre’s concept of practico-inert ([1960] 1976: 556–57). They can, however, achieve authenticity by participating in the construction of their own future by critical self-awareness. However, whilst fear drives people to seek a purpose, the anxiety of nothingness—the perceiving a genuine lack of something (what is not the case) (negation)—drives them either to seek comfort in the apparent, but inauthentic, significance offered by group interpretations of reality, or to recognize their existential loneliness—the personal source of individual experience of reality (Dunn 2008)—so as to fulfill their unique potential. To achieve authenticity, a person must, then, achieve a synthetic unity between the transcendence—his or her capacity to transcend what is in his or her mind about him or herself in the contemporaneous now so as to be able to project him or herself into future, unrealized possibilities (what might be the case)—and the facticital—the reality of what are the unchangeable facts about him or herself, such as birthplace, parentage, gender and race (Sartre [1943] 1957)—thereby avoiding bad faith—the need to lie self-deceptively to self so as to avoid exercising the freedom necessary to live an authentic life240 (Sartre [1943] 1957). The dominant norms of behavior that are forced into a person’s consciousness241 would constitute what can be questioned in the process of striving to live an authentic life.242 Sartre

himself not a façade of conformity to others, not a cynical denial of all feeling, nor a font of intellectual rationality, but a living, breathing, feeling fluctuation process—in short, he becomes a person” (Rogers 1961: 54). 239 This notion is contextualized through the assertion that “the whole of human development, at least up to now, has been a bitter struggle against scarcity” (Sartre [1960] 1976: 123). This conflict has produced a pervading social atmosphere, which has encouraged individuals to construct institutions, and to enter into disagreements with each other, over a relationship originally rooted in nature but which is now the product of the relations of capital. 240 A Sartrian anecdote exemplifies the meaning of bad faith: “the sincere man tries to convince the homosexual that he should openly acknowledge his inclinations and so leave behind his persistent delusion, rooted in bad faith that he is not a committed pederast but only an admirer of “a certain conception of the beautiful” (Sartre [1943] 1957: 63). But the champion of sincerity demands that the homosexual objectify himself, turning himself into a thing whereby he must adopt the attitudes and manners of a typical homosexual thereby renouncing the true creation of his own self. This action may then lead to a sympathetic understanding from others who, if only in part, forgive the miscreant. Therefore, this expression of sincerity is bad faith, too, as the homosexual is denied the freedom to be any other way than the imaginary homosexual being (p. 65). The sincere man has tried to derive merit from his own self-gratification and has abused the parameters of sincerity by manipulating its structure to convince another to be what they are not. 241 Sartre (1958) talks of non-thetic consciousness (being aware of something without having an awareness of that awareness).

114

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

recognized that people cannot deny the existence of others, as that would diminish the significance of their facticity. He described the relations individuals have with others as a struggle to absorb each other’s freedom, which takes place within the set of circumstances in which they find themselves, which, indeed, has a past and which gives rise to a set the expectations of self and others).243 The existential curse is that people are “condemned to freedom” (Sartre [1943] 1957: 485). So, “conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others” (Sartre, 1958: 364), as people begin their relationships with a look that determines others as identifiable objects, which can manifest as Buber’s I–It rather than I–Thou relationship. Thus, individual freedom, in order to avoid compromise, necessitates constant reflection over falsification by others, so that authentic essence is not submerged in the process of human interaction. Free will involves individuals in a life-long struggle with their interpretations of others’ discernments of them, which ameliorates their capacity to recognize their own unique consciousness and, thus, their supremacy over the forces of social constraint. Free will, then, can only be exercised by those willing to embrace detachment—the disconnecting of self from external reality—and then take up and defeat life’s endless cycle of trials and tribulations—the challenges posed by Nietzsche’s ([1883] 1968) law of eternal recurrence, which posits that life’s trials and tribulations are inevitably lived over and over again, for an eternity. Frankl ([1969] 1988), an existential neurologist, argued that each person has a unique set of potential meanings of life to fulfill. The search for life’s meaning is the primary human motivation. Only when this “will to meaning” is realized, by “striving to find, and fulfill, meaning and purpose in life” (Frankl [1948/1976] 2000: 85), can its meaninglessness and emptiness that leads to boredom (the “loss of interest in the world”) and apathy (the “lack of initiative to do something in the world”)—the “existential vacuum” (p. 139, see also Frankl [1955] 1986)—be avoided.244 It is up to each person to decide whether to grasp these unique meanings or seek to avoid them.245 242

As Sartre (1958: 96) remarks, enigmatically: “The nature of consciousness simultaneously is to be what it is not and not to be what it is.” 243 Sartre, in his description of the terms of association that guide the dynamics between individuals within a group, offered the following rudimentary guidelines for a practical basis of conduct. When individuals pledge themselves to a group, this agreement “should be defined as everyone’s freedom guaranteeing the security of all so that this security can return to everyone as his other-freedom” (Sartre [1960] 1976: 428). This implies that individuals’ should internalize the primary concern of ensuring that the results of their actions do not diminish the free will of other individuals. He ([1960] 1976: 599–600) asserted that “everyone comes to everyone, through the community, as a bearer of the same essentiality. But, at the level of the degraded group, the individual, in his exteriorized terrorist negation of his own freedom, is constituted as inessential in relation to his function.” Thus, when decisions are being made by the group, each person’s particular talents and right to express their will must be paramount in an inclusive structure that places an equal value on the opinion of all. Sartre ([1960] 1976: 374) argued that individuals in a pledged group can facilitate the totality of reciprocities amongst other members. Therefore, they have a duty to ensure that each person has the maximum number of options available when they wish to express their free will. These three imperatives all promote respect for the individual’s viewpoint, which crystallizes around the discipline of ensuring that there is freedom for every person to believe fully in, and to express freely, their own opinions. 244 “… there are three avenues that lead to meaning fulfillment: First, doing a deed or creating a work; second, experiencing something or encountering someone; … [and third] facing a fate we cannot change” (Frankl [1948/1976] 2000: 141–42). 245 Frankl ([1946/1959] 1984) held that in difficult situations a person has the capacity to go beyond his or her biologically or environmentally conditioned responses and exercise free will to choose values and courses of action that give life meaning in such circumstances. Neitzsche captured the essence: “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how” (1889: maxim 8, emphasis in original).

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

115

The juxtaposition of circumstances; a personal moral code, which gives rise to authentic conduct, and which encourages in others a sense of existential freedom; and a capacity for acts of will, bounded by his or her transcendental or facticital constraints, may well result in a person being, by choice, either a hero or a coward. The threats and opportunities delivered by destiny, coincidence and accident are there to be accepted on impulse or ignored upon reflection.246 To some people, akin to Nietzsche’s ([1879] 1974, [1883] 1968) ürbermensche, existential freedom is seen to be within their reach. Throwing off their “sickness of the soul” (Maslow 1971: 44)—a barrier to the achievement of self-actualization—is achievable by challenging convention, so that they are not just a reflection of the group. This is a prerequisite for the taking of ownership of self (Rogers 1961) and for seeking self-realization, thereby discovering and realizing life’s true purpose. For then, life’s vicissitudes—bad luck, fate or the powers that be—are but challenges to be confronted through acts of will, so enabling the finite-I to continually strive for the absolute-I (Fichte ([1794–95] 1970). This permits individual will to prevail at those character-defining moments of commotion, truth or need, akin to what Maslow ([1964] 1970) called “peak experiences”247. An authentic and fulfilling way of life is achieved when anguish, despair, guilt, shame and other profound emotional experiences are acknowledged, confronted and relieved.248 The door to meaningful existence is opened when people stop being frightened when they comprehend their potential, and recognize that they are not who they want to be, for only then can that anguish enter their consciousness (Kierkegaard [1849] 1980: 49–50). Only then can people become more committed and more integrated as they take control of their own existence, free from the fetters of social convention and social morality. Indeed, their socialization is based on emotive values, described by Sartre ([1938] 1948) as magical transformations. In Nietzschean terms, emotion and reason stand not in opposition but in complementariness (Schacht 1983). People, who accept that as there are no truths and no absolute values, learn to love their fate, even if, in the words of the Russian maxim, “Fate makes demands of flesh and blood. And what does it most demand? Flesh and blood.” They embrace their purposeless existence without the support of myths.249 They make their own way in the world as responsible agents willing and able to determine their own development through acts of will, giving them freedom, which manifests through the anguish that follows “the recognition of a possibility as my possibility” (Sartre [1943] 1957: 34), and freedom to choose, albeit without any grounds for choice.250 Wilson ([1956] 1957: 30) maintains that individuals are free when they are free 246

Len Deighton’s City of Gold (1992) captures this in his character, Toby “Wally” Wallingford, the English public [in fact, private]-school-educated Royal Navy Lieutenant-Commander who deserted to become a rogue and an opportunistic thief in war-time Egypt. 247 Maslow’s (1971) peak experience is a transcendent moment when everything makes sense and unity of self has been achieved. It is described by Boeree ([1998] 2006) as an experience “that takes you out of yourself, that makes you feel very tiny, or very large, to some extent one with life or nature or God. It gives you a feeling of being a part of the infinite and the eternal. It tends to leave its mark on a person, change them for the better, and many people actively seek it out.” 248 To Rogers (1961: 22), an existential humanist psychologist, a fulfilled person is one who accepts that he or she is a “stream of becoming, not a finished product.” 249 For a discussion of the myths as timeless stories that reflect and shape people’s lives in the face of problematic human predicament, see Armstrong 2005. 250 Camus captures the freedom dilemma in his Afterword to The Outsider ([1942] 1982: 118), where he sums it up in one paradoxical sentence: “In our society any man who does not cry at his mother’s funeral is liable to be

116

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

to choose the cast of their minds in a setting devoid of unreality, which occurs, in the words of Pascal ([1670] 1966: 34), “when pure will [is] free of the perplexities of intellect.” In this scenario, triviality can be designated to its proper place thereby permitting people to experience a sense of unencumbered self-realization in a state of total awareness (Coniam 2001: 20). To others, existential freedom is seen to be beyond their reach, as they are beleaguered by a sense of metaphysical pathos about the human situation. They assert (in fear of the consequences of non-conformity and as an antidote to worry) or even believe (as a skeptic), that bad luck, fate or the powers that be have led them to where they are now: alienated and marginalized from social life. They lack an “appetite for life” (Wilson [1956/1967] 2001: 118). They fear freedom and the success that may follow it—Maslow’s Jonah complex251.This exposes them to absolute vulnerability and solitude, although it must be remembered that “solitude in an absurd world could turn into a significant solitude” (Todd 2000: x). They are in a state of despair because they have turned away from freedom; because they want to assert themselves, but cannot; and because they find conformity to group norms unsatisfactory.252 They, thus, see themselves as victims.253 They do not accept responsibility for what they make of themselves, as they consider themselves to be unable to determine their own fate. They look for scapegoats: someone to blame, someone to look down upon, someone to have power over. They take comfort from their servility. To them, life is inevitably inauthentic and unfulfilling.254 They would concur with the dogmatic doubt voiced by Pyrrho of Elis: “Why trouble about the future? It is wholly uncertain” (cited in Russell 1946: 257). They justify their blaming of fate on the grounds that no one can be a free agent—fatalist determinism (logical fatalism) holds sway over free will. Their social actions are, inevitably, a product of luck and fate, with alienation close at hand. condemned to death.” His hero, Meursault, “is condemned because he does not play the game. In this sense he is an outsider to the society in which he lives, wandering on the fringe, on the outskirts of life, solitary and sensual” (p. 118). 251 This is the fear of success that a person has when he or she fears that the use of his or her talents and creativeness could bring new responsibilities and duties, which could threaten his or her sense of safety, security and belongingness (Maslow [1962] 1968: 59), thereby threatening to initiate a total personal transformation. It is named after the Biblical Jonah, who was a timid merchant whose fear and pride cause him to run from God (the Christian Old Testament Book of Jonah). 252 Insights can be gleaned from Laing’s (1960) schizoid person, who experiences a permanent dissociation—living life without feeling alive—and, thus, a painful isolation and anxiety caused by the presence of a gap between mind and body and between self and the world-at-large, so instilling a fear of social interaction, a fragility of self-identity, a fixation on self, and a sense of existential insecurity, the response to which is the creation of a false self system, with inner defensive maneuvers, that allows only non-threatening social engagements. Having schizoid tendencies can lead to schizophrenia. 253 Homo existentialis would, therefore, feel empathy for the view expressed by the Athenian Diodorus, during the Mytilenian Debate of 427 BC, that the human impulses of men will lead those whose ambitions are fed by pride and insolence to act dangerously, for the forces of law cannot restrain human nature from pursuing its course: “Cities and individuals alike, all are by nature disposed to do wrong, and there is no law that will prevent it” (cited in Thucydides [401 BC] 1972: 3.45). 254 Pascal, a seventeenth-century “celebrated mathematician and occasional philosopher” and “brilliant young dissolute who subsequently became a religious zealot and ended up rejecting the use of reason” (Bernstein 1996: 58), captures the spirit: When I see the blind and wretched state of man, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair (Pascal [1670] 1966: 209).

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

117

Insights into an alienated psyche255 can be gleaned from Durkheim’s ([1897] 1952) concept of anomie, which is the normlessness caused by the breakdown of, or confusion or conflict in, the group norms (see also Passes and Agnew 1997); and from Sztompka’s (1996: 38) “syndrome of distrust,” whereby social relations are dominated by insulation. At the extreme, individual autonomy is minimal, with little scope for interpersonal transactions. The alienated perceive their behavior to be regulated by others. Their social relationships, they consider, are governed by a set of sanctioned group norms that constitute the ingrained rules by which they consider they must conduct themselves and their affairs. This, they feel, leaves them little scope for personal choice, “providing instead a set of railway lines with remote control points for interactions” (Douglas 1978: 16). Thus, they see themselves being subject to the rules made by those determined to put some logical coherence into their lives. They have the “sense that our own abilities, as human beings, are taken over by other beings” (Giddens 2001: 683). Nietzsche ([1887] 2003) talked of the hatred and desire for revenge— ressentiment—felt by those who are frustrated by their powerlessness in the face of oppression. Feuerbach [1841] 1893) referred to people giving causal power to the Gods or divine forces. They experience a feeling of marginalization, separation and externalization— individuals estranged from each other, from specific situations and processes, and from their beliefs and values, thereby undermining their attachment to, and identification with, others (Stonequist 1937). Marx ([1844] 1963, [1844] 1967), drawing upon Hegel’s notion of an alienated soul256, argued that individuals are alienated because they are unable to attain the full self-realization that comes with the process of transforming the world in their own image through labor, because they have lost control over their the circumstances in which they engage in labor: “he [the worker] does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself, he has a feeling of misery rather than well-being, does not develop freely his mental and physical energies but is physically exhausted and mentally debased. The worker, therefore, feels himself at home only during leisure time, whereas at work he feels homeless” (Marx [1844] 1963: 124–5). This situation characterizes societies where there is a division between those who own and control the means of production (the bourgeoisie) and those who do not (the proletariat). Thus, alienation is “a direct consequence of man’s alienation from the product of his work, from his life’s activity, and from his species-existence, is the alienation of man from man” (Marx [1844] 1967: 295).257 Blauner (1964) found that feelings of powerlessness, isolation and self-estrangement were experienced by workers associated with machines and the assembly-line production processes. De Beauvoir ([1949] 1972) argued that women experience alienation when they are perceived as sex objects in patriarchal societies. Reeve (1996a: 7) concludes that alienation “describes the sometimes debilitating effects of life in modern, large-scale societies,” especially for people who find social cooperation difficult 255

256

257

In Jungian thought, the psyche is a metaphysical space that demarcates a person’s total personality, through which flows life-process or psychic energy created by conflicting pressures within a personality (the principle of opposites) (Jung 1969: 17, see also Progoff 1953: 63). Hegel’s alienated soul “is the consciousness of self as a divided nature, a doubled and merely contradictory being” (Hegel (1807) 1977: 201). Interestingly, Sam Shuster a distinguished British dermatologist “writing in the British Journal of Dermatology …, said that Marx … suffered hidradenitis suppurativa [blocked and inflamed apocrine sweat gland found mainly in the armpits and groin]. … [He goes on:] ‘The skin is an organ of communication, which is why its disorders produce so much psychological distress, with depression of self-image, mood and well-being, and with self-loathing and disgust. In addition to reducing [Marx’s] ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem. This explains his self-loathing and alienation, a response reflected by the alienation Marx developed in his writing’” (The Asian Age, 1 November 2007).

118

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

because they lack the prerequisite social skills and attributes (see also Pizzorno 1966). People, then, are unpredictably capricious. Human behavior is fickle. By human temperament, homo existentialis can only be characterized as one of Burton’s melancholics ([1621] 2001 drawing upon Hyppocrates’ typology (see Jouanna [1992] 1999). To homo existentialis, a person’s moral worth is self-referential and, thus, it is not for anyone not to judge others. Life’s meaning, therefore, depends on one’s self: who a person becomes is, then, contingent upon who that person wishes to become.

On Ethics and Morality The guide to moral conduct for homo existentialis can only be personal preferences. This is grounded in the non-cognitivist ethical proposition that ethical statements lack truth-value, as they cannot be judged to be either true or false. Thus, no one can have moral knowledge (true moral beliefs), either because it is not possible to obtain the evidence to justify any moral belief or because true moral truths are simply unknowable (moral skepticism) (Bambrough 1979). Thus, moral beliefs are not absolutes, merely opinions; matters of selfdetermined personal taste: “a virtue has to be our invention, our more personal defence and necessity … each one of us should devise his own virtue, his own categorical imperatives” (Nietzsche [1888] 1969: 121). There are, thus, as many distinct moral beliefs as there are people in the world (individualist subjectivism) Moral beliefs as moral opinions do not need further justification: “that there are no moral truths, that there is no moral knowledge, that in morals and politics all that we can ultimately do is to commit ourselves” (Bambrough 1979: 14). Levinas argued that that commitment should be unreservedly and without expectation to other ([1961] 1969), based on face-to-face relations: “The face puts into question the sufficiency of my identity as an ‘I’, it compels me to an infinite responsibility” (1998: 133). He saw other-centered ethical actions as “the original goodness of man toward other in which, in an ethical disinterestedness—the word of God—the interested effect of brute being preserving in its being is interrupted” (Levinas cited in Robbins 2001: 19). A level of ambiguity that necessarily exists within the moral skepticism paradigm prevents the pre-emptive dismissal of alternative ethical premises. Whilst some moral skeptics may adhere to the passive philosophy of Pyrrho of Elis, possibly verging on the apathetic in their search for tranquility, others would be proactive in establishing their own personal moral code in the context of continual reflection prior to affirming their expressions of moral belief. The latter undertake the arduous task in pursuing the goal of achieving perfect personal authenticity, which can ensure that their skepticism is firmly placed in the here and now. Such a positioning reflects a discomfiture with passive belief systems as “it is in the everyday world of space and time that moral decisions are made and moral struggles take place” (Walsh 1972: 29). Scheler’s (1987) personalist ethical perspective asserts that a person has an a priori emotional appreciation of values grounded in his or her lived experience. This means that his or her values precede perceptions and decision choices. Such direct apprehensions enable the individual to be a moral agent (Stewart [1828] 2005a, [1828] 2005b, Grave 1960), who, provided he or she proceeds cautiously, can know what constitutes right or wrong, or good or bad, which, perhaps, conscience makes self-evident to all who are capable of meeting the

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

119

demands of morality. Moral opinions, however, express emotive responses (moral emotions258) to other individuals in particular situations and with particular points of view (emotivism) (Hägerström 1964, Stevenson 1944, 1963, Urmson 1968). These responses reveal moral sentiments, feelings that are essential for moral agency (moral sentiments) (Gibbard 1990, Hume [1777] 1902: 285–94, Taylor 1985). Homo existentialis’s ethical code is one that requires individual to acts in a manner that is compatible with his or her underlying predispositions, achieved by means of a strong defense of personal freedom. The moral sentiments that dominate the moral opinions of homo existentialis are grounded in life’s tragedies—those “narratives in which good intentions, or competing but valid values and priorities, are deflected or channeled toward unexpected outcomes … unforeseen or unintended miser” (Hischkop 2003)—as he or she rejects any notion that accepts indifference to social outcomes, and accepts total ownership of the consequences of his or her social actions. Nietzsche depicted these, according to Jackson (2001: 125), as “interactive, mystical and unifying experiences that provide a therapeutic outlet for people who were sensitive to the suffering and uncertainties of everyday life and in which humanity is in tune with nature.” Morality, then, can only be a set of feeling of compassion or sympathy for the human condition (Schopenhauer [1818/1844] 1969) in the ultimate sense that if I hurt you I am injuring myself as well or if I do you an injustice I am also doing myself an injustice. The egoistic individual is seen to be living alone on the boundaries of an alien world; albeit, living as one with others in an undifferentiated unknowable total reality, apparent only as the phenomenal world of experience. This is, however, a world that remains deaf to his or her words and indifferent to his or her expectations, distresses and transgressions (Monad 1971). In this world of undifferentiated ethical options, moral conduct can only be grounded in the existential ethical proposition that moral courage is the only adequate response to the human condition. People should confront their ethical dilemmas, and then shape their ethical choices before expressing their moral opinions. Not to do so is wrong, justifying selfcondemnation. Their concern is with act-centered morality (what should I do?). Morality is, thus, centered on conduct, whether in the personal or public realms. People can either face up to their responsibilities for self and others, as they see them, or avoid them; the choices they make in specific situations, however paradoxical, ambiguous and absurd, determine what they make of themselves (Olafson 1967). In the spirit of nineteenth-century German Romaticism, grounded the tradition of Hegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer, self-development is a fundamental ethical principle.259 Morality is the product of circumstances (Nietzsche [1887] 1967), particularly, as Nietzsche ([1881] 1997) argued, in relation to the desire for power and the fear of disobedience and non-conformity. Thus, how people should live is contingent upon their emotions and desires, which are, typically, pluralistic and conflicting, which means that morality can never be immune to luck (Williams (1976) 1993, 1981, Nagel (1976) 1993). Ethical skeptics constitute “an inherently unstable category” (Lom 1998: 9), because personal responsibility both to self and to others must act as a mediator against the notion that no social actions are forbidden. So, to homo existentialis the process of exercising individual 258

Haidt (2003) has identified four categories of moral emotions: other-condemning (such as contempt, anger and disgust); other-praising (such as gratitude and moral awe); other-suffering (such as sympathy, compassion and empathy); and self-consciousness (such as guilt, shame and embarrassment). 259 Essentially, this tradition posited that principles of knowledge and ethics can be derived from the spontaneity and autonomy of the human mind or spirit (Von Schlegel 1847).

120

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

free will is an onerous and lifelong punishment. However, in adhering to this approach, which requires every situation to be analyzed in depth, people can help themselves to avoid the danger of taking “a rosy view of our moral attainments, [as] … the rosiness would gradually infect our view of the world” (Hughes 1973: 110). Thus, homo existentialis are able to evade the ethical complacency, motivated by self-satisfaction, which can limit the extent of their compassion. Furthermore, in a similar fashion, “to unequivocally claim that skepticism naturally leads to illiberality fails to acknowledge that skepticism can as logically radically open possibilities of action as well as restrict them” (Lom 1998: 10). Therefore, homo existentialis cannot be enticed to follow an ethical doctrine that offers a universal code for the redemption of humanity. Thus, moral opinions are understood as fluid, flexible, sometimes ambiguous, always situational, and only held after individual self-justification. What is honorable about me is that I take personal responsibility for my actions. Personal moral responsibility for a social action is self-referential, so no one can be held responsible to others, morally or otherwise, for their social actions (Cicero [44 BC] 1971).

On Trust The granting of trust by homo existentialis can only be preceded by personal experience with those to whom trust is to be extended. Homo existentialis will extend trust if they are confident that their experience with another person justifies so doing.

On Power and Compliance Making people do what they would not otherwise have done can for homo existentialis, only involve the use of destructive threat power (Boulder 1990) or physical or coercive power (French and Raven 1959). Rules must be directive (Onuf 1989: 86). Jensen (1999: 174) characterizes the situation as: they decide what I must do, unless I will otherwise. The use of such power is expected to solicit coercive compliance, so giving rise to alienative compliance (Etzioni 1961). This sense of alienation may be constrained only by the unilateral actions people are willing to take in defiance of the power-exercising authority.

On Decision Making Decision analysis to homo existentialis can only involve random search behavior, inspiration and risk minimization. The presumption would have to be that there are no certainties. Thus, surprise dominates. Intelligence cannot improve ignorance, and goals and values are luxuries. Only nondecisions or incremental decisions make any sense. Any judgments that need to be made should be limited, wherever possible, to Vickers’ (1983) action judgments: What to do? How to do it? What action to take?

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

121

The preferred mode of reasoning favored is inspirational-strategic rationality (Hoppe 2000), which is premised upon nonrationality260 (Elster 1985b, Popkin 1979, Portes 1972).261 As Sartre ([1946] 1973: 36) remarked: “If values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust in our instincts.” And as Weick (1979: 56) observes: “how do I know what I think until … I see how I act.” Making sense of any situation, then, involves rolling or serial hindsight and is driven by plausibility rather than truthfulness (Weick 1995). Decision-making, wherever possible, should be inspirational (Thompson 1967), on the premise that disagreement follows uncertainties about both outcome preferences and causeand-effect relations, which is inevitable. It can only involve a garbage-can decision-making process (March and Olsen, 1976), characterized as “a collection of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they may be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they may be answers, and decision makers looking for work” (Cohen et al. 1972: 2), or perhaps even as a lottery (Hood 1998). The decision-making outcome sought is to produce a workable group intervention that builds on a meaningful— sense-making (Weick 1995)—interpretation of the reality, one that respects the contending individual viewpoints, thereby maximizing reciprocity (Sartre [1960] 1976: 374), so as to facilitate incremental or non-decision-making, premised on risk aversion. The future is unknowable and unpredictable, and thus cannot be measured or evaluated by anyone, which means it cannot be converted into a set of risk probabilities (Taleb 2007). This means that all that can be done is either to avoid uncertainties, in the hope of minimizing the possibility of future failure, the chances of which are, however, negligible, or, if they cannot be avoided, to shrug them off fatalistically. As decisions are made by those best able to exercise power, on the presumption that they are made on the basis of what the decision-makers believe to be reality. No decision can be justified simply because others agree to it. The intent of group decision-making is, thus, to produce a meaningful interpretation of the subjective, first-person experiential information that facilitates inspirational decision-making, premised on the acknowledged need to make plausible sense of reality.

HOMO ECONOMICUS AND THE INDIVIDUALISTIC SITUATIONAL LOGIC Homo economicus are the actors in a social arena who consider that that arena is best understood as an objectively knowable material domain in which there are self-interestpromoting opportunities for material gain awaiting discovery; that the social actions of others are best attributed to self-interest motivations; and that it is their own best interest to seek a very low level of group incorporation, which means they want to limit any group constraints 260

Under this notion “the canons of rationality, validity, truth, and efficiency are simply beside the point— irrelevant!” (Shweder 1984: 38). As Gray (2002: 20) notes: To think of science as the search for truth is to renew a mystical faith, the faith of Plato and Augustine, that truth rules the world, that truth is divine. 261 Gigerenzer’s (2007) study of ‘gut’ decision-making demonstrates that, almost invariably, people prefer to make decisions intuitively, on the basis of unconscious mental processes that draw upon rules of thum, rather than after rigorous analytical calculation.

122

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

on their decision sovereignty and on their social actions. Thus, when confronted with the need to make sense of a social arena, they draw conclusions about that arena, and about his or her position in it, after analyzing the material objects and phenomena they perceive, and probing the motivations behind the observed behaviors adopted by the others present, which allows them to identify and evaluate the material opportunities in that arena has to offer. This then establishes the form of the social interactions that they believe to be necessary in order to satisfy their self-interested wishes and desires. In so doing, they have decided that the status and role relationships they want with other people in this arena are individualistic. Homo economicus have, thus, accepted the aptness of the individualistic situational logic in that arena. Their salient decision-making risks are twofold. First, an arena may not be fully explainable solely by reference to what they have identified as the epistemologically objective material objects and phenomena present in that arena, using inductive and deductive reasoning, and the inferences they have drawn from those material facts about how best to enhance their material self-interest262, so establishing their preferred statuses and roles in that arena. This makes their knowledge provisional, contingent and subject to multifarious standards of truthfulness. Second, the behavioral responses predicted will not be forthcoming from individuals either who are not motivated by self-interest, or who are motivated by selfinterest but are in a situation were uncertainty and opportunism creates asymmetrical information, which does not permit the complete and comprehensive specification of the required implicit and explicit contracts (Fama and Jensen 1983a, 1983b, Leibenstein 1976, Ross 1973). By following the individualistic situational logic, homo economicus have judged that the net rewards of social engagement in a particular social arena would be maximized by bargaining for the position with a group of people they presume to be materialistic and selfinterested that will best promote their own self-interest.263 Social engagement is, thus, on the basis of a particular set of the believed or anticipated benefits—namely, the satisfaction of their need to better understand the social world by the acquisition of information from others (Festinger 1950, 1954; Schachter 1959; Wills 1981); their esteem needs (Maslow 1970),264 and their prestige needs (Riesman 1950, Packard 1959, see also Furnham 1984, Porter and Lawler 1968)—exceed the believed or anticipated costs—namely, the personal investment cost, whether monetary or material (Foa and Foa 1971) or time (Heider [1958] 1982). The group homo economicus expect to engage with is one in which the only commitment is only to one’s self, and no one has a preordained place—my place in the group is determined by me, and that determines my fate. A person’s place is, thus, self-determined—I am what I want to be. Life’s ends are self-determined—I will do whatever I judge to be in my self-interest—and the means of their achievement are knowable: my priorities are determined 262

“Proximus sum egomet mihi.” [“I myself am closest to myself” or putting own interest first]. (Terence [Publius Terentius Afer] [166 BC/1974] 1992: 76). 263 This is in line with Lin’s concept of social capital as an investment in social relations that will generate expected returns (Lin 2001) and, thereby, justifying a person free-riding on the personally beneficial social actions of others. 264 According to Ellis (2005: 3) “self-esteem is anathema to self-acceptance. Any evaluation of one’s self on a global measure of self-worth is unhealthy and dysfunctional. First, it is irrational because there are no objective bases for making global evaluations of one’s self. Second, focusing on one’s self-esteem will make a person vulnerable to life’s little setbacks, rejections or mistakes, so that even people with generally high selfesteem may be predisposed to blow these out of proportion with resultant negative consequences. Third, a concern about self-worth can lead to a preoccupation with comparing oneself with others at the expense of engaging in healthy and productive endeavors and pursuits” (see also Davies 2006, but see Branden 2001).

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

123

by what I expect of myself; my future concerns are determined by what I decide is important for me; and what I am committed to is depends on what is in my best interest. Self-interest, then, prevails and competition is the consequence.265 Homo economicus view their engagement with any group as being dominated by the proposition that they are rational beings in full control of their destiny, because they have the power to determine their own intentional mental states and to achieve the material goals they set themselves.266 Thus, they firmly hold two beliefs. The first is that people can, in the Hobbesian tradition, author their lives in their own self-interest through choice: The right of nature … is the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as will himself, for the preservation of his own nature, that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing anything, which in his own judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto (Hobbes [1651] 1962: 103; see also Flathman 2002).

Whether a person is willing to share and collaborate with others, and so engage in collective actions, depends on the strength of their belief that their material well-being is contingent upon such cooperative interdependence—“generous emotional dispositions account for the voluntary creation of public goods and for angry men” (Archer 2000: 67)—which means that “the relevant features of the social context are, so to speak, built into the individual” (Lukes 1968: 125). The second belief is that people can and do, in the Machiavellian and Baconian tradition, act intentionally to change their future: “The real bottom line is that there are individual actions, that there are outcomes of those actions, and that individuals choose actions in terms of their outcomes, using some decision rule or other” (Laver 1997: 28; see also Bacon [1623] 1997, Machiavelli [1532] 1977). Indeed, Adler ([1929] 1969: 1) considered that a person can only be understood teleologically, in terms of his or her ultimate purpose in life, whether consciously determined or not, which he saw as explaining “that mysterious creative power of life—that power which expresses itself in the desire to develop, to strive and to achieve and even to compensate for defects in one direction by striving for success in another.” Homo economicus are continually striving to discover social knowledge that will unearth opportunities for material self-gain: “No virtue can be conceived as prior to this endeavour to preserve one’s own being” (Spinoza, cited in Russell 1946: 596, see also Force 2003). In terms of Riesman’s (1950) inner-other directedness dichotomy, individualists would have an inner-directedness orientation, preferring to act independently and in accordance with their personal moral codes that are grounded in goodness of action. Yet, as Hollis (1989: 179, see also Davis 2003) insightfully remarks: “A rational agent’s ultimate reference group cannot be himself alone. He needs some group to identify with in relationships whose 265

266

Competition overwhelms cooperation at the extreme when a person concludes that his or her best option is to adopt a hypercompetitive attitude towards others, all of whom that person considers to be malevolent and untrustworthy (Horney 1937). This manifests as incessant and indiscriminate competition for the purpose of attaining personal superiority (power) over other people: “The psychic result … is a diffuse hostile tension between individuals” (Horney 1937: 285–86), characterized by the presence of dogmatism, manipulation, exploitation, aggression, derisiveness, even humiliation. When this attitude permeates every area of that person’s life it is fertile ground for neurosis. Adler ([1933] 1973) described this striving for personal superiority as a destructive lifestyle that leads to neurosis. Social psychologists refer to situations where the interest of self and others are in conflict as social dilemmas (Komorita and Parks 1995). In terms of Lockwood’s (1966) social imagery ideal-types, this broadly corresponds to the privatisedinstrumental worldview.

124

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

flourishing is a measure of his flourishing.” In essence, homo economicus are seeking to achieve material success in order to be recognized as successful by other materially successful people. On the Levenson locus-of-control spectrum (1981: 49–52), homo economicus would definitely be at the internalist end—amongst those who accept responsibility for their social actions and consider that they are in control of their lives. Material wealth is, thus, the homo economicus’s currency of selfhood, which makes them prone to anxiety about their inability to acquire material wealth. The acceptance of overriding pre-eminence of self, self-interest, personal freedom and freedom of choice in any social relationship is preliminary to any social-role engagement for homo economicus, which means they are intent on negotiating their incorporation into a group and their acceptance of any social roles that that implies. The right to maximum freedom to negotiate with whom ever they wish is taken to be inalienable. Indeed, any group is made up of “other individuals” (Watkins 1968) with whom it is considered appropriate to engage in instrumental social relationships.267 People are considered to be pre-endowed with the capacity to build networked interpersonal relationships for self-gratification; to be, quintessentially, “the lone, atomistic and opportunistic bargain-hunter … who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing’” (Archer 2000: 4).268 Midgley (2003: 91) describes him—as is surely the case—as an isolated will guided by an intelligence, arbitrarily connected to a rather unsatisfactory array of feeling, and lodged, by chance, in an equally unsatisfactory body. Externally, this human being stands alone. Each individual’s relations to all others was optional, to be arranged at will by contract. It depends on the calculation of the intellect about self-interest and on the views of that interest freely chosen by will.

He is, thus, ever willing to commodify relationships in order to “drive the best bargain, such that he never pays more that he needs and never settles for less satisfaction than he can get” (Archer 2000: 53, but see also Gui and Sugden 2005). Becker (1996: 131) would add that “forward-looking individuals consider how their choices affect the probability of developing rewarding emotional relations,” to the extent that such emotional relations, if avoided, can save material costs, or, if engendered, can generate material benefits.

On Truth The warranting of a social knowledge claim can for homo economicus only involve applying objective truth criteria—those grounded in the correspondence, coherence, and pragmatism theories of truth. So, a knowledge claim has sufficient justification if it is 267

268

Psychologists describe such relationships as secondary, because they are relatively short-lived, involve limited interaction and minimal emotionality, and have clear rules governing interaction and well-defined social roles (Reber 1995). Orlofsky (1976) distinguish between stereotyped individuals (who have many superficial and utilitarian relationships without commitment) and pseudo-intimate individuals (who have a preference for superficial and utilitarian relationships but who have the demonstrated capacity to make an enduring commitment). “What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing” Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892).

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

125

supported by a fact that is grounded in sensory experience; that has been deduced by reasoning, perhaps based on self-justified premises; that has been gained by using a reliable direct apprehension process; that has been derived in accordance with the axioms of probability theory; that has yet to be refuted; or that is deemed to be true because a personal judgment has been made that personally beneficial material consequences will result from believing knowledge claim to be true. Homo economicus, thus, deny their proximity to the unknowable and seeks to distance their proximity to the unknown by dismissing as irrelevant knowledge claims that cannot be verified by sense-data or reason.

On Human Essence For homo economicus, the explanations of what it is to be a human being must be informed by one or more of the following propositions: • • • •

individuals pursue their own happiness269 as their primary life-goal (Aristippus the Elder, Bentham, Epicurus, Mill and Sidgwick); individuals are essentially free beings (Bentham, Locke and Mill); individuals are seeking liberation from the interference of other individuals (Hayek, Norzick and Mises); and individuals are a product of their physiological and neurological make-up as determined by biological processes of genetics and natural selection (Dawkins, James and Wilson).

On Human Nature People are considered by homo economicus to be immutably self-serving and selfcentered and thus motivated by self-preservation and self interest (Smith [1759] 1976, [1776] 1977). Insights into the selfish and self-serving individual can be gleaned from the psychological characterization of narcissists (Baumeister 1993, Bushman and Baumeister 1998, Lasch 1979, Kohurt and Wolf 1978, Wolf 1988): a pervasive, narrow-minded and overly indulgent obsession with the belief that they are great and perfect—Kohut’s (1971) grandiose self—in a world perceived to be both dangerous and hostile270, a view promoted by

269

“The term happiness refers here to the measure of overall hedonic balance, a theoretical average across all pleasures and pains” (Parducci 1995: 1). This constitutes an egoistical, subjectively satisfactory good life—a propitious situation and a positive state of mind—for a particular person. It stands in contrast to the objectively desirable life—eudaimonia (literally in Greek, ‘having a good guardian spirit’, best translated as having a flourishing life)—which is a good from everyone’s perspective, as sought by Socrates and the Stoics (as a virtuous life), by Aristotle (as a virtuously ethical life of right (rational) actions for greater human well being), by Plato (as perfect goodness), and by Epicurus (as a life characterized by detachment, serenity and freedom from anguish). See Ackrill 1981, see also Griffin 1986, MacDonald 1991, Mitsis 1988. 270 As Mathews (1997) remarks: Hostility is a multidimensional construct that is thought to have cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. The cognitive component is defined as negative beliefs about and attitudes toward others, including cynicism and mistrust. The affective component typically labeled as anger refers to an unpleasant emotion ranging from irritation to rage and can be assessed with regard to frequency, intensity, and target. The

126

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

that person placing emphasis on expressing characteristic attributes that enables the attainment of outcomes they judge to be good. These attributes include an desire to formulate relationships only with those willing to give them confirming and admiring feedback, which increase their feeling of self-worth, thereby reinforcing their self-love; a hypersensitivity to slights, criticism and rejection; a proclivity to overreact to perceived failures, to perceived threatening situations, or to perceived insulting provocation, responses to which can extend from irritability, to hostility, and even to violence; and a low tolerance of boredom, frustration, inadequacy and strong emotional feelings, due to a lack of ego development. Narcissists are often successful in the outside world, because they have confidence and do not fear failing, and responds well in a crisis, because it gives them a chance to bring glory upon themselves. They also feel an inner emptiness, fluctuating as they do between self-love and self-hatred. Homo economicus would consider that human nature is universal, uniform, constant and predictable, in the tradition of Bentham, Condorcet, and Hume. As Hume ([1777] 1902: 83) remarked: “it is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the actions of men, in all nations and ages, and that human nature remains still the same, in its principles and operations. The same motives always produce the same actions.” And as Samuel Johnston observed: “We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by the same hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure” (cited in Pinker 2002: 142). People are malleable to human will (Mozi [5th century BC] 1963, Hobbes [1651] 1962, Bacon [1597–1625] 1972), for they are viewed as machines subject to cause and effects amenable to empirical investigation. This deterministic machine metaphor gathers support from sociobiology’s proposition that human behaviors are attributable to biological mechanisms underpinned by processes of genetics and natural selection (Dawkins I976, Wilson 1976, 1978). As Pinker (2002: 73) remarks: I think we have reason to believe that the mind is equipped with a battery of emotions, drives, and faculties for reasoning and communicating, and that they have a common logic across cultures, are difficult to erase or redesign from scratch, were shaped by natural selection acting over the course of human evolution, and owe something of their basic design (and some of their variation) to information in the genome.

By human temperament, homo economicus can only be characterized as one of Burton’s sanguines ([1621] 2001, drawing upon Hyppocrates’ typology (see Jouanna [1992] 1999). To homo economicus, a person’s moral worth is measured by the social actions undertaken that have been personally favorable without having been to detriment of others. Life’s meaning, thus, depends on one’s material well-being: who a person becomes, then, is contingent upon how well that person negotiates with others.

On Ethics and Morality The guide to moral conduct for homo economicus can only be the goodness of action. This is underpinned by the notion that morality should be the product of reasoned enquiry behavioral component is thought to result from the attitudinal and affective component and is an action

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

127

into the consequences of a social action271 (Christman 1989, Dworkin 1988). Not to critically assess the consequences of taking (or not taking) a social action would be considered morally unjustifiable. The rational agent has, in the Kantian tradition, the right to self-determination, and, in the Condorsetian tradition, the capacity to reason and acquire moral beliefs. This means that he or she has the capacity to subject his or her passions and values to logical scrutiny, and so should critically assess them, thereby enabling him or her, upon reflection, to endorse the good ones, as a precursor to the exercising of self-determination. In the words of Pope [1720] 1896: 28): “Passion, though selfish, if their means be fair/List under Reason, and deserve her care.” Reason—thoughts and choice—and emotion—feelings and imagination—thus stand in opposition: the former is a central, necessary part of self; the latter is merely a chance, extraneous matter. Elster (1999a: 403) argues, however, that emotions “matter because if we did not have them nothing else would matter. Creatures without emotions would have no reason for living, nor, for that matter for committing suicide. Emotions are the stuff of life” (see also Barbalet 1998). Homo economicus would undoubtedly agree. Some desires, of course, may be grounded in strong emotions that have the potential to subvert rationality by a weakness of will (Elster 1979): “by virtue of the high levels of arousal and valence they induce, emotions and cravings are among the post powerful sources of denial, self-deception, and rationalization in human life” (Elster 1999b, see also Elster 1985b and, particularly, 1999a). But “if people very strongly desire what they cannot get, they will be unhappy; such desires are irrational. A rational desire is one which is optimally adjusted to the feasibility set,” which would have to be “freely and consciously willed” (Elster 1986a: 15, see also 1989a), thereby giving rise to a desire for highest attainable level of satisfaction, rather than permitting preferences to be either over-adapted—“sour grapes”—or underadapted—“Ulysses unbound” (Elster 1979, 1985b). The rational agent is morally justified in seeking to promote his or her own good (ethical egoism or ethical hedonism) (Sidgwick [1874] 1907), which does not preclude social actions that benefit others as a bi-product, provided they are undertaken for his or her own benefit. Indeed, Axelrod (1984) has demonstrated that it would be irrational for the rational agent to ignore the interests of others.272 Contractarianism considers that moral principles can be deduced from, and given their moral authority by, the deliberations of rational contractors (Rawls 1971, see also Gauthier 1986, 1990, Vallentyne 1991). Thus, justice is a pact amongst rational egoists, which means that moral principles, indeed all morality, can be construed in terms of bargaining among rational self-interested individuals. Thus, in Rawlsian terms, principles of justice can be deduced from the rational choices made, behind a veil of ignorance, by self-interested rational contractors deprived of information about their talents and attributes (Rawls 1971). Axiologically, as rational agents intent on promoting their own material wellbeing, homo economicus believe that ethical claims are either factual claims (moral realism) (Brink 1989)

intending to harm others, either verbally or physically. Indeed, according to Peirce ([1878] 1992: 132) an action gains meaning from its consequences: “consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the objects.” 272 Singer (1997: 263) argues that “we can see that our own sufferings and pleasures are very like the sufferings and pleasures of others; and that there is no reason to give less consideration to the suffering of others, just because they are other.” 271

128

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

or linguistically like factual claims (quasi moral realism) (Blackburn 1993), which can be appropriately deemed to be true or false. Homo economicus would prefer to adopt a nondogmatic attitude to moral precepts and principles by seeking to respond to moral problems by means of reasoned enquiry (ethical naturalism). This holds, in essence, that there are facts (moral knowledge) about the morality of a social action (Foot 1978b), defined in terms of some non-moral position (such as individual pleasure or utility), that should determine what constitutes moral conduct. Thus, there are factual moral propositions that provide justifications for social actions.273 Homo economicus’s concern is with act-centered morality (what should I do?). Morality is, thus, centered in the public realm, where actions affect others. As rational self-interested agents, homo economicus draw upon the utilitarian expedient of assessing the proposed solutions to moral conflicts in terms of their consequences, which makes correct moral action the end result of a hedonistic or utility calculation (ethical hedonism) (Bentham [1789] 1970, Austin [1832] 1995, Mill [1861 1968). Social actions are, thus, judged to be moral if they produce, or are likely to produce, good consequences (Gouinlock 1972, Meyers 1986), premised on the proposition that it is possible to predict the net material beneficial consequences of a social action. As ethical consequentialists, homo economicus prefer to replace moral controversy with calculation, by judging the morality of their social actions by the value of their actual, or even intended, effects in terms of producing the greatest happiness (pleasure) for the greatest number of people, that is, the most good (act-consequentialism, or, in utilitarian terms, actutilitarianism), even if this is not the intention, which, perhaps, it should not be (a precept of indirect act-consequentialism). Moreover, social actions can also be moral either if they are in accordance with the preferences of those assessing the rightness of those social actions (preference-utilitarianism) or if they follow a set of rules general acceptance of which would best promote the most good (rule-consequentialism or, in utilitarian terms, ruleutilitarianism274) (Scarre 1996, Scheffler 1988).

273

This allowed Posner (1992) to argue: “some rapists derive extra pleasure from the fact that the woman has not consented. For these rapists, there is no market substitute … and it could be argued therefore [under utilitarian principles] that … they … should not be punished if the sum of the satisfaction to the rapist … exceeds the victim’s pain.” See also Cameron 2002. 274 Mill’s notion of rule, or restricted, utilitarianism, extends beyond the consequences of a single action: “an act is right if it conforms to a valid rule of conduct and wrong if it violates such a rule” (Taylor 1975: 64). In this paradigm, a valid rule is one that usually can be expected to provide the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people. Certain individuals, then, may be adversely affected by the imposition of unfair advantages, but their self-sacrifice would fulfill their wish to contribute to the general project of maximizing the total good. Therefore, rule-utilitarianism offers morally justification of individual transactions that are precluded from the ethical doctrine of act-utilitarianism. The argument is constructed as follows. First, it is necessary for there to be agreement in a group that a majority of its members benefit from actions taken in the free marketplace. Subsequently, it is deemed that this principle of utility is a practical mechanism, and as such exonerates each agent from their lack of specific knowledge about the results of their intended actions. However, the creation of a legitimate exception to an act-utilitarian moral judgment does not validate the presence of fundamental differences between the moral judgments that result from the application of the two ethical systems. Instead, it has been argued that act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism are “extensionally equivalent” (Taylor 1975: 69), as the latter supplies higher moral rules to outweigh the problematic empirical foundations of the former. In view of this, albeit contrived, compatibility it is possible that tyrannical rules, which neglect fairness and justice, can receive corroboration through the complementary use of the two theories. This conclusion implies that homo economicus, when reflecting on their ethical values and attitudes, might “do better by looking at the interrelations between states of affairs and actions” (Smart and Williams 1973: 85).

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

129

That the morality of a social action can best be judged by the goodness of its consequence is in accord with the following ethical positions: teleological ethics (Muirhead 1932) (moral conduct is determined by reference to ethical values grounded in some conception of final purpose or good—the principle of ultimate utility—thereby, ensuring that ends justify the means, making them intrinsically moral (Bentham [1789] 1970, Dewey [1932] 1985, Mill [1861] 1968)); situational ethics (morally decisive importance should be accorded to particular circumstances when making moral assessments (Fletcher 1966)); empirical situationism (morally decisive importance should be accorded to actual consequences); and mournful realism (a moral action is one that improves matters in ways a given a situation makes viable). What is honorable about me is that my actions produce favorable consequences. Personal moral responsibility can be diminished by blaming bad luck and asserting that retrospective individual responsibility for the consequences of a social action should be limited to that which is under the control of the action taker (Lucas 1993, Zimmerman 1988).

On Trust The granting of trust by homo economicus can only be preceded by an assessment of the consequences of trusting others. It is extended only after the estimation and comparison of the material benefits of so doing and of the material cost if that trust is found to be misplaced. Thus, it is reducible to a risk probability (Gambetta 1988), measuring the trustworthiness of the social actions of others—as economists and game theorists have argued (see, for example, Williamson 1985)—with the dynamics of trust being reduced to probability updating on the basis of observed social actions (Luhmann 1979, 1988, Offe 1999). Yamigishi and Yamigishi (1994) call this knowledge-based trust. Thus, the decision to trust another person is essentially a strategic one: if the predicted net material benefits associated with the social actions of that person are known with confidence, then trust will be extended to him or her. The withdrawal of trust is justified on the utilitarian grounds of the consequential reduction in happiness cause by the social actions of the untrustworthy. Arrow (1984: 104) recognized, however, that relations of trust and confidence may bind actors so strongly together that they “will not cheat even though it may be ‘rational economic behavior’ to do so.” Gambetta (1988: 9) considers “the claim that cooperation can evolve without trust … is inconceivable in relation to humans without at least a disposition to trust.” Later, he soberingly concludes: “If distrust is complete, cooperation will fail among free agents” (Gambetta 1988: 219).

On Power and Compliance Making people do what they would not otherwise have done can for homo ecomomicus only involve the use of exchange power (Boulder 1990), resource or reward power (French and Raven 1959), or economic power (Hales 2001). Rules must convey commitment, thereby they must specify commitments, promises and offerings that entail rights and duties (Onuf 1989: 87; but see also 197, 217). Mamadouh (1999: 142) characterizes the situation as: I decide what I want to do. The use of such power is expected to induce instrumental compliance, based on an economic calculation of the compliance costs and benefits involved

130

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

(Etzioni 1961). This sense of avarice may be constrained by any limits they are willing to impose, unilaterally, upon the advancement their own material well-being.

On Decision Making Decision analysis to homo economicus can only involve selecting from among all the possible means the one that creates the best opportunity for self-improvement.275 These determine not only which problems are solvable, but also which goals are worth considering. Indeed, any judgments that need to be made should focus on action judgments: What action to take? How to do it? The preferred mode of reasoning favored is functional-strategic rationality (Hoppe 2000), underlying which are propositions related to individual rational agents; to systematic empiricism; to language as representation; to the idealizing of the narrative of progress (Gergen and Thatchenkey 1998); and to knowledge that declares a proposition to be true or false (propositional knowledge) (Tsoukas 1998). This makes all explanation purposeful, intentional or causal. Hence reasoning must be intrinsically teleological (concerned with the achievement of human purposes, goals and ends) (Woodfield 1976); synoptical (concerned with providing a comprehensive mode of analysis); instrumental (concerned with applying reason to determine which ends or norms of human activity should provide the basis for ethical judgments on the morality of social actions, and to identify ways of achieving those ends); and grounded in the premise of hedonistic self-interest, because people should act to maximize their own good (ethical egoism), because people actually seek to maximize their own good (psychological egoism), or because people who act in their self-interest will largely or exclusively behave virtuously because that enhances their wellbeing in the broadest sense (egoistic moral motivation) (Scheffler 1992). Decision-making, wherever possible, should be judgmental, on the premise of certainty about outcome preferences, but uncertainty about cause-effect relations (Thompson 1967). The degree of agreement on ends is achieved by reference either to their feasibility, their achievability or their universality (their super-rationality), so as to avoid contestable objectives and values standards, the resolution of which would delay intervention by initiating pointless values discourses. These unexceptionable ends (such as, maximizing profit or material wellbeing) are so crucial that they inevitably justify the means used to achieve them, despite any moral or ethical risks involved. Nothing less than the best solutions will do. Uncertainties that are grounded in the lack of knowledge of future events can only be perceived as creating opportunities to be exploited for personal reward. They need to be objectively defined, measured, and evaluated as risk probabilities, and their ethical acceptability judged by reference to their material consequences—net beneficial material outcomes produced—by those wishing to exploit them. Success would be expected, as entrepreneurial talent and new technology are believed to be capable of mitigating any unforeseen consequences of risk taking.

275

Schwartz’s (2004) maximize is a person who tries to make the best choice because he or she has unrealistically high expectations and who experience the existential anxiety that follows the realization that he or she is free to select from a multitude of available choices, which leads to stress and even depression bordering on the clinical range.

Engaging with Others: Choosing the Best Lens

131

Any decision made would be considered to be agreed upon only by the application of the revealed-preferences standard, involving implicit consent. This means that if a decision is made (such as to purchase a product made by child labor), then consent is implied (in this instance, for the use of child labor in the production of that product), thereby presuming that if someone accepts a decision, it is because he or she has chosen to accept it. It would, thus, presume that people make purposive and predatory decisions on the basis of rational (consistent and transitive) decisions through reasoning processes constrained only by their self-interest. The intent of group decision-making processes is, thus, to produce an opportunistic interpretation of all objective information that would facilitate optimal decisionmaking, premised on self-evident need for successful risk-taking that create opportunities for personal material reward.

CONCLUSION This chapter has advanced the proposition that the lens a person selects to produce an appropriate personal construct of a social arena depends on whether or how he or she wishes to engage transactionally with others in that arena. Thus, prior to any social engagement that person must decide on the status and role relationships he or she is willing to have with others in that situation—namely, hierarchical, egalitarian, egocentric or individualistic. This decision depends on the limits that he or she is willing to let others place on his or her individual autonomy in that arena. By making this selection, a cognitively consistent person has is accepting the validity of only one of four mutually exclusive situational logics for that arena. This choice of guiding situational logic, in turn, enables that person to build a coherent assumptive world that constitutes how he or she wishes to portray a social arena both to self and others, thereby reflecting who he or she is, what he or she stands for, and the social impressions that he or she wishes to portray to others in that arena. This enables him or her to be typified as homo hierarchus, homo sociologicus, homo existentialis and homo economicus in that arena. These typifications are cognitive containers, each of which offers a distinctive set of truths and a set of criteria for deciding what is true, what is rational, and what constitutes moral conduct. Each one constitutes a conceptual framework, or worldview, that provides a stable orientation for social action. Each one represents set of hypothetical cognitive traits, which give rise to emotional and behavioral traits that enable him or her to present consistent social impressions to others in that arena. Each one enables a person to know who he or she is and what he or she stands for. They are, of course, abstract associational thought constructs designed to assist in the exploration of the meaning and prediction of social interactions. Finally, the coexistence and advocacy of mutually incompatible sets of contentions about a social arena gives rise to an enduring process of choice of lens. This brings to the fore why a person may choose to change his or her preferred lens.

Chapter 3

READING A RELATIONAL SITUATION DIFFERENTLY: THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGING LENS INTRODUCTION In any social arena there can be present followers of each of the four situational logics (hierarchical, egalitarian, egocentric and individualistic), which determines the nature of that arena at that time.276 A cognitively consistent person who has chosen a particular lens through which to read that arena faces the prospect of being confronted by those who have chosen to be guided by alternative situational logics. This brings to the fore why that person may choose to change the lens through which that arena is observed and interrogated. This chapter advances the proposition that for a cognitively consistent person to change his or her chosen lens—thereby accepting the need to be guided by a different situational logic—is a fraught process. It is one that necessitates him or her choosing a different relationship-arranging principle, and thus adopting a different set of status and role relationships with others, in that arena. This change process begins when a surprise brings into question that person’s set of assumptions about a social arena, and the social interactions that take place in it. With this comes an awareness that the lens through which he or she has been reading that arena is increasingly less able to describe, explain, interpret, judge and predict what he or she is experiencing in it, because of fundamentally distorting flaws in all the lens. So, the desire grows to reformulate their chosen set of assumptions in order to minimize the divergence of beliefs and certainties. In such circumstances a person seeking cognitive consistency would be willing to adopt a new lens through which to garner directional guidance on that social arena, but only if that change is likely to produces personal benefits that offset the personal costs associated with realigning, fundamentally, the set of expectations he or she has about his or her status and roles in that arena. Of crucial importance here are his or her attitudes toward those who read that arena differently, and thus have accepted the validity of a different worldview.

276

The degree of variety of followers of particular situational logics represented in a social arena is taken here to be context dependent: the larger the social scale, the greater the probability of followers of all situational logics being present.

134

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

THE INCOMPATIBILITIES OF THE CONTENDING SITUATIONAL LOGICS In any social arena, the followers of any of the four situational logics may be confronted with contending perspectives on that arena, which exposes their lens choice to scrutiny and raises the specter of change.

Contending Philosophical Perspectives The contending situational logics offer incompatible propositions about what is knowable about a social arena and to what within it can social actions be attributed. Their followers deny, essentially, not only the validity and importance of either hermeneutic or naturalist knowledge, thereby making them unable understand any description or analysis of a social arena that stems from the excluded epistemology; but also the causal capacity of either the structuralist or agental dimensions of social actions in that arena, thereby making them unable to understand any assertions about what exists and has causal capacity in a social arena that stem from the excluded ontology. This makes them unable to agree on how best to describe, analyze, explain and understand any social arena and the social actions of those in it.

Contending Truth Perspectives The contending situational logics offer incompatible propositions about what constitutes sufficient justification to warrant the status of truth being assigned to knowledge claims about a social arena and the social actions of those in it. Their followers are unable to agree, essentially, on what constitutes sufficient evidence to warrant the status of truth being assigned to a belief: objective facts and logical reasoning, the testimony or consensus judgment of others, or subject first-person experiences and personal preferences. This makes them unable agree on what is true, and, indeed, on how best to determine what is true about any social arena and the social actions of those in it. This makes problematic any communications amongst those present in a social arena about its nature and the social interactions of those in it.

Contending Perspectives on Being Human The contending situational logics offer incompatible propositions about human essence and human nature that seek to explain social actions. Their followers are unable to agree on what it means to be human. Essentially, they disagree on what is the purpose of life, on whether people are willing and able to exercise free will within the limits of his or her intrinsic physiological and psychological properties, and on whether people are sinful, indolent and seek to avoid responsibility. This makes them unable to agree on how best to understand and explain social interactions of those present in any social arena, which makes

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

135

problematic the possibility of them judging and addressing any human dilemmas, predicaments and quandaries in a way that is acceptable to everyone.

Contending Moral Conduct Perspectives The contending situational logics offer incompatible sets of moral precepts and principles that define how moral judgments should be made and what should be the ethical foundations for moral conduct (right action) in a social arena. Their followers are unable to agree on what constitutes moral conduct. Essentially they disagree on whether the morality of social actions should be judged by their rightness, their virtueness, their consequences, or just personal preferences. This makes them unable to agree on how they should conduct their social interactions in any social arena, which makes problematic the making acceptable judgments on the conduct of others in a social arena.

Contending Trust Perspectives The contending situational logics offer incompatible propositions about the conditions under which trust should be extended to others in a social arena. Their followers are unable to agree on the conditions under which trust should be extended to others. Essentially, they disagree on whether a person should extend trust on the basis of having a common set of innate moral values, of building up sufficient goodwill through discourse, of justifying past personal experiences, or of having knowledge of the net beneficial consequences of so doing. This makes them unable to agree on how best to decide on the trustworthiness of others, which makes problematic the trusting of others in any social arena.277

Contending Power and Compliance Perspectives The contending situational logics offer incompatible propositions about the required sources of authority that would make people in a social arena do what they would not otherwise want to do. Their followers are unable to agree on how to make others do anything new or different. Essentially, they disagree on whether compliance is the result of the rational loyalty that follows the exercising of legitimate, expert or knowledge power by those in authority; the moral commitments that follow the exercising of referent, integrative or normative power by those involved; the anticipated net benefits that follow the exercising of exchange, reward or economic power by those able to do so; or the fear of the repercussions that follow the exercising of destructive threat, physical or coercive power by those able to do so. This makes them unable to agree on the required sources of authority that enable anyone to impose his or her will on others in any social arena, which makes problematic the getting people to do in any arena what they would not otherwise want to do.

277

Rothstein (2005) describes this situation as a social trap, where individuals are unable to cooperate because of mutual distrust and the lack of social capital, even if such cooperation is, in fact, mutually beneficial.

136

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Contending Decision-Making Perspectives The contending situational logics offer incompatible propositions about group decision making, risk taking and how decisions should be agreed upon in a social arena. Their followers are unable to agree on the nature of the meaningful information that would facilitate the making of any decisions that they could accept, and on the nature and functioning of group decision-making process that they would find acceptable. Essentially, they disagree on whether decision making should involve the gathering of the objective information required to facilitate the group making satisficing decisions that everyone ought to agree with, premised on the accepted need for reason to be constrained by hierarchically determined values and beliefs; the gathering of the subjective, socially constructed information required to facilitate the group making compromise decisions that have the direct consent of all those involved, premised on the agreed need to achieve the sensible and practicable good; the gathering of the subjective, first-person experiential information required to facilitate the group making inspirational decisions, premised on the acknowledged need to make plausible sense of reality; or the gathering of all the objective information available to facilitates the group making the best decisions, premised on self-evident need for successful risk-taking that creates opportunities for personal material reward. This makes them unable to agree on how the group should make decisions, which makes group decision-making problematic.

THE CHALLENGE OF FOLLOWING A DIFFERENT SITUATIONAL LOGIC The reliability of the directional guidance drawn from any situational logic can be tested in a social arena by being compared with the guidance drawn from different situational logics. This can give rise to an enduring process of lens choice. The outcome can become a crusade for converts driven by two desires: survival and domination. Survival is the desire of those engaged in a social arena to ensure that the lens through which they prefer to read, and garner directional guidance on, that arena does not cease to have other followers, for this would threaten their extant status and role expectations. Indeed, it is by such attrition that a social arena can become dominated by directional guidance drawn from only one of the situational logics.278 Those who follow directional guidance from one of the situational logic are motivated by their disagreement with those who follow directional guidance from the other situational logics, because they have the ‘wrong’ view of that arena, the product of which is a dialogue of the deaf (Hirschman 1991): all the voices talking but none listening. Dominance is the desire of those engaged in a social arena to ensure that their preferred source of directional guidance becomes dominant, for this would advance their extant status and role expectations in that arena. So motivated, they aggressively assert that their worldview is the ‘right’ one, the product of which is an unresponsive dialogue: one voice seeking to drown out all the others.

278

It would, of course, be naïve not to believe that one possible consequence of such attrition in a social arena could be the emergence of groupthink (Janis 1972), where followers of the surviving situational logic suppress dissenting viewpoints, which blinds them to the some of the features manifest in that social arena.

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

137

Such paradigmatic jousting can open the door to change, if the directional guidance drawn from preferred situational logics seems no longer capable of delivering on their expectations (Abelson, et al. 1968). Whether this realization leads a person to choose a different situational logic, however, requires him or her to reconsider, fundamentally, the set of expectations he or she has about his or her status and roles in that situation. This is because choosing to follow a different situational logic would necessitate him or her adopting new perspectives on, and forming new social relationships in, that arena. To do this, he or she would need to decide what his or her new status and role expectations are, and, thus, how he or she wishes to establish and conduct social relationships with others in that arena. He or she would also need to know and, more importantly, need to accept, whatever needs to be known and done in order to conduct, acceptably, those new social relationships. This would require changing his or her desired degree of personal autonomy with respect to making choice decisions and to determining the appropriateness of his or her social actions. The process by which a person adopts a new lens through which to read, and garner directional guidance on, that social arena is, thus, linked to a that person’s choice of relationship arranging principle and, therefore, to his or her social-control preference weightings, which determine the boundaries of his or her social-control comfort zone (akin to Barnard’s (1938) zone of indifference) on a social map of a social arena at a particular point in time.

Demarcating Social-Control Comfort Zones on a Social Map A social map of a social arena reflects, at a particular point in time, the categorization of those present in it according to the limitations that they willing to permit other people to place on their autonomy. Its external boundaries are, conceptually, the upper and lower limits to which those in that arena would accept the group subjugation of their individual decision sovereignty (the tolerable limits on their individual decision sovereignty), and the imposition of group constraints on self-determination of individual social actions (the tolerable limits on the self-determination of their social actions) in order to engage (or remain engaged) with others in that arena. Together, these boundary points define that arena’s social-control extremities. This permits an appreciation of the degree to which those engaged in that arena have accepted group subjugation of individual autonomy. Upon this social map can be imposed a pair of high/low divides for the self-determination of social actions and for individual decision sovereignty, so demarcating the followers of the four situational logics: homo hierarchus, homo sociologicus, homo existentialis and homo economicus. The heuristic value of such a social map is not diminished by the difficulty of devising interval scales that permit the precise measurement of this space. The resultant distribution bias determines the nature of that social arena at that time.279

279

“A social organism of any sort whatever, large or small, is what it is because each member proceeds to his own duty with a trust that the other members will simultaneously do theirs” (James 1896: sect. ix).

138

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Social-Control Comfort Zones A person’s social-control comfort zone can be demarcated on a social map of a social arena by identifying the group-determined limitations that her or she is willing to tolerate on his or her individual choice sovereignty and self-determination of his or her social actions Insights into the nature of these comfort zones can be gleaned from Olli’s (1995 and 1999) three plausible models of the individual. Olli’s (1995) first model is the coherent individual. This is a person whose disposition is to be “consistent, solid and single-minded” in a particular social arena. He or she would not by nature be reflexive and, thus, would not care to question the premises of the situational logic he or she has chosen to follow. The attitudes and opinions that he or she is required to hold are central to his or her self-identity and held with a firmness grounded in the certitude of his or her core values. According to Olli (1995: 60), they are “very close to becoming a permanent trait of the individual, almost like a personality.” Sagan (1996: 23) captures the essence: All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven’t thought of or demonstrates that we’ve swept key underlying assumptions under the rug it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault.280

The coherent individual would tolerate little variation in his or her preferred degrees of individual choice sovereignty and of the self-determination of his or her social actions, as he or she would consider his or her extant status and role relationships to be sacrosanct.281 His or her social-control comfort zones would, thus, reflect this intolerance. To such a person, the appropriate social-action orientation would be to ensure that the material and ideational premises of the sociocultural conditioning that takes place in a social arena is such that he or she has no need to change his or her restricted social-control comfort zone. Olli’s (1995) second model is the sequential individual. This is a person whose disposition is to be cognitively adaptable in a particular social arena, and to be reflexive and, thus, willing to question, when challenged, his or her premises of the situational logic he or she has chosen to follow. The attitudes and opinions that he or she is required to hold would be adaptable, but his or her core values would be resilient. He or she would be willing to follow a different situational logic if the need to change can be justified. Thus, he or she would find it acceptable to change significantly his or her preferred degree of individual choice sovereignty and of self-determination of his or her social actions if the need arose. The sequential individual’s social-control comfort zone would, thus, have moderately expansive 280

Socrates’ method was known as elenchus in classical Greek (with connotations of belittlement), which involved him asking questions that forced those with whom he verbally engaged in the public domain (a process known in classical Greek as diatribai, literally whiling away time) to examine their own assumptions and logic, ultimately obliging them to admit their ignorance (Navia 2007, Wilson 2007). 281 Ho’s (1998) explanation as to why a person might adopt the same status and role relationships at all times in all social arenas is a disposition towards relationship dominance. This “ascribes primacy to reciprocity, interdependence, and interrelatedness among individuals” in the determination of social action (p. 116), which, he argues, is caused by a person‘s culturally determined relational perceptions. He illustrates this by reference to Confucian concepts of selfhood and identity, as practices in Chinese societies (Ho 1995).

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

139

boundaries, reflecting his or her adaptability to wide degrees of group circumscription of social actions and individual choice subjugation by a group. To such a person, the appropriate social-action orientation would be to seek to ensure that the extant material and ideational premises of the sociocultural conditioning that takes place in a social arena is such that his or her moderately expansive social-control comfort zone can be sustained. Olli’s (1995) third model is the synthetic individual. This is a person whose disposition is to be cognitively elastic in a particular social arena. By instinct, he or she would be reflexive and, thus, would perpetually question the premises of the situational logic he or she has chosen to follow. He or she would be capable of drawing upon the alternative situational logics in a manner that makes them almost turn them into versatile jigsaw pieces. This naïve cognitive elasticity gives the synthetic individual the capacity to justify apparently incompatible attitudes, opinions and values. This would enable him or her to adopt different status and role relationships at different times in the same situation, whenever the need is justified. The synthetic individual’s social-control comfort zone would have very expansive boundaries that reflect his or her ability to cope with significant degrees of ambiguity, and, therefore, with very wide degrees of tolerated group circumscription of social actions and choice subjugation by a group. To such a person, the appropriate social-action orientation would be to seek to ensure that the material and ideational premises of the sociocultural conditioning that takes place in that situation can accommodate his or her expansive socialcontrol comfort zone. What, then, would motivate a person to move outside his or her social-control comfort zone to the point where choosing to follow a new situational-logic becomes desirable? The theory of surprise282 provides such a motivation.

The Theory of Surprise Surprise occurs when the unexpected outcomes of an event in a social arena causes beliefs (what was expected) and certainties (what is) about that event to move out of alignment. In other words, the lens through which that arena is read is causing double vision (or contradictory cognitions).283 The theory of surprise is premised on three axioms: “an event is never surprising in itself;” “it is potentially surprising only in relation to a particular set of convictions about how the world is;” and “it is actually surprising only if it is noticed by the holder of that particular set of convictions” (Price and Thompson 1997: 2). When the flow of anticipated net rewards to a person in a social arena diminishes as a result of the unexpected outcomes of an event, because he or she has chosen to follow the guidance of a situational logic that does not enable him or her to anticipate accurately such outcomes, then, that person would be inclined to follow the guidance of a different situational logic, with the expectation that it would permit a more accurate reading of that arena and thus a more accurate prediction of the outcomes of future events. While the occurrence of unexpected outcomes of events may be surprising, facts that are contrary to a person’s thoughts, beliefs, expectancies, attitudes or perceptions may, as 282

This theory has its origins in the ecology literature (see Holling 1986, but see also Thompson et al. 1990, Schwarz and Thompson 1990, Grendstad and Selle 1999, Price and Thompson 1997). 283 “What disturbs men’s minds [sic] is not events but their judgements on events” (Epictetus Handbook 5 (c104) in Matheson 1916).

140

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Festinger (1957) established, be rejected initially, and may even, counter intuitively, reinforce that person’s faith in those cognitions,284 making him or her prone to Hirschman’s (1991: 168) “rhetoric of intransigence.” There is, however, a point reached where the cumulative effect of belief-disconfirming evidence serves to threaten cognitions, so initiating the agonizing motivational state of cognitive dissonance.285 This happens when “two opinions, or beliefs, or items of knowledge are dissonant with each other if they do not fit together; that is, if they are inconsistent, or if, considering only the particular two items, one does not follow from the other” (Festinger 1957: 25). The magnitude of the dissonance experienced depends on the relative importance of the cognitions involved. Everyone is capable of being surprised by the unexpected outcomes of events. What, then, are the salient unexpected outcomes of events that could give rise to a state of cognitive dissonance in followers of particular situational logics?

The Homo Hierarchus’s Salient Surprise Homo hierarchus would be surprised if people with positional authority were repeatedly unable to know the nature, causation or consequences of events occurring in a social arena by the use of inductive and deductive reasoning; or to secure desired behavior change of those present in that arena by reference to deontological moral arguments that create moral obligations that motivate people to do their duty and to do what is right. Their salient surprise would, thus, be to find that those with positional authority cannot explain and predict the social actions of those engaged in a social arena. This means that the social arena cannot be effectively managed by people with positional authority intent on making satisfactory decisions, premised on the need for reason to be constrained by hierarchically determined values and beliefs, that are executed by the use of legitimate or expert power.

284

There are a wide variety of Freudian and neo-Freudian psychological defense mechanisms (“the ego’s struggle against painful or unendurable ideas or effects” (Freud [1936] 1948: 45, see also Freud 1936, Cramer 1991, Horney 1945, PlanetPsych 1999–2006) that can give rise to this response, including: repression (blotting out anxiety-provoking contrary factual evidence by not thinking about it), denial (refusing to recognize anxietyprovoking contrary factual evidence); rationalization (using plausible but erroneous arguments to reconcile contrary factual evidence with preferred cognitions); intellectualization (rationalizing in a way that dissociates anxiety-provoking cognitions from feelings); reaction formation (adopting opposite cognitions to the anxietyprovoking cognitions, so as to make the emotions experienced acceptable); compartmentalization (placing anxiety-provoking contrary factual evidence into categories that conceal their factual inconsistencies or contradictions); arbitrary rightness (asserting the rightness of preferred cognitions despite the contrary factual evidence); excessive self-control (exercising emotional self-control to cope with the dissonance caused by sustaining unsustainable anxiety-provoking cognitions); compensation (emphasizing strengths to counterbalancing perceived weaknesses caused by sustaining unsustainable anxiety-provoking cognitions); displacement (redirecting thoughts and feelings away from anxiety-inducing objects to safer and more acceptable ones); fantasy (channeling into imagination unacceptable or unattainable desires grounded in unsustainable anxiety-provoking cognitions); projection (attributing to others the undesirable behavior or thoughts attributable to sustaining unsustainable anxiety-provoking cognitions); regression (reverting to an earlier stage of development to avoid facing unsustainable anxiety-provoking cognitions); and sublimation (channeling of undesirable impulses associated with unsustainable anxiety-provoking cognitions into more acceptable outlets). 285 Aronson (1969) challenged cognitive dissonance theory on the grounds that dissonance arises not when a person finds his or her cognitions to be in conflict with factual evidence, but when they are in conflict with his or her self-concept. Bem’s (1965; 1967) challenge is more fundamental, as he takes exception, as a behaviorist, to the implicit mentalist assumption that a person has access to his or her cognitions and can judge whether they are in a state of inconsistency.

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

141

The Homo Sociologicus’s Salient Surprise Homo sociologicus would be surprised if trustworthy and persuasive people engaged in discourse were repeatedly unable either to know the nature, causation or consequences of events occurring in a social arena by collectively and actively interpreting events to decide their meaning; or to secure desired behavior change of those present in that arena by reference to the motivating virtuous conduct grounded in jointly affirmed group norms, roles, and practices. Their salient surprise would, thus, be to find that those engaged in reflexive discourses intent on building mutual understandings cannot understand and predict the social actions of those engaged in a social arena. This means that it cannot be effectively managed by trustworthy, collegial, harmonious and persuasive people who are intent on making compromise decisions, premised on the need to achieve the sensible and practicable good by consensus, that are executed by the use of personal, integrative or normative power. The Homo Existentialis’s Salient Surprise Homo existentialis would be surprised if anyone is repeatedly able either to know the nature, causation or consequences of events occurring in a social arena by whatever methods of investigation, or to secure desired behavior change of those present in that arena voluntarily. Their salient surprise would, thus, be to find that anyone can understand and predict the social actions of those engaged in that arena. This means that it can be managed purposefully by someone who is capable of making sense of what fate decrees, and who does not have to resort to the use the destructive threat, physical or coercive power. The Homo Economicus’s Salient Surprise Homo economicus would be surprised if self-interested people were repeatedly unable either to know the nature, causation or consequences of events occurring in a social arena by use of inductive and deductive reasoning, or to secure desired behavior change of those present in that arena by reference to motivations grounded in the self interest. Their salient surprise would, thus, be to find that people intent on enhancing their own material selfinterest cannot explain and predict the social actions of those engaged in a social arena. This means that it cannot be effectively managed by self-interested people intent on making of optimal decisions, premised on the need to create opportunities for personal reward, that are executed by the use of exchange, reward or economic power.

From Surprise to Disillusionment The process by which a person changes his or her cognitive map of a social arena is a difficult one, for it requires that person to be disillusioned enough with its efficacy to begin questioning it. To reach this disillusionment threshold, the conditions must be in place for a person to be willing to take steps to substitute alternative cognitions in order to reduce the cognitive dissonance being experienced. These preconditions have been identified as (Cooper and Brehm 1971, Cooper and Fazio 1984, Elkin and Leippe 1986, Festinger and Carlsmith 1959, Joule and Beauvois 1998, Linder et al. 1967): a feeling of physiological arousal—as negative feelings and evaluations—attributable to holding inconsistent cognitions; a

142

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

perception that holding inconsistent cognitions has negative consequences; and an acceptance of personal responsibility for the presence of those inconsistent cognitions. The attainment of this unpleasant state of arousal demands, in the first instance, that the desirability of continuing to follow the directional guidance of their preferred situational logic be reconsidered, because it would seems no longer to be capable of delivering on its expectations: • • • •

I thought they could deliver what I expected, but they can’t; I thought we could deliver what I expected, but we can’t; I never thought anyone could deliver anything, but someone has; and I thought I could deliver what I expected, but I can’t.

This means he or she would have to begin questioning the veracity and reliability of the informing social-reality disposition. As Young (1979: 350) expresses it: “messages [about the assumptive world] travel ‘up the line’ and may lead to some adjustment in assumptions.” Ultimately, the way he or she prefers to relate to others in a particular social arena must also come under scrutiny. When a person reaches the point of disillusionment, he or she must decide how committed he or she is to maintaining his or her current patterns of social relationships in that particular social arena, mindful that these reflect what he or she had previously considered to be an acceptable degree of group restriction on his or her autonomy. This decision, in turn, depends on the anticipated net costs of abandoning the current relationship-arranging principle; the anticipated net benefits to be gained by adopting a new relationship-arranging principle; and how much he or she is out of touch with those aspects of his or her personality that would come to the fore when a new set of new interpersonal relationships has to be forged. Few might actually change their relationship-arranging principle, because the net rewards anticipated from so doing, while other might choose to disengage from that arena, because of the net costs anticipated from any form of continued engagement. If Olli’s coherent individual is confronted with a surprise, then, he or she may well choose not to notice it, or if it is noticed, it may well induce defense mechanisms to come into play. This would motivate that person to exercise emotional self-control or to assert the rightness of his or her cognitive map of that particular social arena, thereby reinforcing the certitude with which the core values that are central to his or her self-identity are held, and the firmness with which he or she holds derivative attitudes and opinions. This would reinforce that person’s faith in the aptness of the directional guidance that flows from the situational logic he or she had chosen to follow, thus making that him or her even more intransigent. In any case, there would be no incentive for him or her to change what he or she considers to be the tolerable degree of constraints that the group can put on his or her individual decision sovereignty or the self-determination of his or her social actions. This means he or she would be unwilling to change his or her social-control comfort-zone boundaries, preferring to maintain his or her current patterns of social relationships. If, however, the cumulative effect of a long sequence of surprises moves him or her to his or her disillusionment threshold, then two choices are confronted. He or she would have to assemble a new cognitive map of that arena, which means changing important, firmly held beliefs that are central to his or her selfidentity, thereby enabling him or her to inculcate new core values, attitudes, opinions into that

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

143

depiction, at least to the extent required to dissipate the effects of the cognitive dissonance he or she is experiencing. This new cognitive map would have to justify why he or she should tolerate more or less individual decision sovereignty and/or more or less self-determination of his or her social actions, as a precursor to redefining his or her social-control comfort-zone boundaries. These boundary changes would necessarily move his or her social-control comfort-zone toward a segment of the social map occupied by followers of another situational logic, depending on whether the or she is prepared to tolerate more or less individual decision sovereignty and/or more of less self-determination of his or her social actions. This would change his or her current patterns of social relationships, because he or she would have different beliefs about the particular social arena, different understanding about what counts as what in it, different appreciation of the group and individual needs or obligations of those in it, and different aroused feelings stimulated by emotion-eliciting events taking place in it. Making such cognition changes would be done only with considerable reluctance. Essentially, he or she would have to affect a personality change in order to express these newly acquired beliefs, understanding, appreciations and aroused feelings. Alternatively, he or she could disengage from a social arena, on the ground that changing his or her social-control comfortzone boundaries would impose too high a cost, relative to the benefits that might flow from so doing. If Olli’s sequential individual is confronted with a surprise, he or she would notice and would quickly become disillusioned with the directional guidance flowing from the situational logic he or she had chosen to follow. This would bring into question the soundness of his or her core values, attitudes and opinions. Because he or she would readily accept the desirability of adopting a new assumptive world involving new core values, attitudes and opinions, and of changing his or her status and role relationships, he or she would not seriously contemplate disengaging from a social arena without first exploring other ways of dissipating the effects of the cognitive dissonance to a tolerable level. He or she would, then, expect, at some point, to have to inculcate new attitudes, opinions and core values into his or her cognitive map of that particular social arena, so as to justify why he or she should tolerate more or less individual decision sovereignty and/or more of less self-determination of his or her social actions, as a precursor to redefining his or her social control-comfort-zone boundaries. This would, in turn, require him or her to change his or her current patterns of social relationships, so that he or she can relate to people who share his or her newly found beliefs, understanding, appreciations and aroused feelings. In this eventuality, his or her willingness to follow a particular situational logic would have changed. If Olli’s synthetic individual is confronted with a surprise, then it would probably have been anticipated. Disillusionment with the directional guidance flowing from the situational logic he or she had chosen to follow would prompt immediate action. Because of his or her cognitive elasticity and capacity to cope with cognitive inconsistency, he or she would not contemplate disengaging from that particular social arena, preferring, instead, to dissipate the effects of the cognitive dissonance experienced to a tolerable level. This he or she would do by drawing upon the narratives of more than one of the competing situational logics, thereby enabling him or her to inculcate readily into his or her cognitive map of that arena new core values and attendant attitudes and opinions. This would enable him or her to justify why he or she should tolerate more or less individual decision sovereignty and/or more or less selfdetermination of his or her social actions as a precursor to redefining their social-control comfort-zone boundaries. This would, of course, require him or her to change his or her

144

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

current patterns of social relationships, so that he or she can relate to people who share his or her newly found beliefs, understanding, appreciations and aroused feelings. In this eventuality, his or her willingness to follow a particular situational logic would have changed.

The Challenge of Adopting New Attitudes Following the directional guidance of a different situational logic in a social arena requires a person to address the challenges of adopting new attitudes (Katz 1960, Shavitt 1989, Smith et al. 1956), which would then become the new salient constituents of his or her cognitive system in that situation. Rosenberg and Hovland (1960) postulated that there are three processes that contribute to the acquisition of a new attitude—affective arousal, behavioral stimulus and cognitive awareness—all of which contribute to generating “an idea charged with emotion which predisposes a class of actions to a particular class of social situations” (Triandis 1971: 2). Thorngate (2001: 95–105) argues that attitudes can be changed as a result of: direct experience (hands-on learning); functional experience (social pressures and conformity, whether the product of normative influences, derived from attempts to avoid embarrassment, censure or ostracism, or of information influences, generated by taking a social action or expressing an opinion); interpersonal communications; and thought, whether deductive, inductive or imaginative). The first two—the experiential factors—he considers, are more powerful than the other two factors. For a new attitude to be accepted requires the satisfaction of one or more of five discrete but interrelated personality-function imperatives (Katz 1960, Shavitt 1989, Smith et al. 1956). First, a person must receive information that initiates deep reflection before he or she begins to question his or her ontological and epistemological dispositions (the knowledge function requirement286). Second, a person holding an attitude toward which he or she has become disillusioned must increase his or her distance from that attitude, although the presence of affective, behavioral and cognitive processes within the construction of that attitude means that emotional reactions can over-rule unfavorable beliefs about it (the ego-defensive or externalization function requirement287). Third, a person whose acceptable level of ambivalence about an attitude has been exceeded, must want to achieve consistency within their cognitive awareness, thereby making him or her more willing and able to realign core values as necessary (the value-expressive function requirement288) (Festinger 1956, Heider 1946, [1958] 1982, Osgood and Tannenbaum 1955). Fourth, a person must be willing and able to engage fully with the new group of other people who are aligned with the attitude to be acquired (the social adjustment function requirement289). Finally a person must believe that material benefits will follow attitudinal change (the adjustive-utilitarian function requirement290). 286

This function serves to let a person either explain or understand what constitutes his or her social world, which means that it encompasses opinions about the predictability and the outcome of events. This function operates as a defense mechanism by allowing a person to distance him or herself from the perceived negative attitude objects or to align him or herself with perceived positive attitude objects. 288 This function encourages a person to associate with others whose values reflect his or her own core values. 289 This function encourages a person to adopt the values of a particular group, so permitting him or her to become a fully integrated group member. 290 This function is rooted in self-interest, and encourages a person to support other individuals or organizations on the basis the expected net benefits to be gained. 287

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

145

A person who is, then, motivated to associate with others who share his or her newly acquired attitudes takes steps to build up a context dependent attitudes, which becomes a mutually satisfactory new way of comprehending a social arena. These attitudes, and their concomitant aroused feelings, must be intersubjectively share, so that everyone involved can assume that they all describe, explain, interpret, and judge that reality in the same way. The presence of affective, behavioral and cognitive processes within the construction of attitudes, however, implies a complexity that can result in a person’s emotional reactions to them overruling his or her reasoning about them, which means that different people can have differential degrees of adherence to them. Arguable, this depends upon their strength of commitment to sustaining their new patterns of social relationships, mindful that these reflect what they now considered to be a different degree of acceptable group restriction on their autonomy.

Confronting Disillusionment It is difficult to predict if and when a person reaches their disillusionment threshold in a social arena, which is the point where the need to dissipate the effects of the cognitive dissonance he or she is experiencing becomes overwhelming, thus justifying and necessitating the overhauling of his or her cognitive map of that arena. Once this threshold is breached, however, the imperative is that that person decides upon which, if any, of the alternative situational logics can best achieve this outcome. This decision, of course, then dictates in what way he or she must engage with others in that situation, however unpalatable that may be.

Attitudes to the Contending Situational Logics and their Followers Of crucial importance in any person faced with the need to decide whether or not to follow the directional guidance of a different situational logic in a social arena is his or her attitude to those who actually follow that situational logic.

Homo Hierarchus on Homo Sociologicus Homo hierarchus consider homo sociologicus belong to cliquish, self-absorbed, and faction-ridden groups, with no respect for the truth or for the authority of the hierarchical group. While both have a commitment to a group that they permit to constrain their individual decision-making sovereignty, the issue in contention is homo sociologicus’s demand for equality in their social relationships. To engage with homo sociologicus would require homo hierarchus to accept that they should have a greater degree of self-determination of their social actions than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo sociologicus’s inclination would be, at least, to cajole homo hierarchus into negotiating their place in the group and what constitutes acceptable social actions in it. Homo hierarchus would be attracted to homo sociologicus’s egalitarian situational logic only if it becomes apparent to them that their physiological and psychological safety and security needs can no longer be met by the hierarchical powers that be. This may be because

146

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

they now believe that the hierarchy no longer evidences any understanding of the social arena, its problems and their solutions. This means that leaving the management of risk to experts unencumbered by moral considerations is no longer acceptable, and that the only solution is to engage with those with whom they share a commitment to construct mutually acceptable joint perspectives that evoke a moral commitment, which can only be achieved through discourses on contestable values and standards. Disillusioned homo hierarchus would have to be willing to express their concern about the limitations of the hierarchical powers that be, and to engage with like-minded people to construct mutually acceptable jointly affirmed understandings, thereby evoking moral commitment. That this would have to be achieve through norming and forming discourses on contestable values standards, would require homo hierarchus to disengage from their structured, orderly and paternalistic group and be willing to negotiate, as equals, their relationships with people who share their concerns and who continually demand that everyone demonstrates their commitment to this common cause. As a result, homo hierarchus would have to confront their reluctance to determine their social relationships without reference to authority figures, and their willingness to value the recognition and acclaim of those who are committed to the new common cause more highly than the approval of authority figures. This means that the disillusioned homo hierarchus must: • •

• •

•

•

•

•

reject the notion of objectivity, and accept, instead, that the social arena can best be understood subjectively as a social construct; reject the influence of the material sociocultural and economic forces present in the social arena on social actions, and accept, instead, that they can best be attributed to the way people socially construct meaning about that arena; reject objective truth criteria, and accept, instead, that the best way to establish the veracity of knowledge claims is apply subjective truth criteria; reject conformity with hierarchically determined moral norms as a matter of habit, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that people have the capacity to engage in morality discourse to establish a set of moral principles to which a commitment can be made; reject rightness of action as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is virtuousness of action, grounded in shared moral experience and consciousness in a particular milieu; reject trusting only those who share common moral beliefs, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those from whom the signals of trustworthiness have been received and understood; reject the use of legitimate, threat or expert power, and accept, instead, that to make people do anything new or differently it is best to use personal, integrative or normative power to solicit voluntary compliance, which only follows a moral commitment to follow instructions that are in accord with jointly affirmed group norms, because it would not be virtuous to do otherwise; and reject bounded, functionally analytical rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve a collegial, harmonious and trustworthy process in which there is a continual striving for the sensible and

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

147

practicable good, so as to achieve acceptable solutions that can be agreed upon by all those involved and affected.

Homo Hierarchus on Homo Existentialis Homo hierarchus consider homo existentialis to be deviants who do not accept the authority of the hierarchical group, and who lack any desire to explain events, in the belief that intelligence cannot improve ignorance and that intentions are pointless. This makes life’s course the outcome of luck and fate, which means that homo existentialis question the hierarchy’s understanding, motivation and causal capacity. Whilst both accept their social actions are, inexorably, circumscribed by group prescription, which is hierarchically imposed on homo hierarchus but self-imposed by homo existentialis, the issue in contention is homo existentialis’s indifference to the paternalistic protection offered by the hierarchy that justifies the constraining individual choice decisions. To engage with homo existentialis would require homo hierarchus to accept that they should have a greater degree of individual decision sovereignty than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo existentialis’s inclination would merely be a shrug of the shoulders in bemusement at homo hierarchus’s unease. Homo hierarchus would be attracted to homo existentialis’s egocentric situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their physiological and psychological safety and security needs can no longer be met by the hierarchical powers that be. This may be because the they now believe that the hierarchy no longer evidenced sufficient knowledge of the social arena, which means that their destiny has become a matter of luck and fate, for their future is now in the hands of either self-interested and self-centered entrepreneurs, who are ever seeking conspicuous material success, or hostile dissidents, who have no respect for the truth or the authority of the group. Disillusioned homo hierarchus would have to be willing to abandon their structured, orderly and paternalistic group, and to become survivors who are indifferent to authority. As a result, homo hierarchus would have to confront their reluctance to act without the approval of authority figures, in fear of being excluded from the paternalistic protection of the hierarchical group; and their need to accept that seeing themselves as survivors despite the odds that fate decrees is more important than gaining the approval of authority figures. This means that the disillusioned homo hierarchus must: • •

•

•

•

reject the notion of objectivity, and accept, instead, that the social arena can best be understood subjectively as it is experienced by them; reject the influence of the material sociocultural and economic forces present in the social arena on social actions, and accept, instead, that they can best be attributed to each person’s idiosyncratic understanding of that arena; reject objective truth criteria, and accept, instead, that the best way to establish the veracity of knowledge claims is to judge whether the consequences of accepting them to be true are considered personally beneficial; reject conformity with hierarchically determined moral norms as a matter of habit, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that moral beliefs are matters of selfdetermined personal taste that require no further justification; reject rightness of action as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is personal preference;

148

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson •

•

•

reject trusting only those with whom they share common moral beliefs, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those with whom personal experience justifies trusting; reject the use of legitimate, threat or expert power, and accept, instead, that to make people do anything new or differently it is best to use destructive threat, physical or coercive power; and reject bounded, functionally analytical rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve random search behavior, inspiration and risk minimization, so as to produce workable solutions that make sense to those involved.

Homo Hierarchus on Homo Economicus Homo hierarchus consider homo economicus to be self-interested and self-centered, with no respect for the authority of the hierarchical group. The issue in contention is fundamental: homo economicus’s insistence on having only a commitment to self and self-interest and to equality and reciprocity in their social relationships. To engage with homo economicus would require homo hierarchus to accept that they should have a greater degree of both individual decision sovereignty and of self-determination of their social actions than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo economicus’s inclination would be to entice homo hierarchus to be more self-oriented in their decision-making and to behave more selfinterestedly, as they really want to do, rather than thinking and behaving as they know others expect of them. Homo hierarchus would be attracted to homo economicus’s individualistic situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their physiological and psychological safety and security can no longer be met by the hierarchical powers that be. This may be because they now believe that the hierarchical powers that be no longer evidence sufficient knowledge of the social arena, its problems and their solutions; and that self-interested opportunists do now evidence such knowledge and are, thus, taking the necessary and desirable risks. Disillusioned homo hierarchus would have to be willing to negotiate freely, as equals, their social relationships. This would require them to abandon the extant structured, orderly and paternalistic group, and to become networking risk-takers intentionally seeking conspicuous material success. As a result, homo hierarchus would have to confront their reluctance to determine social relationships in the social arena without reference to the authority figures, in the fear of being excluded from the paternalistic protection of the hierarchical group if they act without authority-figure approval; and their need to accept that the recognition and acclaim of materially successful people is more important than the approval of authority figures. This means that the disillusioned homo hierarchus must: •

•

reject the influence of the material sociocultural and economic forces present in the social arena on social actions, and accept, instead, that they can best be attributed to the individual intentions that follow a self-interest interpretation of that arena; reject the need for experts to adjudicate objectively on the veracity of knowledge claims and accept, instead, that the veracity of knowledge claims can best be judged on the basis whether the material consequences of so doing are personally beneficial;

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens •

•

•

•

•

149

reject conformity with hierarchically determined moral norms as a matter of habit, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that people have the capacity to subject values to critical material assessment, so enabling them to endorse and select the good ones; reject rightness of action as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is goodness of action in terms of its material consequences; reject trusting only those who share common moral beliefs, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those they confidently estimates to be trustworthy, but only after ascertaining the acceptability of the material loss if that trust is misplaced; reject the use of legitimate, threat or expert power, and accept, instead, that to make people do anything new or differently it is best to use exchange, reward or economic power to solicit voluntary compliance, which only follows a favorable calculation of the compliance costs and benefits involved; and reject bounded, functionally analytical rationality, and accept, instead that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve selection from all possible means the one that creates the best opportunity for self-improvement, which are agree to by the revelation of preferences in the marketplace.

Homo Sociologicus on Homo Hierarchus Homo sociologicus consider that homo hierarchus belong to entrenched hierarchical citadels of privilege, which are forever seeking to exercise control over people. Whilst both have a commitment to a social unit larger than themselves that they permit to constrain their individual decision-making, the issue in contention is homo hierarchus’s acceptance of hierarchically imposed circumscription of their social actions. To engage with homo hierarchus would require homo sociologicus to accept that they should have a lesser degree of self-determination of their social actions than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo hierarchus’s inclination would be, at least, to demand homo sociologicus know and accept their place in the hierarchical group, conform to the hierarchy’s behavioral expectations, and obey its pronouncements. Homo sociologicus would be attracted to homo hierarchus’s hierarchical situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their self-esteem, affiliation and self-actualization needs can no longer be met by engaging in discourses with those with whom they share a commitment. This may be because they now believe that engaging with committed others in discourse does not result in the construction of mutually acceptable understandings of the social arena, its problems and their solution; and that hierarchical authority figures can now properly address these issues in a way that is compatible with their values framework. Disillusioned homo sociologicus would have to be willing to disengage from their personally negotiated egalitarian relationships with committed people, and to re-engage with those in an orderly and paternalistic group, so as to be included as recipients of whatever benefits (including any costs avoided) are to be derived from being members of that group. As a result, they would have to confront their true feelings in support of inequality and differentiation, which have been suppressed by their need to retain an affiliation in an egalitarian group by maintaining an image of being likable, trustworthy and committed; and

150

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

their need to accept that the approval of authority figures is more important than the recognition and acclaim of those committed to the common cause that they previously valued. This means that the disillusioned homo sociologicus must: • •

• •

•

•

•

•

reject the notion of subjectivity, and accept, instead, that the social arena can best be explained objectively; reject the influence of the socially constructed meaning of reality on social actions, and accept, instead, that that they can best be attributed to the material sociocultural and economic forces present in that arena; reject subjective truth criteria, and accept, instead, that that the veracity of knowledge claims can best be judged on the basis objective truth criteria; reject that people have the capacity to engage in a morality discourse that establishes a set of moral principles to which a commitment can be made, and accept, instead, that it is best to conform with hierarchical determined moral norms as a matter of habit; reject virtuousness of action as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is rightness of action, grounded in hierarchically imposed moral imperatives that forbid or permit social actions; reject trusting only those whose signals of trustworthiness have been received and understood, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those who share common moral beliefs; reject the use of personal, integrative or normative power, and accept, instead, that to make people do anything new or differently it is best to use legitimate, threat or expert power to solicit voluntary compliance, which only follows a decision that noncompliance violates accepted behavioral expectations; and reject communicative-value rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve searching for alternative means to hierarchically determined ends prioritized by importance, urgency and values contestability and so produce satisfactory solutions that ought to be agreed upon by everyone.

Homo Sociologicus on Homo Existentialis Homo sociologicus consider homo existentialis to be downtrodden, because they lack any desire to understand events, they sees intentions as pointless, and they are inclined to be preoccupied with the human condition. Homo existentialis questions the point of engaging in values discourses for group-forming and group-norming purposes. The issue in contention is fundamental: homo existentialis’s wary reluctance to become engaged with any group, although they are willing to self-impose its anticipated circumscriptions on their social actions. To engage with homo existentialis would require homo sociologicus to accept that they should have a lesser degree of self-determination of their social actions and a greater degree of individual decisions sovereignty than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo existentialis’s inclination would merely be a shrug of the shoulders in bemusement at homo sociologicus’s unease. Homo sociologicus would be attracted to homo existentialis’s egocentric situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their self-esteem, affiliation and self-actualization needs can no longer be met by engaging in discourse with those with whom they share a

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

151

commitment. This may be because they now believe that engaging with committed others in discourse does not result in the construction of mutually acceptable understandings of the social arena, its problems and their solution, and thus their future is now in the hands of those with power who either are self-interested and take too many risks, or have left management of risk to experts unencumbered by moral considerations. Their destiny has, thus, become a matter of luck and fate. Disillusioned homo sociologicus would have to be willing to disengage from their personally negotiated egalitarian relationships with committed people, and to become survivors who are detached from any values discourse. As a result, they would have to confront their suppressed true feelings in support of not being committed to anyone or any cause; and their need to accept that seeing themselves as survivors despite the odds that fate decrees is more important than the recognition and acclaim of those committed to the common cause that they previously valued. This means that the disillusioned homo sociologicus must: • •

•

•

• •

•

•

reject that the social arena is a social construct, and accept, instead, that it can best be understood subjectively as it is experienced by them; reject the influence of the socially constructed meaning of the reality of a social arena on social actions, and accept, instead, that they can best be attributed to each person’s idiosyncratic understanding of that arena and the social actions of those in it; reject that the veracity of knowledge claims can be judged by whether the consequences of so doing can be affirmed to be socially beneficial, and accept, instead, that their veracity can be best be judged by whether the consequences of accepting it to be true are considered personally beneficial; reject that people have the capacity to engage in moral discourse that establishes a set of moral principles to which a commitment can be made, and accept, instead, that it is best to consider moral beliefs to be matters of self-determined personal taste that require no further justification; reject virtuousness of action is the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is personal preference; reject trusting only those whose signals of trustworthiness have been received and understood, and accept, instead, that trust can best extended only to those with whom personal experience justifies trusting; reject the use of personal, integrative or normative power, and accept, instead, that to make people do anything new or differently it is best to use destructive threat, physical or coercive power, as this is the only way to make people do something they do not want to do; and reject communicative-value rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve random search behavior, inspiration and risk minimization, so as to produce workable solutions that make sense to those involved.

Homo Sociologicus on Homo Economicus Homo sociologicus consider homo economicus to be self-interested and self-centered, thereby placing too much emphasis on exploiting opportunities for personal gain without reference to values and ideals. While both reject externally imposed circumscription of their social actions, the issue in contention is homo economicus’s commitment only to self. To

152

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

engage with homo economicus would require homo sociologicus to accept that they should have a greater degree of individual decision sovereignty than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo sociologicus would be attracted to homo economicus’s individualistic situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their self-esteem, affiliation and self-actualization needs can no longer be met by engaging in discourse with those with whom they share a commitment. This may be because they now believe that engaging with committed others in discourse does not result in the construction of mutually acceptable understandings of the social arena, its problems and their solution; and that self-interested opportunists now evidence such knowledge and are, thus, taking risks in this arena that are consistent with their values framework. Disillusioned homo sociologicus would have to be willing to abandon their personally negotiated egalitarian relationships with committed people, and to become a networking risk-takers intentionally seeking conspicuous material success. As a result they would have to confront their suppressed true feelings in support of self-commitment and selfinterest; and their need to accept that the recognition and acclaim of materially successful people is more important than the recognition and acclaim of those committed to the common cause that they previously valued. This means that the disillusioned homo sociologicus must: • •

• •

•

•

•

•

reject the notion of subjectivity, and accept, instead, that the social arena is best explained objectively; reject the influence of the socially constructed meaning of the reality of a social arena on social actions, and accept, instead, that they are best attributed to the individual intentions that follow a self-interest interpretation of that arena; reject subjective truth criteria, and accept, instead, that knowledge claims can best be verified by the application of objective truth criteria; reject that people have the capacity to engage in morality discourse that establishes a set of moral principles to which a commitment can be made, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that they have the capacity to subject values to critical material assessment, so enabling them to endorse and select the good ones; reject virtuousness of action is the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is goodness of action in terms of its material consequences; reject trusting only those whose signals of trustworthiness have been received and understood, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those they confidently estimated to be trustworthy, but only after ascertaining the acceptability of the material loss if that trust is misplaced; reject the use of personal, integrative or normative power, and accept, instead, that to make people do anything new or differently it is best to use exchange, reward or economic power to solicit voluntary compliance, which only follows a favorable calculation of the compliance costs and benefits involved; and reject communicative-value rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve selection from all possible means the one that creates the best opportunity for self-improvement, which people agreed to by the revelation of their preferences in the marketplace.

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

153

Homo Existentialis on Homo Hierarchus Homo existentialis consider homo hierarchus belong to entrenched hierarchical citadels of privilege, which are forever seeking, perhaps conspiratorially, to dominate, even marginalize, the individual. Whilst both allow their social actions to be circumscribed by group prescription, which is hierarchically imposed on homo hierarchus but self-imposed by homo existentialis, the issue in contention is homo hierarchus’s commitment to a hierarchical group that they permit to constrain their individual decision-making. To engage with homo hierarchus would require homo existentialis to accept that they should have a lesser degree of individual decision sovereignty than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo hierarchus’s inclination would be, at least, to demand that homo existentialis obey the hierarchy’s pronouncements Homo existentialis would be attracted to homo hierarchus’s hierarchical situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their physiological security needs can no longer be met by them seeking to survive in isolation. This may be because they now believes that the social arena, its problems and their solutions are knowable, after all, by the hierarchical powers that be within the group; and that the subjugation of their individual choices to hierarchical determination is now justifiable. Disillusioned homo existentialis would have to be willing to abandon their sense of hopelessness, isolationism and indifference to authority, and to become a member of an orderly and paternalistic hierarchical group, in order to be included as recipients of whatever benefits (including costs avoided) are to be derived from being a member of that group. As a result, they would have to confront their inability to engage personally with a hierarchical group; and their need to accept that gaining the approval of new authority figures is more important than seeing themselves as survivors despite the odds that fate decrees. This means that the disillusioned homo existentialis must: • • •

•

•

•

•

reject that the social arena is a personal construct, and accept, instead, that it is best explained objectively; reject the idiosyncrasy of social actions, and accept, instead, that they can best be attributed to the material sociocultural and economic forces present in that arena; reject that knowledge claims can be judged on the basis of whether the material consequences of so doing are personally beneficial, and accept, instead, that their veracity can best be established by the application of objective truth criteria; reject that moral beliefs are matters of self-determined personal taste that require no further justification, and accept, instead, that it is best to conform with the moral norms of the hierarchical group as a matter of habit; reject personal preference as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is rightness of action, grounded in hierarchically imposed moral imperatives that forbid or permit social actions; reject trusting only those with whom personal experience justifies trusting, and accept, instead, that trust can best extended only to those who share common moral beliefs that reinforce honest social actions; reject the use of destructive threat, physical or coercive power, and accept, instead, that to make people do something they do not wish to do it is best to use legitimate,

154

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

•

threat or expert power to solicit voluntary compliance, which only follows a decision that non-compliance violates accepted behavioral expectations; and reject inspirational-strategic rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve searching for alternative means to hierarchically determined ends prioritized by importance, urgency and values contestability and so produce satisfactory solutions that ought to be agreed upon by everyone.

Homo Existentialis on Homo Sociologicus Homo existentialis consider homo sociologicus belong to cliquish, self-absorbed and faction-ridden groups, which are perpetually protesting and proselytizing pointless intentions. The issue in contention is fundamental: homo sociologicus demand both a commitment to social discourse and negotiated social relationships. To engage with homo sociologicus require homo existentialis to accept that they should have a lesser degree of individual decision sovereignty, as well as a greater degree of self-determination of their social actions, than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo sociologicus’s inclination would be, at least, to cajole homo existentialis into negotiating their place in the group and what constitutes acceptable decisions and acceptable social actions. Homo existentialis would be attracted to homo sociologicus’s egalitarian situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their physiological security needs can no longer be met by them seeking to survive in isolation. This may be because they now believe that the social arena, its problems and their solutions are now knowable, after all, by people engaging in discourse with committed others in the construction of mutually acceptable understandings, achieved through group-norming and group-forming discourses on contestable values and standards. Disillusioned homo existentialis would have to be willing to abandon their sense of hopelessness, isolationism and indifference to authority, and to engage with people who share their concerns and continually demand that everyone demonstrate commitment to the common cause, with whom they would have to negotiate relationships as equals in an egalitarian group; and to demonstrate continually their commitment to the shared cause. As a result, they would have to confront their inability to engage personally with an egalitarian group, and to relate to the social environment closely enough to engender a commitment to any cause; and their need to accept that gaining the recognition and acclaim of those who are committed to their new common cause is more important than seeing themselves as survivors despite the odds that fate decrees. This means that the dissillusioned homo existentialis must: • •

•

reject that the social arena is a personal construct, and accept, instead, that it can best be understood subjectively as a social construct; reject the idiosyncrasy of social actions, and accept, instead, that they can best be attributed to the way people interpret the reality of a social arena as it is socially constructed; reject that the veracity of knowledge claims can be judged on the basis of whether the consequences of believing it to be true are personally beneficial, and accept, instead, that their truth value can be best be judged by whether the consequences of believing them to be true can be affirmed to be socially beneficial;

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens •

•

•

•

•

155

reject that moral beliefs are matters of self-determined personal taste that require no further justification, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that people have the capacity to engage in morality discourse to establish a set of moral principles to which a commitment can be made; reject personal preference as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is virtueness of action, grounded in shared moral experience and consciousness in a particular milieu; reject trusting only those with whom personal experience justifies trusting, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those from whom the signals of trustworthiness have been received and understood; reject the use of destructive threat, physical or coercive power, and accept, instead, that to make people do something they do not wish to do it is best to use personal, integrative or normative power to solicit voluntary compliance, which only follows a decision to make a moral commitment to follow instructions that are in accord with jointly affirmed group norms; and reject inspirational-strategic rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve a collegial, harmonious and trustworthy process in which there is a continual striving for the sensible and practicable good accepted by all those involved and affected.

Homo Existentialis on Homo Economicus Homo existentialis consider homo economicus to be self-interested and self-centered and forever seeking to exploit hapless others for personal benefit. While both are wary of social engagement, albeit for entirely different reasons, the issue in contention is homo economicus’s insistence on equality and reciprocity in their social relationships. To engage with homo economicus would require homo existentialis to accept that they should have a greater degree of self-determination their social actions than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo economicus’s inclination would be to entice homo existentialis to behave more self-interestedly, as they really want to do, rather than thinking and behaving as they think others expect of them. Homo existentialis would be attracted to homo economicus’s individualistic situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their physiological security needs can no longer be met by them seeking to survive in isolation. This may be because they now believe that a social arena, its problems and their solutions are now knowable, after all, by self-interested opportunists. Disillusioned homo existentialis would have to be willing to abandon their sense of hopelessness, isolationism and indifference to authority, and to become a networking risktakers intentionally seeking conspicuous material success. As a result, they would have to confront their inability to relate personally to the social environment closely enough to identify exploitable opportunities for self-benefit; and their need to accept that gaining the recognition and acclaim of materially successful people is more important than seeing themselves as survivors despite the odds that fate decrees. This means that the disillusioned homo existentialis must:

156

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson • •

•

•

•

•

•

•

reject that the social arena is a personal construct, and accept, instead, that it is best explained objectively; reject the idiosyncrasy of social actions, and accept, instead, that they can best be attributed to the individual intentions that follow a self-interest interpretation of a social arena; reject that knowledge claims can be judged on the basis of whether the consequences of believing it to be true are personally beneficial, and accept, instead, that their veracity can best be established by the application of objective truth criteria; reject moral beliefs are matters of self-determined personal taste that require no further justification, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that people have the capacity to subject values to critical material assessment, so enabling them to endorse and select the good ones; reject personal preference as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is goodness of action in terms of its material consequences; reject trusting only those with whom experiences justify trusting, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those confidently estimated to be trustworthy, but only after ascertaining the acceptability of the material loss if that trust is misplaced; reject the use of destructive threat, physical or coercive power, and accept, instead, that to make people do something they do not wish to do it is best to use exchange, reward or economic power to solicit voluntary compliance, which only follows a favorable calculation of the compliance costs and benefits involved; and reject inspirational-strategic rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve selection from all possible means the one that creates the best opportunity for self-improvement, which people agreed to by the revelation of their preferences in the marketplace.

Homo Economicus on Homo Hierarchus Homo economicus consider homo hierarchus belong to entrenched hierarchical citadels of privilege, which are forever seeking to constrain their negative freedom. The issue in contention is fundamental: homo hierarchus’s insistence on commitment to the hierarchical group and to differentiation in their social relationships. To engage with homo hierarchus would require homo economicus to accept that they should have a lesser degree of both individual decision sovereignty and self-determination of their social actions than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo hierarchus’s inclination would be, at least, to demand that homo economicus know and accept their place in the hierarchical group, conform to its social expectations, and obey its pronouncements. Homo economicus would be attracted to homo hierarchus’s hierarchical situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their esteem and prestige needs can no longer be met by intentionally seeking conspicuous material success. This may be because they now believe that self-interested opportunists now evidence insufficient knowledge of the social arena, its problems and their solutions and are taking inappropriate risks; that the hierarchical authority figures have now demonstrated their knowledge of such matters; and that the imposition of constraints on their decision sovereignty and the self-determination of their social actions is

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

157

now justifiable. Disillusioned homo economicus would have to be willing to abandon their preference for networked, spontaneous exchange relationships, so as to become members of an orderly and paternalistic hierarchical group, thereby being included as a recipient of whatever benefits (including costs avoided) are to be derived from being a member of that group. As a result they would have to confront both their true feelings in favor of unequal engagements with other people, which have been suppressed by their need to maintain an image of being likable and trustworthy opportunists who establish relationships for mutual benefit; and their need to accept that gaining the approval of authority figures is more important than gaining the recognition and acclaim of materially successful people. This means that the disillusioned homo economicus must: •

•

•

•

•

•

•

reject individual intentions, and accept, instead, that social actions can best be attributed to the material sociocultural and economic forces present in the social arena; reject that the veracity of knowledge claims can be judged on the basis of whether the material consequences of so doing are personally beneficial; and accept, instead, it is best to leave it to experts to adjudicate their veracity objectively; reject that people have the capacity to subject their values to critical material assessment, and accept, instead, it is best to conform with hierarchically determined moral norms as a matter of habit; reject goodness of action as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is rightness of action, established by reference to hierarchically imposed moral imperatives that forbid or permit social actions; reject trusting only those who are confidently estimated to be trustworthy, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those with whom they share common moral beliefs that reinforce honest social actions; reject the use of use exchange, reward or economic power, and accept, instead, that to make people do anything new or differently it is best to use legitimate, threat or expert power to solicit voluntary compliance, which only follows a decision that noncompliance violates accepted behavioral expectations; and reject functional-strategic rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve searching for alternative means to hierarchically determined ends prioritized by importance, urgency and values contestability and so produce satisfactory solutions that ought to be agreed upon by everyone.

Homo Economicus on Homo Sociologicus Homo economicus consider homo sociologicus belong to cliquish, self-absorbed, and faction-ridden groups, which are too intent on winning converts by means of futile values discourses. Whilst both reject external circumscription of their social actions, the issue in contention is homo sociologicus’s demand for social engagement that involves a concomitant values commitment. To engage with homo sociologicus would require homo economicus to accept that they should have a lesser degree of individual decision sovereignty than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo sociologicus’s inclination would be, at least, to cajole homo economicus into negotiating their decision outcomes with them.

158

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Homo economicus would be attracted to homo sociologicus’s egalitarian situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their esteem and prestige needs can no longer be met by intentionally seeking conspicuous material success. This may be because they now believe that self-interested opportunists no longer evidence sufficient knowledge of the social arena, its problems and their solution and are, thus, taking inappropriate risks; and that the solution is to express their concerns about inappropriate risk taking, and engage with like-minded people to construct mutually acceptable joint perspectives that evoke a moral commitment, which can only be achieved through discourses on contestable values and standards. Disillusioned homo economicus would have to be willing to abandon their preference for networked, spontaneous exchange relationships, and to negotiate their relationship with people who share their concerns and demand that everyone demonstrates, continually, their commitment to the common cause. As a result, they would have to confront their suppressed true feelings in favor of making the necessary commitment to a socially constructed set of values; and their need to accept that gaining the recognition and acclaim of those who are committed to their new common cause is more important than gaining the recognition and acclaim of materially successful people. This means that the disillusioned homo economicus must • •

• •

•

•

•

•

reject the notion of objectivity, and accept, instead, that the social arena is best understood subjectively as a social construct; reject individual intentions, and accept, instead, that social actions can best be attributed to the way people interpret the reality of a social arena as it is socially constructed; reject objective truth criteria, and accept, instead, that the best way of establishing the veracity of knowledge claims is to apply subjective truth criteria; reject that people have the capacity to subject values to critical material assessment, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that people have the capacity to engage in morality discourse to establish a set of moral principles to which a commitment can be made; reject goodness of action as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is virtueness of action, grounded in shared moral experience and consciousness in a particular milieu; reject trusting only those who are confidently estimated to be trustworthy, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those from whom the signals of trustworthiness have been received and understood; reject the use of use exchange, reward or economic power, and accept, instead, that to make people do anything new or differently it is best to use personal integrative or normative power to solicit voluntary compliance, which only follows a moral commitment to follow instructions that are in accord with jointly affirmed group norms, because it would not be virtuous to do otherwise; and reject functional-strategic rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve a collegial, harmonious and trustworthy process in which there is a continual striving for the sensible and practicable good, so as to achieve acceptable solutions that can be agreed upon by all those involved and affected.

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

159

Homo Economicus on Homo Existentialis Homo economicus consider homo existentialis to be unmotivated and preoccupied with the human condition, forever questioning the point of anything. While both are wary of social engagement, albeit for entirely different reasons, the issue in contention is homo existentialis’s willingness to self-impose anticipated group constrictions on their social actions. To engage with homo existentialis would require homo economicus to accept that they should have a lesser degree of self-determination of their social actions than they have been comfortable with in the past. Homo existentialis’s inclination would be merely a shrug of the shoulders in bemusement at homo economicus’s unease. Homo economicus would be attracted to homo existentialis’s egocentric situational logic if it becomes apparent to them that their esteem and prestige needs can no longer be met by intentionally seeking conspicuous material success. This may be because they now believe that self-interested opportunists no longer evidence sufficient knowledge of the social arena, its problems and their solution; and that their future is in the hands of the privileged in authority, who are forever seeking to enforce group choices and circumscribe social interactions, or hostile dissidents, who are forever demanding commercially risky courses of action to be taken. Their destiny has, thus, become a matter of fate. This would require them to abandon their preference for networked, spontaneous exchange relationships and to become survivors who are indifferent to material success. As a result they would have to confront their suppressed true feelings about not being in control of their destiny, and their need to accept that being perceived as survivors despite the odds that fate decrees is more important than gaining the recognition and acclaim of materially successful people. This means that the dissillusioned homo economicus must: • •

•

•

• •

•

reject the notion of objectivity, and accept, instead, that the social arena is best understood subjectively as it is experienced by them; reject individual intentions, and accept, instead, that social actions can best be attributed to each person’s idiosyncratic understanding of the social arena and the social actions of those in it; reject objective truth criteria, and accept, instead, that the veracity of knowledge claims can best be judged by whether the consequences of accepting it to be true are considered personally beneficial; reject that people have the capacity to subject values to critical material assessment, and accept, instead, that moral beliefs are best considered to be matters of selfdetermined personal taste that require no further justification; reject goodness of action as the appropriate guide to moral conduct, and accept, instead, that the best guide is personal preference; reject trusting only those who are confidently estimated to be trustworthy, and accept, instead, that trust can best be extended only to those with whom personal experience justifies trusting; reject the use of use exchange, reward or economic power, and accept, instead, that to make people do anything new or differently it is best to use destructive threat, physical or coercive power, as this is the only way to make people do something they do not want to do; and

160

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson •

reject functional-strategic rationality, and accept, instead, that it is best to presume that decision analysis must involve random search behavior, inspiration and risk minimization, so as to produce workable solutions that make sense to those involved.

THE CHALLENGE OF UNDIMINISHED COGNITIVE DISSONANCE Despair, in the Sartrian sense of being a reaction to the obstinate and frustrating nature of the social world, is born of the undiminished cognitive dissonance that follows one of three realizations. The first is when the single-minded coherent individual, who relishes his or her self-defining and virtually unquestionable beliefs, ultimately comes to the insufferable realization not only that his or her cognitive map of a particular social arena is fundamentally flawed, but also that the prospect of realigning, fundamentally, his or her firmly held set of expectations about his or her status and roles in that arena is quite unimaginable. This realization occurs despite his or her readiness to deny his or her consistent and predictable mental errors (cognitive biases291) and to engage, willingly, in selective thinking (confirmation bias) by noticing, looking for and remembering only evidence that confirming his or her beliefs (congenial information), and by undervaluing, forgetting, ignoring, or not looking for contradictory evidence (hostile information)292 (Frey 1986). The second realization is when the adaptable sequential individual, who can be reflexive when challenged and able to question the premises of his or her cognitive map of a social arena, ultimately comes to the frustrating realization that substituting any of the alternative situational logics does not diminish the cognitive dissonance being experienced. This happens because none of the situational logics can provide a cognitive map of a social arena that produces beliefs that coincide with certainties—an assumptive world without surprise. The third realization is when the flexible synthetic individual, who is instinctively reflexive, perpetually questioning the premises of his or her cognitive map of a social arena, and able to cope with significant degrees of cognitive ambiguity, ultimately comes to the exasperating realization that there is a limit to which the nooks and crannies of ambiguity can be tolerated. For some, disengagement from that social arena would be an attractive option, if net rewards from so doing can be anticipated. They would assert, perhaps even believe, that they are avoiding an alienating and marginalized existence. For others, opting out, is a luxury that cannot be afforded, even in the face of such despair. Yet, the cognitive dissonance they are experiencing is increasingly telling them that there is no point in continuing to draw upon any 291

“Cognitive biases are mental errors caused by our simplified information processing strategies. It is important to distinguish cognitive biases from other forms of bias, such as cultural bias, organizational bias, or bias that results from one’s own self-interest. In other words, a cognitive bias does not result from any emotional or intellectual predisposition toward a certain judgment, but rather from subconscious mental procedures for processing information.” (Heuer 1999, Ch. 9, see also Dawes 1988, Hogarth 1980, Nisbett and Ross 1980). 292 Psychologists call this the selective exposure hypothesis. Festinger (1957) observed that a person when forced to confront hostile information may distort it. Frey (1986) concluded that undervaluing hostile information (and overvaluing congenial information) is more pronounced when a person is committed to a attitude that is the focus of the cognitive dissonance because it was the basis of a irreversible behavioral decision, and less pronounced when motives other than cognitive consistency come into play, such as when hostile information is relevant to goal attainment (Eagly and Chaiken 1998). Levine and Murphy (1943) found evidence that congenial information is remembered better than hostile information, although subsequent research suggests that this may depend on whether attitudes are linked to important personal or reference group values or are controversial in nature (Eagly et al. 1999).

Reading a Relational Situation Differently: The Challenge of Changing Lens

161

of the situational logics to explain and interpret events, to anticipate future events and their outcomes, or, ultimately, to seek to reunite certainties and beliefs. Yet, the unacceptability of disengagement also remains. For them, the challenge is to challenge conventional wisdom and begin the search for a new way of reconciling beliefs with certainties.

CONCLUSION For a cognitively consistent person to change the lens through which a social arena is read—thereby be guided by a different situational logic—is a fraught process. It is one that necessitates him or her choosing a different relationship-arranging principle, and thus adopting a different set of status and role relationships with others in that arena. This chapter has explored whether and why a cognitively consistent person might be willing to follow a different situational logic in a social arena. It postulated that such a change would occur only if that person has come to believe that a different situational logic is potentially more attractive than that to which he or she currently subscribes. The change catalyst for this is surprise—when certainties (what is) come into conflict with beliefs (what is expected) grounded in a particular situational logic. If surprise reduces the perceived net rewards achieved in a social arena, then adopting a new relationship-arranging principle becomes a potentially desirable possibility, as does disengagement. The process by which a person sloughs off his or her current allegiance to a relationship-arranging principle is a difficult one, for it requires that he or she be disillusioned enough to begin questioning his or her cognitive map of that arena. When this disillusionment point is reached depends on how committed that person is to maintaining their current pattern of social relationships. Once this point is reached, however, the imperative is for him or her to decide upon which, if any, of the alternative situational logics can better achieve this outcome. This decision, of course, then dictates in what way he or she must engage with others, however unpalatable that may be. Of crucial importance here are his or her attitudes toward those who follow the directional guidance of other situational logics, and, in that light, what he or she perceive to be the implications of adopting a new relationship-arranging principle. The point of despair is reached when a person realizes that none of the situational logics enables him or her to describe, explain, interpret, judge and predict what he or she is experiencing in a social arena in a way that ensures beliefs and certainties acceptably coincide. This brings to the fore whether there might be a process and a methodology that moves beyond the flawed epistemological and ontological dichotomies toward their integration, so as to provide a better-quality lens that removes the double vision (contradictory cognitions) being experienced by enabling the beliefs about and certainties of that social arena to come together, making the directional guidance garnered more reliable.

Chapter 4

READING A RELATIONAL SITUATION BETTER: DESIGNING A BETTER LENS INTRODUCTION The final frontier of this study is how a cognitively consistent person might best respond to the undiminished cognitive dissonance he or she is experiencing in a social arena, because what-is is not what-is-expected. The proposition advanced in this chapter is that when a cognitively consistent person is faced with the need to change his or her assumptions about that arena in a way that diminishes the gap between beliefs and reality, he or she must engage, alone and with like-minded others, in investigative processes involving reflectiveintrospection that challenge and, ultimately, change their assumptions about that arena. The process begins with the recognition that in that arena there are problems or dilemmas that need to be reflected upon, and the acceptance that uncertainty surrounds their causation and solution, which are Dewey’s (1933, 1938) two prerequisites for the initiation of reflective thinking. Only then can a person begin the deep exploration process of evaluating his or her self-generated, untested and identity-shaping core beliefs—assumptions and expectations— about the fundamental qualities of that social arena and of those present in it, so as to identify the sources of the cognitive dissonance being experienced. This necessitates a move beyond the flawed epistemological and ontological dichotomies, toward their integration. Only then can that person’s assumptive world be moved closer to the actualities of a social arena. From the reflexive introspective process that this reconciliation involves comes a deeper knowledge of that arena, which gives rise to directional guidance that justifies the adoption of a particular strategic course of social actions. This, of course, involves the adoption of entirely new way of engaging with others.

164

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

REFLEXIVE INTROSPECTION AND THE SEARCH FOR UNDERSTANDING Of the reflective-introspective process, James (1890a: 185) remarked: “Introspective observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always.”293 Such a process aims, according to Archer (2000: 142), to “delineate and prioritize” concerns; to survey “the objective circumstances and make discretionary judgments about the courses of action” deemed to be desirable; and to give rise to a decision on the feasibility of that course of social action. Such a process involves a person directly examining and reflecting upon his or her conscious mental states, which are not only the foundation of his or her social knowledge, but also the basis of his or her discriminating judgments. Longeran ([1957] 1992, 1972) identifies three such mental states in his analysis of human knowing: experience, understanding and judgment. His practical advice is: be attentive to experience; be intelligent about how meaning is taken from that experience; and be responsible for any decisions and social actions that follow judgments grounded in the understanding of experience and on the value placed on it. Identifying and eliminating the sources of cognitive dissonance, involves identifying and examining what has shaped the social arena in a way that has given rise to contradictory cognitions. The starting point is Bourdieu’s notion of site ontology (Bourdieu 1973, 1977, 1986, 1990; see also 1973, Bourdieu and Passeron [1970] 1990, Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, Schatzki 2002). This enables that arena to be differentiated, analyzed and reflected upon, which requires a willingness and ability to: •

•

293

demarcate that arena as a bounded realm of activity—a field294—in which there can be economic capital,295 social capital,296 and cultural capital297 and in which people strategically pursue desirable outcomes; reflect critically on the practical knowledge that he or she has of the social actions of people located in this field, which bestows the meaning given to it—his or her

Soberingly, Frankl ([1949/1975] 2000: 155), muses: “once the self reflects on itself, it is no longer the true self that exhibits itself.” He asserts: “the self does not yield to self-reflection. In this sense, human existence is basically unreflectable, and so is the self itself. Human existence exists in action rather than reflection” (p. 35) He goes on to argue that self-reflection can be “overbearing” and “unnecessary” (p. 43). 294 This is the network of social positions in a power relationship: “a network or configuration of objective relationships between different positions. The positions are objectively defined ... on the basis of their current and potential place in relation to the distribution of various forms of power (or capital)” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1996: 84). 295 This is the accumulated stock of economic resources, comprising natural resources, manufactured means of production, financial assets, and intellectual property. 296 This is “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (Bourdieu 1986: 26). It is the accumulated stock of influence and support derived from networks and relationships—akin to guanxi in a Chinese setting (Dixon and Newman 1999)—grounded in the shared values or norms that permit co-operation within a group (bonding social capital, which bonds homogenous groups) or between groups (bridging social capital, which links socially heterogeneous groups) (Field 2003, Putnam 2000). The willingness of people to engage in collective activities builds up social capital. 297 This is the accumulated stock of advantages (various sociocultural and linguistic competencies) embodied in individuals—akin to human capital (Becker [1964] 1975, 1976) and its derivative human development theory (Sen 2001)—such as qualifications, knowledge, skills, and attributes and character (such as talent, ingenuity, motivation, leadership and creativity), and even life expectations. The essence of this notion can be found in Bernoulli’s [1738] 1954: 28] definition of wealth as “anything that can contribute to the adequate satisfaction

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

•

165

habitus298—being critically mindful of how his or her own mental processes influence his or her beliefs, and interpret his or her experiences, feelings and moods; and reflect critically and introspectively on his or her experiences that have produces unquestioning acceptances of taken-for-granted and unquestionable beliefs and conjectures in this field—his or her doxa.299

This requires critical reflection on the material, ideational and human evolving properties present in that arena, which are the product of past distributions of economic, social, and cultural capital. To do this, requires critical reflection on the cognitive processes that had previously guided the formulation of attitudes about, and the conduct of social actions in, that arena. This reflexive interrogation involves questioning critically the basis upon which the truthvalue of information received on, or from, that arena has been derived. This must question the criteria and standards by which the past truthfulness of causal relationships has been judged. It must also question how normative meaning has been derived from past experiences and from the decisions and social actions of others. This entails questioning of the ethical premises upon which past judgement have been made on the morality of conduct, which justified what previously had constituted acceptable standards of social actions. Such self-critical reflection also requires introspection, in recognition that a person brings to any social arena his or her self-concept, social identities and dispositions, as they have evolved over time in response to the challenges confronted in the natural, practical and discursive orders of that arena. This permits a person to identify and re-assess the implications of the changeable facts about him or herself and of the circumstances that have set his or her expectations of self and others. For that person to re-visit his or her dreams, hopes, fears and future expectations, is to re-visit the self-imposed boundary conditions that have limited his or her agential intentions. The outcome may well be the re-definition of the specific mode of social conduct and the desired end-state of existence that he or she had previously found personally acceptable and preferable. As a consequence, a person may change how he or she perceives and evaluates others; how he or she relates to other individuals, thereby permitting the release of repressed of any sort of want … here is then nobody who can be said to possess nothing at all in this sense unless he starves to death.” This is the acquired patterns of thought, behavior and taste attained through social conditioning (Bourdieu 1977). It is the set of acquired perceptions, thoughts and actions that constitute a person’s most basic understanding of the world, and how she or he should behave in it. It includes the spectrum of cognitive and affective factors that induces a person to act in particular ways in specific situations. It is durably engendered by objective conditions and gives rise to scripts or narratives, which tend to survive the alteration of those formative conditions. It constitutes a person’s linguistic and praxis environment and, thus, sets the context for his or her reasoning. As it exists largely at an unconscious level, it cannot be fully known. At any point in time, however, it limits a person’s array of choices or readiness for action. This complex notion reflects Bourdieu’s rejection of the ontological dichotomy and his concern to focus on an agent’s practices of self-domestication. The emphasis here is on social mediation, or the practices that take place between agents rather than those initiated by agents. Habitus is very much a human phenomenon (King 2005). 299 This is a set of convictions that are taken to be self-evidently true, yet remain logically unjustified, which means they are taken for granted and never discussed or questioned. The holder of these convictions has no awareness of their origins and developments. They are not regarded as having a permanent unanimity, but a person must experience a reflexive process, most likely as a result of specific historical circumstances, before he or she would alter his or her internalized practices (Bourdieu 1990: 20). 298

166

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

emotions by their free expression (catharsis) (Freud 1957); and how, and even whether, he or she can manifests purposeful intentions. This can result in him or her being better able to monitor, reflect upon and control intentions. In so doing, that person becomes more aware that if his or her aspiration for an assumptive world without surprises is to be achieved, he or she must remain aware not only of the hypothetical nature of his or her chosen mode of social conduct and desired end-state, but also of the need to reality check the internalized images used to represent that social arena, by continuous reflexive deliberations on his or her unique values, attitudes and social actions of self and others. Only then can that person begin to construct an assumptive world that produces no surprises in the interface between the specific social realities perceived in that arena and his or her specific assumptions made about those realities. Such self-critical reflection can modify a person’s hierarchically arranged sets of truths, truth propositions, models of the individual, human nature suppositions, ethical principles, and modes of reasoning, so as to re-formulate his or her enduring beliefs—core values— about a particular social arena: • • • •

what exists and has causal capacity within it? what he or she and significant others agree counts as what in it? what are the needs or obligations that require him or her to do something in it? what distinct emotional states or feelings are arousing by it?

This, then, guides that person’s attitudes toward, and social actions in, that arena. During the process of self-critical reflection on the structures, processes, events and people present in a social arena, the situational advantages or disadvantages can be identified, so as to ascertain the best course of action to be taken in that arena. This can inspire strategic collective action, achieved by engaging others, although, as Olson (1965) established, this can be problematic (the fallacy of composition300). Rational self-interest can lead a person to take advantage of the benefits of collective action while avoiding any personal contribution, so becoming a free rider, which means that only a separate and ‘selective’ incentive [such as a psychic benefit generated by recognition and prestige] will stimulate a rational individual in a latent group to act in a group-oriented way. … The incentive must be ‘selective’ so that those who do not join the organization working for the group’s interest or in other ways contruibute to the attainment of the group’s interest, can be treated differently from those who do (Olson 1965: 49–50).

If collective engagement is achieved, the resultant emergent networks—founded on the logics of cognitive dissonance—are potentially capable of relieving cognitive dissonance by generating additional information that begins to reconcile contradictory cognitions. To actualize this potential requires those networked to construct of a shared meaning system, as a stable orientation for social actions, one that is able to describe and explain a social arena in a mutually acceptable way, at least to the point where those concerned can work together to 300

This is the “fallacy of inferring from the fact that every part of a whole has a given property that the whole also has that property” (Holt 2005–6). So, if the members of a group are rational and if it is in the collective interest of the group to take an action, then it does not necessarily follow that the group will be collectively rational and act in its own interest.

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

167

articulate their shared interests, to organize for the collective actions needed to advance their collective interests, and to exercise influence on decision-making processes within that arena. This outcome can only be achieved by social mediation.

SOCIAL MEDIATION AND THE SEARCH FOR UNDERSTANDING The notion of unity-in-diversity is used here to describe the optimal mode of social engagement amongst those wishing to construct a shared meaning system as their representation of a particular social arena, modulated by the wish to construct an inclusive group (Ravn 1991: 102–3), one that accepts the legitimacy of all the contending situational logics. This modulation would be the result of a reconstruction of their expectations about personal relationships, stimulated by learning experience focused on understanding why other people anticipate different outcomes from their social engagements based on their past experiences. Vygotsky (1962, 1978) argues that people gradually transform their cognitive and other capabilities by becoming immersed in practice, achieved through participation in social interactions. The mechanism by which practice is internalized as mental functioning is social mediation, which is an instrument of cognitive change (Kozulin 1990). Human thought, which takes place in the context of practice, refines knowledge through social mediation, thereby making it viable and coherent. This means that language, and the ideas that it communicates, is dynamic, relational and involves a process of endless describing and redescribing of the world (Bahktin [1975] 1981). Insights into the ideal social mediation process can be gleaned from Habermas’ notion of communicative rationality, which, in the tradition of the Socratic dialogues,301 locates rationality in structures of interpersonal communications (Habermas [1981] 1985, 1987, but see also 1968, 1971, 1975, 1986, 1996; see also Barnes 1974, Feyerabend 1975, KnorrCertina 1981, Kuhn 1970). Communicative rationality has been defined by Dryzek (1987: 434) as: [A form of discourse that] is free from domination (the exercise of power), strategic social actions by the actors involved, and (self) deception. Further, all actors should be equally and fully capable of making and questioning arguments (that is, they should be communicatively competent). There should be no restrictions on the participation of these competent actors. Under these conditions, the only remaining authority is that of a ‘good’ argument, which can be advanced on behalf of the veracity of empirical description, explanation, and understanding, and just as importantly, the validity of normative judgments.

Such mediation requires the creation of reflexive and pluralized structures, which must be able to accommodate a variety of epistemological, ontological and ethical perspectives, 301

“A Socratic Dialogue can happen at any time between two or more people when they seek to answer a question [about something] ... answerable by our own effort of reflection and thinking ... [starting] from the concrete ... [asking] all sorts of questions [until] the details of the example are fleshed out ... [as] a kind of platform for reaching more general judgments” (Leal and Saran 1998: 130–31). Russell (1946: 113) observes: “Wherever what is being debated is logical rather than factual, discussion is a good method of eliciting the truth… the dialectic method—or, more generally, unfettered discussion—tends to promote logical consistency, and is in this way useful.”

168

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

thereby enabling the accommodation of varying degrees of individual objectivity and subjectivity over time, so as to facilitate their wholistic integration. This requires that recognition be given to the synergy between the objective and subjective and to the presence of these discernments in a person as a psychological issue that cannot be reduced to abstract philosophical precepts. To achieve this, all participants in a social mediation process must be willing and able to engaging in a form of social interaction that avoids the discourse becoming a dialogue of the deaf—all the voices talking but none listening or an unresponsive dialogue—or an unresponsive dialogue—one voice drowning out all the others. Thus, they must be willing to suspend any customary status and role relationships with other participants in the social mediation process. Indeed, they must accept that the only required differentiation is on the basis of the nature of their participation in social praxis,302 the cycle of action-reflectionaction that emphasizes self-determination, intentions, creativity, and rationality. People who have reached this critical point in their personal search for a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms or imperatives that have given rise to their cognitive dissonance must become willing and able engage with others in a dialogical process303. This involves discarding an adherence to any residual a priori structural and agential expectational constraints on social actions, which frees them to engage with others in what Foucault (1983) called, drawing on the classic discipline of rhetoric, parrhesia304—free speech as a mode of discourse in an ideal speech situation. Those whose attitudinal and behavioral expectations of self and others have been molded by dutiful norm conformity must accept that their agential intentions no longer have to be constrained by any sense of obligation to the powers that be. Those who are inclined to place importance on collectively affirmed virtues must accept that their agential intentions no longer have to be constrained by discernments of virtuous social actions that have emerged from exclusive consensus. Those inclined to existential self-referentiality must accept that their agential intentions no longer have to be constrained by their understanding of others’ discernments of them. Those inclined to egoistic self-interest must accept that their agential intentions may have to be constrained by imperatives articulated by the group. To become reflexive and to exercise a significant degree of interpretive freedom305, both of which are essential for an effective dialogical process, requires those engaged in an ideal speech situation to be willing and able to:

302

Praxiology places emphasis on the world being understood through the explication of the situatedness of human activities (Skirbekk 1983 see also Kahoe 2003). To Gramsci (1971), meaning can only be derived from practical activity—praxis—which empathizes with the transformative nature of action and its priority over thought. 303 “Dialogical interactions involve interdependencies that cannot be reduced to outer cause-effect relations. The basic constituents of discourse are interactions (exchanges, interacts), rather than speech acts or utterances by autonomous speakers (authors, communicators). Also the single utterance by one utterer is interactive in nature” (Linell 2007: 7). 304 “The one who uses parrhesia ["free speech”], the parrhesiastes, is someone who says everything he has in mind: he does not hide anything, but opens his heart and mind completely to other people through his discourse. In parrhesia, the speaker is supposed to give a complete and exact account of what he has in mind so that the audience is able to comprehend exactly what the speaker thinks. The word ‘parrhesia’ then, refers to a type of relationship between the speaker and what he says” (Foucault 1983). 305 This is the “potential interpretive volatility” associated with making discretionary judgments balancing the costs and benefits for adopting a particular course of action (Archer 1995: 208–12).

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens •

•

• • •

169

be an active (or influencing) agent, casting aside any inclination they may have toward reactivity or passivity, but without recourse to the use of any power they may command; distinguish between truth and reality, by recognizing that there are multiple methodologies that can be used to adjudicate on what constitutes genuine social knowledge; accept that knowledge of, and in, the world of persons is inherently fragmented, tenuous and constantly subject to change; question their habits of mind—their stock of taken-for-granted, commonsense or tacit knowledge; and adopt new, perhaps emotion-tinged, ideas, so predisposing them to new social actions, even though their adoption requires them to: • move closer to what they perceive to be negative experiences; • support others without the inducement or coercion; • associate with those whose aims do not entirely reflect their own core values; and • adopt a new set of values, so as to become fully integrated members of a new grouping.

Once those committed to social mediation have decided to engage with each others in a dialogical process within an ideal speech situation, they need to acknowledge that everyone is entitled to entertain and advance their explanations and understandings, all of which must be accepted as legitimate. This is the starting point in any dialogical process. When discourse is based on a fundamental mutual respect for difference, then constructive unity-in-diversity may be achieved. As each social mediation participant reflects on the testimony of others, it should become apparent to them that knowledge can be validated in different ways and that a singular appreciation might only be a partial and imperfect interpretation of what a person can erroneously refer to as knowledge (Welbourne 2001: 125). In aspiring to propagate this notion of mutual respect, those engaged in a social mediation process must monitor and review the social dynamics that prevail, on the basis of honest reflection over differing but equally legitimate values, attitudes and opinions. This, however, is not unproblematic. It may mean that, hypothetically, group constraints on individual social actions are subjected to as much scrutiny as are individual choice preferences. Such scrutiny must inevitably take the discourse in a direction that begins a process of re-defining participants’ social maps, thereby, of establishing possible sets of new status and role relationships. Thus, participants must be willing to accept that this scrutiny process can, ultimately, challenges their preferred degree of individual decision sovereignty and of self-determination of their social actions, which inevitably threatens to take them out of their customary social-control comfort zone, and, thus, threaten their customary status and role relationships. This outcome can only be achieved by identifying and understanding the imperatives that condition their and other’s, interpretation of events that are the reasons for past, and the justification of future collective action. Needed, then, is a methodology that opens up the material, ideational and human evolving properties present in that social arena “for an infinite regress, a recursive movement of ethical and moral reflection that has no ultimate foundation” (Ravn 1991: 105). Archer’s (1995) morphogenetic methodology offers such a methodology.

170

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

MORPHOGENETIC METHODOLOGY AND THE SEARCH FOR UNDERSTANDING Archer’s (1995) morphogenetic methodology is grounded in realist social theory, which is a manifestation of Bhaskar’s epistemological and ontological insights. It provides a way of contextualizing and integrating objective and subjective (first-person) knowledge. It is directly informed by critical realism and the transformational model of social action.

Critical Realism Bhaskar (1975 1979), in the tradition of Sellars (1916), Santayana (1905–06) and Drake et al. (1920), offers critical realism (see also Archer, et al. 1998, Collier 1994) as an epistemological synthesis (see also Harré 1970 1972, 1986, Hesse 1966), one that provides a basis for the unification of the material and ideational dimensions of social knowledge acquisition. It maintains that reality is an objectively knowable, although it does acknowledge the challenges posed by sensory perception and cognition, but it argues that empiricism has not been a very successful way of investigating its social dimension.306 Critical realism has evolved into dialectical critical realism, which argues that critical realism needs to be dialecticized by bringing to the fore its implications for human emancipation and liberation (Bhaskar 1993). Critical realism unites empirical enquiry methods and social practices by acknowledging that knowledge is a social product, as suggested in the work of Peirce (1932a)307 and Latour and Woolgar (1979) 308, whilst also recognizing the existence of the objects of truths derived by means of naturalist epistemological methods. It seeks, therefore, to provide an antipositivist description of the world whilst still maintaining a realist stance. It has become a philosophical movement, one that claims that causal laws state the tendencies of things grounded in their structures, not invariable conjunctions, which are rare outside experiments. … Critical realism holds that there is more to ‘what is’ than ‘what is known’, more to powers than their use, and more to society than the individuals composing it. It rejects the widespread view that explanation is always neutral—to explain can be to criticize (Craig 2005: 157, see also Danermark 2003). 306

307

308

As Lukes ([1974]: 10) remarks: “When the ideal of scientific knowledge—empiricism—is applied to nature it simply furthers the progress of science. But when it is applied to society it turns out to be an ideological weapon.” Peircean pragmatism proposes that, within the human conceptualization of truth and reality, there can be an epistemology with more than a single source of knowledge and various methods of enquiry (Peirce 1932a). Latour and Woolgar (1979, but see Bohman 1991: 206–11) created an actor-network theory, which, whilst maintaining a strong antirealist stance, sought to overcome the rigid dichotomy between the subject and the object of knowledge and to unite society with nature. This theory was formulated after completion of an ethnographic study into scientific activity that recognized that the practices of social science are deeply intertwined with scientific experimentation incorporating such matters as economics, power and technology into the totality of participants’ belief systems. Thus, the statistics generated only assume the semblance of reality through the interaction of the investigator with other investigators. This process results in alliances that lead to further political struggles, which extended the creditability of creative theorizing to other social institutions (such as, capital, the military, religious organizations). A successful conclusion to this series of negotiations had the effect of legitimizing the power to define reality through now uncontested new scientific facts.

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

171

Bhaskar (1979: 145) rejects the designation of “interpretation,” rather than the “objective scientific explanation,” of phenomena in the social world, which he places on a different and solitary realm, on the basis “that knowledge, irrespective of object, must be viewed as a social process irreducible to a purely individual acquisition.” Thus, if the choice is made to suppress hermeneutic interpretative understanding, the value of people’s subjectivity, achieved through their engagement with the social world, would be eroded. He also refutes claims made by empiricists that only correlations between variables can be observed (Bhaskar 1979). Therefore, there is a need to embrace people’s constructive dialogue, which is, to some extent, informed by empirical findings that are the result of social constructs. This approach recognizes “that there are causal laws, generalities, at work in social life … [but it is wrong to accept] … the reduction of these laws to empirical generalities” (Bhaskar 1979: 27). Instead, “the objects of our knowledge exist and act independently of the knowledge of which they are objects” (Bhaskar 1979: 14). This assertion rejects the notion of human reason as a mechanistic means of accumulating knowledge and, instead, turns to the Kantian apprehension as a process that creates “the constant stimulation of fresh discovery” (Scruton 2002: 149). Therefore, in this uncertain environment people must employ their subjectivity, which may well be socially constructed, to supplement available empirical data about material objects and phenomena. Thus, knowledge can only progress through an enquiry process that requires the construction and rigorous testing of hermeneutic-based hypotheses. Critical realism, then, offers the following propositions (Benton and Craib 2001: 120– 21): •

• • •

that all the sciences are responsible for pronouncing on the truth about the independent existence of phenomena, thereby advancing knowledge, on the assumption that such knowledge claims can be substantiated; that social processes are regarded as offering the possibility for the creation of various forms of representation beyond thought or language; that the appearance of some phenomena may be misleading, as their true character of can only be discovered through a critical in-depth evaluation process; and that critical realism is fallibilist and accepts, with repeated cognitions, the incorporation of new research, interpretation, and dialogue as necessary to ensure the eventual discovery of the truth.

By accepting a knowable independent reality, critical realists acknowledge that independent standards must be met in the formulation of ideas of belief and discernment: All that makes scientific explanations operationally effective in our human practice of living is that they arise as operations in it that give rise to further operations in it and not an impossible reference to anything like an independent objective domain of reality (Maturana 1991: 48).

Thus, as individuals’ experience repeated recursion to knowledge, a generative mechanism reformulates their praxis causing the creation of new dialogues and courses of social action. Bhaskar (1979: 113) recognizes that this generative mechanism “is capable of producing a physical effect … [which is a] … real and a proper object of scientific study.”

172

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Therefore, he identifies natural reality as having emergent properties309 that are “an irreducible feature of our world” (Bhaskar 1979: 113). Bhaskar’s critical realism draws upon his notions of transcendental realism and critical naturalism.

Transcendental Realism Bhaskar (1975) argues that there is a social and temporal relationship between the objective and the subjective.310 Their entwining involves combining, merging, and weighting the analytical extremes of naturalism and hermeneutics, so as to permit the identification of the balance between the two: primarily through sequence, otherwise known as time. Transcendental realism is concerned with the nature of factual description of the real world and offers a process by which its causal mechanisms can be identified and iteratively refined. It makes two fundamental claims. The first is that the real world operates at three levels (Bhaskar [1975] 1997: 56, Baert 1998: 191): • • •

the empirical (the perceived nature of events or processes open to the observer); the actual (events or processes as they actually occur); and the real or deep (the underlying mechanisms or imperatives that cause these events or processes).

Transcendental realism contends that the various levels of reality are rarely in-phase with one another, because the physical world is a dynamic, open system. It follows, therefore, that the real world must be transcendental and, thus, more enduring than any empirical observation of it, because it usually lies beyond the immediate domain of empirical facts. Empirical knowledge rests on unreliable sensory perceptions of the actual world, which is, itself, both contingent and one remove from the real world. Further, these perceptions are, themselves, shaped by hermeneutic notions associated with the social activity of scientific discovery at a particular time and place (Bhaskar 1975: 148). Thus, scientific enquiry emerges as a strongly transitive process, ontologically distinct from “the intransitive objects of reality” (Bhaskar [1975] 1997: 11). It combines hermeneutic discourse (Kuhn 1970) with an empirically based approach to choosing one theory or hypothesis over another by reference to factors including relative simplicity—Occam’s Razor—and explanatory power—inference to the best explanation (Harmon 1965, Wendt 1999: 62–63). Thus, choosing the hypothesis or theory that best explains available data leads, progressively, to deeper levels of explanation. This, of course, makes knowledge of the real world contingent on the empirical observations of the actual world, which can be quite removed from any deep explanations of it.

309

Emergence can be defined as: “the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns and properties during the process of self-organization in complex systems” (Goldstein 1999: 49). 310 This has long been recognized by social theorists. Marx, for example, assumed a particular balance between the two that heavily favored the objective—individuals within a class have subjective experiences, but these are controlled entirely by—and predictable on the basis of—the objective economic conditions in which they find themselves. By contrast, Weber ([1903/1917] 1949, 1962), who combined a neo-Kantian methodology with an individualist conception of society, accepted the dominance of the material, objective structure, but allowed a greater role for the subjective consequences of culture. He argued that objective structures interrelate with subjective experiences, and that the manner in which personal subjectivity engages with objective structures explains the success, or otherwise, of individuals. Neither Marx nor Webber argued any merger of the objective and the subjective, they merely assign different weight to the relative significance of each.

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

173

The second claim of transcendental realism is that scientific discovery is a cumulative process of model building, whereby transitive knowledge is used to postulate hypothetical causal mechanisms which, if they existed, would explain the relevant transitive phenomenon (Bhaskar [1975] 1997: 12).311 This gives rise to a cumulative process of hermeneutic-based imaginative model building. It proposes that the experience of scientific enquiry indicates that the explanations derived from this process of discovery are subject to revision (the Newtonian cosmos versus the Einsteinian cosmos). However, the phenomena that science enquiry seeks to explain remain both constant and real. Thus, Bhaskar ([1975] 1997: 11) distinguishes between “the transitive objects of science” and “the intransitive objects of reality”: It is clearly a condition of the intelligibility of scientific discovery that, in the intransitive dimension, what is discovered exists independently of its discovery; and that, in the transitive dimension, it is not known prior to its discovery.

Thus, the task of scientific enquiry is to move the transitive closer to the intransitive. Although sympathetic to Popper’s notion that causal explanation is grounded in deductive statements, corroborated by empirical evidence, Bhaskar’s position is considerably more flexible than Popper’s, and also it allows for a weaker, but more realistic, corroboration process. He claims, therefore, that scientific enquiry involves: • • • • •

identifying the phenomenon to be explained; postulating falsifiable explanatory hypotheses for its occurrence; seeking out empirical corroboration of the explanatory hypotheses; choosing one hypothesis over another, by reference to relative simplicity, explanatory or unifying power; and discovering the intransitive generative mechanism, which, in turn, becomes a new phenomenon to be explained.

This gives rise to three issues in need of elucidation. The first issue is that the transitive–intransitive dichotomy allows for the empirical dilemmas identified by Hume and Popper—and accepted by Bhaskar—that make the scientific enquiry fallible. However, unlike Hume and Popper, transcendental realism uses this fallibilism to enhance its methodology. Hume and the logical positivists, his twentieth century radical empiricist heirs, simply despaired of explanation, whereas Popper (1935/1959) 2000) introduced an unattainable, and ultimately incoherent, falsification standard. Transcendental realism embraces the contingency of knowledge and expects explanation to be flawed and, therefore, to change. The search for explanation is neither hopeless, nor exact, but progressive. The second issue relates to the hermeneutic conditions of scientific discovery; Bhaskar’s “cognitive resources and physical tools” of science ([1975] 1997: 12). These develop with the progressive knowledge base of transitive science, and allow and succour the further development of transitive science. Thus, primitive transitive science builds the conceptual and 311

Cressey’s (1953: 22) analytical induction articulates a similar iterative process, one that involves the “procedure of examining cases [to see if they confirm a hypothetical explanation of the phenomena under scrutiny], redefining the phenomena and reformulating the hypothesis”, which is continued until a universal relationship is established.

174

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

technical basis for advanced transitive science—the nuclear microscope provides the basis for the electron accelerator. This progressive dialectic between familiar and unfamiliar science explains why scientific knowledge is continually refined and modified. The third issue relates to notions of causality in open systems. The Humean notion of causality is perceptual and holds that constant conjunction is both a necessary and sufficient basis for the claims of causation: if, and only if, X is found regularly to be followed by Y, is it justifiable, as the best available basis for generalization, to claim that X causes Y. Bhaskar ([1979] 1998) challenges this empiricist proposition and makes a clear ontological distinction between “patterns of events” and “causal laws”, which he considers to be “a condition of the intelligibility of experimental activity” ([1979] 1998: 9). Such direct causal connections are only available in closed systems, where the three levels of reality are synchronized: “If the actual and empirical were synchronous, then the law of gravity would show itself in an unproblematic fashion, and all leaves would fall in a straight line” (Baert 1998: 192). However, open systems are subject to complex exogenous interactions, and falling leaves are subject to a variety of generative mechanisms. Thus, the empirical level does not always provide direct evidence of the actual or the real. Indeed, regular conjunctions do not necessarily provide either necessary or sufficient explanation of cause. Bhaskar, therefore, proposes a causal criterion for the ascription of reality to a posited object or generative mechanism. Whilst he does require corroboration of postulated explanations, through perceptual observation, these tests are structured by a causal criterion that “turns on the capacity of the entity whose existence is in doubt to bring about changes in material things” ([1975] 1997: 12). In other words, transcendental realism seeks to explain the world by proposing the existence of unobservable generative causal mechanisms, which are open to indirect confirmation within a fallibilist naturalist epistemology. Transcendental realism does not overcome the epistemological uncertainties embedded in naturalism. The problems of induction and the theory-laden nature of observation remain. However, whereas Popper failed to overcome these problems through falsification, transcendental realism embraces them at the ontological level, and adopts more sophisticated criteria for reality, which are free from the constraints of strict falsificationism. It also offers a potential reconciliation of the hermeneutic aspects of scientific discovery identified by Kuhn (1970) with the empiricist approach to choosing the hypothesis or theory that best explains available data (Wendt 1999). Bhaskar’s recognition of the contingency of causal explanation released him from the constraints of strict falsificationism, and the need to preclude the sustainability of apparently falsified theories. Nevertheless, Bhaskar inherited Popper’s view of the theory-laden nature of explanation, and the logical necessity of realist ontology. The classification of three levels of reality, the recognition of the transitive–intransitive distinction, as well as the significance of open systems to epistemological explanations serve, then, as the basic features of transcendental realism.

Critical Naturalism Bhaskar ([1979] 1998) argues that the transcendental realist model of enquiry is relevant for the interrogation of the social world. He argues ([1979] 1998: 20) that the principles that govern social and natural worlds are substantially the same, although he recognizes that transcendental realism needs to be adapted, because of the fundamentally different nature of those worlds. Critical naturalism is a social research methodology that is able to identify the mechanisms—inevitably operating in an open system that cannot be experimentally closed—

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

175

that generate ever-changing social phenomenon. In particular, it recognizes that social structure has the capacity to give rise to human agency and that social structure requires, in turn, the reproduction of certain social actions to be sustained. This means that the people are capable of consciously reflecting upon, and changing, their social actions that sustain the social structure embedded in a group. Such changes are, in part, facilitated by the conduct of social enquiry. Bhaskar does not propose a philosophical merger of the proposition that the social world is real, material and objective, and thus amenable to interrogation using naturalist methods, with the proposition that it is ideational and subjective, and thus only amenable to interrogation using hermeneutic methods. Rather, he considers that relationship between the two has both social and temporal dimensions. The problem to be confronted relates to the relative weights to be apportioned to the objective and the subjective, which does not imply degrees of either, merely that any distinctive relationships between them can look like degrees of both.

Transformation Model of Social Action Bhaskar’s ([1979] 1998) transformation model of social action offers an ontological synthesis312 in the form of a social ontology that emphasizes the interconnectedness and interrelationship of structure and agency. It provides a basis for the unification of the structural dimension of social actions (grounded in the group-elaborated norms, roles, and practices that constitute the code of conduct in a group) with the agental dimension (grounded in a person’s intentional mental states). His post-structurationist contention is, then, that structure and agency are interdependent but different and, thus, distinguishable and temporally interrelated in an analytically dualist relationship, which means that, with time and power, structure is both a cause and a consequence of agency (Bhaskar [1979] 1998).313

Analytical Dualism Archer (1995: 15) describes analytical dualism as “the guiding methodological principle underpinning non-conflationary theorizing,” which means that “explanation of why things social are so and not otherwise depends upon an account of how the properties and powers of the ‘people’ causally intertwine with those of the ‘parts’ [of a group] as linkages between different strata are examined for their interplay.”314 Bhaskar recognizes the separateness and distinctiveness of the ontological status of structure and agency, and seeks to clarify their 312

The intellectual setting for Bhaskar’s ontological theorizing was the questioning of the ontological dichotomy that began in the late twentieth century (see, most notably, Giddens 1984, 1993, Bhaskar 1975, [1978] 1998, Archer 1995, 2000, 2003). This theorizing recognized that ontological conflation, whether upward towards structure or downward towards agency, makes it impossible to unravel their constitutiveness, which renders inconclusive any analysis of the influence they exert on each other. 313 This stands in contradistinction to the structurationist position developed by Giddens (1984, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995), and subsequently emphasized by Stones (2005), which holds that structure and agency are analytically inseparable and mutually constituted in a duality relationship (Parker 2000). 314 The existence of gap between abstract theorizing and reality is emphasized by Althusser (2001). He insisted that any structural modeling is theoretical and can only be understood in the terms of theoretical analysis, although he recognized structural causality as a particular synergistic combination of a society’s political, ideological and economic systems. Thus, structure becomes an idea that reflects the plans and aspirations that have originated in individuals’ thoughts and actions over a period of time. If these abstract forces are to enter the realm of reality then they require the intentional or unintentional mediation of agency.

176

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

temporal relationship within a transcendental realist epistemology. He ([1979] 1998: 35) also allows for the duality of social praxis and offers a conception of a social arena that is fundamentally stratified. Bhaskar gives structure—which is transfactually efficacious—a firm ontological grounding by placing emphasis on the pre-existence of collectives, because the relations into which people enter pre-exist those who enter into them, which their social actions reproduces or transforms. Structure is, thus, a necessary and autonomous pre-condition for agental social actions, and it is this necessity and autonomy that grants it causal power (Bhaskar [1979] 1998: 25). It follows, then, that whilst human activity can reproduce or transform structure, it cannot create it (Bhaskar [1979] 1998: 33–34): human agents work with the existing material like the Aristotelian sculptress “fashioning a produce out of the material and with the tools available to her” (Bhaskar [1979] 1998: 34). Structure remains dependent on human activity, which “would not occur unless the agents engaging in it had a conception of what they were doing” (Bhaskar [1979] 1998: 33). Human agents possess intentions, which enables them to intervene in the physical and social world in a purposeful way, not only “to monitor and control their performances,” but also “to monitor the monitoring of these performances and to be capable of a commentary upon them” (Bhaskar [1979] 1998: 35). However, purposeful intention does not characterize the unintended consequences of social actions: “Thus people do not marry to reproduce the nuclear family or work to sustain the capitalist economy. Yet, it is nevertheless the unintended consequence (and inexorable result) of, as it is also a necessary condition for, their activity” (Bhaskar [1979] 1998: 35). Equally, social transformations may or may not be the unintended consequence of human activity. The distinction between human intentions and the unintended consequences they may have for structure links the transformative model of social action to the naturalist and hermeneutic dimensions of critical realism. The intentions and reasons that individuals have for particular social actions that reproduce or transform a group “may, in general, be described either in terms of the agent’s reason for engaging in it [agency] or in terms of its social function or role [structure]. When praxis is seen under the aspect of process, human choice becomes functional necessity” (Bhaskar [1979] 1998: 35).

The Morphogenetic Methodology Archer’s morphogenetic methodological proposition is that with respect to a social arena “at any given time, [material and ideational] structures are the result of human interaction, including the results of that interaction—any of which may be unintended, unwanted and unacknowledged” (Archer 1995: 196), but these structures then enable and constrain agents— “all structural influences … are mediated to people by shaping the situation in which they find themselves” (p. 196)—and “supply agents with strategic directional guidance” (p. 196). Crucial to the morphogenetic methodology is the post-structurationist contention that social actions are the result of the sequential interplay over time of ontologically distinctive collectives and agents. It provides a consistent account of the temporal relationship between the material (naturalist) and ideational (hermeneutic) dimensions of structure and agency: and, thereby, offers a methodological guide to explanation. Bhaskar’s notion of emergent properties assume a particular significance to Archer, as it represents recognizable entities whose differentiating properties “are relative endurance,

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

177

natural necessity and the possession of causal powers” (Archer 1995: 167): “Given their preexistence, structural and cultural emergent properties shape the social environment to be inhabited. These results of past social actions are deposited in the form of current situations. [These] impinge upon us without our compliance, consent or complicity” (p. 201). They potentially enable or constrain human agency: As with all potential causal powers, they can remain unexercised because it is a wholly contingent matter whether they are activated.… For anything to exert the power of constraint or an enablement, it has to stand in a relationship such that it obstructs or aids the achievement of some specific agential enterprise (Archer 2003: 5).

Archer distinguishes between structural emergent properties, “such as distributions, roles, organizations, or institutions” (Archer 2003: 5); (2) cultural emergent properties, “such as propositions, theories or doctrines” (Archer 2003: 5); and (3) personal (people’s) emergent properties, “our human powers” (Archer 2000: 177). Structural emergent properties are objective and have a “primary dependence upon material resources, both physical and human” (Archer 1995: 175), whereas, cultural emergent properties are ideational, operating in the world of ideas, rather like Popper’s World Three (Popper 1979), which is created from the contents of libraries. However, moving beyond this differentiation, Archer maintains that culture can be analyzed in the same manner as structure, as the “pre-existence, autonomy and durability of the constituents of the Cultural System enables their identification as entities distinct from the meanings held by agents at any given time” (1995: 179). It is apparent to Archer that the cultural system and sociocultural life are totally intertwined and it is through applying “the utility of analytical dualism” that their interplay can be explored (Archer 1995: 180). With this analysis, the focus is on logical relationships within an emergent property, “which are totally independent of what people know, feel or believe about them” (Archer 1995: 182). Sociocultural conditioning moves beyond Gramsci’s (1985) influential hegemonies (Ives 2003, Morton 2007, but see also Day 2005) into a realm of “plural generative powers and their reciprocal influence” (Archer 1995: 192). Structural and cultural emergent properties are, however, both activity-dependent, and their influence on structure is not direct but mediated through agency (Archer 1995: 195). Personal emergent properties feature three different categories: primary agents, corporate agents and social actors. All primary agents and social actors are individuals, while corporate agents are groups of primary agents. A person may be a primary agent in one situation, a member of a corporate agent in another, and a social actor in a third. Every primary agent, at birth, enters a world with pre-existing structures and immediately acquires the social stratification that reflects a privileged or underprivileged background:315 “one of the main antecedent effects of structure (SEPs and CEPs) consists in dividing the population, not necessarily and usually not exhaustively, into those with vested interests in maintenance and change respectively, according to the position in which they find themselves involuntaristically” (Archer 1995: 203). According to Archer, primary agents do not take strategic social actions to reproduce or transform structural and cultural emergent properties, as they lack “a say in structural or cultural modeling” (p. 259). This does not mean that they 315

Whilst the parentage and social context experienced by infant agents does not determine “the particular Social Actor a person chooses to become … they strongly condition what type of Social Actor the vast majority can and do become” (Archer 2000: 285).

178

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

are impassive, for they are, never the less, social agents who may, at any time, form themselves into a new “social movement” (p. 260). In contrast, corporate agents, as groups of primary agents (Archer 2000: 266), have the capacity to articulate ideas—express and raise consciousness of vested interests that extend beyond the summation of each member’s self-interest—and to shape the environment for all their members, so enabling them to organize in active pursuit of those vested interests. These corporate agents can be constituted as: • • • •

•

•

a formal organization, a purposive social institution, or part thereof; a policy community, which “exists where there is an effective shared community of views on the problem” (Jordan 1990: 327); a discourse coalition, which is “a group of actors who share a social construct” (Hajer 1993: 43) that does dialogical battle in the public sphere for legitimacy; an epistemic community, which is “a community…composed of professionals (usually recruited from several disciplines) who share a commitment to a common causal model and common set of political values…[and which] are united by a belief in the truth of their model and by a commitment to translate this truth into public policy, in the conviction that human welfare will be enhanced as a result” (Haas 1990: 41); an issue network community, which is “a shared-knowledge group having to do with some aspect (or, as defined by the network, some problem) of public policy” (Heclo 1978: 103); or an advocacy coalition, comprising “people from a variety of positions (elected and agency officials, interest group leaders, researchers etc.) who share a particular belief system—that is a set of basic values, causal assumptions, and problem discernments—and who show a nontrivial degree of coordinated activity over time” (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993: 25; see also Sabatier 1986, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1993).

Finally, there are social actors who acquire “a strict social identity by investing themselves in a role and personifying in a particular way” (Archer 1995: 256).316 This social identity is forged from the array of organizational roles that are available to them at a particular time (Archer 1995: 254–65). These roles are largely defined by extant material and ideational resource distributions, which are accepted after reflexive deliberation by primary agents about their own unique values, attitudes and actions, which, in turn, reflect their singularity and meets the strict criteria for possessing a unique social identity (Archer 2003: 118).317

316

Touraine’s (1973) actionalism emphasizes the centrality of the social actor as an agent of a social system, and the importance of understanding the relations between social agents. A social system is able to act upon itself because of the actions of the social actors in it—his concept of historicity. The analysis of social actions and social actors through active participation, rather than neutral observation, enables explanations to be offered about how values are shaped and social change achieved. 317 Archer emphasizes the importance of recognizing that corporate agents and social actors are not necessarily different people (2000: 287). Whilst corporate agents can be distinguished by their intention to address, collectively, interest-related problems, social actors preserves the integrity of their identity by observing rule requirements. Social actors enjoy the luxury of choosing whether to belong to both groups. The complex

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

179

As people interact, they create emergent networks that are founded on the logic of their vested interest. They mobilize to promote the particular vested interest thrust upon them by their placement in a social arena, which reflects the distribution of material and ideational advantages and disadvantages from previous economic and cultural arrangements (Archer 1995: 195–201). This placement generates opportunity costs318 that condition the choices that confront primary agents, such as whether to support either social reproduction (morphostatis319) or social transformation (morphogenesis320): “It is our deliberations which determine what we will make of the constraints and enablements which we confront, what opportunity costs we are prepared to pay, and whether we consider it worthwhile joining others in the organized pursuit of change or the collective defence of the status quo” (Archer 2003: 52). This stratified notion of agency is rooted in the concept of the free and reflective person, who can only be analytically differentiated on the basis of the nature of his or her participation in social praxis. Such a person, therefore, has a significant degree of interpretive freedom when deciding on the appropriateness of particular social actions. This derives from the ontological separation of structure and agency and their interaction over time, as well as from the relative autonomy of the material and the ideational domains. Thus, personal emergent properties elaboration is dependent on the exchange transactions and power relations that exist, based partly on formal organizational roles and partly on informal relationships, as people mediate structural and cultural outcomes. Vested interests can inspire primary agents to take strategic social actions to defend entrenched advantages, or relieve disadvantages, and the key vehicle for any strategic collective action is the corporate agent. Emergent properties condition both the interpretation of meaning of a social action in a social arena and, thus, provide primary agents with reasons for taking a particular strategic social action—directional guidance (Archer 1995: 213–45) by setting prices and premiums on one course of strategic social action over another (Archer 1995: 209)—and with explanations for the pattern of choice that confronts them, but they do not determine their actual response. Primary agents who ignore this strategic directional guidance, however, must then confront the opportunity costs of that decision: opposing the source of rewarding experiences risks their vested interests; supporting the source of frustrating experiences invites further impediments. The nature of this strategic directional guidance in a social arena stems from the relationships between the array of pre-existing structural and cultural emergent properties, which can be classified as being either necessary321 or contingent322, and either

dynamics at work in such a social arena, however, suggest the possibility of potential conflict between the social actor within a corporate agency and other corporate agents. 318 These take the form of either the differential costs associated with the same courses of action being undertaken by those who are differentially placed, or the differential capacities to undertake the same course of action by those who are differentially placed (Archer 1995: 205–8). 319 This refers to the processes in a complex system that tend to preserve a system’s form, structure or state (Archer 1995: 75), which signals the agents’ desire and capacity to reproduce structure, through the maintenance of the shape of a social form over space and time. 320 This refers to “those processes which tend to elaborate or change a system’s given form, structure or state” (Archer 1995: 58), which signals the agents’ desire and capacity to change social relations over the transitive notions of space and time. 321 Structural and cultural emergent properties are, separately, in a necessary relationship if they are internally related (Archer 1995: 216). 322 Structural and cultural emergent properties are, separately, in a contingent relationship if they are potentially related (Archer 1995: 216).

180

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

complementary323or incompatible324. Thus, these relationships between emergent properties produce four strategic situational logics, which can motivate strategic agential social actions, leading either to the reproduction or transformation of these properties in that arena.

Strategic Situational Logic 1: Protection This is where emergent properties stand in a necessary and complementary relationship, as necessary structural complementarities and as concomitant ideational complementarities. This means that: •

•

the structural emergent properties are conjoined and “mutually reinforcing and work in terms of each other” (Archer 1995: 219), which gives rise to the mutuality of benefits for the agents present, thus “[all agents] have reason to reproduce them since transformation threatens the loss of vested interests all round” (Archer 1995: 217), so engendering structural resilience; and the cultural emergent properties are mutually supportive (Archer 1995: 217), so they cannot be separated, divorced or repudiated (p. 230), and, thus, occupy “a congenial environment of ideas, the exploration of which yields a treasure trove of reinforcement, clarification and vindications” (p. 234), which “guides thought and action along a smooth path, away from stony ground, but over time this wears deeper and deeper groves in which thought and deeds become enrutted” (p. 235), so engendering ideational resilience.

Overall, this gives rise to the logic of protection—the maintenance of ideational purity and systematization325, irrespective of the power distribution amongst the actors involved—and, thus, creates the strategic situational logic of morphostatis.

Strategic Situational Logic 2: Compromise and Containment This is where emergent properties stand in a necessary but incompatible relationship, as necessary structural incompatibilities and as constraining ideational contradictions. This means that: •

•

323

the structural emergent properties are “internally related … yet the effects of their operations are to threaten the endurance of the relationship itself” (Archer 1995: 222), which gives rise to contradictions for the agents present: “if their vested interests are advanced, this takes place in a context such that their promotion also intensifies contrary ones, whose counter actualization threatens the relation itself” (p. 222), so engendering structural instability; and the cultural emergent properties are necessarily related but are logically inconsistent (Archer 1995: 230), so those committed to one idea “have no option but to live with”

Structural and cultural emergent properties are, separately, in a complementary relationship if they are congruent and mutually supporting (Archer 1995: 216). 324 Structural and cultural emergent properties are, separately, in an incompatible relationship if they are incongruent and contradictory (Archer 1995: 215–16). 325 Hall and Hogan (1969: 36) define this as the “strengthening of pre-existing relationships among parts, the development of relations among parts previously unrelated, the gradual addition of parts and relations to a system, or some combination of these changes.”

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

181

another necessarily related idea (p. 230) “and thus there is a “fraught relationship” between them (p. 230), which means that agents are “driven to engage with [other ideas] both antithetical but also indispensable to [the idea to which they are committed] (p. 230), so evoking a need for contending devotees to take corrective action by “addressing the contradiction and seeking to repair it by reinterpreting the components involved” (p. 230), so engendering ideational unification. Overall, this gives rise to the logic of constraint—the correction of contradictions and the reduction of incompatibilities by compromise, although who compromises most depends on the bargaining power and negotiating strengths of the actors involved—and, thus, creating the strategic situational logic of morphogenesis.

Strategic Situational Logic 3: Elimination This is where emergent properties stand in a contingent but incompatible relationship, as contingent structural incompatibilities and as competitive ideational contradictions. This means that: •

•

the structural emergent properties are in conflict only if actualized by agential social actions “where the defence of interests consists in inflicting the maximum damage on an opposing party by seeking to eliminate it” (Archer 1995: 225), which generates competition amongst the agents present, “for gain can only flow from losses inflicted on others” (p. 226), so engendering structural instability; and the cultural emergent properties are in conflict only if actualized by agents “making a contradiction competitive, by taking sides over it and by trying to make other individuals take their side” (Archer 1995: 239), so evoking a need for agents to make a choice “by accentuating differences, by insisting on their salience, by undermining indifference and by making the question of alignment inescapable” (p. 240), so engendering ideational competition.

Overall, this gives rise to the logic of elimination—the removal of incompatibilities, although what survives and what is eliminated depends on the capacity of the actors involved to advance and to protect their interests—and, thus, the strategic situational logic of morphogenesis.

Strategic Situational Logic 4: Opportunism This is where emergent properties stand in a contingent but complementary relationship, as contingent structural complementarities and as contingent ideational complementarities. This means that: •

•

the structural emergent properties are complementary only if actualized by agential social action, “for only gains can accrue from their exploitation” (Archer 1995: 226), which generates an imperative of opportunism amongst the agents present (p. 226), so engendering structural instability; the cultural emergent properties are complementary only if actualized by agents seeking “ideational synthesis” (Archer 1995: 244), so evoking a need for agents to

182

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson make seek out “novel [ideational] combinations and applications involving conceptual integration, theoretical reduction or doctrinal extension” (p. 244), so engendering ideational synthesis.

Overall, this gives rise to the logic of pure opportunism—the expansion of complementarities, although who gains or losses most depends on the relative capacities of the actors involved to exploit opportunities—and, thus, the strategic situational logic of morphogenesis.

Implications The logic of a situation that agents find themselves in is shaped by the contextual conditioning that results from the interaction of prevalent structural and cultural emergent properties, “which predisposes agents towards specific courses of action for the promotion of their interests” (Archer 1995: 216). In a complex social arena, where many structural and cultural emergent properties are embraced, it is most unlikely that they are aligned to produce “one emergent core complementarity or incompatibility which thus enmeshes all agents in the same situational logic and means that all material resources are mobilized in that single direction” (Archer 1995: 227). In addition, the process of social interaction in economically, technologically, demographically, culturally and linguistically dynamic open social systems may radically change the distribution of the material and ideational benefits within a social arena over time.

APPLYING MORPHOGENETIC METHODOLOGY TO A SOCIAL ARENA The morphogenetic methodology provides a way of explaining and understanding the structural and cultural emergent properties present in a social arena as intransitive generative mechanism that produce social phenomena. By this means, a systematic analysis can be undertaken of: •

•

the antecedent distributions of material and ideational resources that underpin the extant contemporaneous material and cultural structures—the economic, social and cultural capital—in that bounded realm of activity, particularly those that are sources of frustrating experiences; the strategic situational logics applicable in that bounded realm of activity, which are the antecedent conditions for the social actions exhibited in it, embrace the cognitive and affective factors that informed such social actions, particularly those that are sources of frustrating experiences: • where the necessary material complementarities and/or concomitant ideational complementarities have produced distributions of material and/or ideational resources that provide mutual benefits, then the strategic situational logic for the contending vested interests is to protect the existing distributions of material and ideational resources; • where the necessary material incompatibilities and/or constraining ideational contradictions have produced distributions of material and/or ideational resources that generate tensions, then the strategic situational logic for the

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

•

•

•

183

contending vested interests is to compromise and containment with each other— realizable to the degree compatible with their relative bargaining power and negotiating strength—so as to smooth the progress toward the desired transformation of existing distributions of material and ideational resources; • where the contingent material incompatibilities and/or competitive ideational contradictions have produced distribution of material and/or ideational resources that generate mutually exclusivity and competitive tensions, then the strategic situational logic for the contending vested interests is for them to be more competitive amongst themselves, realizable to the degree compatible with their relative competitive advantage, so as to eliminate the less competitive interests, thereby smoothing progress toward the desired transformation of existing distribution material and ideational resources; or • where the contingent material compatibilities and/or contingent ideational complementarities have produced distributions of material and/or ideational resources that offer non-threatening opportunities, then the strategic situational logic for the contending vested interests is to exploit opportunities, realizable to the degree compatible with their relative ability to exploit opportunities, so as to enhance the bargaining power and negotiating strength of the more entrepreneurial interests, thereby smoothing progress toward the desired transformation of existing distribution material and ideational resources; the relative capacity of the agents associated with the motivations engendered by the strategic situational logics present in that bounded realm of activity to advance and protect their interests, embracing their bargaining power, negotiating strength, competitive advantage and entrepreneurial ability, particularly those who are, or are potentially, sources of frustrating experiences; the extent to which strategic social actions are likely to be forthcoming in that bounded realm of activity in response to, or in the face of, these strategic situational logics, embracing the desire for strategic social actions to defend entrenched advantages or to relieve disadvantages, particularly those that are, or are potentially, sources of frustrating experiences; and the extent to which strategic social actions are likely to effect the material and ideational emergent properties present in that bounded realm of activity, and, thus, of the distribution of the material and ideational resources present, embracing both the entrenchment of advantages or the relief disadvantages, particularly those that are, or are potentially, sources of frustrating experiences.

Such critical cognitive reflection on structural and cultural emergent properties requires looking beyond the empirical dimension of any phenomenon, on the assumption that the actual phenomenon may well be quite different, necessitating a deeper knowledge of the underlying mechanisms or imperatives that give rise to it. The morphogenetic methodology’s knowledge acquisition process involves identifying a phenomenon; postulating its causation; seeking empirical collaboration; discovering its intransitive generative mechanism, as a phenomenon to be explained or empirically collaborated so as to discover, in turn, its intransitive generative mechanism, and so forth. This means that there must, first, be agreement on the relative importance of the phenomena that need to be explained. Then, there

184

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

must be a set of contending falsifiable explanatory hypotheses for each phenomenon’s occurrence. Empirical evidence corroborating the contending explanatory hypotheses for each phenomenon must then be sought out, so that best explanatory hypothesis can be selected, by reference to relative simplicity, explanatory power, or unifying power. By this means, the intransitive generative mechanism underlying that phenomenon can be identified, which can then be put under scrutiny as a new phenomenon to be explained. Once this critical cognitive reflection on the social arena has been undertaken, the emergent properties that condition social actions would be better understood. From this a deeper knowledge of the underlying imperatives present in the social arena would flow directional guidance that justifies a strategic course of social actions aimed at making its structural and cultural emergent properties more enabling—by limiting material incompatibilities, correcting ideational contradictions and/or creating material and ideational opportunities for exploitation—rather than constraining of the human agency needed to achieve the shared objectives. Those involved would, then, have to adopt entirely new, and more palatable, way of engaging with others in that social arena.

The Ultimate Reconciliation Challenge Engaging in a dialogical process within an ideal speech situation, for the purported purpose of better explaining and understanding the structural and cultural emergent properties present in a social arena, would be challenging for those who have yet to accept the need to change the lens through which they observe and interrogate that arena. Such an engagement would bring into question their sacrosanct beliefs about knowledge and ethicality, and, most importantly, about their social relationships. They would remain unwilling to change the way they interact with others in that arena, because this would require them to change the limits they place on the constraints that they are willing to let other place on their individual autonomy. What, then, would be their likely reactions?

On Participating in an Ideal Speech Situation This would be almost intolerable for those following situational logics informed by any of the four social-reality dispositions, for they would prefer an unresponsive dialogue, although they may well expect a dialogue of the deaf. The ideal speech situation is a forum for social interaction that would threaten their customary status and role relationships, which have come to give meaning to their lives. Discarding their a priori structural or agential expectational constraints on their and other’s social actions would be distinctly problematic. Homo hierarchus would have difficulty casting off their sense of duty, responsibility and obligation to the powers that be, and would demand that all participants know and accept their place in the group and do what is expected. Homo sociologicus would have difficulty abandoning the notion that their affirmed virtues endorsed by an exclusive group are not applicable to everyone, and would call on participants to negotiate their place and what constitutes acceptable social actions. Homo existentialis would have difficulty not being existentially self-referential, and would shrug their shoulders in bemusement. Homo economicus would have difficulty rejecting their right to self-interested egoism, and would challenge others to be the same.

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

185

There are, of course, inevitably some such adherents who would be willing, to varying degrees, to suspend their customary status and role relationships, so as to permit them to participate in such a dialogical process. Cognitively flexible synthetic individuals would most likely to participate, because of their ability to cope with internal incoherency and to adopt different status and role relationships. Potentially, adaptable sequential individuals might do so, provided it is advantageous to them. Single-minded coherent individuals would not do so, for they would have to affect a personality change in order to accept, as theirs, a different cognitive map of a social arena.

On the Social Knowledge Acquisition Process The morphogenetic methodology’s knowledge acquisition process would be broadly acceptable to homo hierarchus or homo economicus, but they would resist the idea that unobservable generative causal mechanisms can be identified by this process. Homo sociologicus, in contrast, would consider both observable and unobservable generative causal mechanisms to be understandable but not empirically testable in any meaningful way. Homo existentialis would consider the whole process pointless, as the social world can only be experienced not explained or understood. On the Veracity of the Social Knowledge Generated The morphogenetic methodology’s acceptance the existence of observable generative causal mechanisms on the basis of material evidence would be acceptable to both homo hierarchus and homo economicus, but any assertion of the existence of unobservable generative causal mechanisms on the basis of indirect confirmation would be unacceptable to them. They would demand objective confirmation. Homo sociologicus, in contrast, would take any evidence supporting the existence of generative causal mechanisms, whether they are observable or unobservable, as only a working hypothesis to be adjudicated by consensus through discourse amongst those affected. Homo existentialis would be skeptical about the claimed existence of any generative causal mechanisms, with the veracity of any such claim being judge on their person material beneficiality. On the Acceptability of Using the Social Knowledge Generated The morality of using any new knowledge of a generative causal mechanism arising from the application of the morphogenetic methodology would challenge adherents to all the situational logics. Homo hierarchus would seek to determine its acceptability by ascertaining whether it transgresses established deontological moral imperatives. Homo sociologicus would want those involved or effected to jointly affirm that it is acceptable to use this new knowledge. Homo existentialis would simply want to judge its acceptability on the basis of experience. Homo economicus would do so by ascertaining whether the new knowledge would be likely to generate net benefits, particularly to them. On the Use the Social Knowledge Generated Adherents to the contending situational logics could not agree on how to decide on who should be trusted to use any new knowledge of a generative causal mechanism arising from the application of the morphogenetic methodology. Homo hierarchus would consider it unexceptionable that the approval of the allocation of responsibility for the use of any such

186

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

new knowledge should be left to those with legitimate authority, with group endorsement taken for granted, on the basis that it is what it ought to have been agreed upon in the collective interests. Homo sociologicus would consider that those affected by any such new knowledge must decide to whom such responsibility is assigned, following an intersubjective communication process to determine who is the most trustworthy. Homo existentialis would consider that those best able to exercise power will, in any event, decide to whom responsibility for the use of any such new knowledge is assigned, which can never be justified by group endorsement. Homo economicus would consider that responsibility for the use of any such new knowledge should be left to the marketplace, where people are free to choose how to use it in a way that is best for them.

CONCLUSION The reflective reader cannot fail but to have pondered the different ways people can engage in focused, instrumental social interactions on a face-to-face basis because of the different ways they think about that arena. Indeed, the way in which a person’s carries out a social action is contingent upon two factors: how he or she acquires meaning from that arena (as determined by his or her dispositions about how it can best be known, and to what the social actions of others in it can be best attributed); and how he or she wishes to relate to others in that arena (as determined by the limits that he or she is willing to let others place on his or her individual autonomy in it). The foundations of this study are drawn from the philosophy of social sciences; specifically, the dichotomies in epistemology—naturalism and hermeneutics—and in ontology—structure and agency. These enabled the articulation of the Dixon-Dogan socialreality disposition framework, which brings together the necessary dimensions of meaning construction: how a person can best know a social arena (objectively as a material domain or subjectively as a set of first-person experience) and to what a person can best attribute the social actions of others in that situation (to structural or agential factors). This gives rise to a set of four contending and mutually exclusive social-reality dispositions: naturalist structuralism, naturalist agency, hermeneutic structuralism and hermeneutic agency. These contending dispositions constitute the lens through which a person can coherently frame a social arena, on the premised that all the actors involved think and act as if they are cognitively consistent. Any of these lenses permits that person to produce an appropriate personal construct of that arena, one that allows him or her to depict it in an acceptable way both to him or herself and to others. All four social-reality dispositions are, however, fundamentally flawed because each one either devalues the agental or the structural dimensions of social actions; and decries either the ideational or material dimensions of a social arena. The lens that a person uses to read a social arena depends on how he or she wishes to engage transactionally with others in it. Thus, prior to any particular social engagement that person has to decide on the status and role relationships that he or she is willing to have with others—namely, hierarchical, egalitarian, egocentric or individualistic. This choice depends on the limits that he or she is willing to let others place on his or her individual autonomy in that situation. In making this choice, a cognitively consistent person has decided that it is best to be guided in that arena by the corresponding situational logic or

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

187

world view—hierarchist, egalitarian, egocentric or individualistic—which enables them to be typified as homo hierarchus, homo sociologicus, homo existentialis or homo economicus in that situation. These cognitive typifications comprise a distinctive set of truths, and criteria for deciding what is true, what is rational, and what constitutes moral conduct in that situation. Each one provides its adherents with a coherent assumptive world that provides them with a distinctive sense of who they are and what they stand for or represent, with a distinctive set of characteristic social impressions they need to portray—created by a distinctive sets of characteristic cognitive, emotional and behavioral traits—and with a distinctive stable orientation for social action in that social arena. In any social arena, there can be present followers of each of the four situational logics, with their distribution at any point in time being an empirical matter, which determines its nature at that time. The co-existence of mutually incompatible sets of contending propositions about that arena gives rise to an enduring process of choice of lens for those engaged in it. Under these circumstances, there is a crusade for converts by the adherents to each of the contending situational logics present in that situation. This crusade is driven by two desires: survival and domination. A person would be willing to consider adopting a different lens through which to read a social arena, and, thus, be guided by a different situational logic in that arena, only if he or she has come to believe that a different situational logic is, potentially, more attractive than that to which he or she currently follows. Any decision to follow a different situational logic would, of course, necessitate changing his or her attitudes in a way that would make them incompatible with those held by those who continued to follow their abandoned situational logic. This would require that person to reconsider, fundamentally, the set of expectations he or she has about his or her status and roles in that arena. The change catalyst is the surprise, caused when certainties (what is) are out of alignment with beliefs (what is expected) grounded in a particular situational logic. If surprise reduces the perceived net rewards of a social action, then adopting a new way of relating to people becomes a potentially desirable possibility, as does disengagement. The process by which a person sloughs off his or her current preferred way of relating to others in a social arena is a difficult one, for it requires that person to be disillusioned enough to begin questioning his or her cognitive map of it. When this disillusionment point is reached depends on how committed that person is to maintaining his or her current patterns of social relationships. Once it has been reached, however, the imperative is for him or her to decide upon which, if any, of the alternative situational logics can better achieve this outcome. This decision, of course, then dictates in what way he or she must engage with others in that situation, however unpalatable that may be. Of crucial importance here are his or her attitudes toward those who subscribe to other situational logics, and what he or she perceives to be the implications of changing his or her way of relating to others. When a person finds that his or her assumptive world is becoming increasingly less able to explain, interpret and predict what he or she is experiencing in a social arena, thereby giving rise to cognitive dissonance, his or her desire inevitably becomes to reconstruct his or her assumptive world. This brings to the fore whether there might be a process and a methodology that offers a way of diminishing that person’s cognitive dissonance. The challenge, then, is for that person to move beyond the flawed epistemological and ontological dichotomies toward their unification, so as to achieve a greater reconciliation of beliefs with certainties. In this search for a new way of scrutinizing a social arena, the first step is for that

188

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

person to become self-critical, introspective, and reflective, so as to be able to acquire a deeper knowledge of that arena’s material and ideational evolving properties. During this process of self-critical introspective reflection, that person must be willing to engage with like-minded others in social mediation, for the purpose of identifying and understanding the imperatives that have conditioned the interpretation of events and past social actions in that situation. To be effective, such discourse must be devoid of domination, strategic behavior and (self) deception. The application of the morphogenetic methodology in a dialogical process within an ideal speech situation enhances tolerance and fundamental mutual respect for the differences that exist in a social arena. This builds a constructive unity-in-diversity. Once that arena is better understood, those involved can identify the particular strategic situational logics they confront, from which their situational advantages or disadvantages can be demarcated. The resultant emergent networks are potentially capable of generating additional information to reconcile contradictory cognitions, provided those involved are willing to re-formulate their enduring beliefs. To actualize this potential requires them to construct jointly a shared meaning system, one that supports collective action to advance their collective interests, almost inevitably identifying entirely new ways of engaging with others in that situation. This is the ultimate challenge. The key conclusions to be drawn from this study are two-fold. The first is that the situational logics that have been identified provide heuristic insights to anyone intent on invoking in others a set of desired experiences that would establish beneficial relationships between them in a particular social arena, achieved by being able to adapt his or her social actions and reactions when engaged with others in that arena in that light of what they say and do. The identified situational logics are a source of heuristic rules of inference—decision rules-of-thumb—that eases the making of judgments about the meaning and intention of other people’s social actions, premised on all the actors involved thinking and acting as if they are cognitively consistent. The second key conclusion is that the four social-reality dispositions that have been demarcated—especially, hermeneutic-agency—raises for social and human scientists seriously challenging questions about how they go about describing, explaining and understanding the social world and the social actions of those in it. This it does by highlighting the flawed epistemological or ontological premises underpinning each disposition. This means that none of the social-reality dispositions can provide the theories and methods to describe, explain and understand actual the social world, as distinct from the social world that is presumed (by rationalist), experienced (by empiricists), or meaningfully constructed (by hermeneutists). Social and human scientists need, then, to reflect on the way that their beliefs about the social world are determined by the epistemological communities to which they belong. If their theories and methods are grounded in only any one of the four social-reality disposition, they need to reflect on the processes by which they expand their beliefs about the social world. Whether, of course, any beliefs they hold about the social world add to the stock of genuine knowledge of it depends upon what constitutes sufficient justification to warrant the status of truth being assigned to them. On that there is disagreement within the social and human sciences. This, thus, challenges them to reflect on the way that their beliefs about the social world have been formulated, and what constitutes sufficient justification to warrant the status of truth being assigned to those beliefs.

Reading a Relational Situation Better: Designing a Better Lens

189

As the twenty-first century advances, the question that must be asked is whether all that can be expected from the social and human sciences is either a methodological dialogue of the deaf or an unresponsive methodological dialogue. It would also be naïve not to believe that one possible consequence of this could be the emergence of groupthink, where adherents to whatever happens at a particular time and situation to be the dominant methodological paradigm suppress dissenting viewpoints, which blinds them to the some of the realities manifest in the social world. The broad conclusion drawn, then, is that social and human scientists need: • • • •

to avoid epistemological and ontological arrogance; to seek out and engage with those who disagree with their epistemological and ontological assumptions; to treat all truth-claims skeptically, accepting that there are multiple standards by which their truth status can be justified; and to settle competing epistemological and ontological asseverations with consistency and without recourse to the self-deception or self-delusion that permits them to avoid unpleasant truths about their preferred methodologies.

The challenge to be faced is to accept Barrett’s (1958: 247) proposition that “the centuries-long evolution of human reason is one of man’s greatest triumphs, but it is still in process, still incomplete, still to be.” The contemporary philosophy of the social sciences offers a way forward, through the diverse philosophical and methodological work of Bhaskar and Archer. They have heralded a very clear attempt to unify the epistemological dichotomy, resulting in the Bhaskar’s critical realism synthesis; and the ontological dichotomy, resulting in the Archer’s morphogenetic methodology grounded in Bhaskar’s transformational model of social action.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abelson, R. P., Aronson, E., McGuire, W. J., Newcomb, T. M., Rosenberg, M. J., and Tannenbaum, P. (eds.) 1968. Theories of Cognitive Consistency: A Sourcebook. Chicago: Rand-McNally. Abrams, D. and Hogg, M. A. (eds.) 1990. Social Identity Theory: Constructive and Critical Advances. New York: Springer-Verlag. Abrams, M. H. 1971. Natural Supernaturalism Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature. New York: W.W. Norton. Ackermann, R. 1976. The Philosophy of Karl Popper. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Ackrill, J. L. 1981. Aristotle the Philosopher. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Acton, H. B. 1971. The Morals of Markets, London: Longman. Adams, J. S. 1965. “Inequity in Social Exchange.” In Berkowitz, L. (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Academic Press. Adams, M. M. 1987. William Ockham. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame. Adler, A. [1922] 1924. The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology (tr. Radin, P.). London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. Adler, A. [1929] 1969. The Science of Living (ed. Ansbacher, H. L.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor. Adler, A. [1933] 1973. “On the Origins of the Striving for Superiority and of Social Interest.” In Ansbacher, H. L. and Ansbucher, R. R. (eds.), Superiority and Social Interest: A Collection of Later Writings. New York: Viking. Adler, A. [1938] 1943. Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind. London: Faber & Faber. Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Bruns, E., Levinson, D. J. and Sanford, R. N. 1950. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper. Adorno, T. W. and Horkheimer, M. [1947] 1972. Dialect of Enlightenment (tr. Cumming, J.). London: Allen Lane. Ajzen, I. 1991. “The Theory of Planned Behavior.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50: 179–211. Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M. 1980. Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Alcoff, L. and Potter, E. (eds.) 1993. Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge. Alderfer, C. P. 1972. Existence, Relatedness, and Growth. New York: Free Press.

192

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Alexander, J. 1987. The Micro–Macro Link. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Alexander, J. 2003. The Meaning of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Alexander, P. 1985. Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Allport, G. W. 1937. Personality: A Psychological Interpretation. New York: Holt. Allport, G. W. 1955. Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Allport, G. W. 1961. Pattern and Growth in Personalities. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Alston, W. P. 1989. Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Alston, W. P. (ed.) 2002. Realism and Antirealism. New York: Sage. Althusser, L. 1962. “Contradictions and Overdetermination” (tr. Brewster, B.). Available at http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1962/overdetermination.htm. Althusser, L. [1965] 1969. For Marx (tr. Brewster, B.). Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Available at http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/ 1965/index.Althusser/htm. Altman, Y. and Baruch, Y. 1998. “Cultural Theory and Organizations: Analytical Methods and Cases.” Organizational Studies 19 (5): 769–85. Anderson, R. J., Hughes, J. A. and Sharrock, W. W. 1986. Philosophy and the Human Sciences. New York: Barnes and Noble. Anderson, S. M. and Cole, S. W. 1990. ‘“Do I Know You” The Role of Significant Others in General Social Perception.” Journal of Personal Social Psychology 59 (3): 384–99. Annas, J. and Barnes, J. 1985. The Modes of Scepticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Antonak, R. F. 1988. “Methods to Measure Attitudes Toward People who are Disabled.” In Yuker, H. E. (ed.), Attitudes Toward Persons with Disabilities. New York: Springer. Appiah, K. A. 2008. Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Aquinas, St. T. [1264] 1974. Selected Political Writings (ed. d’Entreves, A. P.). Oxford: Blackwell. Aquinas, T. [1256–59] 1952. Disputed Questions on Truth. Chicago, IL: Regnery. Aquinas, T. [1259–64] 1905. Summa Contra Gentiles [On the Truth of the Catholic Faith Against the Unbelievers] (abridged) (tr. and ed.Rickaby, J.). London: Burns and Oates. Available at: http://www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/gc.htm. Aquinas, T. [1266–73] 1948. The Summa Theologica (trs. Fathers of the English Dominica Province). New York: Benziger. Archer, M. S. 1989. Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Archer, M. S. 1990, “Human Agency and Social Structure: A Critique of Giddens.” In Clark, J., Modgil, C. and Modgil, S. (eds.), Anthony Giddens: Consensus and Controversy. Basingstoke, Hamp., UK: Falmer Press. Archer, M. S. 1995. Realist Social Theory: A Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

193

Archer, M. S. 1996. “Social Integration and System Integration: Developing the Distinction.” Sociology 30 (4): 679–99. Archer, M. S. 2000. Being Human: The Problem of Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. S. 2003. Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. S., Lawson, T., Collier, A., Norre, A. and Bhaskar, R. 1998. Critical Realism: Essential Readings. London: Routledge Ardrey, R. 1961. African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man. London: Collins. Ardrey, R. 1967. The Territorial Imperative: The Social Contract: A Personal Inquiry into the Evolutionary Sources of Order and Disorder. London: Collins. Ardrey, R. 1970. The Social Contract: A Personal Inquiry into the Evolutionary Sources of Order and Disorder. London: Collins. Ardrey, R. 1976. The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man. London: Collins. Aristotle [350 BC] 2004. Nicomachean Ethics (tr. Ross, W. D.). Available at http:// www.etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/mirror/classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html Aristotle 1996. The Politics and the Constitution of Athens (ed. Everson, S.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aristotle [350 BC/1924/1953] 1994–2000. Metaphysics (tr. Ross, W. D). Available at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.4.iv.html Armstrong, D. M. 1968. A Materialist Theory of the Mind. New York: Humanities Press. Armstrong, D. M. 1978. Universals and Scientific Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Armstrong, D. M. 1989. Universals: An Opinionated Introduction. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Armstrong, D. M. 2000. “Universals as Attributes.” In Kim, J. and Sosa, E. (eds.), Metaphysics: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell. Armstrong, K. 2005. A Short History of Myth. Edinburgh, UK: Canongate. Arneson, R. 1991. “Autonomy and Preference Formation.” In Coleman, J. and Buchanan, A. (eds.), In Harm's Way: Essays in Honor of Joel Feinberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arnold, M. B. 1960. Emotion and Personality (Vol. 1: Psychological Aspects). New York: Columbia University Press. Aronson, E. 1969. “The theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A Current Perspective.” In Berkowitz, L. (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 4). New York: Academic Press. Arnhart, L. 1998. Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Arrow, K. J. 1954. Social Choice and Individual Values. New York: Wiley. Arrow, K. J. 1984. Individual Choice under Certainty and Uncertainty. Oxford: Blackwell. Asch, S. E. 1951. “Effects of Group Pressure upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgement.” In Guetzkow, H. (ed.), Groups, Leadership and Men. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press

194

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Asch, S. E. 1956. “Studies on Independence and Conformity: A Minority of One against an Unanimous Majority.” Psychological Monographs 70. Atherton, J. S. 2003. Learning and Teaching: Cognitive Dissonance. Available at http://www.-dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/dissonance.htm. Atherton, M. (ed.) 1999. The Empiricists: Critical Essays on Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman & Littlefield. Audi, R. 1993. Action, Intention, and Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Aurelius, M. [c.167] 1974. Meditations (tr. Staniford, M.). Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Austin, J. [1832] 1995. The Province of Jurisprudence Determined. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Axelrod, R. 1984. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books. Ayer, A. J. [1936] 1975. Language, Truth and Logic. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Ayer, A. J. 1953. The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge. London: Macmillan. Ayer, A. J. (ed.) 1959. Logical Positivism. New York: Free Press. Bacharach, M. & Gambetta, D. 1997. “Trust in Signs.” In Cook, K. S. (ed.), Trust in Society. Russell Sage Foundation. New York. Bacharach, M. and Gambetta, D. 2001. “Trust as Type Detection.” In Castelfranchi, C. and Tan, Y - H. (eds.), Trust and Deception in Virtual Societies. Kluwer Academic. Bacon, F. ([1597–1625] 1972. “Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral.” In Elliot, C. W. (ed.), The Harvard Classics. New York: Collier. Bacon, F. [1623] 1997. The Great Instauration: The Novum Organum. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger. Baehr, J. S. 2006. “A priori and A posteriori.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/apriori.htm. Baert, P. 1998. Social Theory in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Polity Press. Baggini, J. 2002. Making Sense: Philosophy behind the Headlines. Oxford: Oxford Baghramian, M. 2004. Relativism. London: Routledge Bakhtin, M. [1930s] 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (ed. Holquist, M., trs. Emerson, C. and Holquist, M.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Baier, K. 1958. The Moral Point of View. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Baker, K. 1992. “Defining the Public Sphere in Eighteenth Century France: Variations on a Theme by Habermas.” In Calhoun, C. (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bakhtin, M. [1975] 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (ed. Holquist, M.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bambrough, R. 1979. Moral Scepticism and Moral Knowledge. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bandura A. 1977. Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Bandura, A. 1986. Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognition Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Banfield, E. C. 1958. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. New York: Free Press.

Bibliography

195

Bannister, R. C. 1987. Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity, 1980– 1940. Chapel Hill, NC and London: The University of North Carolina Press Barbalet, J. M. 1998. Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. (eds.) 1992. The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Cultures. New York: Oxford University Press. Barnard, A. 2003. History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnard, C. 1938. The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Barnard, L. L. 1934. “Crowds”. In Seligman, E. R. A. (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences (Vol. IV). New York: Macmillan. Barnard, L. L. 1934. “Mobs”. In Seligman, E. R. A. (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences (Vol. X). New York: Macmillan. Barnes, B. 1974. Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory. London: Routledge and Kegan. Barrett, W. 1958 Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Barry, N. 2000. An Introduction to Modern Political Theory (4th. ed.). Basingstoke Hamp., UK: Macmillan Press. Barthes, R. [1975] 1977. Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (tr. Howard, R.). New York: Hill & Wang. Barthes, R. 1972. To Write: An Intransitive Verb.” In Macksey, R, and Donato, E. (eds.), The Language of Criticism and the Science of Man: The Structuralist Controversy. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Bartlett, S. J. and P. Suber (eds.). 1987. Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity. Dordrecht, NL: Martinus Nijhoff. Batton, A. de 2004. Status Anxiety. New York: Pantheon Books. Baumeister, R. 1993. Self-Esteem. New York: Plenum Press. Bayle, P. [1606] 1965. Historical and Critical Dictionary (trs. Popkin, R. and Brush, C.). Indianapolis, IN: Boobs-Merrel Beck, U. 1998. Democracy without Enemies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Becker, G. S. 1996. Accounting for Tastes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Becker, G. S. [1964] 1975. Human Capital (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: National Bureau of Economic Research Becker, G. S. 1976. The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Beiser, F. 2005. Schiller as Philosopher: A Re-examination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beiser, F. 2005. Hegel. New York: Routledge Belsey, C. 2002, Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bendix, E. 1989. Embattled Reason: Essays on Social Knowledge. Edison, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Benedict, R. [1934] 1959. “Anthropology and the Abnormal.” In Mead, M. (ed.), An Anthropologist at Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict. Boston, MA: Haughton Miffin. Benedict, R. [1934] 1989. Patterns of Culture. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

196

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Benedict, R. [1946] 1989. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (for. Vogel E. F.). Boston, MA: Haughton Miffin. Bengtsson, J. O. 2006. The Worldview of Personalism: Origins and Early Development. New York: Oxford University Press. Benson, P. 1987. “Freedom and Value.” Journal of Philosophy 84: 465–86. Bentham, J. [1789] 1970. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (eds. Burns, J. H. and Hart, H. L. A.). London: Athlone Press. Benton, T. and Craib, I. 2001. Philosophy of Social Science: The Philosophical Foundations of Social Thought. Basingstoke Hamp., UK: Palgrave. Bem, D. J. 1965. “An Experimental Analysis of Self-Persuasion.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 1: 199–218 Bem, D. J. 1967. “Self-Perception: An Alternative Interpretation of Cognitive Dissonance Phenomena.” Psychological Review 74: 183–200. Beran, H. 1987. The Consent Theory of Political Obligation. London: Croom Helm. Berenson,m M. 1976. “Freedom.” In Lloyd, D. T. (ed.), Philosopher and the Teacher. London and New York: Routledge. Berger, P. L. and Luckmann, T. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Bergson, A. J. 2004. “Durkheim’s Theory of Mental Categories: A Review of the Evidence.” Annual Review of Sociology 30: 395–408. Berkeley, G [1734] 2004. The Analyst: A Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician. Available at http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Berkeley/. Berkeley, G. [1710] 1962. The Principles of Knowledge (ed. Warnock, G. J.). London: Fontana. Berkeley, G. [1713] 1948. “Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.” In Berkeley, G. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Clyne (eds. Luse, A. A. and Jessop, T. E.). Edinburgh, UK: Thomas Nelson. Berlin, I. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. London: Oxford University Press. Berlin, I. 1976. Vico and Herder. New York: Viking. Bermúdez, J. L., Marcel, A. and Eilan, N. (eds.) 1995. The Body and the Self. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press. Bernard, L. L. 1926. An Introduction to Social Psychology. New York: Henry Holt. Berne, E. [1964] 1992. Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships. New York: Balantine. Bernoulli [1738] 1954. “Specimen Theoriae Novac de Mensura Sortis [Exposition of a New Theory of the Measurement of Risk]” (tr. Sommer, L.). Econometrica 22(1): 23–36. Bernstein, P. L. 1996. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. New York: John Wiley. Berofsky, B. 1995. Liberation from Self. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bertens, H. 2001. Literary Theory: The Basics. London and New York: Routledge. Bhaskar, R. 1975. A Realist Theory of Science. Leeds, UK: Leeds Books. Bhaskar, R. [1975] 1997 A Realist Theory of Science (2nd ed.). New York and London: Verso. Bhaskar, R. 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences. London and New York: Routledge.

Bibliography

197

Bhaskar, R. [1979] 1998. The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences (3rd ed.). London and New York: Routledge. Bhaskar, R., 1993. Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom. London: Verso. Billig, M. 1976. Social Psychology and Group Relations. New York: Academic Press. Bilton, T., Bonnett, K., Jones, P., Lawson, T., Skinner, D., Stanworth, M. and Webster, A. 1996. Introductory Sociology (3rd ed.). London: Macmillan. Blackburn, S. 1993. Essays in Quasi-Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blackburn, S. 1994. Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blackburn, S. 2001. Being Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blackburn, S. 2003. Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press: Blackburn, S. 2005. Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Oxford University Press. Blackmore, S. 2003. Consciousness: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blaikie, N. 1993. Approaches to Social Enquiry. Cambridge: Polity Press. Blanchard, E. B. and Scarboro, M. E 1972. “Locus of Control, Political Attitudes, and Voting Behavior in a College Age Population.” Psychology Reports 30: 529–30. Blaise, P. [1670] 1966. Pensées (tr. Krasilsheimer, A. J.). Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Blass, T. 2004. The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram. New York: Basic Books. Blau, P. M. 1964. Exchange and Power in Social Life. New York: Wiley. Blauner, R. 1964. Alienation and Freedom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Block, N. 1980. “Introduction: What is Functionalism?” In Block, N. (ed.), Readings in Philosophy of Psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bloomfield, L. 1933. Language. New York: Henry Holt. Blumer, H. 1969. Symbolism Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice Hall. Boeree, C. G. 2003. Trait Theories of Personality. Available at http://webspace.ship.edu/~cgboeree/-genp-sytraits.html. Boeree, C. G. [1998] 2006. Abraham Maslow, 1908–1970. Available at http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboeree/maslow.html. Bohman, J. 1991. New Philosophy of Social Science: Problems of Indeterminacy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bohner, G., Moskowitz, G. and Chaiken, S. 1995. “The Interplay of Heuristic and Systematic Processing of Social Information.” European Review of Social Psychology 6: 33–68. Bond, R., and Smith, P. 1996. “Culture and Conformity: A Meta-Analysis of Studies using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) Line Judgment Task.” Psychological Bulletin 119: 111–37. BonJour, L. 1985. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. BonJour, L. 2002. Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman & Littlefield. Borges, J. L. 1964. “The Lottery in Babylon.” In Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings. New York: New Directions. Borman, E. G. 1975. Discussion and Group Methods: Theory and Practice (2nd ed.). New York: Harper and Row. Bossuet, J. [1679] 1906. “Political Treatise.” In Robinson, J. H. (ed.), Readings in European History (vol 2). Boston, MA: Ginn.

198

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Bott, E. 1957. Family and Social Network: Roles, Norms, and External Relationships in Ordinary Urban Families. London: Tavistock. Boulder, K. 1990. Three Faces of Power. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Bourdieu, P. 1973. “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction.” In Brown, R. (ed.), Knowledge, Education and Social Change. London: Tavistock. Bourdieu, P. 1976. Outline of a Theory of Practice (tr. Nice. R.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice (tr. Nice. R.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. 1998. Acts of Resistance: Against the New Myths of our Time. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J.–C. [1970] 1990. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (tr. Wacquant L.) (2nd ed.). London: Sage Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant L. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Bourdieu, P., 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” In Richardson, J. G. (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (2nd ed.). New York: Greenwood. Bowie, A. 1967. From Romanticism to Critical Theory. London: Routledge. Bowie, M. 1979. “Jacques Lacan.” In Sturrock, J. (ed.), Structuralism and Since: From LéviStrauss to Derrida. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bradley, F. H. [1893] 2005. Appearances and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay. Boston, MA: Adamant Media. Bradley, F. H. [1876] 1988. Ethical Studies (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press Bramly, S. 1992. Leonardo: the Artist and the Man (trs. Reynolds, S.). London: Michael Joseph. Brand, M. and Walton, D. (eds.) 1976. Action Theory. Dordrecht, NL: Reidel. Branden, N. 2001. The Psychology of Self-Esteem. New York: Wiley. Brandon, S. F. G. 1962. Man and his Destiny in the Great Religions. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Braybrooke, D. 1987. Philosophy of Social Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Brehm, J. and Cohen, A. 1962. Explorations in Cognitive Dissonance. New York: Wiley. Brehm, J. W. 1976. “Responses to Loss of Freedom: A Theory of Psychological Reactance.” In Thibaut, J. W., Spence, J. T. and Carson, R. C. (eds.), Contemporary Topics in Social Psychology. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press. Brehm, S. S. and Brehm, J. W. 1981. Psychological Reactance: A Theory of Freedom and Control. New York: Academic Press. Brennan, J. F. 1969. “Autoeroticism or Social Feeling as Basic Human Development.” Journal of Individual Psychology 25: 3–18. Brennan, T. 2003. The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Brentano, F. [1874] 1995. Psychology from an Empirical Point of View (ed. McAlister, L. L., trs. Rancurello, A. C., Terrell, D. B., and McAlister, L. L.). London: Routledge. Brink, D. 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brooks, I. 1999. Individuals, Groups and the Organisation. London: Financial Times Management. Brown, L. S. 1988. “Anarchism, Existentialism and Human Nature: A Critique.” The Raven 2 (1): 49–60.

Bibliography

199

Bryant, C.G.A. 1985. Positivism in Social Theory and Research. Basingstoke Hamp., UK: Macmillan. Buber, M. [1923] 1958. I and Thou (tr. Smith, R. G.). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Buchanan, J. M., and Tullock, G. 1962. The Calculus of Consent. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Buckley, W. 1967. Sociology and Modern Systems Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Bunge, M. 1996. Finding Philosophy in Social Science. New Haven, CT: Yale University. Bunge, M. 1998. Social Science under Debate: A Philosophical Perspective. Toronto, Ont., CA: University of Toronto. Burge, T. 1979. “Individualism and the Mental.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4: 73–121. Burge, T. 1986. “Individualism and Psychology.” Philosophical Review 95: 3–45. Burge, T. 1988. “Individualism and Self-Knowledge.” Journal of Philosophy 85: 649–65. Burge, T. 1989. “Individuation and Causation in Psychology.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 70: 303–22. Burke, T. E. 1983. The Philosophy of Popper. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press Burke, E. [1756] 1987. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Burke, E. [1790] 1993. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burrow, R., Jr, von 1999. Personalism: A Critical Introduction. Atlanta, GA: Chalice Press Burton, R. [1621] 2001. The Anatomy of Melancholy (ed. Jackson, H.). New York: New York Review Books Classics. Bushman, B. and Baumeister, R. 1998. “Threatened Egoism, Narcissism, Self-esteem, and Direct and Displaced Aggression: Does Self-love and Self-hate Lead to Violence.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75: 219–29. Buss, D. M. 1999. Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Butler-Bowden, T. 2007. 50 Psychology Classics. London and Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey. Butterfield, J. 1998. “Determinism and Indeterminism.” In Craig, E.(ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Byatt, A. S. and Wood, H. H. (eds.) 2007. Memory. London: Chatto. Byron, M. (ed.) 2004. Satisficing and Maximising: Moral Theory’s Practical Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Calhoun, C. and Solomon, R. (eds.) 1984. What is an Emotion? New York: Oxford University Press. Callinicos, A. 1999. Social Theory: A Historical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cameron, S. 2002. The Economics of Sin: Rational Choice or no Choice at all. Cheltenham, Glos., UK: Edward Elgar. Campbell, C. 1996. The Myth of Social Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, J. K., O’Rourke, M. and Silverstein, H. S. (eds.) 2007. Causation and Explanation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Campbell, K. 1989. Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell. Camus, A. [1942] 1982. The Outsider (tr. Laredo, J.). Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin.

200

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Camus, A. [1942] 2005. The Myth of Sisyphus (tr. O’Brien, J.). Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Caplan, A. L. (ed.) 1978. The Sociobiology Debate: Readings on Ethical and Scientific Issues. New York: Harper and Row. Capozza, D. and Brown, R. 2000. Social Identity Processes. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage Carey, D. 2000. “Introduction.” In Hutcheson, F. [1755], A System of Moral Philosophy. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press. Carnap, R. [1928] 1969. The Logical Structure of the World and Pseudoproblems in Philosophy (tr.George, R. A.). Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Cassam, Q. 1997. Self and World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cassidy, D. 1991. Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg. New York: W. H. Freeman. Caston, V. 1997. "Epiphenomenalisms, Ancient and Modern." The Philosophical Review 106: 309–63. Cattell, R. B. 1965. The Scientific Analysis of Personality. Baltimore, MD: Penguin. Cattel, R. B. 1980. Personality and Learning Theory. New York: Springer. Caws, P. 1988. Structuralism: The Art of the Intelligible. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Chaiken, S., Liberman, A. and Eagly, A. H. 1989. “Heuristic and Systematic Information Processing within and beyond Persuasion Context.” In Uleman, J. S. and Bargh, J. A. (eds.), Unintended Thought. New York: Guilford. Chalmers, D. 1996. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Theory of Conscious Experience. New York: Oxford University Press. Chan, W. – T. 1963. A Source Book for Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Charles, D. and Lennon, K. (eds.) 1992. Reduction, Explanation and Realism. Oxford: Clarendon. Chen, S. and Chaiken, S. 1999. “The Heuristic-Systematic Model in its Broader Context.” In Chaiken, S. and Trope, Y. (eds.), Dual-Process Theories in Social Psychology. New York: Guilford. Chesterton, G. K. [1908] 2007. Orthodoxy. New York: Filiquarian. Available at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W6j4Qx2UF2AC&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=chest erton+%22the+real+trouble+with+this+world+of+ours+is%22&source=web&ots=yunxn JFil&sig=0zbAi2pTbtupcCvt9JjErodLw2Y&hl=en. Chisholm, R. [1964] 2002. “Human Freedom and Self.” In Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Chisholm, R. M. 1989. Theory of Knowledge (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Chomsky, N. [1955] 1975. The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. New York: Springer. Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.. Chomsky, N. 1989. Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. Boston; MA: South End Press. Christman, J. (ed.) 1989. The Inner Citadel: Essays on Individual Autonomy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Christman, J. 1991. “Autonomy and Personal History.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (1): 1–24.

Bibliography

201

Cicero [44 BC] 1971. De Fato [On Fate] (tr. Sharples, R. W.). Warminister, Wilts., UK: Aris & Phillips. Clark, M. S. and Mills, J. 1993. “The Difference between Communal and Exchange Relationships: What it is and What it is not.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 19: 684–91. Clarke R. [2000] 2004. “Incompatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free Will.” In Zelta, E. N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at http://plato. stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/. Clarke, R. 2005. Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press. Coady, C. A. J. 1992. Testimony: A Philosophical Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coelho, P. [1988] 1995. The Alchemist. London: HarperCollins. Cohen, G. A. 2001. Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cohen, G. A. 1988. History, Labour and Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.. Cohen, M., March, J. and Olsen, J. 1972. “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice.” Administrative Science Quarterly 17 (1): 1–23. Coleman, J. S. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Collier, A. 1994. Critical Realism: An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar’s Philosophy. New York and London: Verso. Collins, H. and Kusch, M. 1998. The Shape of Actions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Collins, P. H. 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (2nd ed.). New York and London: Routledge. Collins, R. 1981. “On the Micro Foundations of Macrosociology.” American Journal of Sociology 86 (4): 938–65. Comte, A. [1830–42] 1896. The Positive Philosophy (tr. Martineau, H.) (3 vols.). London: Bell. Condorcet, M. J. A. N. [1795] 1955. Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (tr.Barraclough, J.). New York: Noonday Confucius [Kongfuzi] [5th century BC] 1992. Lanyo [Analects] (tr. Lau, D. C.). Hong Kong: Chinese University Press Coniam, M. 2001. “The Forgotten Existentialist.” Philosophy Now 32 (June/July): 20. Cook, G. A. 1977. “G. H. Mead’s Social Behaviorism.” Journal of the History of Behavioral Science 13 (4): 307–16. Cook, K. S. 1977a. “Exchange and Power in Networks of Interorganizational Relations.” The Sociological Quarterly 18 (1): 62–82. Cook, K. S. (ed.) 1987. Social Exchange Theory. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage. Cooley, C. H. [1902]1983. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner's. Cooper, J. and Brehm, J. W. 1971. “Prechoice Awareness of Relative Deprivation as a Determinant of Cognitive Dissonance.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 7: 57l–8l. Cooper, J. and Fazio, R. H. 1984. "A New Look at Dissonance Theory." In Berkowitz, L. (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 17). New York: Academic Press. Cornett, L. and Caporaso, J. A. 1992. “‘And Still it Moves!’ State Interests and Social Forces in the European Community.” In Rosenau, J. N. and Czempiel, E.–O. (eds.), Governance

202

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Without Government Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coughlan, R. P. B. 1994. “Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Cultural Theory.” In Coyle, D. J. and Ellis, R. J. (eds.), Politics, Policy and Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview. Cournot, A. A. [1838] 1927. Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth (tr. Bacon, N. T.). New York: Macmillan. Craig, E. (ed.) 2005. The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Cramer, P. 1991. The Development of Defense Mechanisms: Theory, Research and Assessment. New York: Springer-Verlag. Cressey, D. R. 1953. Other People’s Money: A Study of the Social Psychology of Embezzlement. Glenco, IL: The Free Press. Cresswell, M. J. 1985, Structured Meanings. The Semantics of Propositional Attitudes. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press. Crisp, R. and Slote, M. 1997. Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crosbie-Brunett M and Lewis EA. (1993) “Theoretical Contributions from Social and Cognitive Behavioral Psychology.” In Boss P. G., Dohetry W. J., LaRossa R., Schumm W. R. and Streinmetz S. K. (eds.), Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A Contextual Approach. New York: Plenum Press. Crosby, D. A. 1988. The Specter of the Absurd: Sources and Criticisms of Modern Nihilism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Crossley, N. 1996. Intersubjectivity: The Fabric of Social Becoming. London: Sage Crunbaugh, J. C. 1973. “The Validation of Logotheropy.” In Jurjrvich, R. M. (ed.), Direct Psychotheropy. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press. Culler, J 1976. Saussure. Glasgow, UK: Fontana/Collins. Cunning, D. 1999. “Agency and Consciousness.” Synthese 120: 271–94. Cutting, B. and Kouzmin, A. 2002. “Evaluating Corporate Board Culture and Decision Making.” Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Effective Board Performance 2 (2): 27–45. D’Andrade, R. G. 1984. “Cultural Meaning Systems.” In Shweder, R. A. and LeVine, R. A. (eds.), Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press. Dahl, R. A. 1999. “The Anti-reflexive Revolution: On the Affirmation of the New Right.” In Featherstone, M. and Lash, S. E. (eds.), Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World. London: Sage. Dahrendorf, R. 1968. “Homo Sociologicus.” In Dahrendorf, R. (ed.), Essays in the Theory of Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dale, J. 2002. Ontology. Montreal and Kingston, Ont., CA: McGill-Queen's University Press. Danermark, B. 2003, Explaining Society: An Introduction to Critical Realism in the Social Sciences. London: Routledge. Darwin, C. [1859] 2006. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Philadelphia, PA: University of Philadelphia Press. Darwin, C. [1871] 2004. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger. Darwin, C. [1872] 1965. Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals. London: John Murray.

Bibliography

203

d’ Ascoli, C. [Francesco degli Stabili] 1487. Cecho Asculana [Acerba]. Venice, IT: Per Bernardinum de Niouraria. Available at: http://www.esnips.com/doc/87671831e7c34e45-862d-ed3035ff942a/cecco%20d'Ascoli%20%20l'acerba%20(incompiuto%2013 27). Davidson, D. 1980. “Mental Events.” In Davidson, D. (ed.) Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davidson, D. 1984. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davies, M. F. 2006. “Irrational Beliefs and Unconditional Self-Acceptance. I. Correlational Evidence Linking Two Key Features of REBT.” Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy 24 (2). Available at http://eprints.goldsmiths.ac.uk/archive/00000059/02/JRECBT_1_GRO.pdf. Davies, P. 1992. The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning. Ringwood, Vic., AU: Penguin. Davis, J. 2003. The Theory of the Individual in Economics: Identity and Value. New York: Routledge. Davis, M. H. 1994. Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Dawkins, R. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dawes, R. 1988 Rational Choice in an Uncertain World. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers. Day, R. J. F. 2005. Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements. London: Pluto Press. Deaux, K. 1996. “Social Identification.” In Tory Higgins, E. and Kruglanski, A. W. (eds.), Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles. New York: Guilford. de Beauvoir, S. [1949] 1972. The Second Sex (tr. Parshley, H. M.). Available at http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/index.-htm. de Board, R. 1978. The Psychoanalysis of Organizations: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Behavior in Groups and Organizations. London: Tavistock. de Botton, A. 2000. The Consolations of Philosophy. London: Hamish Hamilton. de Haven-Smith, L. 1988. Philosophical Critiques of Policy Analysis. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press. Deighton, L. 1992. City of Gold. Sydney: Random House. Delanty, G. 2000. Modernity and Postmodernity: Knowledge, Power and Self. London: Sage. Delger, C. N. 1991. In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought. New York: Oxford University Press. Dennett, D. 1993. Consciousness Explained. Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Dennett, D. 2002. Freedom Evolves. London: Allen Lane. Dennett, D. C. 1984. Elbow Room. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dennett, D. C. 2004. Freedom Evolves. New York: Penguin. DePaul, M (ed.) 2000. Resurrecting Old-Fashioned Foundationalism. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman & Littlefield. Derrida, J. 1976. Of Grammatology (tr. Spivak, G. C.). Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. Derrida, J. 1978. Writings and Differences (tr. Bass, A.). London and New York: Routledge: Descartes, R. [1628] 1961. “Rules for the Direction of the Mind” (tr. Lafleur, L.) In Lafleur, L (ed. and tr.), Philosophical Essays. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

204

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Descartes, R. [1637] 1951. “A Discourse on Methods.” In Descartes. R. A., Discourse on Methods and Selected Writings (tr. Veitich, J.). London: Dent & Sons. Descartes, R. [1641] 1961. “Second Mediation: of the Nature of the Human Mind, and that it is More Easily Known than the Body.” In Lafleur, L (ed. and tr.), Philosophical Essays. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Descartes, R. [1641] 1975. “Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy.” In Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R. and Dugald Murdoch, M. (eds.), The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Vol. 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Descartes, R. [1644] 1983. Principia Philosophiae [Principles of Philosophy] (trs. Miller, V. R. and Miller, R. P.). Dordrecht, NL: Reidel Deutsch, M. and Gerard, G. B. 1955. “A Study of Normative and Informational Social Influences upon Individual Judgement.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 51: 629–36. Devitt, M. 1984. Realism and Truth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Devitt, M. and Sterelny, K. [1987] 1998. Language and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. de Waal, F. 2006. Primates and Philosophy: How Morality Evolved (eds. Macedo, S. and Ober, J.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dewey, J. [1932] 1985. The Collected Works of John Dewey (Vol. 7). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. [1895–98] 1972. The Collected Works of John Dewey (Vol. 5). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. 1933. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relations of Reflective Thinking to the Education Process. Lexington, MA: Heath. Dewey, J. 1933. Logic: Theory of Inquiry. Troy, MO: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Diderot, D. [1771–73] 1999 Jacques le Fataliste et son Maître [Jacques the Fatalist]. (tr. Coward, D.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dihle, A. 1982. The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity (Sather 48). Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Classics. Dilthey, W. [1883] 1988. Introduction to the human sciences (tr. Bentanzos, R. J.). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Dilthey, W. [1910] 2000. “The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences” (tr. Makkreel, R. A. and Rodi, F.). In Makkreel, R. A. and Rodi, F. (eds.), Selected Works (Vol. 3). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dixon, J. 2003. Responses to Governance: The Governing of Corporations, Societies and the World. Westport, CT: Praeger. Dixon, J. and Dogan, R. 2002. “Hierarchies, Networks and Markets: Responses to Societal Governance Failures.” Administration Theory and Praxis 24 (1): 175–196. Dixon, J. and Dogan, R. 2003a “Analysing Global Governance Failure: A Philosophical Framework.” Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 5 (1): 20–24. Dixon, J. and Dogan, R. 2003b. “Corporate Decision Making: Contending Perspectives and their Governance Implications.” Corporate Governance: International Journal of Business in Society 3 (1): 39–57. Dixon, J. and Dogan, R. 2003c. “A Philosophical Analysis of Management: Improving Praxis.” Journal of Management Development 22 (6): 458–82.

Bibliography

205

Dixon, J. and Dogan, R. 2003d. “Towards Constructive Corporate Governance: From ‘Certainties’ to a Plurality Principle.” Reason in Practice: The Journal of the Philosophy of Management 2 (3): 51–72. Dixon, J. and Dogan, R. 2004. “The Conduct of Policy Analysis: Philosophical Points of Reference.” Review of Policy Research, 21 (2 & 3): 559–80. Dixon, J. and Dogan, R. 2005. “The Contending Perspectives on Public Management: A Philosophical Investigation.” International Public Management Journal 8 (1): 1–22. Dixon, J., Dogan, R. and Carrier, K. 2005. “On Investigating the ‘Underclass’: Contending Philosophical Perspectives.” Social Policy & Society 4 (1): 21–30. Dixon, J., Dogan, R. and Kouzmin, A. 2004. “The Dilemma of Privatised Public Services: Philosophical Frames in Understanding Failure and Managing Partnership Terminations.” Public Organization Review 4 (1): 25–46. Dixon, J. and Hyde, M. 2003. “Public Pension Privatization, Neo-Classical Economics, Decision Risks and Welfare Ideology.” International Journal of Social Economics 30 (5): 633–50. Dixon, J. and Newman, D. 1998. Entering the Chinese Market: Risks and Discounted Rewards. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Dixon, J., Sanderson, A. and Dogan, R. 2005. “Community and Communitarianism: A Philosophical Investigation.” Community Development Journal, 40 (1): 4–16. Dixon, J., Sanderson, A. and Tripathi, S. 2006. “Ethics, Trust and the Public Interest: The Contending Modes of Societal Governance.” In Korac-Kakabadse, N. and Kakabadse, A. (eds.) Governance, Strategy and Policy: Seven Critical Essays. Basingstoke Hamp., UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Dixon, J., Sanderson, A. and Tripathi, S. 2007. Sanderson, A. and Tripathi, S. “Governance and the Public Interest: The Challenges for Public Sector Leaders.” In Koch, R. and Dixon, J. (eds.), Public Governance and Leadership. Weisbaden, DM: Gabler-Verlag. Donagan, A. 1987. Choice: The Essential Element of Human Action. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Dor, J. 2001. Introduction to the Reading of Lacan: The Unconscious Structured Like a Language. New York: Other Press. Dostoevesky, F. [1880] 1948, The Brothers Karamazov (tr.Garnett, C. B.). New York: Macmillan. Douglas, J. and Johnson, J. M. (eds.) 1977. Existential Sociology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Douglas, M. 1970. Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. London: Barry and Rockliff. Douglas, M. 1978. Cultural Bias (Occasional Paper 35). London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Douglas, M. 1982. “Cultural Bias.” In Douglas, M. (ed.), In the Active Voice. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Douglas, M. 1994. Risk and Blame: Essays in Culture Theory. London: Routledge. Douglas, M. 1999. “Four Cultures: The Evolution of a Parsimonious Model.” GeoJournal 47 (3): 411–15. Douglas, M. and Isherwood, B. 1979. The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption. London: Allen Lane.

206

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Douglas, M. and Ney, S. 1998. Missing Persons: A Critique of the Social Sciences. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Douglas, M., Gasper, D., Ney, S. and Thompson, M. 1997. “Human Needs and Wants.” In Rayner, S. and Malone, E. L. (eds.), Human Choice and Climate Change, 1: The Societal Framework. Columbus, OH: Battelle Press. Downs, A. 1957. The Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper & Row Draaisma, D. 2000. Metaphors and Memory: A History of Ideas about the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drake, D., Lovejoy, A. O. Pratt, J. B., Rogers, A. K. Santayana, G. Sellars, R. W. and Strong, C. A. 1920. Essays in Critical Realism: a Co-operative Study of the Problem of Knowledge. London: Macmillan. Dryzek, J. S. (1987), “Complexity and Rationality in Public Life.” Political Studies 35 (4): 424–42. Dubin, R 1978. Theory Building. Free Press, New York. Dulles, A. 1983. Models of Revelation. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Dummett, M. A. E. 1963. “Realism.” In Dummett, M. A. E. (ed.), Truth and Other Enigmas. London: Duckworth. Dumont, L. 1970 Homo Hierarchus. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Dunn, T. 2008. Loneliness as a Way of Life. Cambridgre, MA: Harvard University Press. Dupré, L. 1966 The Philosophical Foundations of Marxism. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Duran, J. 1991. Towards a Feminist Epistemology. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Durkheim, E. [1895] 1962. The Rules of Sociological Method. Glencoe IL.: Free Press. Durkheim, E. [1895] 1982. The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and Its Method (ed. Lukes, S., tr. Halls, W. D). London: Macmillan. Durkheim, E. [1897] 1952. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Durkheim, E. [1912] 2001. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (tr. Cosman, C.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Durkin, K. 1995. Developmental Social Psychology: From Infancy to Old Age. Oxford: Blackwell. Dworkin, G. 1988. The Theory and Practice of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eagly, A. H. and Chaiken, S. 1993. The Psychology of Attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Eagly, A. H. and Chaiken, S. 1998. “Attitude Structure and Function.” In Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T. and Lindzey, G. (eds.), The Handbook of Social Psychology (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Eagly, A. H., Chen, S., Chaiken, S. abed Shaw-Barnes K. 1999. “The Impact of Attitudes on Memory: An Affair to Remember.” Psychological Bulletin 125: 64–89. Earman, J. 1986. A Primer on Determinism. Dordrecht, NL: Reidel. Eccles, J. C. 1994. How the Self Controls its Brain. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Edwards, P. (ed.) 1967. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York:Macmillan. Edwards, W. 1954. “The Theory of Decision-Making.” Psychological Bulletin 51: 380–417. Eilstein, H. 1995. “The Virus of Fatalism.” In Gavrogulu, A., Stachel, J. and Wartofsky, M. (eds.), Science, Mind and Art. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer.

Bibliography

207

Ekah, P. 1974. Social Exchange Theory—The Two Traditions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elkin, R. A. and Leippe, M. R. 1986. “Physiological Arousal, Dissonance, and Attitude Change.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51: 55–65. Ellis. A. 2005. The Myth of Self-esteem: How Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Can Change Your Life Forever. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus. Elster, J. 1979. Ulysses and the Sirens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elster, J. 1982. “The Case for Methodological Individualism.” Theory and Society 11: 453–82. Elster, J. 1985a. Making Sense of Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elster, J. 1985b. Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elster, J. 1986a. “Introduction”. In Elster, J. (ed.), Rational Choice. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Elster, J. 1986b. Rational Choice. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Elster, J. 1988. Multiple Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elster, J. 1989a. Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elster, J. 1989b. Solomonic Judgements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elster, J. 1999a. Alchemies of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elster, J. 1999b. Strong Feelings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Embree, L., Behnke, E.A., Carr, D., Evans, J. C., Huertas-Jourda, J., Kockelmans, J. J., Mckenna, W., Mickunas, A., Mohanty, J. N., Nenon, T., Seebohm, T. M., and Zaner, R. M. 1996. The Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer. Erikson, E, H, 1963. Childhood and Society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. Erikson, E, H, 1964. Insight and Responsibility. New York: Norton. Etzioni, A. 1961. A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations. New York: Free Press. Etzioni, A. 1968. The Active Society: A Theory of Societal and Political Processes. New York: Free Press. Etzioni, A. (ed.) 1998. The Essential Communitarian Reader. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Evans, D. A. and Alexander, S. 1970. “Some Psychological Correlates of Civil Rights Activity.” Psychology Reports 26: 899–906. Evans, R. 1967. Dialogue with Erik Erikson. New York: Harper Row. Esyenck, H. J. 1967. The Biological Basis of Personality. Sprinfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Esyenck, H. J. 1970. The Structure of Human Personality (3rd ed.). London: Methuen. Esyenck, H. J. and Esyenck, M. W. 1985. Personality and Individual Differences: A Natural Science Approach. New York: Plenum. Fahkry, M. 1958. Islamic Occasionalism and it Critique by Averroes and Aquinas. London: Allan & Unwin. Fama, F. and Jensen, M. 1983a. “Separation of Ownership and Control.” Journal of Law and Economics 26: 301–26. Fama, F. and Jensen, M. 1983b. “Agency Problems and Residual Claims.” Journal of Law and Economics 26: 327–49. Fanon, F. 1961. Black Skin, White Masks (tr. Markmann, C. L.). New York: Grove Press. Fardon, R. 1999. Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography. London: Routledge. Farr, R. M. 1996. The Roots of Modern Social Psychology 1872–1954. Oxford: Blackwell.

208

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Farthing, G. W. 1992. The Psychology of Consciousness. Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Feldman, R. and Conee, E. 2004. Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fest, J. 2003. Inside Hitler’s Bunker. London and New York: Macmillan Festinger, L. 1950. “Informal Social Communication.” Psychological Review 57: 271–82. Festinger, L. 1954. “A Theory of Social Comparison Processes.” Human Relations 7: 117–40 Festinger, L. 1957. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson. Festinger, L. and Carlsmith, J. M. 1959. “Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 58: 203–10. Feuerbach, L. A. [1841] 1893. The Essence of Christianity (tr. Evans. M.) (3rd ed.). London: Kegan Paul and Trench Trubner. Feyerabend, P. 1963. “Mental Events and the Brain.” Journal of Philosophy 60: 295–6. Feyerabend, P. 1975. Against Method, London: Verso. Fichte. J. G. [1794–95] 1970. “Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge (tr. Heath, P.).” In Heath, P. and Lachs, J. (eds.), Science of Knowledge (2nd ed.). New York: Appleton-Century-Croft. Field, J. 2003. Social Capital. London: Routledge. Figgis, J. N. [1896] 1965. The Theory of the Divine Right of Kings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Finch, H. L. 1995. Wittgenstein. Rockport, MA: Elements. Fingerette, H. 1969. Self-Deception. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Fingarette, H. 1972. Confucius—The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper. Finley, N. and Norman, R. 1997. "The Concept of Social Parallax." Women and Language 20 (1): 43–46. Firth, C. 2007. Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World. Oxford: Blackwell. Fischer, J. M. 1994. The Metaphysics of Free Will. Oxford: Blackwell. Fischer, J. M. 1989. God, Foreknowledge and Freedom. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Fishbein, M. and Ajzen, I. 1975. Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Reading. MA: Addison-Wesley. Fishburn, P. C. 1982 The Foundations of Expected Utility. Dordrecht, NL: D. Reidel. Fisher, P. 2002. The Vehement Passion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fiske, S. T. and Taylor, S. E. 1991. Social Cognition (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. Flanagan, O. 1992. Consciousness Reconsidered. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Flathman, R. E. 2002. Thomas Hobbes: Skepticism, Individuality and Chastened Politics (new ed.). Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman & Littlefield. Flaubert, G. [1856/1857] 2006. Madam Bovary (tr. Marx-Aveling, E.). Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2413/2413-h/2413-h.htm. Fletcher, J. 1966. Situational Ethics. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press. Flewelling, R. T. 1915. Personalism and the Problems of Philosophy. New York: Methodist Book Concern Flewelling, R. T. 1943 “Personalism.” In Runes, D. D. (ed.), Twentieth Century Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library

Bibliography

209

Foa, U. G. and Foa, E. B. 1971. “Resource Exchange: Towards a Structural Theory of Interpersonal Relations.” In Seigman, A. Q. W. and Pope, B. (eds.), Studies in Dydadic Communication. New York: Pergamon. Fodor, J. A. 1981. Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Fodor, J. 1987. Psychosemantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Fodor, J. 1991. “A Modal Argument for Narrow Content.” Journal of Philosophy 88: 5–26. Fodor, J. A. 1983. Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Foot, P. [1978] 2002. Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon. Foot, P. 1978a. Moral Relativism. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. Foot, P. 1978b. Virtues and Vices. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Foot, P. 2002. Moral Delimmas and Other Topics in Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon. Forbes, G. 1989. Language of Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Force, P. 2003. Self–Interest before Adam Smith: A Genealogy of Economic Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foucault, M. [1966] 1989. The Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London and New York: Routledge. Available at http://booksgoogle.co.uk/books?id=7z0nXi4R8m4C&printsec=titlepage&vq=Foucault+1966+The+Order+of+Things&source=g bs_toc_s&cad=1#PPR12,M1. Foucault, M. [1969] 2002. The Archaeology of Knowledge (tr. Sheriden Smith, A. M.). London and New York: Routledge. Available at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MA 77jxOOmBcC&dq=foucault+1966+the+archeology+of+knowledge&pg=PP1&ots=Yinx McGXpJ&source=citation&sig=K4SU53_L2xDPWDnC7YA62Jkf6tE&hl=en&prev=htt p://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Foucault+1966+The+Archeology+of+Knowledg e&btnG=Google+Search&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1&cad=bottom–3results Foucault, M. 1978. The History of Sexuality (vol 1: An Introduction) (tr. Hurley, R.). New York: Pantheon. Foucault 1983. “Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia: Six lectures given by Michel Foucault at the University of California at Berkeley, Oct–Nov. 1983” (ed. Pearson, J). Available at http://foucault.info/documents/parrhesia/. Foucault, M. 1991. “Governmentality”. In Burchell, G., Gordon, C. and Miller, P. (eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Hemel Hempstead, Herts., UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Frank, P. 1949. Modern Science and it Philosophy. Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press. Frankfurt, H. [1971] 2002. “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person.” In Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Frankl, V. E. [1946/1959] 1984. Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (Pref. Allport, G. W.) (updated Touchstone ed.). New York: Washington Square Press. Frankl, V. E. [1948/1976] 2000. Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning (for. Hunt, S.) (rev. paperback ed.). New York: Perseus Book Group. Frankl, V. E. [1955] 1986. The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. London: Random House.

210

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Frankl, V. E. [1969] 1988. The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy. New York: New American Library. Freeman, C. 2003. The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason. London: Pimlico. Freeman, K. 1983 Ancilla to the Pre–Socratic Philosophers (reprint ed.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Frege, G. [1884] 1980. The Foundations of Arithmetic: A Logico–Mathematical Enquiry into the Concept of Numbers (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Frege, G. [1918] 1997. “Thought.” In Beany, M. (ed.) (1997) The Frege Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Freire, P. 1985. The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation. New York: Bergin and Garvey. Freire, P. 1996. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. French, J. R. P. and Raven, B. 1959. “The Bases of Social Power.” In Cartwright, D. (ed.), Studies in Social Power. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Frese, M. and Sabini, J. 1985. Goal Directed Behavior: The Concept of Action in Psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Freud, A. [1936] 1948. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. London: Horgarth and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Freud, S. [1912] 1959. “The Dynamics of the Transference.” In Jones, E. (ed.) Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud (tr Riviere, J) (Vol. 2). New York: Basic Books. Freud, S. 1922. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. London: Hogarth. Freud, S [1923] 1927. The Ego and the Id (tr. Riviere, J.). London: Hogarth. Freud, S. [1929] 1971. The Complete Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. London: Allen & Unwin. Freud, S. 1936. “Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety.” Psychoanalytical Quarterly 5: 415–43. Freud, S. 1957. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (rev. ed.) (tr. Riviere, J.). New York: Permabooks. Frey, D. 1986. “Recent Research on Selective Exposure to Information.” In Berkowitz, L. (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 19). New York: Academic Press. Fried, C. 1978. Right and Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Friedman, M. 1955. “The Methodology of Positive Economics.” In Freedman, M. (ed.), Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Friedman, M. 1962. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Friedman, M. and Friedman, R. 1980. Free to Choose. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Friedman, N. 1973. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism. New York: Harper and Row. Friere, P. 1972. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Fukuyama, F. 1995. Trust. London: Hamish Hamilton. Fumerton, R. 2002. Realism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman & Littlefield. Furnham, A. 1984. “Many Sides of the Coin: The Psychology of Money Usage.” Personality and Individual Differences 5: 501–9.

Bibliography

211

Fuss, D. 1989. Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature and Difference. New York: Routledge. Gac Sanit. [online]. 2006, Vol. 20, no. 4. Available at: http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?sc– ript=sciarttext&pid=S021391112006000400015&lng=en&nrm=iso. Gaede, E.A. 1983. Politics and Ethics: Machiavelli to Niebuhr. London: University Press of America. Gambetta, D, 1988. “Can We Trust?” In Gambetta, D. (ed.), Trust: Making and Breaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garfinkel, H. [1967] 1984. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Oxford: Blackwell. Garver, N. 1994. This Complicated Form of Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gauthier, D. 1986. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gauthier, D. 1990. Moral Dealing: Contract, Ethics, and Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gazzaniga, M. S., Ivry, R. B. and Mangun, G. R. 2002. Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind (2nd ed.). New York: W. W. Norton. Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, C. 1983. “The Way We Think Now: Towards an Ethnography of Modern Thought.” In Geertz, C. (ed.), Local Knowledge. New York: Basic Books. Gerard, H. B. 1963. “Emotional Uncertainty and Social Comparison.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 63: 568–73. Gerard, H. B. and Rabbie, J. M. 1961. “Fear and Social Comparison.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 61: 586–92. Gergen, K. J. 1999. An Introduction to Social Construction. London: Sage. Gergen, K. J. 2001. Social Construction in Context. London: Sage. Gergen, K. J. and Thatchenkey, T. J. 1998. “Organizational Science in Postmodern Context.” In Chia, R. C. H. (ed.), In the Realm of Organization: Essays for Robert Cooper. London: Routledge. Gewirtz, J. L. 1969. “Mechanisms of social learning: Some roles of stimulation and behavior in early human development.” In Goslin, D. A. (ed.), Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Gewirth, A. 1978. Reason and Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gibbard, A. 1990. Wise Choice, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self–Identity: Self and Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, A. 1993. New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies (2nd ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Giddens, A. 1995. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, A. 2001. Sociology (4th ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Gigerenzer, G. 1991. “How to Make Cognitive Illusions Disappear: Beyond ‘Heuristics and Biases’.” In Stroebe, W. and Heewstone, M. (eds.), European Review of Social Psychology (Vol. 2). Chichester, ESuss, UK: Wiley. Gigerenzer, G. 2007. Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious. New York: Viking.

212

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Gigerenzer, G. and Goldstein, D. G. 1996. “Reasoning the Fast and Frugal Way: Models of Boounded Rationality.” Psychological Review 103: 650–69. Gilbert, D. T. and Malone, P. S. 1995. “The Correspondence Bias.” Psychological Bulletin 117: 21–38. Gini, A. 2006. Why it is Hard to be Good. New York and London: Routledge. Glasersfeld, E. von 1995. Radical Constructivism: A Way of Knowing and Learning. London: Falmer Press. Glasser, B. G. and Strauss, A. L. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Goffman, E. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday. Goffman, E. 1961. Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs–Merrill. Goffman, E. 1963. Behavior in Public Places. New York: Free Press. Goffman, E. 1974. Frame Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goldie, P. 2004. On Personality. London: Routledge. Goldstein, J. 1999. “Emergence as a Construct: History and Issues.” Emergence: Complexity and Organization 1: 49–72. Goodman, N. [1954] 1965. Fact, Fiction and Forecast (2nd ed.). New York: Bobbs–Merrill. Gootnick, A. T. 1974. “Locus of Control and Political Participation of College Students: A Comparison of Unidimensional and Multidimensional Approaches.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 42: 54–8. Gordon, H. and Gordon, R. 1995. Sartre and Evil: Guidelines for a Struggle. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Gordon, S. 1991. The History and Philosophy of Social Science. London: Routledge. Gore, P. S. and Rotter, J. B. 1963. “A Personality Correlate of Social Action.” Journal of Personality 31: 58–64. Gouinlock, J. 1972. John Dewey’s Philosophy of Value. New York: Humanities Press. Gould, S. J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Graham, G. 2007. “Behaviorism.” Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/. Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks (eds. Hoare, Q. and Nowell Smith, G.). London: Lawrence and Wishart. Gramsci, A. 1985. Selections from Cultural Writings. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Grave, S. A. 1960. The Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense. Oxford: Clarendon. Gray, J. 2002. Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. London: Granta. Gray, J. 2004. Al Qaerda and What it Means to be Modern. New York: Faber. Graziano, W. G. and Eisenberg, N. 1997. “Agreeableness: A Dimension of Personality.” In Hogan, J., Johnson, J. and Briggs, S. (eds.), Handbook of Personality Psychology. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Greach, P. 2001. Truth and Hope. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Greene, B. 1999. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. New York: Vintage Grendstad, G. and Selle, P. 1999. “The Formation and Transformation of Preferences: Cultural Theory and Postmaterialism Compared.” In Thompson, M., Grendstat, G. and Selle, P. (eds.), Cultural Theory as Political Science. London: Routledge. Gribbin, J. 2005. The Fellowship: The Story of a Revolution. London: Allen Lane.

Bibliography

213

Griffin, J. P. 1964. Wittgenstein’s Logical Atomism. Oxford: Clarendon. Griffin, J. P. 1986. Well–Being. Oxford: Clarendon. Gross, J. and Rayner, S. 1985. Measuring Culture: A Paradigm for the Analysis of Social Organizations. New York: Colombia University Press. Grote, J. 1876. A Treatise on the Moral Ideals. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell. Available at: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4wHvCeDg02EC&dq=John+Grote++A+Treatise+on +Moral+Ideals&pg=PR2&ots=a–abIRmDGt&sig=nSzcBRJ2eGqAHwXEdZ2Dd8zP3prev=http://www.google.co.uk/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3DJohn%2BGrote%2B%2BA%2BTreatise%2Bon%2BMoral%2BIdeals%26btnG%3DSearch%26meta%3Dcr%253DcountryUK%257CcountryGB&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title#PPR3,M1 Grünbaum, A. 1984. The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Guba, E. G. and Lincoln, Y. S. (1994), “Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research.” In Denzin, N. K. and Lincoln, Y. S. (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gui, B. and Sugden, R. (eds.) 2005. Economics and Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Guignon., C. B. 1993. “Authenticity, Moral Values and Psychotheopy.” In Guignon., C. B. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guignon., C. B. and Hiley, D. R. 1996. “Biting the Bullet: Rorty on Private and Public Morality.” In Malachowski, A. (ed.), Reading Rorty. Oxford: Blackwell. Guignon, C. B. 2004. On Being Authentic. New York: Routledge. Guyer, P. 2006. Kant. New York: Routledge. Gyatso, T. 2001. Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium (2nd ed.). London: Abacus. Haas, E. B. 1990. When Knowledge is Power: Three Models of Change in International Organizations. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Habermas, J.1968, Knowledge and Human Interest. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. 1971. Towards a Rational Society. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. 1975. Legitimation Crisis. Boston. MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. [1981] 1985. The Theory of Communicative Action (Vol. 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. 1986, “Hannah Arnedt’s Communications Concept of Power.” In Lukes, S. (ed.), Power. New York: New York University Press. Habermas, J. 1987. The Theory of Communicative Action (vol 2: Lifeworld and Systems: A Critique of Functionalist Reason) (tr. McCarthy, T.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. 2003. Truth and Justification. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hägerström, A. 1964. Philosophy and Religion (tr Sandin, R. T.). London: Allen and Unwin. Haidt, J. 2003. “The Moral Emotions.” In Davidson, R. J. (ed.), Handbook of Affective Sciences. New York: Oxford University Press. Hajer, M. A. 1993. “Discourse Coalitions and the Institutionalization of Practice.” In Fischer, F. and Forester, J. (eds.), The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. London: UCL Press.

214

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Hales, C. 2001. Managing through Organization: The Management Process, Forms of Organisation and the Work of Managers. London: Business Press. Hall, R. A. Jr. 1987. Leonard Bloomfield: Essays on his Life and Work. Amsterdam, NL: Benjamins. Hall, A. D. and Hogan, R. E. 1969. “Definition of System.” In Litterer, J. A. (ed.), Organizations, Systems. Control and Adaption (Vol. II). New York: Wiley. Hall, C. S. and Nordby, V. J. 1973. A Primer of Jungian Psychology. New York: New American Library. Hallett, G. L. 1991. Essentialism: A Wittgensteinian Critique. New York: SUNY Press. Hammond, M., Howarth, J. and Keat, R. 1991. Understanding Phenomenology. Oxford: Blackwell. Hampshire, S. 2005. Spinoza and Spinozism. Oxford: Clarendon. Hampton, J. 1986. Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hankinson, R. J. 1995. The Sceptics. London: Routledge. Hanson, N. R. 1958. Patterns of Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harding, S. 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. New York: Cornell University. Harding, S. 1991. Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press. Hare, R. M. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon. Hare, R. M. 1963. Freedon and Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hare, R. M. 1997. Sorting out Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harman, G. 2000. “Moral Philosophy meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error.” In: Harman, G (ed.), Explaining Value and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. Harmon, G. H. 1965. “The Inference to the Best Explanation.” Philosophical Review 74 (1): 88–95. Harré, R. 1970. The Principles of Scientific Thinking. London: Macmillan. Harré, R. 1972. The Philosophies of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harré, R. 1980. “Social Being and Social Change.” In Brenner, M. (ed.), The Structure of Action. Oxford: Blackwell. Harré, R. 1983. Personal Being. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Harré, R. 1986. Varieties of Realism, Oxford: Blackwell. Harré, R. 1988. The Singular Self: An Introduction to the Psychology of Self. London: Sage. Harré, R. and Gillett, G. 1994. The Discursive Mind. London: Sage. Harris, M. 1979. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. New York, Random House. Harris, T. [1967] 1996. I'm OK–You're OK. New York: Avon. Hart, H. L. A. [1961] 1994. The Concept of Law (eds. Bullock, P. and Raz, J.) (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon. Harvey, D. 1992. The Condition of Postmodernism: An Enquiry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harvey, J. B. (1999). How Come Every Time I Get Stabbed in the Back, My Fingerprints are on the Knife? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Haselbach, A. 1994. “On Ways and Patterns of Thinking ‘Identity’” In Novak-Lukanovic, S. (ed.), The Multiple Identity: What is it and How does it Work. Ljubljana, SL: Slovenian

Bibliography

215

National Commission for Unesco and Institute for Ethnic Studies (European project: Overlapping Cultures and Plural Identities/Cultures Partielles et Identités Multiple). Hasker, W. 1999. The Emergent Self. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Harford, T. 2007. The Logic of Life: Uncovering the New Economics of Everything. New York: Little, Brown. Hauser, M. D. 2006. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. New York: Little, Brown. Haworth, L. 1986. Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hayek, F. A. 1942. ”Scientism and the Study of Man I.” Economica 9: 267–91. Hayek, F. A. 1943. ”Scientism and the Study of Man II.” Economica 10: 34–63. Hayek, F. A. 1942. ”Scientism and the Study of Man III.” Economica 11: 27–39. Hayek, F. A. 1948. Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hayek, F. A. 1953. The Counter-Revolution of Science. New York: The Free Press. Hayek, F. A. 1960. The Constitution of Liberty. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hayek, F. A. 1989. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hayek, F. A. 1973. Law, Legislation and Liberty (Vol. 1 Rules and Order). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hayek, F. A. 1976. Law, Legislation and Liberty (Vol. 2 The Mirage of Social Justice). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hayek, F. A. 1978. New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hayek, F. A. 1979. Law, Legislation and Liberty (Vol. 3 The Political Order of a Free People). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hayes, M. 1994. The New Right in Britain: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. London: Pluto Press. Hayman, R. 1997. Nietzsche: Nietzsch’s Voices. London: Pheonix. Heath, J. 2001. Communicative Action and Rational Choice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Heclo, H. 1978. “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment.” In King, A. (ed.), The New American Political System. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Hegel, G. W. F. [1806] 1998. “Independence and Dependence of Self-consciousness Lordship and Bondage.” In Houlgate, S. (ed.), Hegel Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Hegel, G. W. F. [1807] 1977. Phenomenology of Spirit (tr. Miller, A. V.). Oxford: Oxford University Press). Hegel, G. W. F. [1816] 1969. Hegel's Science of Logic (tr. Miller, A. V.). (London: Allen and Unwin. Hegel, G. W. F. [1817] 1970. Philosophy of Nature (Part Three of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences) (tr. Perry, M. J.) (3 vols.). London: George Allen and Unwin. Hegel, G. W. F. [1817] 1991. The Encyclopedia Logic: Part 1 of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences (trs. Geraets, T. F., Suchting, W. A. and Harris, H. S.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Hegel, G.F.W. [1821] 1991. Elements of the Philosophy of Right (ed. Wood, A. W., tr. Nisbet, H. B.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

216

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Heidegger, M. [1927] 1967. Being and Time (tr. Macquarrie, J. and Robinson, E.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Heidegger, M. [1927] 1996. Being and Time (trs. Stanbaugh, J.). New York: New York State University Press. Heider F. 1946. “Attitudes and Cognitive Organization.” The Journal of Psychology 21: 107– 112. Heider, F. [1958] 1982. The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hekman, S. 1983. Weber, the Ideal Type, and Contemporary Social Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Held, D. 1980. Introduction to Critical Theory. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Hempel, C. G. 1966. Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hempel, C. G. 1980. “The Logical Analysis of Psychology.” In Block, N. (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology (Vol. 1). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hendriks, F. and Zouridis, S. 1999. “Cultural Biases and New Media for the Public Domain: Cui Bono.” In Thompson, M., Grendstat, G. and Selle, P. (eds.), Cultural Theory as Political Science. London: Routledge. Hesse, M. 1966. Models and Analogies in Science. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame. Hetcher, S. A. 2004. Social Norms in a Wired World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heuer, R. J. Jr. 1999. Psychology of Intelligence Analysis. Washington, DC: Centre for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency. Available at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/psych-intel/art12.html Hewstone, M. and Augoustinos, M. 1998. “Social Attributions and Social Representation.” In Flick, U. (ed.), The Psychology of the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heyd, D. 1982. Supererogation: Its Status in Ethical Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Higgins, K. and Solomon, R. 1993. The Age of German Idealism. London and New York: Routledge. Higgins, T. E. 1990. “Personality, Social Psychology, and Person-Situation Relations: Standards and Knowledge Activation as a Common Language.” In Pervin, L. A. (ed.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. New York: Guilford. Hinde, R. 2002. Why Good is Good: The Sources of Morality. London: Routledge. Hirschman, A. O. 1991. The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hischkop, K. 2003. “Tragedy in an Untragic Culture.” Unpublished paper, Department of English and American Studies, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. Hitchcock, C. [1997] 2002. “Probabilistic Causation.” In Zelta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-probabilistic/. Ho, D. Y. F. 1995. “Selfhood and Identity in Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism: Contrasts with the West.” Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior 25 (2): 115–39.

Bibliography

217

Ho, D. Y. F. 1998. “Social relationships and Relationship Dominance: An Analysis based on Methodological relationalism.” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 1 (1): 1–16. Ho, D. Y. F. and Peng, S. Q. [1998] 1999. “Methodological Relationalism and it Application in Eastern and Western Cultures.” Sociological Research 4: 34–43 (in Chinese), translated in Sociology 1: 9–18. Ho, D. Y. F., Chan, S. F. F., Peng, S. Q. and Ng, A. K. 2001. “The Dialogical Self: Converging East-West Constructions.” Culture & Psychology 7 (1): 393–408. Ho, D. Y. F., .Chan, S. F. and Zhang, Z. X. 2001. “Metarelational analysis: An Answer to ‘What’s Asian about Asian Social Psychology’.” Journal of Psychology in Chinese Societies 2 (1): 7–26. Ho, D. Y. F., Peng, S. Q. Lai, A. C. and Chan, S. F. 2001. “Indigenization and Beyond: Methodological Relationalism in the Study of Personality across Cultural traditions.” Journal of Personality 69 (6): 925–53. Hobbes, T. [1642] 1949. De Cive, or On the Citizen. New York: Appelton-Century-Crofts. Hobbes, T, [1651] 1962. Leviathan (ed. Oakeshott, M.). New York: Collier. Hobbes, T. [1651] 1996. Leviathan (ed. Tuck, R.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobsbawm, E. 1997. On History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Hoefer, C. 2003. Causal Determinism.” In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/. Hoernlé, R. F. A. 1927. Idealism as a Philosophy. New York: George H. Doran. Hoffer, E. [1951] 1989. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Library ed.). New York: Harper & Row. Hofstede, G. 1991. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. New York: McGrawHill. Hogarth, R. 1980. Judgement and Choice. New York: John Wiley. Holling, C. S. 1986. “The Resilience and Vulnerability of Eco-systems.” In Clark, W. C. and Munn, R. E. (eds.), The Sustainable Development of the Biosphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hollingdale, R. J. 1970. "Introduction." In Schopenhauer, A. [1851], Essays and Aphorisms (tr. Hollingdale, R. J.). Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Hollis, M. 1977. Models of Man: Philosophical Thoughts on Social Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hollis, M. 1989. “Honour among Thieves.” Proceedings of the British Academy l75: 165–87. Hollis, M. 1994. The Philosophy of Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hollis, M. and Lukes, S (eds.) 1982. Rationality and Relativism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Holmstrom-Hintikka, G. and Tuomela, R. (eds.) 1997. Contemporary Action Theory (2 vols.). Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer. Holt, T. 2005–6. Fallacy of Composition. Available at: http://logicalfallacies.info/fallacyofcomposition.html. Homans, G. C. (1958). “Social Behavior as Exchange.” American Journal of Sociology 63: 597–606. Homans, G. C. 1951. The Human Group, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Homans, G. C. 1974. Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Hood, C. 1998. The Art of the State: Culture, Rhetoric, and Public Management. Oxford: Clarendon.

218

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Hoose, B. 1987. Proportionalism. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Hoppe, R. 2000. “Grid-Group Culture Theory and the Politics of Problem Definition.” A paper presented at the 8th Biennial Jerusalem Conference in Canadian Studies (Israel). Horney, K. 1937. The Neurotic Personality of our Times. New York: Norton. Horney, K. 1945. Our Inner Conflicts. New York: Norton. Hospers, J. 1966. “What Means this Freeedom.” In Berofsky, B. (ed.), Free Will and Determinism. New York: Harper & Row. How, A. 2003. Critical Theory. Basingstoke, Hamp., UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Howard, N. 1971. Paradoxes of Rationality: Games, Metagames, and Political Behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Howard, N. 1999. Confrontational Analysis: How to Win Operations other than War. Washington, DC: The Command and Control Research Programme, US Department of Defence. Hsu, F. L. K. (ed.) 1961. Psychological Anthropology. Approaches to Culture and Personality. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press. Hughes, M. 1973. “Our Concern with Others.” In Montefiore, A. (ed.), Philosophy and Personal Relations. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Humbolt, W. von [1791] 1969. The Limits of State Action (ed. and tr. Burrow, J. W.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hume, D. [1739–40] 1978. A Treatise of Human Nature (orig. ed. Selby-Biggs, L. A., rev. ed. Nidditch, P. P.). Oxford: Clarendon. Hume, D. [1748] 1975. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (orig. ed. SelbyBigge, L.A., rev. ed. Nidditch, P.H.) (3rd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon. Hume, D. [1751] 1998. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (ed. Beauchamp, T. L.). Oxford: Oxford University Press Hume, D. [1777] 1902. An Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding [1748] and Concerning the Principles of Morals [1751] (ed. Selby-Biggs, L. A.) (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon. Humphrey, N. 2006. Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Hurka, T. 1993. Perfectionism. New York: Oxford University Press. Hurley, S. 1998. Consciousness in Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Husserl, E. [1907] 1966. The Idea of Phenomenology. (tr. Alston, W.P. and Nakhnikian, G.). The Hague, NL: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, E. [1928] (1964), On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (tr. Churchill, J. S., ed. Heidegger, M.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Husserl, E. [1928] 1931. Ideas (tr. Gibson, W. R. B.) (3rd ed.). London: Allen and Unwin. Husserl, E. [1929] 1981. Husserl: Shorter Work (eds. McCormick, P. and Elliston, F. A.). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Husserl, E. [1931] 1960. Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology. (tr. Cairns, D.). The Hague, NL: Martinus Nijhoff. Hutcheson, F. [1755] 2000. A System of Moral Philosophy. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press. Hyslop, A. (1998) "Methodological Epiphenomenalism." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76: 61–70. Ivanhoe, P. J. 1993. Confucian Moral Self-Cultivation. New York: Peter Lang. Ives, P. 2003. Language and Hegemony in Gramsci. London: Pluto Press.

Bibliography

219

Jackson, F. 1996. “Mental Causation.” Mind 105: 377–413. Jackson, R. 2001. Nietzsche: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Hodder & Straughton. Jacobi, J. 1962. The Psychology of C. G. Jung. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Jacquette, D. J. 2002. Ontology. Montreal & Kingston, Ont., CA: McGill-Queen's University Press. Jagger, R. 1972. The Development of Bertrand Russell’s Philosophy. London: Allen & Unwin. James, W. 1884. “What is an Emotion?” Mind 9: 188–205. Available at http:// psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/emotion.htm. James, W. 1890a. The Principles of Psychology. Available at http://psychclassics.yorku.-ca/ James/Principles/prin9.htm James, W. 1890b. “The Stream of Consciousness.” Available at http://pchchclassics.yorku.ca/ James/jimmy11.htm. James, W. 1896. The Will to Believe: An Address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities. Available at http://falcon.jmu.edu/~omearawm/ph101willtobelieve.html James, W. [1897] 1979. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press James, W. [1907] 1995. Pragmatism [a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking]. Toronto, ONT, CA: General Publishing James, W. [1909] 1979. The Meaning of Truth. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. James, W. 1912. Essays in Radical Empiricism (ed. Perry, R. B.). New York: Longman Green. Available at: http://spartan.ac.-brocku.ca/~lward/ James/James_1912/ James_1912_toc.html. Janicaud, D. 2005. The Human Condition (tr. Brennan, E., intro. Critchley, S). London: Routledge. Janis, I. L. 1972. Groupthink: Psychological Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Jarvie, I. C. 1998. “Situational Logic and its Reception.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 28 (3): 365–80. Jensen, L. 1998. “Cultural Theory and Democratizing Functional Domains.” Public Administration 76 (1): 117–39. Jensen, L. 1999. “Images of Democracy in Danish Social Housing.” In Thompson, M., Grendstat, G. and Selle, P. (eds.), Cultural Theory as Political Science. London: Routledge. Johnson, A. G. [1995] 2000. The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology: A User’s Guide to Sociological Language (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Johnson, L. E. 1992. Focusing on Truth. New York and London: Routledge. Johnson, R. 2000. “Scientific Explanations of Social Phenomena: Overcoming the PositivistInterpretivist Divide.” A paper presented at the 41st Annual Convention of the International Studies Organization (Los Angeles, CA). Available at http://www.ciaonet.org/isa/jor01/. Johnston, H. and Klandermans, B. 1995. “The Cultural Analysis of Social Movements.” In Johnston, H. and Klandermans, B. (eds.), Social Movements and Culture. London: UCL Press.

220

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Johnston, I. 1997. “Lecture on Aristotle’s Nicomachaean Ehics,” Available at http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/introser/aristot.htm. Johnston, P. 1989. Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy. London: Routledge. Jolley, N. 2005. Leibniz. New York: Routledge. Jones, E. E., Kanouse, D. E., Kelley, H. H., Nisbet, R. E., Valins, S. and Weiner, B. (eds.) 1972. Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press. Jordan, G. 1990. “Sub-governments, Policy Communities and Network Labels.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 2 (3): 319–38. Jouanna, J. [1992] 1999. Hippocrates (tr. DeBevoise, M. B.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press Joule, R. V. and Beauvois, J.–L. 1998. “Cognitive Dissonance Theory: A Radical View.” European Review of Social Psychology 8: 1–32. Journard, S. 1971. Self-disclosure. New York: Wiley. Jung, C. G. [1921] 1923. Psychological Types (tr. Godwyn-Baynes, H.). Available at: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm. Jung, C. G. [1934] 1981. The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious. (2nd ed.) (tr. Hull, R. F. C.) (Collected Works, Vol. 9, Pt. 1). Princeton, NJ: Bollingen. Jung, C. G. 1934. “The Concept of the Collective Unconscious.” Available at http://www.timestar.org. Jung, C. G. 1969. The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (2nd ed.) (tr. Hull, R. F. C.) (Collected Works, Vol. 8). Princeton, NJ: Bollingen. Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. 1972. “Judgement of Representativeness.” Cognitive Psychology 3: 430–54. Kohneman, D. and Tversky, A. 1979. “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Theory Under Risk.” Econometrica 47: 263–91. Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. 1984. “Choices, Values and Frames.” American Psychologist 39 (4): 342–47. Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. (eds.) 1982. Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kahneman, D. (2003). “Maps of Bounded Rationality: A Perspective on Intuitive Judgment and Choice.” In Frangsmyr, T. (ed.), Les Prix Nobel 2002 [Nobel Prizes 2002]. Stockholm, SE: Almquist & Wiksell International. Kahoe, K. 2003. “The Praxis Prism—The Epistemology of Antonio Gremsci.” Cork On-line Law Review: ix Kane, R. 1996. The Significance of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press. Kane, R. (ed.) 2002a. Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Kane, R. 2002b. “Introduction.” In Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Kane, R. [2001] 2002c. “Free Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem.” In Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Kant, I. [1781–87] 1956. Critique of Pure Reason (tr. Beck, L.W.). Indianapolis, IN: BobbsMerrill. Kant, I. [1785] 2003. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals: Second Section, Transition from Popular Moral Philosophy to the Metaphysic of Morals, (tr. Abbott, T. K.). Available at http://www.msu.org/ethics/contenteythics/text/kant/-kanttxt2.html. Kant, I. [1788] 1906, Critique of Practical Reason (tr. Abbott, T. K.). London: Longmans.

Bibliography

221

Kapitan, T. (1992), “Peirce and the Autonomy of Abductive Reasoning.” Erkenntnis (Historical Archive) 37 (1): 1–26. Kardiner, A., Du Bois, C., Linton, R. and James Wes, J. 1945. The PsychologicalFrontiers of Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Karpf, F. B. 1932. American Social Psychology—its Origins, Development and European Background. New York: Macmillan. Kassin, S. 2003. Psychology. Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice Hall. Kateb, G. 1963. Utopia and Its Enemies. New York: Free Press. Katz, D. 1960 “The Functional Approach to the Study of Attitudes.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 24 (2): 163–204 Katzenstein, P. J. 1996. “Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security.” In Katzenstein, P. J. (ed.), The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Kegan, J. 2007. What is Emotion? History, Measures and Meaning. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kelly, G. A. 1955. The Psychology of Personal Constructs. New York: Norton. Kelley, H. H. 1967. Attribution Theory in Social Psychology.” In Levine, D. (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 15). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press Kelley, H. H.1972. “Causal Schema and the Attribution Process.” In Jones, E. E., Kanouse, D. E., Kelley, H. H., Nisbet, R. E., Valins, S. and Weiner, B. (eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press. Kelley, H. H. 1973. “The Processes of Causal Attribution.” American Psychologist 28: 107– 28. Kelley, H. H. 1979. Personal Relationships: Their Structures and Processes. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Kelley, H. H. and Thibaut, J. W. 1978. Interpersonal Relations: A Theory of Interdependence. New York: Wiley. Kenny, A. 1963. Action, Emotion and Will. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Kierkegaard, S. [1843] 1941. Repetition: A Venture in Experimenting Psychology (tr. Lowrie, W.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kierkegaard S. [1844] 1980. The Concept of Anxiety (tr. Thomte R.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kierkegaard, S. [1845] 1940. Stages on Life’s Way (tr. Lowrie, W.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kierkegaard, S. [1846] (1941), Concluding Unscientific Postscript (trs. Swenson, D. F. and Lowrie, W.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kierkegaard, S. [Anti-Climacus] [1849] 1980. The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening (trs. Hong, H. and Hong, E.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kim, J. 1993. Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kim, J. 1998. Mind in a Physical World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kincaid, H. 1996. Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences: Analysing Controversies in Social Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. King, A. 1999 “Against Structure: a Critique of Morphogenetic Social Theory." The Sociological Review 47 (2): 199–227.

222

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

King, A. 2005. “The Habitus Process: A Sociological Process.” Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior 35 (4): 463–68. King, G., Keohane, R. O. and Verba, S. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kirk, R. 1999. Relativism and Reality: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge. Kirkham, R. L. 1992. Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kiser, E. 2005. “The Microfoundations of Social Action: Toward an Analytical Weberianism.” A paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (Philadelphia, PA). Available at http://www.allacademic. com/met/p21403_i-ndex.httm Kitcher, P. 1985. Vaulting Ambition: Sociobology and the Quest for Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kitcher, P. 1998. Kant’s Critique of Pure reason: Critical Essays. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman & Littlefield. Knapp, P. 1994. One World – Many Worlds: Contemporary Sociological Theory. New York: Harper-Collins. Knorr-Cetina, K. D. 1981. The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science. Oxford: Pergamon. Koffka, K. 1935. The Principles of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Harcourt Brace and World. Kohut, H. 1971. The Analysis of Self. New York: International University Press. Kohut, H. and Wolf, E. S. 1978. “The Disorders of Self and their Treatment.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 59: 413–26. Komorita, S. S. and Parks, C. D. 1995. “Interpersonal Relations: Mixed-Motive Interaction.” Annual Review of Psychology 46: 183–207. Kotarba, J. A. 1984. “A Synthesis: The Existential Self in Society.” In Kotarba, J. A. and Fontana, A. (eds.), The Existential Self in Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Kotarba, J. A. and Fontana, A. (eds.) 1984. The Existential Self in Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Kotarba, J. A. and Johnson, J. M. 2002. Postmodern Existential Sociology. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Kozulin, A. 1990. Vygotsky’s Psychology: A Biography of Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kraut, R. 2007. What is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kretzmann, N. and Stump, E. (eds.). 1993. The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kripke, S. A. 1979. “A Puzzle About Belief.” In Margalit, A. (ed.), Meaning and Use. Dordrecht, NL: Reidel. Kripke, S. A. 1982. Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Oxford: Blackwell. Kropotkin, P. 1987. The State: Its Historic Role. London: Freedom Press. Kropotkin, P. 1995. The Conquest of Bread and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kruglanski, A. W. and Ajzen, I. 1983. “Bias and Error in Human Judgment.” European Journal of Social Psychology 13: 1–44.

Bibliography

223

Krull, D. S. and Erickson, D. J. 1995. “On Judging Situations: The Effortful Process of Taking Dispositional Information into Account.” Social Cognition 13: 417–38. Kuhn, T. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Kukathas, C. 1989. Hayek and Modern Liberalism, Oxford: Clarendon. Labriola, A. [1896] 1908. Essays on the Materialist Conception of History (tr. Kerr, C. H.). Available at: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/marx/labriola.html. Lacan, J. 1968. Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis (tr. Wilden, A.). Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Laing, R. D. 1960. The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Lakoff, G. and Johnston, M. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. and Johnston, M. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh. New York: Basic Books. La Mettrie, J. O. de 1748. L’Homme Machine [Man a Machine]. Available at http://www. cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/LaMettrie/Machine/ Lang, G. 2002. “Moral Relativism and Cultural Chauvinism.” Philosophy Now 36 (June/July): 24–7. Lasch, C. 1979. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: Norton. Lasswell, H.D. 1948. Power and Personality. New York: The Viking Press. Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. 1979. Laboratory Life. Princeton: Princeton University. Laver, M. 1997. Private Desires, Political Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lazarus, R. S. 1966. Psychological Stress and the Coping Process. New York: McGraw-Hill. Leadbeater, C. 2000. Living on Thin Air: The New Economy. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Leader, DE. 2007. The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression. London: Hamish Hamilton. Leal, F. and Saran, R. 1998. “A Dialogue on the Socratic Dialogue.” In Occasional Working Papers in Ethics and the Critical Philosophy (Vol. 2). London: Society for the Furtherance of the Critical Philosophy. Leach, E. 1970. Lévi-Strauss. London: Fontana. Lehrer, K. 1991. Metamind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leibenstein, H. 1976. Beyond Economic Man. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Leibniz, G. W. [1714] 1973. “The Monadology.” In Parkinson, G. H. R. (ed.), Leibniz: Philosophical Writings (tr. Morris, M. and Parkinson, G. H. R.). London: Dent. Leibniz, G. W. [1716–17] 1956. The Correspondence with Clarke (ed. Alexander, H. G.). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Leibniz, G. W. [1704, 1764] 1996. New Essays on Human Understanding (trs. Remnant, P. and Bennet, J.) (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. Lerner, M. J. 1980. A Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion. New York: Plenum. Levenson, H. 1981. “Differentiating among Internality, Powerful Others, and Chance.” In Lefcourt, H. M. (ed.), Research with the Locus of Control Construct, 1: Assessment Methods. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Levine, J. M. and Murphy, G. 1943. “The Learning and Forgetting of Controversial Material.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 38: 507–17.

224

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Lévinas, E. [1961] 1969. Totality and Infinity (tr. Lingis, A.). Pittsburg, PA: Duquesne University Press. Lévinas, E. 1985. Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo (tr. Cohen, R. A.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press. Lévinas, E. 1998. Of God who Comes to Mind (tr. Bergo, B.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Levine, A. 1993. The General Will: Rousseau, Marx, Communism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. LeVine, R. A. 1984. “Properties of Culture: An Ethnographic View.” In Shweder, R. A. and LeVine, R. A. (eds.), Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press Levi-Strauss, C. [1958/1963] 1974. Structural Anthropology (Vol. 1) (tr. Jacobson, C. and Schoepf, B.). London: Allen Lane/ Penguin. Lévi-Strauss, C. [1962] 1963. Totemism (tr. Needham, R.). Boston, MA: Beacon Books. Lewin, K. 1948. “Experimenting in Social Space.” In Lewin, G. W. (ed.), Resolving Social Conflicts. New York: Harper and Row. Lewin, K. 1952. “Defining the Field at a Given Time.” In Cartwright, D. (ed.), Field Theory in Social Sciences: Selected Theoretical Papers. London: Tavistock. Lewin, K. 1972. “Needs, Force and Violence in Psychological Fields.” In Hollander, E. P. and Hunt, R. G. (eds.), Classic Contributions to Social Psychology. London: Oxford University Press. Lewis, C. I. [1929] 1956. Mind and the World Order. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Lewis, C. I. 1946. An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Lewis, C. S. 1944. The Inner Ring (the Memorial Lecture at King's College, University of London). Available at: http://homepages.which.net/~radical.faith/misc/lewis.htm. Lewontin, R. C., Rose, S. and Kamin, L. J. 1984. Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature. New York: Pantheon. Libet, B. 1985. “Unconscious Cerebral Initiative and the Role of Conscious Will in Voluntary Action.” Behavioral and Brain Science 8: 529–66. Libet, B., Freeman, A. & Sutherland, J. K. B. (eds.) 1999. The Volitional Brain: Towards a Neuroscience of Freewill. Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic. Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W. and Pearl, D. K. 1983. “Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential).” Brain 106: 623– 42. Lin, N. 2001. Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linder, D. E., Cooper, J. and Jones, E. E. 1967. “Decision Freedom as a Determinant of the Role of Incentive Magnitude in Attitudinal Change.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 6: 245–54. Linell, P. 2007. Essentials of Dialogism: Aspects and Elements of a Dialogical Approach to Language, Communication and Cognition. Linköping, SE: Department of Communication Studies, Linköping Universit. Available at http://www.liu.se/isk/research/per_li/ linell_-essentials-of-dialogism_050625.pdf. Lipsey, R G. and Chrystal, K. A. [1953] 1995. An Introduction to Positive Economics (8th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bibliography

225

Lipton, P. [1991] 2004. Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Available at: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qs75dwpeVEEC&dq=lipton+inference+best+explanation&pg=PP1&ots=0kMTzi3KH4&sig=rG28ZHZH53lYn0J3BZnHoB d9lDg&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Lipton+Inference+Best+ Explanation&btnG=Google+Search&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPP1,M1 Loar, B. 1988. “Social Content and Psychological Content.” In Grimm, R. and Merrill, D. (eds.), Contents of Thought. Tucson, AR: University of Arizona Press. Locke, J. [1688] 1960. “The First Treatise of Government.” In Locke, J., Two Treatises of Government (ed. Laslett, P.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Locke, J. ([1689] 1960). “The Second Treatise of Government: An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government.” In Locke, J., Two Treatises of Government (ed. Laslett, P.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Locke, J. [1690] 2004. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Available at http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Locke/echu/. Lockwood, D. 1966. “Sources of Variation in Working Class Images of Society.” Sociological Review 14: 249–67. Lom, P. 1998. Scepticism, Liberalism and Illiberalism: An Inquiry into the Implications of Doubt. San Domenico, IT: European University Institute. Lonergan, B. J. F. [1957] 1992. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. Toronto, Ont., CA: Toronto University Press. Lonergan, B. J. F. 1972. Method in Theology. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972. Longford, M. J.1985. The Good and the True—An Introduction to Christian Ethics. Norwich: SCM-Canterbury Press. Lossky, N. O. 1951. History of Russian Philosophy. New York: International Universities Press. Loux, M. J. 2002. Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Lowe, E. J. 2005. Locke. London: Routledge. Lowell, J. R. 1884. On Democracy. Available at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/ lowell2.html. Lucas, J. R. 1993. The Freedom of Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lucas, J. R. 1993. Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lucey, K. 1996. On Knowing and the Know. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus. Luft, J. and Ingham, H. 1955. The Johari Window, a Graphic Model of Interpersonal Awareness (Western Training Laboratory in Group Development ). Los Angeles, CA: University of California at Los Angeles Extension Office. Luhmann, N. 1979. Trust and Power. New York: Wiley Luhmann, N. 1988. “Familiarity, Confidence and Trust: Problems and Alternatives.” In Gambetta, D. (ed.), Trust: Making and Breaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lukács, G. [1923] 1971. History and Class Consciousness (tr. Livingstone, R.). London: Merlin. Lukes, S. 1968. “Methodological Individualism Reconsidered.” The British Journal of Sociology 19 (2): 119–29. Lukes, S. 1974. Power: Radical View. London: MacMillan. Lumsden, C. J. and Wilson, E. O. 1981. Genes, Mind and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

226

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Luntly, M. 1995. Reason, Truth and Self. London: Routledge. Lycan, W. (ed.) 1990. Mind and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. Lyotard, J.–F. 1979. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (trs Bennington, G and Massumi, B.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. MacDonald, S. (ed.) 1991. Being and Goodness. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Machiavelli, N. [1531] 1969. The Discourses (ed.Crick, B.). London: Pelican. Machiavelli, N. [1532] 1977. The Prince (ed. and tr. Adams, R. M.). New York: W. W. Norton. MacIntyre, A. 1985. After Virtue (2nd ed.). London: Duckworth. Mackie, R. L. 1977. Ethics. New York: Penguin. Magnusson, D. and Endler, N. S. 1976. Personality at the Crossroads: Current Issues in Interactional Psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Maimonides, M. [c1190] 1969. The Guide of the Perplexed (tr. Pines, S.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Malebranche, N. [1774–75] 1980. The Search after Truth (tr. Lennon, T. and Olscamp, P. J.). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. Mamadouh, V. 1999. “National Political Cultures in the European Union.” In Thompson, M., Grendstat, G. and Selle, P. (eds.), Cultural Theory as Political Science. London: Routledge. Mandeville, B. [1714] 1988. The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (2 vols.) (ed. Kaye, F. B.). Indianapolis, IN: The Liberty Fund. Manning, P. K. 1973. “Existential Sociology.” Sociological Quarterly 14 (2): 200–25. Marcel, G. 1952. Men against Humanity (tr. Fraser, G. S.). London: Harvill. March, J. G. 1999. The Pursuit of Organizational Intelligence. Malden, MA: Blackwell. March, J. G. and Olsen, J. P. 1976. Ambiguity and Change in Organizations. Bergen, NO: Universitets Forlaget. Markey, J. 1925–26. “A Redefinition of Social Phenomena: Giving a Basis for Comparative Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology 31: 733–43. Available at: http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Markey/Markey_1926.html. Markova, I. 1983. “The Origin of the Social Psychology of Language in German Expressivism.” British Journal of Social Psychology 22: 315–25. Marks, J. (ed.) 1986. The Way of Desire. Chicago, IL: Precedent. Marshall, G. (ed.) 1998. A Dictionary of Sociology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, R. and Barresi, J. (eds.) 2003. Personal Identity. Oxford: Blackwell. Marx, K. [1844] 1963. “Estranged Labour.” In Early Writings (tr. and ed. Bottomore, T. B.). London: Watts. Marx, K. [1844] 1967. “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.” In Easton, L. D. and Guddat, K. H. (eds.), Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society. New York: Doubleday. Marx, K. [1845, 1924] 2002. Theses on Feuerbach (trs. Smith, C. and Cuckson, D.). Available at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm Marx, K. [1859] 1999. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (tr. Ryazanskaya, S. W.). Available at http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-poleconomy/htm.

Bibliography

227

Marx, K [1859] 2001. Preface to a Critique of Political Economy. London: The Electric Book Company. Available at: www. elecbook.com. Marx, K. [1867] 1993. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Marx, K and Engels, F. [1845–46] 1932. The German Ideology: Critique of Modern German Philosophy According to Its Representatives Feuerbach, B. Bauer and Stirner, and of German Socialism According to Its Various Prophets. Available at http://www. marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/index.htm. Marx, K and Engels, F. [1848/1969] 2002. Manifesto of the Communist Party (trs. Smith, C. and Engels, F.). Available at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/-works/1848/ communist-manifesto/index.htm. Maslow, A. H. [1964] 1970. Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences. Available at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/maslow.htm Maslow, A. H. [1962] 1968. Towards a Psychology of Being. New York: Nostrand. Maslow, A. H. 1970. Motivation and Personality (2nd ed.). New York: Harper Row. Maslow, A. H. 1971. The Further Reaches of Human Nature. New York: The Viking Press. Matheson, P. E. 1916. Epictetus: The Discourses and Manual, together with Fragments of his Writings (2 vols.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Available at http://www archive. org/details/epictetus01epicuoft; http://www.archive.org/details/epictetus02epicuoft. Mathews, K. A. 1997 Hostility. Available at http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/research/Psychosocial/notebook/hostility. Matthews, G., Deary, I. J. and Whiteman, M. C. 2003. Personality Traits (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maturana, H. R. 1991. “Science and Daily Life: the Ontology of Scientific Explanations.” In Steier, F. (ed.). Research and Reflexivity. London: Sage. May, R. 1953. Man’s Search for Himself. New York: W. W. Norton. May, R. 1958. “The Origins and Significance of the Existential Movement in Psychology.” In May, R., Angel, E. and Ellenberger (eds.), Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology. New York: Basic Books. May, R. 1967. Psychology and the Human Dilemma. New York: Van Norstrand. May, R. 1983. The Discovery of Being: Writings on Existentialist Psychology. New York: Norton. May, T. 1993. Social Research: Issues, Methods and Process. Buckingham, Bucks, UK: Open University. Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H. Schoorman, F. D. 1995. “An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust.” Academy of Management Review 20 (3): 709–34. Mazzini, J. [1860] 1907. The Duties of Man and Other Essays. London: Dent & Sons. McAllister, D. J. 1995. “Affect- and Cognition-Based Trust as Foundations for Interpersonal Cooperation in Organizations.” Academy of Management Journal 38:24–59. McCann, C. R. Jr. 2004. Individualism and the Social Order. New York: Routledge McCelland, D. C., Atkinson, J. W., Clark, R. A. and Lowell, E. L. 1953. The Achievement Motive. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. McClelland, D. C. 1961. The Achieving Society. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand. McCelland, K. A. and Fararo, T. (eds.) 2006. Purpose, Meaning and Action. Basingstoke Hamp., UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

228

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

McClintock, C. G. 1972. “Social Motivation—A Set of Propositions.” Behavioral Science 17: 438–54. McCloskey, D. N. 1998. The Rhetoric of Economics (2nd ed.). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. McFarland, D. 2007. Quality Robots, Happy Dogs: The Question of Alien Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGinn, C. 1982. The Character of Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGinn, C. 1983. The Subjective View. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGinn, C. 1989. “Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?” Mind 98: 349–56. McGuire, W., and McGuire, C. 1982. “Significant Others in Self-space. In Suls, J. (ed.), Psychological Perspectives on the Self (Vol. 1). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. McKinney, J. C. 1966. Constructive Typologies and Social Theory. New York: Meredith. McKinney, J. P. 1981. “The Construct of Engagement Style: Theory and Research.” In Lefcourt, H. M. (ed.), Research with the Locus of Control Construct, 1: Assessment Methods. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. McMahon, R. 1979. Human Beings: The World of Jean-Paul Sartre. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. McTaggart, J. 1927. The Nature of Existence (Vol. 2) (ed. Broad, C. D). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mead, G. H. 1929. “A Pragmatic Theory of Truth.” Studies in the Nature of Truth, University of California Publications in Philosophy 11: 65–88. Mead, G. H. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mead, G. H. 1938. The Philosophy of the Act (eds. Dunham, A. M. and Morris, C. W.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mead, M. [1935] 1963. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New York: Morrow Quill. Mead, M. 1942. And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America. New York: William Morrow. MedicineNet.com 2003. Webster's New World Medical Dictionary (2nd ed.). London: Wiley. Meilaender, G. C. 1984. The Theory and Practice of Virtue. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Melden, A. I. 1961. Free Action. London: Routledge & Keegan Paul. Mele, A. (ed.) 1997. The Philosophy of Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Mele, A. R. 2003. Motivation and Agency. New York: Oxford University Press. Mènard, C. 2000. Institutions, Contracts and Organizations: Perspectives from New Institutional Economics. Cheltenham, Glos., UK: Edward Elgar. Menger, C. [1883] 1963. Problems of Economics and Sociology (tr. Nock, F. J, ed. Schneider, L.). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Messner, D. 1997. The Network Society: Economic Development and International Competitiveness as Problems of Social Governance. London: Frank Cass. Meyers, D. T. 1989. Self, Society, and Personal Choice. New York: Columbia University Press. Meyers, G. E. 1986. William James: His Life and Thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Midgley, M. 2003. The Myths We Live By. London: Routledge

Bibliography

229

Milgram, S. 1963. “Behavioral Study of Obedience.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67: 371–78. Milgram, S. 1974. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: HarperCollins. Miller N. and Dollard J. 1941. Social Learning and Imitation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mills, C. W. [1959] 1970. The Sociological Imagination. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Mill, J. S. [1859] 1963. “On Liberty.” In Robson, J. M. (ed.). The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Toronto, Ont., CA: University of Toronto Press. Mill, J. S. [1861] 1968. “Utilitarianism.” In Mill. J. S. Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government. London and Toronto, Ont., CA: Denton. Mill, J. S. [1843] 1988. A System of Logic. (ed. Ayer, A. J. London: Duckworth. Miller, D. (ed.) 1991. Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, D. T., Norman, S. A. and Wright, E. 1978. “Distortion in Person Perception as a Consequence of the Need for Effective Control.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36: 598–607. Miller N. and Dollard J. 1941. Social Learning and Imitation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Miller, S. I. and Fredericks, M. 1994. Qualitative Research Methods: Social Epistemological and. Practical Inquiry. New York: Peter Lang. Mills, J. and Clark, M. S. 1982. “Communal and Exchange Relationships.” In Wheeler, L. (ed.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 4). Beverley Hills, CA: Sage. Milman, H. H. [1855] 2006. History of Latin Christianity including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicholas V. London: John Murray. Available at http://books. google.com/books?id=58ICAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA469&lpg=PA469&dq=cecco+%22dF+ ascoli%22&source=web&ots=53RNdnYjqj&sig=zjpXilp7pxMdm40z_M8K1GGGj-I. Milton, J. [1644] 1949. “Aeropagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England.” In Bush, D. (ed.), The Portable Milton. New York: The Viking Press. Mirowski, P. 1991. When Game Theory Grows Deadly Serious: The Military Influence on the Evolution of Game Theory.” History of Political Economy 24: 227–60. Mischel, W. 1968. Personality and Assessment. NewYork: Wiley. Mischel, W. 1973. “Towards a Cognitive Social Learning Theory Reconceptualization of Personality.” Psychological Review 80: 252–83. Mises, L. von [1949] 1996. Human Action: Treatise on Economics (tr. Greaves, B. B.) (4th ed.). Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute. Available at: http://www. mises.org/humanaction/pdf/HumanActionScholars.pdf. Mises, L. von [1962] 1978. The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay in Method (tr. Greaves, B. B.). Kansas City MO: Sheed, Andrew and McMeet. Available at http://mises.org/books/ufofes/default.aspx. Mitchell, B. 1980. Morality: Religious and Secular. Oxford: Clarendon. Mitsis, P. 1988. Epicurus' Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Moldt, D. and Scheve, C. von 2001. “Emotional Action for Emotional Agents.” In Proceedings of the AISB‘01 Symposium on Emotion, Cognition, and Affective Computing

230

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

(21–24 March), York, UK, at http://www.informatik.uni-hamb urg.de/ TGI/forschung/projekte/emotion/Moldt_vonScheve_AISB01.pdf. Molenaers, N. and Thompson, M. 1999. “The Cultural Conditions for Democracy and Their Implications for Transitional Societies.” In Thompson, M., Grendstat, G. and Selle, P. (eds.), Cultural Theory as Political Science. London: Routledge. Molina, L. de [1588–89] 1988. On Divine Foreknowledge (Pt. IV of the Concordia) (tr. Freddoso, A. J.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mollon, P. 2000 The Unconscious. Cambridge: Icon. Monad, J. 1971. Chance and Necessity. London: Collins. Montaigne, M. de [1563–92] 1957. The Complete Works of Montaigne (tr. Frame, D. R.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Moore, G. E. 1903. Principa Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, G. E. 1959. Philosophical Papers. London: George Allen and Unwin. Moran, D., 2000, Introduction to Phenomenology. London and New York: Routledge. More, T. [1516] 1989. Utopia (eds. Logan, G. M. and Adams, R. M.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moreland, J. P. 2001. Universals. Montreal & Kingston, Ont., CA: McGill-Queen's University Press. Morgan, B. 2009. Acquaintances: The Space Between Intimates and Strangers. Maidenhead, Berks., UK: Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education. Morris, P. 1987. Power: a Philosophical Analysis. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Morton, A. D. 2007. Unravelling Gramsci: Hegemony and Passive Revolution in the Global Political Economy. London: Pluto Press. Moser, P. K. 1989. Knowledge and Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moser, P. K. 2002. The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology. New York: Oxford University Press. Mounce, H. O. 1997. The Two Pragmatisms: From Peirce to Rorty. London: Routledge. Mozi [5th century BC] 1963. Mo Tzu: Basic Writings (tr. Watson, B.). New York: Columbia University Press. Muirhead, J. H. 1932. Rule and End in Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murphy, J. P. 1990. Pragmatism: From Peirce to Davidson. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Murphy, R. T. 1980. Hume and Husserl: Towards Radical Subjectivism. The Hague, NL: Martinus Nijhoff. Murray, A. J. H. 1997. Reconstructing Realism: Between Power Politics and Cosmopolitan Ethics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Available at http://books. google.com/books?id=UW0b6ABr9QEC&dq=bounded+realm+of+activi-ty. Nadler, S. (ed.) 1993. Causation in Early Modern Philosophy: Occasionalism and Preestablished Harmony. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Nagel, T. [1976] 1993. “Moral Luck.” In Statman, D. (ed.). Moral Luck. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Nagel, T. 1979. "Subjective and Objective." In Nagel, T. (ed.). Moral Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagel, T. 1986. The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press. Nash, O. [1935] 2000 “Kind of Ode to Duty.” In Martin, T. H. W, Chamberlain, D. and Weiler, I. (eds.), Man’s Search for Values. Crescent City, FL: Gage Publishing.

Bibliography

231

Natanson, M. (ed.) 1963. Philosophy of the Social Sciences. New York: Random House. Navia, L. E. 2007. Socrates: A Life Examined. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Nesselroade, J. R. and Cattell, R. B. (eds.) 1988. Handbook of Multivariate Experimental Psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Plenum. Neumann, J. von and O. Morgenstern, O. [1944] 1953. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Newby, H. 1977. The Deferential Worker: A Study of Farm Workers in East Anglia. London: Allen Lane. Newcombe, T. M. 1956. "The Prediction of Interpersonal Attraction." American Psychologist 11: 575–86. Newsome, D. 1997. The Victorian World Picture: Perceptions and Introspections in an Age of Change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Nielson, K. [1971] 2002a. “The Compatibility of Freedom and Determinism.” In Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Nietzsche [1871] 1993. The Birth of Tragedy (tr. Hollingdale, R. J.). Harmondworth, Gt.Lon., UK: Penguin. Nietzsche. F. [1878] 1994. Human, All Too Human (tr. Faber, M.). Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Nietzsche, F. [1879] 1974. Gay Science, with a Prelude of Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (tr. Kaufmann, W.). New York: Random House. Nietzsche, F. [1881] 1997. Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality (eds. Clarke, M and Leiter, B.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche. F. [1883] 1967. “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” (tr. Kaufmann, W.). In The Portable Nietzsche. New York: Viking. Nietzche, F. [1886] 1998. Beyond Good and Evil, (tr. Faber, M, intro. Holub, R. C.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nietzche, F. [1887] 2003. Genealogy of Morals. Available at http://www.mala.bc.ca~johnstoi/Nietzche/genealogytofc.htm. Nietzsche, F. [1887] 1967. "On the Genealogy of Morals” (tr. Kaufmann, W.). In On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. New York: Random House. Nietzsche, F. [1888] 1969. Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ (tr. Hollingdale, R. J.). Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Nietzsche, F. 1889. Twilight of the Idols or How One Philosophizes with a Hammer (tr. Kaufman, W). Available at http://www.geocities.com/ thenietzschannel/twi. httm#maxim. Nietzsche, F. [1895] 1967. The Will to Power: Attempt at a Revaluation of all Values (tr. Kaufmann, W.). New York: Random House. Nightingale, D. J. and Cromby, J. 1999. Social Constructionist Psychology: A Critical Analysis of Theory and Practice. Buckingham, Bucks., UK: Open University Press. Nisbett, R. and Ross, L.1980. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Human Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Nock, A. J. [1924] 1991. “On Doing the Right Thing.” In Hamilton, C. H. (ed.), The State of the Union: Essays in Social Criticism by Albert Jay Nock. Indianapolis, IN. Liberty Fund. Noonan, H. W. 2003, Personal Identity (2nd ed.). London: Routledge Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Nozick, R. 1981. Philosophical Explanations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

232

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Nunn, C. 2005. Del La Mettrie’s Ghost: The Story of Decisions. Basingstoke, Hamp., UK: Palgrave Macmillan. O’Brien, G. E. 1984. “Locus of Control, Work, and Retirement.” In Lefcourt, H. M. (ed.), Research with the Locus of Control Construct (Vol. 3: Extensions and Limitations). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. O’Connor, T. [1998] 2002. “The Agent as Cause.” In Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell, O’Neill, O. 1989. Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oaks, D. H. 1998. “Rights and Responsibilities” in Etzioni, A. (ed.) The Essential Communitarian Reader. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Ockham, W. [c 1300–47] 1990. Philosophical Writings, (eds. and trs.Boehner, P. and Brown S. F.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Ockham, W. [c 1329] 1974. “Summa Logicae.” In Loux, M. J. (ed.), Ockham’s Theory of Terms. Notre Dame, IL: Notre Dame University Press. O'Connor, D. J. 1975. The Correspondence Theory of Truth. London: Hutchinson. Offe, C. 1999. ‘How We Can Trust our Fellow Citizens.” In Warren, M. E. (ed.) Democracy and Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olafson, F. 1967. Principles and Individuals: An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Olli, E. 1995. Cultural Theory Specified—the Coherent, Sequential and Synthetic Individual Approaches (Paper 230). Bergen, NO: University of Bergen: Department of Comparative Politics. Olli, E. 1999. “Rejection of Cultural Biases and Effects on Party Preferences.” In Thompson, M., Grendstat, G. and Selle, P. (eds.), Cultural Theory as Political Science. London: Routledge. Oliner, S. P. and Oliner, P. M. 1988. The Altruistic Personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. New York: Free Press. Olson, M. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Onuf, N. G. 1989. World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Orlofsky. J. L. 1976. “Intimacy Status: Relationship to Interpersonal Perception.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 5 (1): 73–78. Ortega y Gasset, J. [1929–31] 2002. What is Knowledge? (tr. García-Gómez, J.). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Ortega y Gasset, J. [1935] 2001. Towards a Philosophy of History. Chicago, IL: University of Illinios Press. Orwell, G. [1949] 1983. 1984. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Osgood, C. E. and Tannenbaum, P. H. 1955. “The Principle of Congruity in the Prediction of Attitude Change.” Psychology Review 62 (1): 42–55. Ostrander, D. 1982. “One-and Two-dimensional Models of the Distribution of Beliefs.” In Douglas, M. (ed.), Essays in the Sociology of Perception. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Bibliography

233

Ouellette, J. A. and Wood, W. 1998. “Habit and Intention in Everyday Life: The Multiple Processes by which Past Behavior Predicts Future Behavior.” Psychological Review 124: 54–74. Owen, D. 2007. The Hubris Syndrome: Bush, Blaire and the Intoxication of Power. London: Methuen. Packard, V. 1959. The Status Seekers. New York: David Mackay. Palmer, R. 1969. Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Parducci, A. 1995. Happiness, Pleasure, and Judgment: The Contextual Theory and Its Applications. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pareto, V. [1902] 1966. Sociological Writings (ed. Finer, S. E.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Parker, J. 2000. Structuration. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University. Parkin, F. 1971. Class Inequality and Political Order. London: MacGibbon and Kee. Parker, W. D. 2007. Methodological Individualism vs Methodological Holism: Neoclassicism, Institutionalism and Socionomic Theory (Discussion Paper). Gainsville, GA: Socionomic Foundation. Parkinson, G. A. R. (ed.) [1934] 1973. Leibnitz: Philosophical Writings. London: Dent and Son. Parry, G. 1972. “The Machiavellianism of the Machiavellians.” In Parekh, B. and Berki, R. N. (eds.), The Morality of Politics. London: George Allen and Unwin. Parsons, T. 1937. The Structure of Social Action (2 vols.). New York: Free Press. Parsons, T. 1951. The Social System. London: Collier-Macmillan. Parsons, W. 1995. Public Policy: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis. Cheltenham, Glos., UK: Edward Elgar. Pascal, B. [1670] 1966. Pensée. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Passes, N. and Agnew, R. (eds.) 1997. The Future of Anomie Theory. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Pavlov, I. 1927. Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex (tr. Anrep, G. V.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Pavlov/ Peel, J. D. Y. 1971. Herbert Spencer: the Evolution of a Sociologist. London: Heinemann. Peikoff, L. 1993. Objectivity: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand. New York: Penguin. Peirce, C. S. 1877. “The Fixation of Belief.” Popular Science Monthly 12 (November): 1–15. Available at http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html. Peirce, C. S. [1878] 1992. “How to Make our Ideas Clear.” In Houser, N. and Kloesel, C (eds.), The Essential Peirce (Vol. 1). Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press. Peirce, C. S. 1932a. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Vol. 1 Principles of Philosophy) (eds. Hartshorne, C and Wiess, P.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Peirce, C. S. 1932b. Elements of Logic (eds. Hartshorne, C and Wiess, P.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Peirce, C. S. 1984. Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition (gen. ed. Eller, J. R.) (Vol. 2). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Pejovich, S. (ed.) 2001. The Economics of Property Rights (2 vols.). Cheltenham, Glos., UK: Edward Elgar.

234

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Penner, L. A., Fritzsche, B. A., Craiger, J. P. and Freifeld, T. S. 1995. “Measuring the Prosocial Personality.” In Butcher, J. and Spielberger, C. D. (eds.), Advances in Personality Assessment (Vol. 10). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pepitone, A. and Wilpinski, C. 1960. "Some Consequences of Experimental Rejection." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 60: 359–64. Pereboom, D. (ed.) 1999. The Rationalists: Critical Essays on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman & Littlefield. Perna, M. A. 2001. “Imagination & Creativity in Jean-Paul Sartre.” Philosophy Now 32 (June/July): 15–17. Perry, J., (ed.) 1975. Personal Identity. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press Peters, T. 1997. Playing God?: Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom. New York: Routledge. Pettit, P. 2001. A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency. Cambridge: Polity Press. Piaget, J. [1936] 1963 The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: W.W. Norton. Piaget, J. [1946] 1969. The Child's Conception of Time. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Piaget, J. 1955. The Construction of Reality in the Child (tr. Margaret Cook, M.). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Piaget, J. [1963] 2001. The Psychology of Intelligence. New York: Routledge. Piaget, J. 1968. Genetic Epistemology (tr. Duckworth, E.). New York: Columbia University Press. Piaget, J. 1970. Structuralism (ed. and tr. Maschler, C.). New York: Basic Books. Picken, L. E. R. 1960. The Organization of Cells and other Organisms. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pigliucci, M. 2001. “The Ethics of it for Tat.” Philosophy Now 33 (September/October): 28– 9. Pinker, S. [1994] 1995. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. New York: HarperCollins. Pinker, S. 2002. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. London: Book Club Associates. Pinker, S. 2007. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. New York: Allan Lane/Penguin. Pitt, J. 1989. Theories of Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pizzorno, A. 1966. “Amoral Familism and Historical Marginality.” International Review of Community Development 15: 55–60. Place, U. T. 1956. “Is Consciousness and Brain Process.” British Journal of Psychology 41 (1): 44–50. PlanetPsych 1999–2006. “Defense Mechanisms.” Available at http://www.planetpsych. com.Psychology_101/defense_mechanisms.htm. Plant, R. 1999. “The Moral Boundaries of Markets.” In Norman, R. (ed.), Ethics and the Market. Aldershot, Hants., UK: Ashgate. Plato [390s–347 BC] 1997. Plato: Complete Works (ed. Cooper, J. M.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Plato [c380s BC] 1952. Phaedras (tr. Hackforth, R.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

235

Plato [c360 BC] 1955. The Republic (ed. Lee, H. P. D.). Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Plekhanov, G. V. [1897] 2004. The Materialist Conception of History. Available at http://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1897/history/part1.htm. Pöggeler, O. 1987. Martin Heidegger’s Path of Thinking. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Poland, J. 1994. Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundations. New York: Oxford University Press. Pope, A. [1720] 1895. An Essay on Man: Moral Essays and Satires. London: Cassell Popkin, R. H. 1979. The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, Popkin, S. 1979. The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Popper, K. [1935/1959] 2000. The Logic of Scientific Discovery (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Popper, K .R. 1945. “The Poverty of Historicism III.” Economica 11: 69–89. Popper, K. [1957] 2004. The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Popper, K. R. [1962] 1969. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. Popper, K. R. 1974. “Intellectual Autobiography.” In Schlipp, P. A. (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Popper, K. R. [1974] 1992. Unended Quest (Routledge Classics). London: Routledge. Popper, K. R. 1979. Objective Knowledge. Oxford: Clarendon. Popper, K. R. and Eccles, J. C. 1977. The Self and it Brain. Berlin: Springer. Porter, L. W. and Lawler, E. E. 1968. Managerial Attitudes and Performance. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press. Portes, A. 1972. “Rationality in the Slum: An Essay on Interpretive Sociology.” Comparative Studies in Sociology and History 14: 668–86. Posner, R. 1992. Economic Analysis of Law (4th ed.). New York: Aspen. Price, H. H. 1932. Perception. London: Methuen. Price, M. and Thompson, M. 1997. “The Complex Life: Human Land Uses in Mountain Ecosystems.” Global Ecology and Biogeography Letter 6: 77–90. Progoff, I. 1953. Jung’s Psychology and its Social Meaning. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Proust, M. [1913] 2002. In Search of Lost Time (Vol. 1 Swann's Way) (trs. Scott-Moncrieff, C. K. and Kilmartin, T., rev. Enright, D. J.). London: Vintage. Pruitt, D. G. and Kimmel, M. J. 1977. “Twenty Years of Experimental Gaming: Critique, Synthesis, and Suggestions for the Future.” Annual Review of Psychology 28: 363–92. Psillos, S. 1999. Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. London: Routledge Psillos, S. 2002. Causation and Explanation. Montreal, Ont., CA: McGill-Queens University Press. Pugh, D. S and Hickson, D. J. 1996. Writers on Organizations (5th. ed.). Harmondworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Putnam, H. 1975. “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’.” In Gunderson, K. (ed.), Language, Mind and Knowledge (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, VII). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

236

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Putman, H. 1980. “The Nature of Mental States.” In Block, N. (ed.), Readings in Philosophy of Psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Putnam, H. 1987. The Many Faces of Realism. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Putnam, H. 1988. Representation and Reality. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Putman, R. D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Pye, L. 1968. “Political Culture.” In Sillis, D. L. (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan and the Free Press. Pylyshyn, Z. W. 2007. Things and Places: How the Mind Connects with the World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Quinn, P. L. 1999. “Divine Command Theory." In LaFollette, H. (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Quine, W. van. 1951 “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” The Philosophical Review 60 (1): 20– 43. Available at http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html. Rae, A. 1986. Quantum Physics: Illusion or Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rahman, F. 1958. Prophecy is Islam. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ramachandran, V. S. and Blakeslee, S 1998. Phantoms of the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. New York: HarperCollins. Rand, A. 1957. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House. Rand, A. 1965. The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egotism. New York: American Library. Rand, A. 1966. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. New York: New American Library. Randall, J. H. [1926] 1949. The Making of the Modern Mind (rev. ed.). Boston, Houghton Mifflin. Rashid, A. 2001. Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ravn, I. 1991. “What Should Guide Reality Construction?” In Steier, F. (ed.), Research and Reflexivity. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Rawls, J. A. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rayner, S. 1982. “The Perceptions of Time and Space in Egalitarian Sects: A Millenarian Cosmology.” In Douglas, M. (ed.), Essays in the Sociology of Perception. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Rayner, S. 1988. “The Rules that Keep us Equal.” In Flanagan, J. G. and Rayner, S. (eds.), Rules, Decisions and Inequality. Brookfield, VT: Avebury. Rayner, S. 1991. “A Cultural Perspective on the Structure and Implementation of Global Environmental Agreements.” Evaluation Review 15 (1): 75–102. Raz, J. 1975. Practical Reason and Norms. London: Hutchinson. Reber, A. S. 1995. Dictionary of Psychology (2nd ed.). Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Reeve, A. 1996a “Alienation.” In McLean, I. (ed.), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reeve, A. 1996b. “Millenarianism.” In McLean, I. (ed.), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reiman, J. 1994. “Liberalism and Its Critics.” In Delaney, C. F. (ed.) The LiberalismCommunitarianism Debate. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield.

Bibliography

237

Rein, M. and Schön, D. A. 1993. “Reframing Policy Discourse.” In Fischer, F. and Forester, J. (eds.), The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. London: UCL Press. Rescher, N. 1973. The Coherence Theory of Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rescher, N. 1994. Risk: A Philosophical Introduction. Washington DC: University Press of America. Rey, G. 1997. Contemporary Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Blackwell. Riasanovsky, N. V. 1995. Emergence of Romanticism. New York: Oxford University Press. Rice, A. K. 1969. “Individual, Group and Intergroup Processes.” Human Relations 22: 565– 84. Richards, R. J. 1987. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Richardson, R. C. 2007. Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Richardson, R. D. 1998. Schleiermacher on Workings of the Knowing Mind. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon. Ricoeur, P. 1981. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation (ed. and tr. Thompson, J. B.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ricoeur. P. [2000] 2005. Memory, History, Forgetting (tr. Blamey, K and Pellauer, D.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ridley, M. 1997. Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Ridley, M. 2003. Nature versus Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human. New York: HarperCollins. Riesman, D. 1950. The Lonely Crowd. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ring, P. and Van de Ven, A. 1994. “Developmental Processes of Cooperative Interorganizational Relationships.” Academy of Management Review 19 (1): 90–118. Rist, J. 1967. Plotinus: The Road to Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ritter, A. 1980. Anarchism: A Theoretical Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rivas, T. and van Dongen, H. [2001] 2003. “Exit Epiphenomenalism: The Demolition of a Refuge.” Journal of Non-Locality and Remote Mental Interactions 11 (1). Available at http://members.lycos.nl/Kritisch/index-23.html. Robbins, J. 2001. Is it Righteous to be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Robertson, B. A. 1996. “Islamic Fundamentalism.” In McLean, I. (ed.), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robey, D. (ed.) 1973. Structuralism: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robinson, H. 2003. “Dualism.” In Stich, S. and T. Warfield, T. (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Blackwell. Robinson, T. M. 1995. Plato's Psychology (2nd ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Rofe, A. 2001. “Revealed Wisdom: From the Bible to Qumran.” A paper presented at the Sixth Orion International Symposium on “Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Available at http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/symposiums/6th/rofeFullPaper.html. Rogers, C. R. 1961. On Becoming a Person. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Rokeach, M. 1968. Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values: A Theory of Organization and Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

238

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Rokeach, M. 1973. The Nature of Human Values. New York: Free Press. Rolls, E. 2006. Emotions Explained. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rorty, A. (ed.) 1976. The Identities of Persons. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Rorty, R. 1971. “Mind–Body Identity, Privacy and Categories.” In Rosenthal, D. (ed.), Materialism and the Mind–Body Problem. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Rorty, R. 1984. “A Reply to Six Critics.” Analysis & Kritik 6: 90–7. Rorty, R. 1985. “Postmodern Bourgeois Liberalism.” In Hollinger, R. (ed.), Hermeneutics and Praxis. Notre Dame, IL: Notre Dame University Press. Rorty, R. 1986a. “Freud and the Moral Revolution.” In Smith, J. H. and Kerrigan, W. (eds.), Pragmatism’s Freud: The Moral Disposition of Psychoanalysis. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Rorty, R. 1986b. “The Contingency of Selfhood.” London Review of Books, 8 (May): 15–17. Rorty, R. 1997. “Realism, Antirealism, and Pragmatism: Comments on Alston, Chisholm, Davidson, Harman, and Searle.” In Kulp, C. B. (ed.), Realism/Antirealism and Epistemology. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield. Rosa, A. de la 1998. Forest Gump. Available at http://home.earthlink.net/~ ajdlro/f orrest.html. Rosenberg, M. J. and Hovland, C. L. 1960. Attitude Organization and Change: An Analysis of Consistency. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rosenberg, M. 1979. Conceiving the Self. New York: Basic Books. Rosenblum, N. L. 1998. Membership and Morals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rosenkrantz, R. 1977. Inference, Method, and Decision. Boston, MA: Reidal. Rosenthal, S. B. 1976. The Pragmatic A priori: A Study in the Epistemology of C. I. Lewis. St Louis, MO: W. H. Green. Ross, L. and Nisbett, R. E. 1991. The Person and the Situation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Ross, S. 1973. “The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal’s Problem.” American Economic Review 65 (1): 134–39. Ross, W. D. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon. Rothbard, M. 1973. For a New Liberty. New York: MacMillan. Rothstein, B. 2005. Social Traps and the Problem of Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rotter, J. B. 1954. Social Learning and Clinical Psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall Rotter, J. B. 1966. “Generalized Expectancies of Internal Versus External Control of Reinforcement.” Psychology Monographs 80 (609). Rotter, J. B. 1981. “The Psychological Situation in Social Learning Theory.” In Magnusson, D. (ed.), Towards a Psychology of Situations: An Interactive Perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Laurance Erlbaum. Rotter, J. B. 1982. “Social Learning Theory.” In Feather, N. T. (ed.), Expectations and Actions: Expectancy-value Models in Psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Laurance Erlbaum. Rotter, J. B., Chance, J. E. and Phares, E. J. 1972. Applications of a Social Learning Theory of Personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Rousseau, J. [1755] 1993. “A Discourse on a Subject Proposed by the Academy of Dijon: What is the Origin of Inequality amongst Men, and is it Authorised by Natural Law?” (tr.

Bibliography

239

Cole, G. D. H.). In Rousseau, J., The Social Contract and Discourses, London: Everyman. Rousseau, J. [1755] 1994. Discourse upon the Origin of Inequality amongst Mankind. New York: Oxford University Press. Rovane, C. 1998. The Bounds of Agency: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ruben, D. - H. 1998. “The Philosophy of Social Science.” In Grayling, A. (ed.), Philosophy 2: Further Thought on the Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rubin, D. - H. 1994. Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rumi, J. 1956. Rumi, Poet and Mystic (tr and ed. Nicholson, R. A.). London: George, Allen and Unwin. Rummell, R. J. 1976. The Conflict Helix (Vol. 2). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Available at http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE11.HTM. Rusbult, C. E. and Van Lange, P. A. M. 1996. “Interdependence Processes.” In Higgins, E. T. and Kruglanski, A. W. (eds.), Social Psychology Handbook of Basic Principles. New York: Guildford. Russell, B. [1912] 1997. The Problems of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. Russell, B. 1917. “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description.” In Mysticism and Logic. London: George Allen and Unwin. Russell, B. 1927. An Outline of Philosophy. London: George Allen & Unwin. Russell, B. 1940. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. London: George Allen & Unwin. Russell, B. 1946. A History of Western Philosophy. London: George Allen & Unwin. Russell, B. 1948. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Its Limitations. London: George Allan & Unwin. Ruthven, M. 1997. Fundamentalism: the Search for Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ruthven, M. 1997. Islam: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rutter, M. 2006. Genes and Behavior: Nature-Nurture Interplay Explained. Oxford: Blackwell. Ryan, A. 1970. The Philosophy of Social Explanation. London: Macmillan. Ryckman, R. M. 2000. Theories of Personality (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Ryle, G. 1949. The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson Ryn, C. 1978. Democracy and the Ethical Life. Baton Rouge, LO: Louisiana State University Press. Sabatier, P. A. 1986. “Top-down and Bottom-up Approaches to Implementation Research: A Critical Analysis and Suggested Synthesis.” Journal of Public Policy 6: 21–48. Sabatier, P. A. 1987. “Knowledge, Policy-oriented Learning, and Policy Change: An Advocacy Coalition Framework.” Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization 8 (4): 649–92 Sabatier, P. A. 1988. “An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change and the Role of the Policy-oriented Learning Therein.” Policy Sciences 24: 129–68. Sabatier, P. A. 1991. “Towards Better Theories of the Policy Process.” PS: Political Science and Politics 24: 147–56. Sabatier, P. A. 1993. “Policy Change Over a Decade or More.” In Sabatier, P. A. and JenkinsSmith, H. C. (eds.), Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. Boulder, CO: Westview.

240

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Sabatier, P. A. and Jenkins-Smith H. C. (eds.) 1993. Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approac. Boulder, CO: Westview. Sacks, O. 1985. The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales. London: Pan Macmillan. Sacks, S. (ed.) 1979. On Metaphor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Sagan, C. 1996. The Demon-Haunted World. London: Headline. Sambursky, S. 1956. “On the Possible and Probable in Ancient Greece.” In Kendall, M. G. and Plackett, R. L. (eds.), Studies in the History of Statistics and Probability (Vol. 2). New York: Macmillan. Sampson, E. E. 1993. Celebrating the Other: A Dialogic Account of Human Nature. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Sandbach, F. H. 1975. The Stoics. London: Chatto & Windus. Sandel, M. 1992. “The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self.” In Avineri, S. and de-Shalit, A. (eds.), Communitarianism and Individualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Santayana, G. 1905–1906. The Life of Reason: Or, The Phases of Human Progress (5 vols.). Available at http://www.Gutenberg.Org/Etext/15000. Sapir, E. 1958. Selected Wrting of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality (ed. Mandelbaum, D. G.). Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Sartre, J.–P. [1938] 1948. The Emotions: Sketch of a Theory (tr. Frechtman, B.). New York: Philosophical Library. Sartre, J.–P. [1943] 1957. Being and Nothingness: An Essay of Phenomenological Ontology (tr. Barnes, H. E.). London: Methuen. Sartre, J.–P. [1946] 1973. Existentialism and Humanism (tr. Mairet, P.). London, Methuen. Sartre, J.–P. [1960] 1976. Critique of Dialectical Reason. London: New Left Books. Sartre, J.–P. 1971. Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (trs. Mairet, P.). London: Methuen. Saussure, F. de [1916/1959] 1974. Course in General Linguistics (tr. Baskin, W, intro. J. Culler. J.). London: Peter Own. Savage, L. J. 1954. The Foundations of Statistics. New York, NY: Wiley. Scarre, G. 1996. Utilitarianism. London: Routledge. Schacht, R. 1983. Nietzsche. London: Routledge. Schachter, S. 1959. The Psychology of Affiliation. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Schachter, S. and Singer, J. E. 1962. “Cognitive, Social and Physiological Determinants of Emotional States.” Psychological Review 69: 379–99. Schaffer, J. [2003] 2007. “The Metaphysics of Causation.” In Zelta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causattionmetaphysics/. Scharpf, F. W. 1991. Crisis and Choice in European Social Democracy (trs. Crowley, R. and Thompson, F). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Schatzki, T. R. 2002. The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and Change. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Scheffler, S. 1974. Four Pragmatists: A Critical Introduction to Peirce, James, Mead and Dewey. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Scheffler, S. 1988. Consequentialism and its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scheffler, S. 1992. Human Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bibliography

241

Schein, E. H. 1991. “What is Culture?” In Frost, P. J., Moore, L. F., Louis, M. R., Lundberg, C. C., and Martin, J. (eds.), Reframing Organizational Culture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Scheler, M. 1987. Person and Self-Value: Three Essays (tr. Fringes, F. S.). The Hague, NL: Martinus Nijhoff. Schiller, F. C. S. [1903] 1912. Humanism: Philosophical Essays (2nd ed.). London and New York: Macmillan. Schiller, F. C. S. [1907] 1912. Studies in Humanism (2nd ed.). London and New York: Macmillan. Schiller, J. C. F. von [1793] 2005. “On Grace and Dignity” (tr. Curren, J. V.). In Curren, J. V. and Fricher, C. (eds.), Schiller’s “On Grace and Dignity” in its Cultural Context. Rochester, NY: Camden House. Schlegel, A. W. von 1847. The Philosophy of Life and Philosophy of Language in a Course of Lectures (tr. Morrison, A. J. W.). London: Henry G. Bohn. Available at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jWf83ij_bjQC&vq=Von+Schlegel+1847+1998&sou rce=gbs_summary_s&cad=0. Schleiermacher, F. D. E. [1799] 1988. On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (ed. Crouter, R.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Schleiermacher, F. D. E. [1805–1810] 1977. Hermeneutics: The Handwritten Manuscripts (trs. Duke, J. and Forstman, J.). Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Schopenhauer, A. [1813] 1974. The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (tr. Payne, E. F. J.). Chicago, IL: Open Court. Schopenhauer, A. [1818 and 1844] 1969. The World as Will and Representation (tr. Payne, E. F. J.) (2 vols.). New York: Dover. Schopenhauer, A. [1839] 1985. On the Freedom of the Will (tr. Kolenda, K.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Schopenhauer, A. [1839] 1999. Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will (ed. Zöller, G.). Available at http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=fW5Dl-tUSoC&dq=schopenhauer+prize+essay+on+the+freedom+of+the+will&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=f mABtQGWKF&sig=CNmDOSDs2RGPSkECKZu63umGCvk. Schopenhauer, A. [1851] 1970. Essays and Aphorisms (tr. Hollingdale, R. J.). London: Penguin. Schumpter, J. A. 1909. “On the Concept of Social Value.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 23: 213–32. Schumpter, J. A. 1976. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (5th ed.). London: Counterpoint. Schutz, A. [1932] 1967. The Phenomenology of the Social World (trs. Walsh, G. and Lehnert, F.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Schutz, A. and Luckmann, T. 1973. The Structures of the Social World (Vol. 1) (trs. Zaner, R. M. and Engelhardt, H. T. Jr.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Schutz, A. and Luckmann, T. 1983. The Structures of the Life-World (Vol. II) (trs. Zaner, R. M. and Parent, D. J.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Schutz, W. C. 1958. FIRO: A Three-dimensional Theory of Interpersonal Behavior. New York: Rinehart. Schwartz, B. 2004. The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. New York: HarperCollins. Schwarz, M. and Thompson, M. 1990. Divided We Stand: Redefining Politics, Technology and Social Choice. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

242

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Scruton, R. 1984. A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Scruton, R. 2002. The Meaning of Conservatism (3rd ed.). Basingstoke Hamp., UK: Palgrave. Scruton, R. 2007. Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged. New York: Encounters Books. Searle, J. R. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. R. 1983. Intentionality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press. Searle, J. R. 2001. Rationality in Action. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Searle, J. R. 2004. Mind: A Brief Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Searle, J. R. 2006. Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power. New York: Columbia University Press. Seigel, J. 2004. The Idea of Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seligman, A. B. 1997. The Problem of Trust. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Seligman, M. 2003. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment. New York: Free Press. Sellars, R. W. 1916. Critical Realism: A Study of the Nature and Conditions of Knowledge. Chicago: Rand-Mcnally. Sen, A. 1987. “Rational Behavior.” In Eatwell, J., Millgate, M. and Newman, P. (eds.), The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics. London: Macmillan. Sen, A. K. 2001. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sebeok, T. A. 1989. The Sign and its Masters. Lantham, MD: University Press of America. Sergeev, M. 1999. “Orthodoxy and Democracy: Sociological Themes in the Philosophy of Nikolai Losskii.” A paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Boston, November. Available at http://www.Georgefox.Edu/Academics/Undergrad/Departments/Soc-Swk/Ree/Sergeev_Oad01.Doc. Sewell, W. H. 1992. “A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency and Transformation.” American Journal of Sociology 98 (1): 1–29 Sextus Empricus [c200] 1994. Outlines of [Pyrrhonism] Sceptisism (trs. Annas, J. and Barnes, J.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shaftsbury, A. A. Cooper, Third Earl of [1711] 1978. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions and Times. Hildescheim, DM: Georg Olms. Shand, J. 2002. Philosophy and Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy. Stocksfield, Nthumb., UK: Acumen. Shavitt, S. 1989. “Operationalizing Functional Theories of Attitude.” In Anthony R. Pratkanis, A. R., Steven J. Breckler, S. J. and Anthony G. Greenwald, A. G. (eds.), Attitude Structure and Function. Hillsdale, NJ: Laurance Erlbaum. Shepherd, L. J. 1993. Lifting the Veil: The Feminine Face of Science. Boston: Shambala. Sher, G. 1987. Desert. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, B. J., Hood, W. R. and Sherif, C. W. 1961. Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robert Cave Experiment. Noeman, OK: Institute of Group Relations. Sherrington, C. S. [1937–38] 1978. Man on His Nature (ed. Denny-Brown, D. E.). New York: Macmillan.

Bibliography

243

Shoemaker, S. 1963. Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Shope, R. K. 1983. The Analysis of Knowing: A Decade of Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shrader-Frechette, K. 1985. Risk Analysis and Scientific Method. Boston, MA: Kluwer. Shrauger, J. S. 1975. “Responses to Evaluation as a Function of Initial Self-perception.” Psychology Bulletin 82: 581–96. Shun, K. – l. and Wong, D. 2004. Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy and Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shusterman, R. 1988. “Postmodern Aestheticism: New Moral Philosophy.” Theory, Culture and Society 5 (2–3) 345–66. Shweder, R. A. 1984. “Preview: A Colloquy of Culture Theorists.” In Shweder, R. A. and LeVine, R. A. (eds.), Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press Shweder, R. A. and Bourne, E. J. 1984. “Does the Concept of Person Vary Cross-culturally?” In Shweder, R. A. and LeVine, R. A. (eds.), Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sibeon, R. 2004. Rethinking Social Theory. London: Sage. Sidgwick, H. [1874] 1907. The Methods of Ethics (7th ed.). London: Macmillan. Sieber, S. 1981. Fatal Remedies. New York: Plenum. Silver, A. 1989. “Friendship and Ttrust as Moral Ideals: An Historical Approach. European Journal of Sociology 30: 274–97. Silz, W. 1929. Early German Romanticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Simmel, G. [1908] 1950. Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung [Sociology: Studies on the Forms of Association]. Leipzig-München: Duncker & Humblot, partially reproduced in Wolff, K. H. (ed. and tr.) 1950. The Sociology of Georg Simmel, Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Simmel, G. 1910–11. “How is Society Possible?” American Journal of Sociology 16: 372–91. Simmel, G. [1922] 1955. "The Web of Group Affiliations." In Simmel, G. Conflict and The Web of Group Affiliations (trs. Wolff, K. H. and Bendix, R.). Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Simon, H. A. 1956. “Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment.” Psychological Review 63: 129–38. Simon, H. A. 1957 Models of Man: Social and Rational. New York: Wiley. Simon, H. A. [1947] 1960. Administrative Behavior (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Simon, H. A. [1947] 1976. Administrative Behavior (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Simon, H. A. 1982. Models of Bounded Rationality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Singer, P. 1983. Hegel: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Singer, P. (ed.) 1991. A Companion to Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Singer, P. 1993. Practical Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Singer, P. 1997. How are We to Live? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Singer, S. J. 2001. The Splendid Feast of Reason. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Skinner, B. F. 1938. The Behavior of Organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Skinner, B. F. 1953. Science and Human Behavior. New York: Macmillan. Skinner, B. F. 1971. Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: Knopf. Skinner, B. F. 1973. About Behaviorism: Radical Behaviorism for the Intillegent Layperson. New York: Kopf.

244

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Skinner, B. F. 1969. Contingencies of Reinforcement. New York: Appelton-Century-Crofts. Skinner, B. F. [1977]. 2002a. “Walden Two: Freedom and the Behavioral Sciences.” In Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Skirbekk, G. (ed.) 1983. Praxiology: An Anthology. Oslo, NO: Universitetsforlaget. Slimansky, S. 2002. Free Will and Illusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smart, J. J. C. 1963. Philosophy and Scientific Realism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, B. 1973. Utilitarianism For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smircich, L. 1983. “Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis.” Administrative Science Quarterly 28: 339–58. Smith, A. [1759] 1976. A Theory of the Moral Sentiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, A. [1776] 1977. The Wealth of Nations. New York: Penguin. Smith, D. 1990. “Women’s Experience as a Radical Critique of Sociology.” In Farganis, J. (ed.), Readings in Social Theory: the Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Smith, D. W. 1982 Helvetius: A Study in Persecution. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Smith D. W. 2006. Husserl. New York: Routledge. Smith, M. B., Bruner, J. SW. and White, R. W. 1956. Opinions and Personality. New York: Wiley Snowden, D. J. 2005. “Multi-ontology Sense Making: A New Simplicity in Decision Making.” Management Today (South Africa) (Vol. 20). Available at http://www.kwork.org/Stars/Snowden/Snowden.pdf. Snyder, M., and DeBono, K. G. 1987. “A Functional Approach to Attitudes and Persuasion.” In Zenna, M. P., Olson, J. M. and Herman, C. P. (eds.), Social Influence: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 5). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Sorrentino, E. (ed.) 1992. Schleiermacher’s Philosophy and the Philosophical Tradition. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon. Sosa, E. (ed.) 1994. Knowledge and Justification (2 vols). Brookfield, VT: Ashgate. Spencer, W. [1851] 1995. Social Statics. New York: Robert Schalkenback Foundation. Spiker, C. C. 1989. “Cognitive Psychology: Mentalistic or Behavioristic?” Advanced Child Development Behavior 21: 73–90. Spinoza, B. de [1677] 1985. Ethics Demonstrated in a Geometrical Manner. In The Collected Works of Spinoza (Vol. 1) (ed. and tr. Curley, E.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Spiro, M. E. 1984. “Some Reflections on Cultural Determinism and Relativism with Special Reference to Emotion and Reason.” In Shweder, R. A. and LeVine, R. A. (eds.), Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press. Stack, G. J. 1977. Kierkegaard’s Existential Ethics (Studies in the Humanities, 16 Philosophy). Montgomery, AL: Alabama University Press. Stalnaker, R. 1989. “On What's in the Head.” Philosophical Perspectives 3: 287–316. Staub, E. 1974. “Helping a Distressed Person: Social, Personality, and Stimulus Determinants.” In Berkowitz, L. (ed.). Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 7). New York: Academic Press. Stewart, D. [1828] 2005a. The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man (Pt. One). Whitefish, MT: Kessinger.

Bibliography

245

Stewart, D. [1828] 2005b. The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man (Pt. Two). Whitefish, MT: Kessinger. Stevenson, C. L. 1944. Ethics and Language. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Stevenson, C. L. 1963. Facts and Values: Studies in Ethical Analysis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Stevenson, J. L. 1879. Truth of Intercourse. Available at http://www.grtbooks.com/exitfram.asp?idx=3&yr=1886&aa=ST&at=DO&ref=stevenson&URL=http://www.bartle by.com/28/11.html. Stich, S. 1990. The Fragmentation of Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Stingl, M. 1997. “Ethics 1.” In Canfield, J. V. (ed.), Philosophy of Meaning: Knowledge and Value in the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge. Stokes, G. 1998. Popper. Philosophy, Politics and Scientific Method. Cambridge: Polity Press Stoljar, N. 2000. “Autonomy and the Feminist Intuition.” In Mackenzie, C. and Stoljar, N. (eds.), Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self. New York: Oxford University Press. Stolle, D. 1998 “Bowling Together, Bowling Alone: The Development of Generalized Trust in Voluntary Associations.” Political Psychology 19 (3): 497–525. Stonequist, E. V. 1937. The Marginal Man: A Study in Personality and Culture Conflict. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Stones, R. 2005. Structuration Theory. Basingstoke, Hamp., UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Storey, J. 1993. An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Hemel Hempstead, Herts., UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Stratham, A., Gleicher, F., Boninger, D. S. and Edwards, C. S. 1994. “The Consideration of Future Consequences: Weighing Immediate and Distant Outcomes of Behavior.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66: 742–52. Strauss, A. L. 1959. Mirrors and Masks: The Search for Identity. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Strauss, A. L. 1978. Negotiations: Varieties, Contexts, Processes and Social Arrangement. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Strawson, G. 1986. Freedom and Belief. Oxford: Clarendon. Streng, F. 1967. Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning. Nashville TN and New York: Abingdon. Strickland, B. R. 1965. “The Prediction of Social Action from a Dimension of InternalExternal Control.” Journal of Social Psychology 66: 353–58. Stroll A. 2002. Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oneworld. Stroll, A. 2006. Did My Genes Make Me Do It and Other Philosophical Dilemmas. Oxford: Oneworld. Swartz, R. J. (ed.) 1965. Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing. New York: Doubleday. Sztompka, P. 1996. “Trust and Emerging Democracy: Lessons from Poland.” International Sociology 11 (1): 37–62. Taleb, N. N. 2007. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. London: Allen Lane Tajfel, H. 1969. “Cognitive Aspects of Prejudice.” Journal of Social Issues 25 (4): 79–97. Tajfel, H. 1981. Human Groups and Social Categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tajfel, H. (ed.) 1982. Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

246

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. C. 1979. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” In Austin, W. G. and Worchel, S. (eds.), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole. Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. C. 1986. “The Social Identity Theory of Inter-group Behavior.” In Worchel, S. and Austin, L. W. (eds.), Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall. Taylor, C. 1979. Hegel and Modern Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, C. 1985. Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, C. 1989. Sources of the Self. Cambridge; MA: Harvard University Press. Taylor, C. 1991. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge; MA: Harvard University Press. Taylor, C. C. W. (ed. and tr) 1999. The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus Fragments. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Taylor, G. 1985. Pride, Shame and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment. Oxford: Clarendon. Taylor, K. 1982. The Political Ideals of the Utopian Socialists. London: Frank Cass. Taylor, P. W. 1975. Principles of Ethics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Terence [Publius Terentius Afer] [166 BC/1974] 1992. The Girl from Andros [Andria] (tr. Bovie, P.). In Bovie, P., Carrier, C. and Parker, D. (eds.), Terence: The Comedies (Great Roman Drama in Translation Series). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Teresa, Mother and Kolodieichuk, B. 2007. Mother Theresa: Come Be My Light. New York: Doubleday. Tetlock, P. E. and Manstead, A. S. R. 1985. “Impression Management versus Intrapsychic Explanations in Social Psychology: A Useful Dichotomy?” Psychological Review 92: 59–77. Thayer, R. 1996. The Origins of Origins of Everyday Moods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thévenaz, P. 1962. What Is Phenomenology? and Other Essays (trs. Courtney, C. and Edie, J. M., ed. Edie, J. M.). Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books. Thibaut, J. W. and Kelley, H. H. 1959. The Social Psychology of Groups. New York: Wiley. Thibaut, J. W. and Walker, L. 1975. Procedural Justice: A Psychological Analysis. New York: Wiley. Thomas, W. I. and Znaniecki, F. 1918–20. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (2 vols.) (2nd ed.). New York: Dover. Thompson, J. D. 1967. Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw-Hill. Thompson, J. B. 1990. Ideology and Modern Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press. Thompson, M. 1996. Inherent Relationality: An Anti-dualist Approach to Institutions (LOS Center Report). Bergen, NO: University of Bergen, LOS Center. Thompson, M. and Ellis, R. J. 1997. “Introduction.” In Ellis, R. J. and Thompson, M. (eds.), Culture Matters: Essays in Honor of Aaron Wildavsky. Boulder, CO: Westview. Thompson, M. and Taylor, P. 1986. The Surprise Game: An Exploration of Constrained Relativism (Warwick Papers in Management 1). London: University of Warwick, Institute for Management Research and Development. Thompson, M. and Wildavsky, A. 1986. “A Poverty of Distinction: From Economic Homogeneity to Cultural Heterogeneity in the Classification of Poor People.” Policy Sciences 19: 163–99. Thompson, M., Ellis, R. J. and Wildavsky, A. 1990. Culture Theory. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Bibliography

247

Thompson, M., Ellis, R. J. and Wildavsky, A. 1992. “Political Cultures.” In Hawkesworth, M. and Kogan, M. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Government and Politics. London: Routledge. Thompson. N. 1992. Existentialism and Social Work. London: Avebury. Thorn, A. 2001. “The Issue of Metaphysical Primacy.” Available at http://www.geocities. com/Athens/Spar4ta/1019/AFE/Metaphysical_Primacy.htm Thorngate, W. 2001. “The Social Psychology of Policy Analysis.” Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 3 (1): 85–112. Thorpe, W. H. 1962. Biology and the Nature of Man. London and New York: Oxford University Press. Thucydides [401 BC] 1972. History of the Peloponnesian War (tr. Warner, R.) (rev. ed.). Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Todd, O. 2000. “Introduction.” In Camus, A. [1951], The Rebel. London: Penguin. Tolman, E. C. 1922. “A New Formula for Behaviorism.” Psychological Review 29: 44–53. Tolman E. C. 1932. Purposive Behavior in Animal and Men. New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts. Tolman, E. C. 1948. “Cognitive Map of Rats and Men.” Psychological Review 55 (4): 189– 208. Touraine, A. [1973] 1977. The Self-Production Society (tr. Coltman, D.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Triandis, H. C. 1971. Attitude and Attitude Change. New York: Wiley. Tsohatzidis, S. L. (ed.) 1994. Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives. London: Routledge. Tsoukas, H. 1998. “Forms of Knowledge and Forms of Life in Organized Contexts.” In Chia, R. C. H. (ed.), In the Realm of Organization: Essays for Robert Cooper. London: Routledge. Turiel, E. 1983. The Development of Social Knowledge: Morality & Convention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Turkle, S. 2007. “Introduction.” In Turtle, S. (ed.), Evocative Objects: Things We Think With. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. 1973. “Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability.” Cognitive Psychology 3: 207–32. Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. 1974. “Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” Science 185 (1): 124–31. Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. 1981. “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.” Science 211: 453–58. Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. 1986. “Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions.” Journal of Business 19 (4): 251–78. Udehn, L. 2001. Methodological Individualism. London: Routledge. Unger, P. 1975. Ignorance. New York: Oxford University Press Urmson, J. O. 1968. The Emotive Theory of Ethics. London: Hutchinson. Urry, J., Dingwall, R., Gough, I., Omerod, P. Massey, D., Scott, J. and Thrift, N. 2007. “What is ‘Social’ about Social Science?” Twenty-first Century Society 2 (1): 95–119. Uslaner, E. 2002. The Moral Foundations of Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vallentyne, P. (ed.) 1991. Contractarianism and Rational Choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

248

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Vallentyne, P. and Steiner, H. (eds.) 2000a. Left Libertarianism and its Critics: The Contemporary Debate. New York: Palgrave. Vallentyne, P. and Steiner, H. (eds.) 2000b. The Origins of Left Libertarianism: An Anthology of Historical Writings. New York: Palgrave. Vallentyne, P. 2001. “Introduction: Left-Libertarianism—A Primer.” In Vallentyne, P., and Steiner, H. (eds.), Left-Libertarianism and Its Critics: The Contemporary Debate. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Vardey, P. and Grosch, P. 1999. The Puzzle of Ethics (rev. ed.). London: HarperCollins Religious. Vardy, P. 2003a. What is Truth. Alresford, Essex, UK: John Hunt. Vardy, P. 2003b. Being Human. London: Darton, Longman and Todd. Vickers, G. 1983. The Art of Judgement: A Study of Policymaking (2nd ed.). London: Chapman and Hall. Vickers, B. 2002. ‘Counterfeiting’ Shakespeare: Evidence, Authorship and John Ford’s Funerall Elegye. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vygotsky, L. 1962. Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Vygotsky, L. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wahl, J. 1949. A Short History of Existentialism. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Walker, L. J., Pitts, R. C., Hennig, K. H. and Matsuba, M. K. 1995. “Reasoning about Morality and Real-life Moral Problems.” In Killen, M. and Hart, D. (eds.), Morality in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walker, P. A. and Zacharias, G. W. (eds.) 2007. The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1855– 1872 (Vol. 1). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Wallace, W. L. 1969. ‘Preface.’ In Wallace, W. L. (ed.), Sociological Theory: An Introduction. London: Heinemann. Wallace, W. L. 1971. The Logic of Science in Sociology. Chicago, IL: Aldine Atherton. Walsh, W. 1972. “Open and Closed Morality.” In Parekh, B. and Berki, R. (eds.), The Morality of Politics. London: George Allen & Unwin. Walter, M. 1983. Spheres of Justice. A Defence of Pluralism and Equality. Oxford: Martin Robinson. Waltzer, M. 1992. “The Civil Society Argument.” In Mouffe, C. (ed.), Dimensions of Radical Democracy. London: Verso. Warburton, N. [1998] 2006. Philosophy: The Classics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. Warnock, G. J. 1962. “Introduction.” In Berkeley, G. [1710]. The Principles of Knowledge (ed. Warnock, G. J.). London: Fontana Press. Warnock, M. 1970. Existentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Warren, N. and Jahoda, M. 1966. Attitudes. Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Watkins, J. W. N. 1952. “The Principles of Methodological Individualism.” The British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 3: 186–9. Watkins, J. W. N. 1957. “Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences.” The British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 8: 104–17. Watkins, J. W. N. 1968. “Methodological Individualism and Social Tendencies.” In Brodbeck, M. (ed.), Reading in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan.

Bibliography

249

Watson, J. B. [1924] 1930. Behaviorism: A Textbook of Comparative Psychology (rev. ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press Weber, M. [1903/1917] 1949. The Methodology of the Social Sciences (trs. Shils, S. N. and Finch, H.). New York: Free Press. Weber, M. [1915] 1946. “The Social Psychology of the World Religions.” In Gerth, H and Wright Mills, C. (eds. and trs.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, M. [1921] 1968. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (tr. Fischoff, E., eds. Roth, G. and Wittich, C.). New York: Bedminster Press. Weber, M. [1924] 1947. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (tr. Henderson, A. M. and Parsons, T.). New York: Free Press. Available at http://www. emeraldinsight. com/Insight/manualDocumentRequest.do?hdAction=ref_document_request&r_contentId =0&r_atitle=&r_jtitle=The Theory of Social and Economic Organization&r_issn =&r_year=1947&r_volume=&r_issue=&r_startpage=&r_endpae=&r_publisher=The Free Press&raut-hors=Weber, M. Weber, M. 1962. Basic Concepts in Sociology (tr. Secher, H. P.). London: Peter Owen. Wegner, D. N. 2003. The Illusion of Conscious Will. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Weick, K. E. 1979. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. Weick, K. E. 1995. Sensemaking in Organizations. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Weiner, B. 1985. “‘Spontaneous’ Causal Thinking.” Psychological Bulletin 97: 74–84. Weinstein, E. A. and Deutschberger, P. 1963. “Some Dimensions of Altercasting.” Sociometry 26 (4): 454–66. Weissman, D. 2000. A Social Ontology. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Welbourne, M. 2001. Knowledge. Stocksfield, Nthumb., UK: Acumen. Wendt, A. E. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wertheimer, M. 1945. Productive Thinking. New York: Harper and Row. Wertheimer, M. 1961. “Some Problems in the Theory of Ethics.” In Henle, M. (ed.), Documents of Gestalt Psychology. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. White, A. R. 1970. Truth. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor. White, R. W. 1959. “Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence.” Psychological Review 66 (5): 297–333. White, S. 1991. “Narrow Content and Narrow InterpretationI.” In White, S. (ed.), The Unity of the Self. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Whitehead A. N. 1925. Science and the Modern World. New York: Macmillan. Whitehead, A. N. and Russell, B. [1910–13] 1925–27. Principia Mathematica (3 vols.) (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whorf, B. 1956. Language, Thought & Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (ed. Carroll, J.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wickland, R. and Brehm, J. 1976. Perspectives on Cognitive Dissonance. New York: Halsted Press. Wicks, R. 2003. “Friedrich Nietzsche.” In Zelta, E. N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ nietzsche/ Wiggins, D. 1991. Needs, Values and Truth. Oxford: Blackwell.

250

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Wildavsky, A. 1984. The Nursing Father: Moses as a Political Leader. Montgomery, AL: Alabama University Press. Wildavsky, A. 1989. “A Cultural Theory of Leadership.” In Jones, B. D. (eds.), Leadership and Politics: New Perspectives in Political Science. Lawrence, KA: University Press of Kansas. Wildavsky, A. 1991d. The Rise of Radical Egalitarianism. Washington, DC: American University Press. Williams, B. [1976] 1993. “Moral Luck.” In Statman, D. (ed.), Moral Luck. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Williams, B. 1981. Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, B. 2006. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Williams, B. 2006. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry. London: Routledge. Williams, C. C. and Windebank, J. 2003. Poverty and the Third Way. London: Routledge. Williams. J. 2005. Understanding Poststructuralism. Stocksfield, Nthumb., UK: Acumen. Williams, M. 1991. Unnatural Doubts: Epistemological Realism and the Basis of Scepticism. Oxford: Blackwell. Williams, M. and May, T. 1996. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Research. London: UCL Press. Williamson, O. E. 1985. Economic Institutions of Capitalism. New York: The Free Press. Williamson, O. E 1994. “Transaction Cost Economics and Organizational Theory.” In Smelzer, N. and Swedberg, R. (eds.), The Handbook of Economic Sociology. New York: Russell. Sage. Wills, G. 1999. Saint Augustine. New York: Viking/Penguin. Wills, T. A. 1981. “Downward Comparison Principles in Social Psychology.” Psychology Bulletin 90: 245–71. Wilson, B. 1979. Rationality. Oxford: Blackwell. Wilson, C. [1956] 1957. The Outsider (2nd ed.). London: Pheonix. Wilson, C. [1956/1967] 2001. The Outsider (Indigo ed.). London: Pheonix. Wilson, E. 2007. The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox. Saint. London: Profile Books. Wilson, E. O. 1976. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and Belknap. Wilson, E. O. 1978. On Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilson, J. 1961. Reason and Morals, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, R. A. 1995. Cartesian Psychology and Physical Minds: Individualism and the Sciences of Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press. Winch, P. [1958] 1990. The Idea of Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Winterfeldt, D. von and Edwards, W. 1986. Decision Analysis and Behavioural Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wittgenstein, L. [1922] 1961. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (trs. Peters, D. F. and McGuiness, B. F.). London: Routledge. Wittgenstein, L. [1956] 1978. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (eds. Wright, G. H. von, Rhees, R. and Anscombe, G. E. M., tr. Anscombe, G. E M) (rev. ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

Bibliography

251

Wittgenstein, L. 1953. Philosophical Investigations (eds. Anscombe, G. E. M. and Rhees, R., tr. Anscombe, G. E. M.). Oxford: Blackwell. Wittgenstein, L. 1969. On Certainty (eds. Anscombe, G. E. M. and Wright, G. H. von, tr. Anscombe, G. E. M. and Paul, D.). Oxford: Blackwell. Wolf, E. S. 1988. Treating the Self. New York: Guildford. Wolf, S. 1994. Freedom within Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wolff, R. P. 1970. In Defense of Anarchism. New York: Harper & Row. Wood, L. 1962. “Solipsism.” In Runes, D. D. (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams. Wood, S. 1996. “Christian Fundamentalism.” In McLean, I. (ed.), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodcock, G. 1986. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements, (2nd ed.). Harmondsworth, Gt. Lon., UK: Penguin. Woodfield, A. 1976. Teleology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wright, C. J. G. 1987. Realism, Meaning and Truth. Oxford: Blackwell. Wright, C. 1989. “Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy of Mind: Sensation, Privacy, and Intention.” Journal of Philosophy 86: 622–34. Wright, C., Smith, B. and Macdonald, C. (eds.) 1998. Knowing Our Own Minds. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wright, G. H. von 1971. Explanation and Understanding. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Wrong, D. 1994. The Problem of Order: What Unites and Divides Society. New York: Free Press. Wundt, W. M. [1874/1902] 1904. Principles of Physiological Psychology (tr. Titchener, E. B.). Available at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Wundt/Physio/. Wundt, W. M. [1896] 1897. Outlines of Psychology (tr. Judd, C. H.). Available at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Wundt/Outlines/. Wuthnow, R., Hunter, J. D., Bergesen, A. and Kurtzweil, E. 1984. Culture Analysis: The Works of Peter L Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault and Jügen Habermas. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Yamagishi, T. 1988. “The Provision of a Sanctioning System in the United States and Japan.” Psychology Quarterly 51: 264–70. Yamigishi, T. and Yamigishi, M. 1994. “Trust and Commitment in the United States and Japan.” Motivation and Emotion 18: 129–66. Young, J. 2005. Schopenhauer. New York: Routledge. Young, K. 1979, “Values in the Policy Process.” Policy and Politics 5: 1–22. Reprinted in Pollitt, C., Lewis, L., Negro, J. and Pattern, J. (eds.), Public Policy in Theory and Practice, Hodder and Stoughton and Open University Press, Sevenoaks, Kent, UK. Young, R. 1986. Autonomy: Beyond Negative and Positive Liberty. New York: St. Martin's Press. Zander, A. and Cohen, A. R. 1955. “Attributed Social Power and Group Acceptance: A Classroom Experimental Demonstration.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 51: 490–2. Zimbardo, P. 2006. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. New York: Random House.

252

John Dixon, Rhys Dogan and Alan Sanderson

Zimmerman, M. J. 1988. An Essay on Moral Responsibility. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield. Zimmerman, M. J. 1996. The Concept of Moral Obligation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zizek, S. 2006. The Parallax View. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Znaniecki, F. [1940] 1968. The Social Role of the Man of Knowledge. New York: Harper and Row. Available at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=77153330. Zubiri, X. [1989] 2003. Dynamic Structure of Reality (tr. Orringer, N. R.). ChampaignUrbana IL: University of Illinois Press. Zupančić, A. 2002. The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two. Cambridge MA: MIT Press Zuriff, G. E. 1985. Behaviorism: A Conceptual Reconstruction. New York: Columbia University Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS John Dixon BEcon, MEcon, PhD, AcSS is the Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Administration at the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research and Emeritus Professor of Public Policy and Management at University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom, prior to which he held senior academic positions in Hong Kong and Australia. He is an elected member of the British Academy of the Social Sciences (UK) and an honorary life member of Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars (US). He has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Wisconsin (US), Rutgers University (US), the Research Centre of Economical, Technical and Social Development (China) and Wollongong (Australia). Overall, he has published 12 authored books, 17 edited books, eight journal symposia, and over 150 academic papers. Some of his research publications have been translated into Chinese, Spanish, Japanese and Hebrew. He has also been invited to present papers at academic and international forms in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Canada, China, Fiji, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Italy, Malta, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Rhys Dogan BA Hons (Politics), MA (Politics) retired as Principal Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at the University of Plymouth in 2005. He has published papers in the International Public Management Journal, Social Policy & Society, Community Development Journal, Review of Policy Research, Public Organization Review, Journal of Management Development, Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, and Reason in Practice: the Journal of the Philosophy of Management. He is currently living in Sydney, Australia. Alan Sanderson BSc (Hons) (Community Work with Social Policy), Cert Community Work, PG Dip (Social Research), PG Cert (Learning and Teaching in Higher Education), PhD is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Law and Social Science at the University of Plymouth and the Programme Leader of the Community Studies (Development and Youth Work) Degree at Truro College in the United Kingdom. He is a Member of the Chartered Management Institute, a Member of the Institute of Leadership and Management, a Member of the Institute of Learning and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He has published papers in the Community Development Journal and in edited books in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom.

INDEX A abduction, 41 absolute idea, 44 abstract empricism, 35 absurdity, 34, 112 absurdity of life, 112 Ackerman, 38 Ackermann, 39 action frame of reference, the, 58 action theory, 11 economics, 63 in philosophy, 11 in sociology, 1 actionalism, 178 action-theoretic mechanisms, 58 actor-network theory, 170 Adler, 15, 100, 123 Adorno, 89 agape, 100 age of reason, the, 35 agency intentional mental states individual authenticity, 57 social actions grounded in rational self-interest, 63 agency, 57, 64, 175 definition, 20 intentional mental states individual self-rule, 57 intentional mental states, 57 individualism, 59 utilitarianism, 60 sociobiology, 62 social actions grounded in the search for identity and authenticity, 64 stratified notion of, 179 agency ontology, 82

agent corporate, 179 agent-causation, 56, 59 agential intentions, 56, 165, 168, 176 agentists free will compatibalists, 57 free will incompatibalists, 57 agents corporate, 9, 177, 178 as advocacy coalitions, 178 as discourse coalitions, 178 as epistemic communities, 178 as formal organizations, 178 as issue network communities, 178 as policy communities, 178 primary, 177, 178, 179 social actors, 177, 178 aggregation of people definition. See also assemblages Ajzen, 61 Alder, A., 11 alienation, 64, 116, 117, 120 man from man, 117 social, 116 women as sex objects, 117 Allport, 14, 16, 87, 108 Althusser, 70, 175 altruism, 21, 61 altruistism, 89, 102 analytical dualism, 175, 177 analytical duality, 175 analytical induction, 41, 173 analytically dualism, 175 anguish, 112, 115 animism, 67 anomalous monism, 11

256 anomie, 117 anthropological structuralism, 68 anthropology, 14, 68 psychological, 14 antirealism, 41, 53, 170 anxiety, 48, 60, 71 fear of secession, 101 of nothingness, 113 rejection, 100 status, 90 unknowability, 109 wealth acquisition, 124 Appiah, 19 Aquinas, 94 Archer, 13, 87, 102, 164, 169, 170, 175, 176, 177, 178, 189 archetypes, 10 Ardorno, 103 Aristippus the Elder, 91, 125 Aristotelian thought, 29, 92 Aristotle, 66, 91, 92, 103, 104, 125 Aronson, 140 Arrow, 129 Asch, 89 aspirations, 88 assemblage direct-contact. See also agents:corporate rational-type, 9 assumptive world, 15, 17, 79, 80, 160 astrological determinism, 55 atomism logical, 52 social, 58 atomists, ancient Greek, 23 attitude, 16 change interpersonal communications, 144 irect experience, 144 thought, 144 propositional, 10 actions, 11 towards others, 16 definition, 16 formation, 17 guided by cognitive systems, 19 phenomenological, 49 attribution theory, 20 causal attribution, 20 causal schemata, 21 fundamental attribution error, 21 covariation principle, 21 audiences, 9 Augustine of Hippo, 103

Index Augustine, St., 111, 121 Aurelius, 92 authenticity, 60, 76, 111, 112, 113, 118 authoritarian personality, 89 authority definition, 80 authority figure, 80 authority figures, 71 Axelrod, 127 Ayer, 35 Ayers, 37

B Bacon, 103 Bacon, F., 17 Baconian thought, 123 bad faith, 46, 113 Sartre's concept of, 113 bad luck, 116, 129 Bakunin, 110 Barbusse, H., 109 Barnard, 137 Barrett, 189 Barthes, 102 Bayle, 95 Beacon, 27 Becker, 124 becoming, the state of, 108 behavior prosocial, 89 causation social learning theory, 11 reason action theory, 11 biological determinism, 11 cognitivism, 11 Gestalt theory, 11 humanism, 11 planned behavior theory, 11 psychodynamism, 11 radical behaviorism, 11 reasoned action theory, 11 self ideals, 15 style-of-life, 15 aping, 89 behavioral control, perceived, 11 behavioral sciences, the, 18, 19 behaviorism, 140 logical, 11 radical, 11 behaviourism methodological, 19 being, 54

Index being, 46, 47, 64, 110, 113 being-for-itself, 46 being-for-others, 47 being-in-itself, 46 Beit Hillel, 94 Bem, 140 Bendix, 85 Bentham, 60, 61, 125, 126 Bergson, 26 Berkeley, 22, 27, 32 Berkeleyan thought, 43 Berlin, 60 Bernard, 9 Berne, 84 Bernoulli, 60, 61, 164 Bhaskar, 66, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 189 biological naturalism, 10 biology, 68 Blackburn, 93 Blauner, 117 blind spots, a person’s, 14 blitzkrieg music, 109 Bloomfield, 69 Bloomfield, L., 69 Blumer, 42 Bodhidarma, 110 Borges, J. L., 109 Boulder, 80 bounded rationality, 64, 98 Bourdieu, 164, 165 Bourne, 18 Bowne, B., 61 bracketing phenomenological method of, 49 Bradley, 32, 95 brain, the, 10, 11, 14, 22, 62, 63 Bretano, 41, 48 Brightman, E., 61 Buber, 12, 61, 114 Buddhism, 92 Burke, 95 Burns, Robert, 14 Burton, 93, 103, 118, 126

C Campanella, 103 Camus, 109, 115 capital cultural, 164 economic, 165 economic, 164 social, 135 bridging, 164

257

bonding, 164 cultural, 165 capitalism, 70 Carnap, 35 Cartesian doubt, 21 Cartesian thought, 49, 108 catharsis, 166 Cattell, 14, 87 causa sui, 56 causal capacity, 18, 73, 134, 175 antecedently sufficient, 23 causal determinism, 18 causality problem of, 40 causation adicity, 18 agental, 56 direction, 18 individuation), 18 selection, 18 causation immanence, 18 metaphysics of, 18 connection, 1 causal determinism, 18 antecedenetly sufficient, 18 Hume, 27 deduction, 31 conjunction, 34 immanent, 56 constant conjunction, 174 ceremonies, 52, 90 Chaiken, 16 character, 60, 164 character ethics, 104, See also ethics: virtue ethics, Chernyshevskii, 110 Chesterton, G. K ., 20, 200 choice, 60, 111, 124 charactor creating, 60 constrained by hirerarchical group norms, 92 coordinated with others, 89 ethical, 119 life lived in a state of consciousness, 109 moral, 46 moral basis of virtuousness of social actions, 103 rational, 63, 127 relationships, 18, 80 values and meaning, 47 will to power, 112 Chomsky, 20 Cicero, 80, 104 civil order, 102

258 Clark, 9, 229 class conflict, 70 class consciousness, 67 classification system, 73 Clerselier, 55 Coelho, P., 111 cognitions, 62 contradictory, 161 definition, 15 cognitive ambiguity, 160 cognitive biases, 58, 160 congenial information, 160 hostile information, 160 selective thinking, 160 cognitive change, 167 cognitive consistency, 160 theory, 15 cognitive consistency theory, 3 cognitive development, 15 cognitive dissonance, 168 logic of, 166 state of, 140, 141, 143, 145, 160 theory, 140 cognitive elasticity, 139, 143 cognitive inconsistency, 74, 143 cognitive pluralism, 24 cognitive relativism definition, 22 cognitive uncertainty, 88, 99 cognitivism, 11 coincidence, 115 collective inclusive, 167 collective action, 179 corporate agents, 87 free rider, 166 homo economicus, 123 homo eexistentialis, 108 homo existentialis, 108 homo hierarchus, 89 homo sociologicus, 100, 102 mediate strategic action, 166 collective representations, 71 collective unconscious, the, 10 collectivity homo existentialis, 107 homo sociologicus, 100 hierarchical, 89, 90, 91, 97 collectivity, nature of homo economicus, 122 collectivity, nature of homo hierarchus, 88 Collins, 101

Index common sense, 26, 40, 41, 48, See also inate cognition, See also inate cognition communicative rationality, Habermas’s concept of, 167 communisms, 70 communitarianism, 102 community organic, 65 compatibalism, 56 classical, 56 compatibilism, 56 competition, 123 hypercompetitive attitudes, 123 compliance alienative, 120 commitment-based voluntary, 105 constrained cognitive commitment, 97 instrumental, 129 limits on homo economicus, 130 homo existentialis, 120 homo hierarchus, 97 homo sociologicus, 105 Comte, 34, 66, 67 conatus, 61 conceptual semantics, 20 Condorcet, 34, 67, 126 Condorsetian thought, 127 Confucian thought, 92, 138 Confucius, 91, 95 congenial information, 160 connectedness, state of, 11, 12 Conrad, 109 conscience, 105 vulgar, 112 conscious mental acts rational consciousness, 26 universal mind, 26 conscious mental states, 1, 70, 114 action theory, 11 existential isolation, 45 experience of objects, 47 group consciousness, 70 layed consciousness, 49 non-thetic consciousness, 113 recollection, 49 reproduction, 49 retention, 49 social dimensions, 44 solus ipse, 22 stream of consciousness, 51 streams of consciousness, 49, 50 structure of, 47

Index consciousness streams of, 49 consent direct consent, 106 hypothetical, 98 implicit, 131 irrelevant, 121 consequentialism act-, 128 rule-, 128 see also ethics consequentialism, 128 conspiracy theory, 101 constipation, 10 constructivism, 26 constructivist theory of knowing, 15 contractarianism, 127 control, personal, 107 control-comfort-zone, 143 conventions, 73 conversation, 72, 193 public, the, 72 Cooley, 13 cooperation, 62, 89, 100, 102, 108, 117, 123, 129, 135 corporate agents, 87, See agents:corporate as advocacy coalitions, 178 as discourse coalitions, 178 as epistemic communities, 178 as network communities, 178 as policy communities, 178 correct behavior, 91 creative self, 15 creativity, 112, 164, 168 Cressey, D., 41, 173 critical naturalism, 172, 174 critical realism, 170, 171, 172, 176 dialectical, 170 critical theory, 106 crowds, 9 cultural artefacts, 51, 72 cultural determinism, 55, 71 cultural emergent properties, 177 cultural practices, 72 cultural theory, 81, 82 culture, 13, 44

D d’Ascoli, 55 Daodejing, 110 Darwin, C., 62 Dasein, 46 Dawkins, 125

259

de Beauvoir, 117 de Molina, L., 94 death, 60, 64, 76, 95, 113, 116, 165 deBono, 91 decision making compromise, 106 computational, 98 homo economicus, 130 homo existentialis, 120 homo hierarchus, 98 homo sociologicus, 105 inspirational, 121 judgemental, 130 satisficing, 98 decision risks, salient homo sociologicus, 99, 107 homo hierarchus, 88 decisions-making preferred mode homo hierarchus, 98 deductive closure principle, 29 deep grammar of a society, 72 defence mechanism, 144 defense mechanisms self-control, 140 defense mechanisms, 140, 142 arbitrary rightness, 140 compartmentalization, 140 denial, 140 excessive self-control, 140 intellectualization, 140 rationalization, 140 reaction formation, 140 repression, 140 compensation, 140 displacement, 140 fantasy, 140 projection, 140 regression, 140 sublimation, 140 deference, 88, 93 Deighton, L., 115 Democritus, 23 deontological ethical. See ethics, deontological Derrida, 69, 102 Descartes, 10, 21, 28, 30, 31, 48 desires, rational, 127 despair, 112, 115 destiny, 15, 46, 60, 62, 64, 107, 108, 111, 115, 123 determinism hard hereditarianism, 55 linguistic, 55

260

Index

determinism, 18, See also indeterminism and free will, 54 causal, 18 cultural, 55 economic, 55 hard astrological, 55 divine, 55 environment, 55 environmental, 31 fatalism, 55 neurobiological, 11 situational, 55 probablistic, 18 social, 55 determinism hard psychological, 55 physical (physiological or neurobiological), 55 genetic, 55 psychological situationalism, 55 orectic, 55 rational, 55 physiological, 55 neurobiological, 55 soft, 56 hard, 56 neurobiological, 63 soft structural, 65 soft economic, 67 soft linguistic, 69 soft economic, 70 economic, 70 social, 71 soft cultural, 71 soft linguistic, 72 determinism, 116 developmentalism, 103 Dewey, 163 dialectical critical realism. See also critical realism dialectical logic, 70 dialectical monism, 11 dialogue customary status and role relationships, 169 dialogical process, 168 dialogical process, 168 interpretative freedom, 168

of the deaf, 136, 168, 184 unresponsive, 136, 168, 184 diatribai, 138 Diderot, D., 111 Dihle, 111 Dilthey, 36, 43, 44 Diodorus, 116 direct realism, 29 discourse, 17, 41, 69, 72, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 169 hermeneutic, 172 morality, 104 discursive socialization, 102 disillusionment threshold, 145 disposition behavioral, 11 cognitive, 10, 11 genetic, 71 learned, 16, 108 distributive justice, 89 divine command theory, 94 divine determinism, 55 divine prophecy natural, 94 supernatural, 94 divine revelation, 102 divine right, 94 Divine Right of Kings, 94 Dixon-Dogan social-reality dispositions framework, 74 Dostoevesky, 62 Dostoevsky, F., 109 doubt Cartesian, 21 definition, 23 doxa, Bourdieu’s concept of, 165 Drake, 170 dramaturgical analysis, 14 Dryden, J., 102 Dryzek, 167 dual consciousness, 15 dualism, 31, 56, 68 predicate, 11 substance, 3, 10, 56 Durkheim, 65, 66, 71, 117 Durkheimian thought, 17 duties other-regarding, 91 self-regarding, 91 duty, 92, 93, 96, 114 supererogatory actions, 97 duty and obligation homo hierarchus, 92

Index

E Eagly, 16 Eccles, 10 ecology, 139 economic determinism, 55, 70 economics, 2, 57, 85 Edwards, 61 egalitarian situational logic. See situational logics: egalitarian ego, 49, 50, 84, 126, 140 ego ideal, 80 ego-defensive personality function, 144 of objectivication, 50 transcendental, 49 ego states, Berne’s concept of), 84 egocentric situational logic. See situational logics: egocentric egoism, 21, 61 egoistic moral motivation, 130 ethical, 130 psychological, 130 egoistic moral motivation, 130 Egypt, 115 eidetic reduction, 48 eidetic science, 49 eidos, 48 Einsteinian thought, 173 elenchus, 138 eliminativism, 3, 11 Ellis, A, 122 Elster, 58, 127 emergent properties, 176 complementary, 180 contengent, 180 cultural, 177 incompatible, 180 necessary, 180 personal, 177, 179 corporate agents, 177, 178 primary agents, 177 social actors, 177, 178 strategic situational logics. See also situational logics:strategic structural, 177 emotion, 9, 48, 73, 86, 91, 144 emotions, 11, 17, 68, 86 definition, 17 homo economicus, 124, 127 homo existentialis, 111, 119 homo hierarchus, 91 homo sociologicus on, 103 mastery of, 91, 92

mental calmness, 92 minimal emotionality, 124 moral education, 92 mutual intelligibility, 44 repressed, 166 restraint and endurance, 92 sociobology, 126 emotivism, 119 empathy, 100 empirical situationism, 129 empiricism, 26, 30, 33, 34, 36, 40, 66, 170 extreme, 37 radical, 36 systematic, 130 empricism, 27, 33 abstract, 35 encounters, 1 Engel, 70 environmental determinism, 31, 55 Epicurian thought, 61 Epicurus, 91, 125 epiphenomenalism, 63 epistemic relativism, 24, 43 epistemological hermeneutics, 43 epistemological nihilism. See nihilism, epistemological epistemological realism, 23, 29 epistemology linguistic, 51 epistemology and truth, 21 definition, 18, 21 empiricist, 34 feminist, 22 hermeneutic, 25, 36 hermeneutics. See hermeneutics naturalised, 24 naturalism, 25, See naturalism naturalist, 27, 35, 37 nihilism, 22 skepticism, 22 solipsism, 22 epistemology naturalism, 73 equality, 82, 83, 101, 102 esse est percipi, 32 essentialism, 33 fallacy of, 49 eternal recurrence, Nietzsche’s doctrine of, 114 ethicai aretai, 103 ethical agents, 92 ethical egoism, 127, 130 ethical hedonism, 127, 128

261

262 ethical intuitionism, 96 ethical naturalism, 128 ethical prescriptivism, 94 ethics, 19 conscience, 105 consequentialism, 128, 130 contractarian, 127 definition, 19 deontological, 93, 95 empirical situationism, 129 ethical egoism, 127 ethical hedonism, 127, 128 ethical intuitionism, 96 ethical naturalism, 128 ethical prescriptivism, 94 individualist subjectivism, 118 moral dilemmas, 96, 119 moral emotions, 119 moral realism, 127 moral relativism, 104 moral relativism descriptive relativism, 104 moral relativism meta-ethical relativism, 104 mournful realism, 129 personal moral code, 109, 118 personalist, 118 quasi moral realism, 128 scepticism, 118 self-development, 119 situation, 129 skepticism, 118 teleological, 129 virtue, 103 virtue ethics, 104 ethnomethodology, 42 Euclid, 28 eudaimonia, 125, See also happiness evidentialism, 21 evocative objects, 2 evolution, theory of, 62 evolutionary psychology, 62 exist. See alos monism existential curse, the, 114 existential human condition, the, 109 existential insecurity, 116 existential isolation, 45, 46, 112 existential meaninglessness, 112 existential self, 108 existentialism, 44, 49, 60 expectancy-reinforcement value theory, 61 expected utility theory, 63, See also rational choice theory explanation and theory, 35

Index causal, 19, 23, 29, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 174 constant conjunction, 33 contingent, 34 functional, 19 reasons and motivational, 19 truth, 23, 38 explanations causal, 38 externalization, 117 Eysenck, 71, 87

F façades, a person’s, 14 face-to-face interaction, 9 facticity, 60, 64, 65, 114 fairness, 103 fallacy of misplaced concreteness, 74 fallibilism, 38, 39, 171, 173, 174 falsificationalism, 38 falsificationism, 37 methodological, 39 Farr, R. M., 65 fatalism logical, 116 fate, 46, 64, 108, 109, 111, 115, 116 feminist epistemology, 22 Festinger, 140, 160 Feuerbach, 117 Feyerabend, 53 field, Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, 164 economic capital, 164 social capital, 164 field, Bourdieu’s concept of, 164 field, Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, 165 field, Bourdieu’s concept of doxa, 165 field, Bourdieu’s concept of economic capital, 182 field, Bourdieu’s concept of social capital, 182 field, Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, 182 Finch, 29 finite I and absolute I, 115 first-person experiences, 8, 10, 11 Fishbein, 61 flourishing life, 125 flourishing person, a, 103 focused interactions, 1, 9 form of life, 52 form of life, Aristotlian, 103

Index forms of life, 44 Forms, the Platonic Theory of, 26 Forrest Gump, 108 Foucault, 13, 69, 102, 103 Foucaultian thought, 17 Fourier, 103 Frankl, 114 Fraudian thought, 69 Frederick the Great, 93 Fredericks, 41 free rider, 166 free will, 1, 111, 114 and agent-causation, 56 and determinism, 54 compatibility, 56 incompatibalism, 56 and immanent causation, 56 and indeterminism, 56 libertarian, 56 libertarian incompatibalism, 56 and reason attribution, 56, 64 determinism, 116 exercising of onerous, 120 homo existentialis, 114 homo hierarchus, 92 homo sociologicus, 103 self-interest, 63 freedom metaphysical, 56 Classical, 46 genuine, 46, 108 libertarian, 46 reasoned social action, 55 negative, 60 inescapable, 60 positive, 60 fate and destiny, 64 existential, 109, 116 fate, 111 path to, 111 physical, 111 intellectual, 111 moral, 111 instinct for, 111 freedom, 112, 114, 119, 124 freedom of expression, 114 freedom existential, 115 freedom to choose, 115 freedom the dilemma of, 115

263

free-rider, the, 122 free-will. See also determinism and inderterminism libertarianism naturalistic, 56 supernatural, 56 and indeterminism event-causal libertarianism, 56 simple indeterministic libertarianism, 56 Frege, 52 French, 80 Freud, 10, 41, 80, 84 Freudian thought, 49 Freudianism, 38 Frey, 160 Fried, 96 Fulton, 14 functionalism, 11, 19 Fuss, 33

G Gadamer, 48 Galileo, 27 Gambetta, 129 game theory, 64 garbage can decision theory, 121 Garfinkel, 42 geist collective, 26 geisteswissenschaften, 36 gender and truth, 22 general equilibrium theory, 63 genetic determinism, 55 genetics, 125, 126 genome, the, 126 Gestalt psychology, 16 Gestalt theory, 11 Giddens, 17, 175 Gillett, 72 Glasser, 41 God, 26, 30, 31, 43, 55, 62, 63, 67, 93, 94, 112, 115, 116, 117, 118, 203 Godwin, 59, 110 Goffman, 1, 9, 14 Gorgias, 32 Gramsci, 168, 177 grandiose self, the Kohutian, 125 Gray, 108, 121 Greek classical, 138 Greek tragedy, 112 Gribbin, 34

264

Index

Grote, J., 61 grounded theory, 41 group pledged, 114 group consciousness, 70 group identification, 99 group integration, 71 groupthink, 136, 189 guanxi, 164 Guatama, 110 guilt, 71, 112, 115 Gunn, T., 109

H Habermas, 2, 167 habit, 11, 28, 91, 97 habits, 13, 17, 28, 87 habitus, Bourdieu’s concept of, 165 Haidt, 119 Hales, 80, 105 Hall, 180 happiness, 48, 61, 92, 93, 94, 112, 125, 129 a subjectively satisfactory good life, 125 an objectively desirable life, 125 definition, 125 Harding, 41 harmony, 14, 65, 91, 230 personal, 110 spiritual, 110 Harré, 72 Haselbach, 12 Hayek, 59, 60, 125 Hayman, 112 hedonic balance, the, 125 hedonism evaluative, 61 psychological, 61 reflective, 61 Hegel, 35, 65, 72, 92, 117, 119, 195, 243, 246 Hegelian idealism, 30 Hegelian thought, 26, 32, 70 Heidegger, 36, 46, 47, 48, 60, 69, 112 Heider, 20 Helaglian thought, 106 Helvétius, 31 Herder, 72 hereditarianism, 55 hermeneutics, 25, 172 epistemological hermeneutics, 43 existentialism, 44 linguistic epistemology, 51 moderate subjectivism, 43 hermits, 82

Herzen, 110 heuristi rules of inference, 86 memory capacity, 86 clues, 86 judgments, 86 perspicacity, 86 process, 86 judgmental capacity, 86 Hickson, 98 hidradenitis suppurativa, 117 hierarchical motivation, 56 hierarchical situational logic. See situational logics:hierarchical Hieronymus of Cardia, 91 Hirschman, 140 historical materialism, 67 historicism, 66 historicity, 178 Ho, 81, 138 Hobbes, 30, 59, 63, 91, 95 Hobbesian thought, 60, 123 Hobbs, 95 Hobes, 59 Hoffer, 99 Hogan, 180 holism, 18 Hollis, 33, 57, 123 holy causes, 99 homeostatis, 58 Homer, 104 homo economicus definition, 7 homo existentialis definition, 6 homo hierarchus, 87, 99, 106, 121 definition, 6 homo sociologicus definition, 6 homosexuality, 113 hostile information, 160 hostility, 126, 227 affective component, 125 behavioral component, 126 cognitive component, 125 Hovland, 144 Howells, 103 Hubris Syndrome, 112 human capital theory, 164 human condition, the, 46, 69, 109, 112, 119 human development theory, 164 human essence homo economicus, 125

Index homo existentialis, 110 homo hierarchus, 90 homo sociologicus, 102 human nature, 57, 66, 94 anxieties about human condition unimprovable, the, 16 meaninglessness of life, 16 oppression justified, 16 personal responsibility unachievable, the, 16 circumstantial, 102 definition, 16 homo economicus, 125 homo existentialis, 111 homo hierarchus, 91 homo sociologicus, 102 not immutable or universal, 48 perfectionism, 91 self-created, 60 selfish and self-serving, 125 self-referential, 111 universal, uniform, constant and predictable, 126 human temperament homo economicus, 126 homo existentialis, 118 homo hierarchus, 93 homo sociologicus, 103 Humboldt, 59 Hume, 14, 27, 28, 34, 36, 63, 104, 126, 173, 194 Humean thought, 23, 33, 56, 174 Husserl, 2, 43, 47, 48, 49 Hutcheson, 96, 102 Huxley, 63 hypocrisy, 112 hypothetico-deductivism, 34, 35, 36, 39 Hypothetico-deductivism verificationism, 35 Hyppocrates, 93, 103, 118, 126

I Ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, 55 id, 49, 84 ideal speach situation, 184 ideal speech situation, Habermas’s concept of, 168 idealism Hegelian, 30 idealism, 26 absolute, 26 subjective, 26 theistic, 26 transcendental, 26 metaphysical, 32 metaphysical, 45 absolute, 26 ideal-type constructs, 85

265

ideas-types, 85 ideation, 42, 49 acts of, 49 identities plural, 12 identity Confucian thought, 138 group consciousness, 70 homo existentialis, 111 personal, 13 personal authority and voluntarism, 101 search for authenticity, 64 self, 13 self-identity, 60 social, 13, 178 identity theory, 11 identity, sense of homo hierarchus, 90 homo sociologicus, 100 idiographic method, 23 immanent causation, 56 immanent realism, 65 impression management, 14 incompatibalism, 56 libertarian, 56 indeterminacy, 41 indeterminism, 19, 56, See also determinism indexicality, 42 indifference, zones of, 137 individual egoistic, 119 the uniqueness of, 112 individual autonomy, 79, 81 decision sovereignty, 82, 137, 142, 143 self-determination of social actions, 82, 137, 142, 143 individual, models of coherent, 142 sequential, 143 synthetic, 143 individual, the authentic, 110 model of coherent, 138 sequential, 160 synthetic, 160 synthetic, 185 sequential, 185 coherent, 185 moral, 95 self-determining, 60 unproductive, 111 individual, the, models of

266

Index

sequential, 138 synthetic, 139 individual,the models of coherent, 160 individualism, 59, 60 existential, 60 libertarianism, 59 methodological, 58 ontological, 57 unqualified, 59 individualist subjectivism, 118 individualistic situational logic. See situational logics:individualistic individuality, 44, 60, 95, 108 individuation, 18 indivuation, 16 induction analytical, 173 inductive-hypothetico-deductivism, 34 inequality, 82, 88, 101 inference to the best explanation, 41, 172 inferential realism, 33 information congenial, 160 hostile, 160 integrity, 103 intelligence, 53 intentionality, 10, 11, 43, 47, 48, 109 intentions, 49 interpretative freedom, 168, 179 intersubjectivity, 18, 20, 22, 39, 47, 48, 50, 52 definition, 18 introverts, 71 intuition, 26, 41, 110 isolated individuals, 82

J Jackson, 119 James, 10, 21, 24, 63, 125 jen, 92 Jensen, 97, 120 Johari window, the, 14 Johnson, 1, 15 Johnston, S., 126 Jonah complex, Maslow’s concept of, 116 judgements action, 120, 130 reality, 98 value, 106 judgments discriminating, 164 Jung, 12, 16

Jungian thought, 87, 117 justice distributive, 89 procedural, 89 social, 88

K Kafka,, 109 Kant, 26, 32, 40, 43, 47, 50, 59, 91, 94 Kantian thought, 34, 43, 127, 171 Kardiner, 14 Kelley, 9 Kelly, G. A, 16 Kierkegaard, 22, 44, 45, 46, 60, 74, 110 Kierkegaardian thought, 74 kindness, 103 King, G., 41 Kingdom of Spirit, 30 klesas, 92 Knorr-Cetina, 41 knowledge propositional, 130 knowledge a posteriori, 24, 27, 40 a priori, 24, 27, 30, 40 analytic (a priori), 40 as common sense, 26, 41 as consensus, 27, 41 as expert authority, 27 as intuition, 26 as reasoned deductions, 26 as received wisdom, 27, 41 as revealed wisdom, 26 as sensory experience, 26 as tesimony, 27, 41 as traditions, 27 attributable to God, 94 common sense, 87 embedded in lived existance, 45 lived experience, 50 moral, 118, 128 natural attitude, 51, 52 objective, 111 Platonic conception of, 21 scientific conception of, 21 self-knowledge, 44, 45, 46, 59, 111 tacit, 17, 52, 87 tool of domination, 111 understood individualistically, 26 understood socially, 26 knowledge tacit, 169 Kohut, 125

Index Kongfuzi. See Confucius Kropotkin, 110 Kuhn, 174 kulturwissenschaften, 36

L La Forge, 55 La Mettrie, 63 Lacan, 69, 103 language, 41, 51, 72, 167, 171 a set of rules, 69 and constructuion of meaning, 69 and cultural practice, 72 as a prerequisite for subjective knowledge, 51 as objective communications mechamism, 51 as representation, 130 private, 45 rules of, 43, 52, 53 selfhood, 102 system of, 69 language and reality relationship, 52 language games, 43, 104 Latour, 170 laws, 23, 33, 37 Leach, 68 Leibniz, 18, 27, 28, 29, 31 Leibnizian thought, 30 Leucippus, 23 Levenson’s locus of control spectrum homo economicus, 124 homo hierarchus, 90 homo sociologicus, 100 Leviathan, 95 Levinas, 47, 118 Lévinas, 12 Levine, 160 Lévi-Strauss, 68, 71 Lewin, 16 Lewis, C. S., 91 li, 95 Liang, 116 libertarian incompatibalism, 56 libertarianism, 46, 59 event-causal, 56 left, 60 naturalistic, 56 right, 60 simple indeterministic, 56 supernatural, 56 libido, 80 life expectations, 164 life goal

267

homo economicus on, 124 homo existentialis, 109 homo hierarchus, 89 homo sociologicus, 100 life space, 16 dimensions, 16 life’s ends homo economicus, 122 homo existentialis, 108 homo hierarchus, 88 homo sociologicus, 100 life’s meaning homo economicus, 126 homo existentialis, 118 homo hierarchus, 93 homo sociologicus, 103 lifeworld, 2 linguistic environment, 165 linguistic determinism, 55, 72 linguistic epistemology, 51 linguistic nativism, 20 linguistic signs, 69 linguistic structuralism, 69 linguistics behavioral approach, 69 Lin's, 122 Locke, 27, 31, 35, 59, 60, 125 Lockwood, 89, 100, 123 logas, 63 logic dialectical logic, 70 logical atomism, 52 logical behaviorism, 11 logical empiricism. See logical positivism logical fatalism, 55, 116 logical positivism, 35, 36, 38, 39 logical syntax, 52 Longeran, 164 Lossky, 30 Lotze, 61 Lowell, 25 loyalty, 91, 93, 103 luck, 108, 109, 111, 116, 119 bad, 115, 129 Luckmann, 2 Lukács, 67 Lukes, 170 Lyotar, 102

M Machiavelli, 30, 63, 91, 94, 95 Machiavellian thought, 123

268 magical transformations, 115 Mahler, G., 109 Malebranche, 55 Malinowski, 68 Mamadouh, 97, 105, 129 Manderville, 63 Marcel, 8, 47 marginalization, 117 Maritain, J., 61 Markey, 1 Marshall, G., 85 Marx, 67, 70, 117, 172, 201, 207 Marxism, 38, 70 Marxist thought, 117 masks, 12, 112 Maslow, 109, 115, 116 material monism, 11 materialism, 26, 33 historical, 67 materialization of rank, 90 mathematics, 36, 50, 52 Mathews, 125 Maudsley, 63 May, 53, 64 Mazzini, 93 McCloskey, 3 McKinney, 86 McTaggart, 30 Mead, 13, 14, 42, 102 meaning picture theory of, 52 meaning system, 17 memory, 11, 25 Menger, 3, 59 mental acts, 48, See also cognitions mental causation, 10, 56 mental state conscious relational, 10 biological naturalism, 10 dual consciousness, 15 intentionality, 43 lack of consciousness, 10 unconscious collective unconscious, the, 10 unconscious, 69 uniting conscious and unconscious, 16 mental states conscious introspective, 10 conscious intentional, 10 conscious phenomenal, 10 eliminativism, 3

Index physicalism, 3 conscious mysterianism, 10 mentalism, 10 physicalism, 10 logical behaviorism, 11 predicate dualism, 11 anomalous monism, 11 functionalism, 11 identity theory, 11 reductionism, 11 eliminativism, 11 conscious intentionality, 11 emotions, 17 conscious acts of consciousness, 32 conscious pure consciousness, 43, 49 consciousness streams of, 49 mental states conscious mentalism, 10 physicalism, 10 mental states unconscious spiritual unconscious, the, 10 mental statesunconscious personal unconscious, the, 10 mentalism, 10, 11, 86, 140 mentalism monism, 22, 26 Merleau-Ponty, 47 meta-narratives, 17 metaphors, 18 metaphysical idealism, 32 solipsism, 22 metaphysical freedom, 56 metaphysical holism, 65 metaphysical libertarianism, 63 metaphysical pathos, 116 metaphysical realism, 3, 29, 38 metaphysical solipsism, 22 metaphysics, 36 method of investigation definition, 19 methodological relationalism, 81 solipsism, 22 methodological individualism, 19, 58 methodological relationalism, 81 methodological situationalism, 2, 19 methodological solipsism, 22 methodology, 41 causal explanation, 19, 58, 75, 76 definition, 18

Index functional explanation, 19 methodological solipsism, 19 methodological holism, 19 motivational explanation, 19 Midgley, 124 Milgram, 89 Mill, 60, 61, 125, 128 J. S., 59 Mill,, 125 Mill, J. S., 34, 57 Miller, 41 Mills, 9, 229 Mills, C. W., 35 Milman, 55 mind, the, 16, 22, 26, 28, 31, 41, 43, 49, 63, 72, 104, 126 mind, the Freudian metaphors, 49 mind, the social mind, 65 mind, the human, 2, 3 Mirowski, 30 mobs, 9 models of man, 57 modernism, 42 monism anomalous, 11 dialectical, 11 material, 11 mentalist, 22, 26 theistic, 55 monotheism, 67 moods, 48 moral agents, 8, 19, 118 moral commitment, 105 moral conduct homo existentialis, 118 moral conduct basis of rightness of social actions, 93 homo hierarchus, 93 homo sociologicus, 103 homo economicus, 126 moral dilemma, 96 moral emotions self-consciousness, 119 moral emotions, 119 other-condemning, 119 other-praising, 119 other-suffering, 119 moral goodness, 92 moral imperatives, 93

categorical:, 94 hypothetical:, 94 moral judgments, 104 moral knowledge, 128 moral obligation, 94 and compliance, 97 moral obligations, 93 noblesse oblige, 96 moral opinions, 119, 120 emotivism, 119 moral sentiments, 119 moral perfection, 92 moral progress, 102 moral realism, 127 moral realism quasi, 128 moral reasoning, 104 moral relativism, 104 moral responsibility limits to proportionate justification, 96 homo hierarchus, 96 homo sociologicus, 105 limits to jointly affirmed social norms, 105 homo existentialis, 120 limits to self-referential, 120 homo economicus, 129 limits to bad luck, 129 moral risks, 130 moral rule-givers, 93 Divine Right of Kings, 94 elites, 95 God, 94 Rulers, 94 society, 95 moral rules, 93 moral self-government, 60 moral sense, a, 96 moral sentiments, 119 moral skcepticism, 118 moral skepticism, 118 moral truths, 96 moral virtues, 104 moral worth homo economicus, 126 homo existentialis, 118 homo hierarchus, 93 homo sociologicus, 103 morality universability, 94

269

270

Index

More, 103 Morgan, 9 morphogenetic methodology, 169, 170, 176 morphostatis, 179 morphogenesis, 179 vested interests, 179 strategic directional guidance, 179 morphogenetic methodology. See also emergent properties:strategic situational logics morphogenetic methodology application to relational situations, 182 motivetions, 11 mournful realism, 129 Mournier, E., 61 Mozi, 103 multiculturalation of meaning, 42 Münchhausen, Baron, 63 Murphy, 25, 160 mutuality, 12 mysterians, 10 mythology, 71 myths, 52, 115 definition, 42 Mytilenian Debate of 427 BC, 116

N Nagel, 20 naïve realism, 29 narcissism, 125, 126 narrative knowledge, 42 narrative of progress, 130 narratives little, 42 meta-, 42 narrow mental content, 59 Nash solution, the, 64 Nash, O, 93 natura naturans, 45 natura naturata, 45 natural attitude, 51, 107, See knowledge:natural attitude natural instincts, 28 natural language, 20 natural sciences, 36 natural selection, 125, 126 natural selection, principles of, 62 natural social order, the, 66 natural theology, 94 naturalised epistemology, 24 naturalism, 27, 39, 40, 128, 172, 174 and knowledge, 27 biological, 10

epiricism, 31 falsificationism, 37 logical positivism. See positivism, 34 verificationism, 35 Needham, 68 needs, salient human homo sociologicus, 100 needs, salient personal homo hierarchus, 89 negation, Sartre's concept of, 113 Neitzsche, 112, 114 neo-Durkheimian thought, 81 neo-Kantian thought, 172 neopositivism, 34, See logical positivism neo-positivism. See logical positivism neurobiological determinism, 11, 55, 63 Newman, 61 Newton, 34, 37 Newtonian thought, 173 Nicomachean (Aristotelian) virtue ethics, 103 Nietsche, 111, 112 Nietzsch, 69 Nietzsche, 21, 28, 29, 46, 59, 63, 93, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 117, 119 Nietzschean thought, 115 nihilism, 112 epistemological, 22 Nietschean, 22 nirvana, 110 noble savage, the, 102 noblesse oblige, 96 nominalism, 57 nomothetic methods, 23 nondiscrimination, 101 nonrationality, 66 norm conformity, 88 dutiful, 168 normative imperative duty and obligation, 92 normlessness, 92, 117 Norzick, 125 nothingness, 46, 60, 112, 113 noumena, 45 noumena, Kantian concept of, 32 noumena, the Kantian concept of, 26

O obedience, 80, 89, 93, 94, 97, 112 objectivism, 19, 26, 27, 43 Occam’s Razor, 74, 172 occasionalism, 55 Olli, 138, 139, 142, 143

Index Ollie, 138 Olson, 166 ontological holism, 65 ontological individualism, 57 ontological security, 19 ontology agency, 56 applied scientific, 54 definition, 18, 54 holism, 65 ontological conflation, 175 pure philosophical, 54 realist, 174 site, 164 structuralism, 56, 65, See structuralism opinions definition, 16 opportunism for guile, 101 opportunity cost, 179 opposites, the Jungian principle of, 117 oppression, 117 Orlofsky, 82, 124 Orphic saints, 92 Ortega y Gasset, J., 109 Orwell, G., 26 other, the, 12 categorizing of, 2 importance to self, 2 prototyping of, 2 significant others, 2 stereotyping of, 2 subtying of, 2 labeling of, 2 others, significant, 166 Ouellette, 11

P Parker, 58, 66 Parkin, 88 Parsons, 58, 68 particulars, 57, 58, 65, 86 Pascal, B., 116 passion, 112 pathos, 63 peak experience, 115 peak experience, Maslow’s concept of, 115 Peirce, 40, 53, 127, 170 Peircean thought, 170 perception representative theory of, 32 perfectionism, 91 personal autonomy, 59 authenticity, 59

271

personal construct systems core constructs, 16 loose constructs, 16 nonverbal constructs, 16 peripheral constructs, 16 preemptive constructs, 16 propositional constructs, 16 subordinate constructs, 16 superordinate constructs, 16 personal construct theory definition, 16 personal emergent properties, 177 personal identity, 12, 13 personal responsibility, 46, 60, 92, 119 personal unconscious, the, 10 personalism 61 ethical perspective, 118 personality, 62 personality prosocial, 100 personality, 2, 12, 14, 62 authoritarian, 89 humanistic-existential perspective, 13 personalism, 62 psychoanalytic and neoanalytic perspective, 13 pure cognitive perspective, 13 traits perspective, 13 personality, 13, 117, 138 personality product of biology and environment, 108 personality functions knowledge, 144 externalization, 144 ego-defensive, 144 value-expressive, 144 personality-function imperatives adjustive-utilitarian, 144 ego-defensive or externalization, 144 knowledge, 144 social adjustment, 144 value-expressive, 144 perspectivism, 42 Pettit, 54 phenomena Kantian, 32, 45 volitional, 111 phenomena, Kantian, 47 phenomenalism, 36 phenomenology, 51 constitutive, 47 generative historicist, 48 genetic, 48

272 hermeneutic, 48 realistic, 47 philia, 100 philology, 43 philosophical communism, 102 philosophy, 1, 53 philosophy of the social sciences. See social sciences:philosophy of phyicalism, 33 physical (physiological or neurobiological) determinism, 55 physical determinism. See neurobiological determinism physical sciences, 9, 35, 36, 37 physicalism, 3, 10, 11, 58 neurobiological determinism, 11 radical behaviorism, 11 physiognomies, 52 physiological determinism, 55 Piaget, 15 picture theory of meaning, the, 52 piety, 94 Pinker, 20, 126 Pinker, R., 12, 16 Pisarev, 110 planned behavior, theory of, 11, 61 Plato, 28, 29, 45, 66, 91, 95, 103, 104, 121, 125 Platonic thought, 21, 29, 92 Plekhanov, 67 polytheism, 67 Pope, 127 Popper, 3, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 53, 55, 58, 173, 174, 177 Popperian thought, 39 positional authority, 101 positivism, 30, 34, 36, 48, 58 logical, 35 neopositivism, 34 Posner, 128 post-modernism, 42 post-structuralism, 69 post-structurationism, 175 power authority, 80 de facto, 80 de jure, 80 coercion, 80 exchange, 80 expert, 80 integrative, 80 knowledge, 80 manipulation, 80 personal or referent, 80

Index persuasion, 80 physical, 80 position or legitimate, 80 resource or reward, 80 threat, 80 power, 80, 95, 100, 101, 111 coercive, 71 force, 80 structures, 70 power, 95 homo hierarchus, 97 legitimate, 97 threat, 97 knowledge, 97 expert, 97 personal, 105 referent, 105 integrative, 105 normative, 105 physical, 120 coercive, 120 exchange, 129 reward, 129 resource, 129 economic, 129 physical, 135 coercive, 135 power and compliance homo ecomomicus, 129 homo existentialis, 120 homo sociologicus, 105 powerlessness, 117 powers that be, 109, 115, 116, 168 practice, 13, 21, 41, 53, 62, 167 practico-inert Sartre's concept of, 113 praxiology, 168 praxis, 43, 113, 168, 171, 176 environment, 165 predicate dualism, 11 preference-utilitarianism, 128 primary agents. See agents:primary Principle of Sufficient Reason, 18 Principle of Utility, 61 private language, 45 probalitistic determinism, 18 procedural justice, 89 process character, 13 propositional attitude, 10 propositional knowledge, 130 proprium, 108, See also self, the

Index prosocail transformation. See also communal relationships, exchange relationships, See also communal relationships, exchange relationships prosocial behavior, 89 prosocial personality, 100 Protagoras, 62 Proudhon, 59, 110 psyche, the, 10 psyche, the Jungian, 117 psychological environment, 16 field, 16 hedonism, 61 phenomena, 72 utilitarianism, 61 psychological contracts, 93 psychological determinism, 55 psychological egoism, 130 psychological utilitarianism, 61 psychology, 1, 2, 20, 57, 68 evolutionary, 31, 62 Pugh, 98 pure-type constructs, 85 Pyrrho of Elis, 116, 118 Pyrrhonian thought, 110 Pyrrhonism, 22

Q Quesnay, 67

R Radcliffe-Brown, 68 radical behaviorism, 11 Ramones, the, 109 Raspe, R. E., 63 ratio-empiricism, 40 rational agent, 123, 127, 128, 130 rational choice theory, 63 rational self-interst, 63 rationalism, 30, 31, 40, 74 moderate, 30 radical, 30 rationality, 30, 58, 60, 167, 168, See also reasoning, See also bounded rationality, See also rational choice theory bounded, 64 cognitive-rational, 19 communicative. See also reasoning communicative-rational, 19 communicative-value, 106 dialectic, 106 disinterested, 106

273

functional-strategic, 130 inspirational-strategic, 121 instrumental, 3, 63 nonrationality, 121 perfect, 92 rational desired, 127 subverted by weakness of will, 127 Raven, 80 Rawlsian thought, 127 realism, 29, 38, 39, 53, 170 immanent, 65 transcendental, 172 direct, 29 epistemological, 23 epistemological, 29 inferential, 33 metaphysical, 3, 29, 38 naïve, 29 scientific, 29 moral, 127 mournful (ethics), 129 critical. See critical realism transcendental, 172 critical naturalism, 172 transcendental, 172 transcendental, 172 transcendental, 173 transcendental, 174 transcendental, 174 transcendental, 176 realist social theory, 170 reality Confucian, 91 reality and truth ontological perspective, 73 reason cognition, 43 deductive logic, 30, 31 sufficent, 31 reasoned action theory, 11 reasoned action, theory of, 61 reasoning abduction, 41 bounded rationality, 98 cognition, 15, 25 communicative rationality, 167 communicative-value rationality, 106 critical theory, 106 deductive logic, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 35, 36, 40, 74, 76 definition, 16 functional-strategic rationality, 130 individal beliefs basis of, 45

274

Index

inductive inference, 24, 25, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 74, 76 inspirational-strategic rationality, 121 instrumental, 130 intuition, 41 practical, 42 preferred mode homo hierarchus, 98 homo sociologicus, 106 purposive based on self-interest, 130 retroduction, 41 Scholastic method, 29 syllogistic, 28, 29 synoptical, 130 teleological, 130 received wisdom, 41 received wisdom, 102 reciprocity, 12, 42, 50, 114, 121, 138 reductionism, 11, 33, 58 Reeve, 117 reflection critical, 164, 165 critical cognitive on the emergent properties, 183 self-critical, 165, 166 reflexivity, 42 reification, 87 danger of, 74, 87 relationship dominance, 81, 138 relationship-arranging principles, 82 associative equality, 82, 83 changing of, 142 collectivized inequality, 82 collectivized-inequality, 83 egocentric inequality, 83 individualised equality, 83 individualized equality, 84 relationships choice, 80 communal, 9 direct-contact, 9 exchange, 9 I-It, 12 indirect-contact, 9 I-though, 12 pseudo-intimate individuals, 124 relationship dominance, 138 role, 80 secondary, 124 status, 79, 80 stereotyped individuals, 124 relativism, 24, 41, 53, 99, 107 epistemic, 43 pardox of, 54

social, 43 moral, 104 ren, 95 representative theory of perception, 32 ressentiment, 117 retroduction, 41 revealed preferences, 123 revealed theology, 94 revealed wisdom, 26, 41, 73 revealed-preferences, 131 revolutionary mass movement, a, 99 revolutionary subjectivity, 67 rhetoric of intransigence, 140 rhetoric,discipline of, 168 Ricoeur, 44, 48 Riesman’s inner-other directedness dichotomy homo existentialis, 109 Riesman’s inner-other directedness dichotomy homo hierarchus, 89 homo sociologicus, 100 Riesman’s inner-other directedness dichotomy homo economicus, 123 righteous fervor, 100 risk management homo existentialis, 121 homo hierarchus, 98 homo hierarchus, 106 risks exploitable opportunities, 130 minimised and politicised, 106 unknowable and to be avoided, 121 ritual homo sociologicus, 101 rituals, 52 Rogers, 12, 13, 115 Rokeach, 16 role-making, 14 role-taking, 42 Romanes, 63 romanticism, 35, 198, 237, 243 Romanticism, 43, 104 Romaticism German, 119 Rosenberg, 14, 144 Rosenblum, 97 Ross, 96, 104 Rothstein, 135 Rotter, 61 Rousseau, 59, 90, 102 Rousseauian thought, 60, 104 rule violation, 71 rule-consequentialism, 128 rules

Index directive, 97 directive, 120 entail rights and duties, 129 homo economicus, 129 homo existentialis, 120 homo hierarchus, 97 homo sociologicus, 105 instructive, 105 rule-utilitarianism, 128 Rumi, Jalalu’ddin, 54 Russel, 33 Russell, 25, 29, 108, 167

S Sagan, 138 Saint-Exupéry, A. de, 17 Saint-Simon, 103 salvation, 94, 102 Santayana, 170 sapience, 10 Sartre, 43, 46, 47, 59, 60, 108, 109, 110, 113, 114, 115, 121 Saussaure, 69 Saussure, 69 scapegoats, 116 scepticism, 30 Scharpf, 101 Schein, 20 Scheler, 118 Scheler, M. F., 61 Schelling, 35, 119 Schiller, 93 schisms, 101 schizoid person, a, 116 schizophrenia, 116 Schlegel, 35 Schleiermacher, 35, 43, 44, 61 Schlick, 35 Scholastic method, the, 29 Scholasticism, 47 Scholastics, the, 111 Schopenhauer, 45, 56, 60, 111, 119 Schopenhaurer, 111 Schumpeter, 58 Schutz, 2, 47, 50, 51 Schwartz, 99, 130 scientific determinism, 18 scientific realism, 29 Scottish philosophical realism, 26 Scruton, 20 selective exposure hypthesis, 160 self, 65, 99 bodily self, 14

275

desired self, 14 reunification, 99 role-making, 14 self-as-knower, 14 self-as-rational-coper, 14 self-esteem, 14 self-extension, 14 self-identity, 14 self-image, 14 self-objects, 14 social image, 14 social impressions, 14 social self, 14 unwanted, 99 self awareness, 42 self ideals, 15 self identity, 13 self interest, 60, 61, 63, 64, 84, 89, 130, 141, 144, 178 self the masks, 12 self, the, 10, 13, 43, 44, 45, 46, 70 alienated soul, 117 as an entity unconscious XE "unconscious mental states" of its own existence, 112 center of life, 111 concept of, 14 behaviorist tradition, 14 neuroscientific tradition, 14 creative self, 15 discursive structures, 102 engulfed by the infinite, 112 existential, 108 false, 110 false self system, 116 grandiose, 125 impression management, 14 me stage, the, 13 solipsistical, 13 true, 112 well-ordered, 92 self,the concept of mentalist tradition, 14 self-acceptance, 122 self-actualization, 100, 103, 109, 115 self-advancement, 88, 99 self-awareness, 10, 64, 113 self-concept, 140 self-conscious, 26, 61 self-consciousness, 13 self-control, 19, 91, 142 self-cultivation, 92

276

Index

self-deception, 127 self-delusions, 46 self-denial, 127 self-determination, 127, 168 self-disclosure, 100 self-disgust, 117 self-domestication, 165 self-esteem, 14, 88, 100, 107, 117, 122 self-estrangement, 117 self-evaluation, 2 self-feeling, 88 self-glorification, 96 self-gratification, 113, 124 selfhood, 102, 109 Confucian thought, 138 homo existentialis, 109 selfhood, currency of homo hierarchus, 90 homo sociologicus, 100 homo existentialis, 109 homo economicus, 124 self-identification, 2 self-identity, 13, 14, 16, 19, 46, 60, 76, 116, 138, 142 definition, 13 self-image, 14 self-improvement, 130 self-interest, 89, 100, 108, 122, 123, 124, 130 Self-interest, 63 selfish genes, 62 self-knowledge, 44, 45, 46, 59 self-loathing, 117 self-love, 126 self-monitoring, 91 self-objects, 14 self-ownership, 59 self-rationalisation, 127 self-realization, 104, 115, 116 self-referentiality, 111, 120 self-reflection, 48 self-relatedness, 64 self-revelation, 100 self–revelation, 100 self-worth, 13, 14, 100, 122, 126 Sellars, 170 semiotics, 69 sense-datum theory, 22 sensory perception, 15, 22, 25, 27, 28, 32, 38, 39, 42, 46, 74, 75, 76, 109 sentience, 10 Shaftsbury, 96 Shakespeare, W., 28 shame, 115 Shand, 26

shared meaning system, 167 shared meaning systems, 166 Shepherd, 41 Shuster, S., 117 Shweder, 18 Sidgwick, 125 significant others, 2 Simmel, 1 Simon, 98 sin, 112 sincerity, 91 Singer, 127 site ontology, 164 situational determinism, 55 situational ethics, 129 situational logic egalitarian, 6 egocentric, 6 hierarchical, 5 individualistic, 6 situational logics as a source of meta-narratives, 86 as mnemonic devices, 87 as the basis of a stable orientation for social actions, 87 situational logics, 6, 85, 86, See also homo hierarchus, homo sociologicus, homo existentialis, homo economicus abstract, associational thought constructs, 85 choice of, 79 egalitarian, 85 egocentric, 85 hierarchical, 85 individualistic, 85 manifestation of followers, 87 strategic protection, 180 compromise and containment, 180 opportunism, 181 protection, 182 compromise and containment, 183 elimination, 183 opportunism, 183 strategic elimination, 181 situationalism in economics, 3 in psychology, 2, 55 in sociology, 2 methodological, 2, 19 skepticism, 22 Skinner, 11, 14, 92, 197 Smith, A., 63 Smith, D, 15

Index social acceptance, 89, 100 social action, 163, 179 definition, 1 homo hierarchus, 92 Social Action Theory, 1 social actions, 10, 81 grounded in rational self-interest, 63 the search for identity and authenticity, 64 economic partcipation, 70 social partcipation, 71 cultural partcipation, 71 linguistic participation, 72 social actors. See agents:social actors social affection, 80 social approval, 89, 100 social approval, 88 social arena definition, 9 individual constructs, 2 material objects, 2 evocative objects, 2 social objects, 2 social constructs, 2 social atomism, 58 social attributes, 118 social behaviorism, 42 social capital, 122, 135 social change, 178 social conditioning, 165 social conformity, 89, 113 authentic, 89 inauthentic, 89 social constraint conflict elimination, 100 norm conformity, 100 social constraints, 114 conflict eliminating, 107 conflict elimination, 88 elimination of interference, 81 norm conformity, 81, 107 social constructionism, 24 social control, 88, 90, 107 social conventions, 91, 112, 115 social cynicism, 109 social determinism, 55, 71 social dilemmas, 123 social divisions, 96 social domain, 8, 54 social engagement homo existentialis, 107 social engagement setting definition, 9

277

social engagement, basis of homo economicus, 122 homo hierarchus, 88 homo sociologicus, 99 social esteem, 122 social exchange theory, 80 social exclusivism, 101 social expectations, 90, 91, 93 social facts, 58, 67, 71 social harmony, 92, 95 exclusive sameness, 91 inclusive, 91 radical, 91 social identification, 13 social identity, 12, 13, 90, 178, See also identity:social social identity theory, 12 social imagery, 89 social imagery ideal-type deferential-traditional, 89 privatized-instrumental, 123 traditional-proletarian, 100 social impressions, 14, 79, 87 social inclusion, 88, 99 social inferiors, 89 social influence informational, 89 normative, 89 social interactions definition, 1 focused, 1 unfocused, 1 social interests, 100 social interference, 88 social just, 88 social justice, 102 Social justice just-world beliefs, 100 social knowledge, 11, 26, 51, 53 social learning reinforcement, 11 social learning theory, 11 social map, 169 boundaries, 137 demarcation of social reality paradigm adherents, 137 heuristic value, 137 social-control comfort zone coherent individual, 138 sequential individual, 138, 139 synthetic individual, 139 social-control comfort zone, 138 social-control preference weightings, 137 social marginalizatiop, 116

278 social mediation, 165, 167, 169 process, 167, 168, 169 social mind, 65 social movements, 87, 178 social networks, 1 social norms, 11, 89, 91, 92, 95, 105, 112, 113, 117 social objects, 2 social order, 68, 88, 95 social origin of mind, theory of, 71 social parallax, 18 social perfectionism, 103 social phenomena definition, 1 social position egalitarian, 83 egocentric, 84 hierarchical, 83 individualistic, 84 social praxis, 168, 179 dualityt of, 176 social pressure, 89 social pretensions, 88 social promotion, 88 social reality, 12 social reality disposition hermeneutic agency, 76 naturalist agency, 76 social reassurance, 88, 99 social recognition, 100 social reference group, 89 social rejection, 100, 107 outright, 88 social relations definition, 1 social relationships instrumental, 124 social relationships egalitarian, 99 egocentric, 106 hierarchical, 87 homo existentialis, 107 homo hierarchus, 89 homo sociologicus, 100 individualistic, 121 social relationships, basis of homo existentialis, 109 social relativism, 43 social responsibility, 100 social role, 2 social roles, 124 social rules, 71, 88, 101, 117 social sciences, 170 philosophy of, 36, 77

Index philosophy of the, 25 social sciences, 37 social sciences, the, 18, 19 social self, 14 social situationalism, 2 social skills, 100, 107, 118 social stability, 68 social status, 2, 90 graduations, 90 social structure, 13, 42 social support, 99 social system, 178 social trap, 135 social unfamiliarity, 100, 107 social vows, 100 social wholes metaphysical holism, 65 metaphysical individualism, 58, 76 methodological individualism, 58 social world defintion, 1 social-control comfort-zone, 142, 143 social-engagement decision-making personal benefit considerations belief confirmation, 80 cognitive uncertainty, 80 social approval, 80 social control, 80 social inclusion, 80 social security mutual goal achievement, 80 social support, 80 personal cost considerations lack of social skills, 81 self-disclosure, 81 social-engagement decision-making, 80 personal benefit considerations, 80, 81 social security, 80 transference, 80 social tensions, 81 social unfamiliarity, 81 self-revelation, 81 social rejection, 81 unacceptable social interference, 81 unacceptable social constraints, 81 social-engagement process, 81, 84 socialism, 70 socialization, 71, 101, 115 discursive, 102 social-reality disposition hermeneutic agency, 74 hermeneutic structuralism, 74 naturalist agency, 74

Index social-reality disposition hermeneutic structuraliam egalitarian relationships, 83 hermeneutic agency egocentric relationships, 83 naturalist agency individualistic relationships, 84 hermeneutic structuralism, 75 naturalist structuralism, 74 hierarchical relationships, 83 sociobiology, 126 sociology, 2, 57 Socrates, 91, 92, 125, 138 Socratic dialogues, 167 solipsism definition, 22 metaphysical, 22 soul alienated, 117 sickness, 115 soul, the, 45, 62, 103, 104, 109 alienated, 117 speech acts, 168 speech-acts, 72 Spencer, 60 Spenser, 34 Spinoza, 28, 31, 55 spirits, 55 Spiro, 20 stars, the celestial, 55 Stegmüller, 53 stereotyped individuals, 124 Stirner, 59 Stoic thought, 28 stoicism, 92 Stoics, 28, 125 Stolle, 97 Stones, 175 Strauss, 41, 68 strokes,, 84 structural determinism, 65 structural emergent properties, 177 structural functionalism, 68 structural Marxism, 70 structuraliam, 176 structuralism, 64, 65, 73, 175, 176 anthropological structuralism, 68 historical materialism, 67 linguistic structuralism, 69 natural laws and the natural social order, 66 post-structuralism, 69 social actions grounded in economic partcipation, 70

279

social participation, 71 cultural participation, 71 linguistic participation, 72 structural functionism, 68 structuralist ontology, 82 structuration theory, 175 style-of-life, 15 subconscious. See mental states:unconscious subjective idealism, 26 subjectivism, 19, 26, 32, 41, 43, 49, 66 subjectivity, 10, 112 revolutionary, 67 substance mental, the Cartesian concept of, 26 substance dualism, 3, 10, 31, 56 substance, God, the Spinozan concept of, 26 suicide, 92, 127 superego, 49, 84 Supreme Substance, Sophia, 30 surprise, theory of, 139 Sutras, 110 Swift, 103 symbolic interactionalism, 42 symbolism, 52, 69 Synder, 91 systematization, 180 Sztompka, 117

T tabula rasa, 31, 71 Taine, 34 teleological ethics, 129 temperament, 103, 118, 126 testimony, 169 Thayer, 48 the mind, 17 theistic idealism, 26 theological exegesis, 43 theory definition, 19 Thibaut, 9 Thomas, 19 Thorngate, 144 thruth reliabilism, 25 Thucydides, 30 time, 9 lived time, 9 scarce resource, 9 total awareness state of, 116 Touraine A., 178

280 traditions, 27 traits constitutional (biologically determined), 87 traits, 87 cardinal, 87 central, 87 environmental-mold, 87 secondary, 87 observable habitual behaviors, 87 character, 87 character will, 87 character temperament, 87 character emotions, 87 character intelligence, 87 character physique, 87 like personality, 138 transactional analysis, 84 transcendental deductions, 29 ego, 49 transcendental idealism, 26 transcendental realism, 65, 172, 173, 174, 176 transference, Freudian theory of, 80, 88 transformation model of social action, 175 transformational model of social action, 170 transformative model of social action, the, 176 true believers, 99 trust, 97 boundaries of distrust, 101 generalist, 97 goodwill, 105 homo economicus, 129 homo existentialis, 120 homo hierarchus, 97 homo sociologicus, 105 homo sociologicus, 101 knowledge-based, 129 moralistic, 97 particularist, 97 personal experience, 120 syndrome of distrust, 117 truth deflationay theories of performative theory, 21 redundancy theory, 21 deflationay theories of presentential theory, 21 truth, 20

Index as a property, 21 as an extra-linguistic fact, 21 propositional certainty, 21 standards or criteria, 21 a a plurality, 22 and gender, 22 as indeterminant, 22 definition, 23 explanation, 23 understanding, 23 correspondence theory, 23 coherence theory, 23 psychological certainty, 23 consensus theory, 24 pragmatic theory, 24 social constructivism theory, 24 sensory experience, 24 through reasoning, 24 foundationalism, 25 probabilism, 25 epistemic defeasibility, 25 consensual pragmitism, 25 instrumental pragmitism, 25 assertability-conditions, 41 and reality, 43 correspondence theory, 74 coherence theory, 74 homo hierarchus, 90 homo sociologicus, 101 provisional and contingent, 106 homo existentialis, 109 lacks reassuring certitude, 110 homo economicus, 124 truth and reality ontological perspective, 73 typology categories polythetic, 86 typology, constructive-type, 86

U Udehn, 58 unconditional positive regard, 13 unconscious brain processes, 46, 69 unconscious mental states, 1, 11, 16, 69, 112 unity, 10 unity-in-diversity, 167, 169 universal mind, the, 26 universals, 58, 65 Upanishads, 110 ürbermensch, 112, 115 utilitarianism, 60, 61, 128, 129 psychological, 61 utilitarianism

Index act-, 128 indirect act-consequentialism, 128 preference-, 128 rule-, 128 rule-, 128 utility, 61, 63, 128 principle of ultimate, 129 theory of multi-attribute, 61 theory of subjectively expected, 61 utopianism, 103

V values definition, 16 veil of ignorance, 127 verification principle, 37 verificationism, 35 Vettius Valens, 55 Vickers, 98, 106, 120 victims, 116 Vienna Circle, 36 virtù, 94 virtues character traits, 104 intellectual, 104 moral, 104 the soul, 104 vitue ethics. See ethics, virtue voluntarism, 65, 101 von Hardenberg, 35 von Humbolt, 72 von Mises, 125 von Winterfeldt, 61 Vygotsky, 167

W

281

Wellbourne, 27 Whitehead, 52, 74 will, 67, 71, 111, 115, 116, 127, See also free will, See also free will determination of own destiny, 107 Nietzsche, 111 primacy of, 45 Schopenhauer, 111 Schopenhauer on, 45 to exist, 111 to live, 111 to meaning, 114 to pleasure, 61 to power, 112 to power, 111, 112 to truth, 111 will to illusion, 21 William of Ockham, 74, 94 Williams, 53 Wills, 111 Wilson, 109, 115, 116, 125 wisdom received, 102 Wittgenstein, 20, 26, 37, 42, 51, 52, 53, 102 Wittgensteinian thought, 104 Wood, 11 Woolgar, 170 world of persons, 8

Y Yamigishi, 129 yi, 95 Yijing, 110 yin and yang, 110 Young, 142

Z Watkins, 58 way, the, 111 Webber, 172 Weber, 1, 58, 85, 172 Weberian ideal-types, 85 Weick, 121

Zarathrustra, 112 Zarathustra, 112 Zimbardo, 91 Znaniecki, 19