UnderstandingSociety

Hello, anonymous -- take a look at this posting, w...

2012-05-28T14:51:03.285-04:00

Hello, anonymous -- take a look at this posting, which has some discussion of Joas.

http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2011/12/pragmatist-action-theory.html

Your definition of a meso entity is rather like my...

2012-05-28T11:09:11.453-04:00

Your definition of a meso entity is rather like my definition at New Chart for Descartes--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrVsLdTtepM
--At the end of that video, I show that both individuals and groups are formally similar, insofar as they consist of a central context of rules-goals-beliefs, surrounded by a ring of common transactions-transformations-transmissions. Your question to me therefore is whether two groups can have interactions between their central contexts, so as to influence the members in each separate group.

I think a weak case could be made for the financial crisis, in which two meso groups--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGg0U5fmSE4&list=PL69ED9E4A01C07D30&index=3&feature=plpp_video
-- in other words, the "shadow banks" and the "housing market", interacted at the central contexts. The belief at the center of the shadow banks is that "financial deals are always good for the economy", and the belief at the center of the housing market is (was) that "housing prices will always go up". Both of these ideas are false, of course, but having false ideas is true of many human formations! Inside each group or meso formation, the individuals were doing their own specific sorts of transactions based upon the meso-level conjunction of the two beliefs.

I think it's quite legitimate to say that meso...

2012-05-28T03:22:51.072-04:00

I think it's quite legitimate to say that meso-level structures can have effects on other meso-level structures, with the caveat that there are limits to the reliability of those effects.

I think you've used the analogy with physical systems before, and this is a useful one here too. Does a billiard ball hitting a second ball cause it to move? Or do its atoms cause other atoms to move which collectively look like a moving billiard ball? Or is it just that the solution to a particular wavefunction equation looks like atoms, which in turn look like a billiard ball when you group enough of them together?

While one could take a hyper-reductionist view and say that the billiard balls either don't exist, or don't have a causal relationship to each other, this would be a terribly unuseful worldview. And to deny that Facebook can cause Google to invest in its social media strategy is equally unhelpful.

The caveat is important, though: we can neither say that a particular action of Facebook will reliably cause Google to do something, nor ascribe with perfect confidence the launch of Google+ as an effect of the existence of Facebook. Not even Google employees with full information can do that with certainty; but it really does look as if it's the case.

A couple of other thoughts from your post:

"Meso structure X produced changes in meso structure Y"

I am not sure that the past tense is the most useful way to think about this. Causality is a more powerful and meaningful relation when it's predictive and general, rather than historical and specific. It's in fact a moot point whether Facebook caused Google+, but it's quite useful to think about whether choices of one company are likely to affect the future strategy of another company.

"An emergent property according to E-V, is one that is possessed by the aggregate but not by the composing units. On this account, there are causal properties of structures that cannot be represented as the aggregate effect of individual actors."

I don't think this quite follows. A property of a structure can be distinct from the properties of the units, while still being represented by their aggregate effects. The emergent property of yellowness possessed by the billiard ball is not possessed by any of its atoms or molecules; but it is still the aggregate effect of the individual atoms and their relationship to each other.

Emergent properties are simultaneously distinct from the properties of the components, and directly derived from the properties of those components.

I'm currently making my way through The Cre...

2012-05-27T19:53:02.389-04:00
I'm currently making my way through The Creativity of Action by Hans Joas, who does well to situate the pragmatist theory of the actor. I'd be very interested to see you do a post on the book!

Thanks Daniel. I think this is an example of us t...

2012-05-27T16:33:07.460-04:00
Thanks Daniel. I think this is an example of us talking past each other (at least partly).

I'll break down my request more specifically and maybe we can work this out.

You say "a role is a set of duties, tasks, and practices..." and I agree at that level.

But I'm looking for a description of the micro level definition or correlates of "role". That is to say, characteristics of individuals that collectively constitute or are consistently and strongly correlated with the existence of the role. Note that I am not trying to reduce roles to just an individual level phenomenon, I don't believe this would be correct.

You come close to providing what I want when you say accounts "invoke reflexive knowledge of other individuals within the organization about who needs to do what."

Possibly that is all we need. But even if it is, we need to be more specific before we can be sure we understand each other. For example:

- What do you mean by "reflexive"? And what work does reflexiveness do in this definition? Is it like common knowledge?? Etc.

- Do you want to say that any consistent beliefs about who needs to do what, within an organization or group define a role? It seems like we probably need more than this but I'm not sure what (beyond perhaps common knowledge).

These questions may seem picky, but I'm very concerned that we can easily fail to understand each other rendering the discussion pointless.

Tuli, I appreciate your reflections about this con...

2012-05-27T15:49:44.140-04:00
Tuli, I appreciate your reflections about this concept. What would you say to this: the existence and workings of paramilitary organizations (a meso-level structure) brought about the fall of democratic systems of governance (another meso-level structure). This is part of Michael Mann's analysis of the rise of fascism in Europe. How does this example sit with your concerns about not being able to distinguish "levels"?

Jed, Good questions! I think I would respond this...

2012-05-27T15:46:45.531-04:00
Jed,

Good questions! I think I would respond this way about "role": a role is a set of duties, tasks, and practices assigned to an individual within an organization. This then raises the questions, how is it that individuals perform their roles when appointed? (Here the answer is something like this: training and management oversight mechanisms; internal norms of performance.) And how do organizations come to have "roles" -- is this a matter of evolution and growth, or a matter of design? Obviously these attempts at definition invoke norms and they invoke the reflexive knowledge of other individuals within the organization about who needs to do what.

I agree with your conclusion, as far as I understa...

2012-05-27T14:54:59.683-04:00
I agree with your conclusion, as far as I understand it. But unfortunately a lot of interpretation is needed which can easily go wrong.

To help forestall that, I'd like you to elaborate on one point. You use the term "role" in crucial ways, e.g. you define a meso-level structure as "A composite of individuals and roles..."

So what is the micro-level definition or correlate of "role"? As I understand your ontology, perhaps you could translate this as "What is the patterning of individual activities that constitutes a 'role'?"

I'm trying to say this in a way that is ontologically neutral (do "patternings" really exist? mu) but of course that is difficult.

This is not a trick question. Personally I believe "roles" are an important theoretical construct and that we need to be able to treat them as having causal powers. But I also think we face a big risk of talking past each other unless we put a fair amount of work into being explicit.

but first for this kind of question, I have to buy...

2012-05-27T13:32:49.486-04:00
but first for this kind of question, I have to buy into the idea, that society and organisations (macro and meso level) are entities, which do exist aT a higher level than individuals (micro level) do.

I don't mean to be reductionist, and say it's just the lower level.

What I'm saying (or rather guessing) is that society and social phenomena are so deeply rooted in every individual, that it makes no sense to say, that this level caused it and not the other. That is because they are not levels in my eyes, but different relations and processes of varying complexity, which can coexist in the same physical matter. So this different relations are interwoven but still have causal powers, which are gradually different but not completely distinct. So it makes no sense to say, that a meso level entity has power over this other meso level entity but not by passing through this macro level entity, because they are all at every moment coinciding. Of course its passing through the micro level cause it is part of what we call the micro level.

I hope the paragraph above still makes sense.

rjt12, Thanks. My own answer to your question is ...

2012-05-24T10:59:29.986-04:00
rjt12, Thanks. My own answer to your question is that I find the idea of a "dialectical" relationship fundamentally unclear; whereas morphogenesis strikes me as a fairly straightforward model of nested multilevel causation.

e., Archer doesn't believe that there is no valid distinction between structure and agency; in fact she is a dualist of sorts on this question. It seems to me that her analysis permits a more coherent way of talking about influences across levels or strata and on different time scales. So it isn't "generic", and it isn't really structuralism.

As i read it, it is a specific means of conceiving...

2012-05-24T10:53:57.556-04:00
As i read it, it is a specific means of conceiving a historical dialectic. The thesis and antithesis are actor and structure, and the synthesis is morphogenesis. So it is a type of dialectic, which seems to do a nice job of articulating a specific dialectic at an appropriate level of analysis.

How is this morphogenesis different than di...

2012-05-24T09:27:38.983-04:00
How is this morphogenesis different than dialectics?

What is her contributions to Bourdieu's theory...

2012-05-24T05:44:08.161-04:00
What is her contributions to Bourdieu's theory you think. Because judging by your words, her concepts is very similar to 'generic structuralism' of Goldmann and Bourdieu. They too emphasised the fake separation between objectivity and subjectivity, structure and agency etc.

I wonder if the complexity that stems from actors ...

2012-05-22T14:12:55.867-04:00
I wonder if the complexity that stems from actors participating in concurrent and overlapping structures and systems, with differing and even inconsistent structurations, might make if difficult to adequately describe bounded snapshots. Focusing on the dynamic descriptions of structuration processes and understanding their dynamics may be a more reasonable first goal.

May I suggest the introduction to this book from A...

2012-05-21T12:14:37.704-04:00
May I suggest the introduction to this book from American Sociologist Christian Smith. Reconciles the two extremes of individualism and collectivism via emergence. http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Person-Rethinking-Humanity-Social/dp/0226765946/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337616021&sr=8-2

i've heard Zomia(origin Zomi) in the neighbour...

2012-05-16T05:37:21.661-04:00
i've heard Zomia(origin Zomi) in the neighbouring state of India and Burma.
Like one of a famous political Party in Burma i.e. ZOMI NATIONAL CONGRESS with its Chairman Chinsianthang.
These people were also termed by the Burmese as Chin and by the British as Kuki. It can be notice in the writing of ZOMI by Carey & Tuck, Dr. Grierson, Dr. Vumson, Dr. Tualchin,etc.

Could you clarify more on how they are making prog...

2012-05-10T15:47:26.480-04:00
Could you clarify more on how they are making progress? My early social science experiences were working with behaviorists who proved to me that "clarity, logical rigor, analysis, and causality" are no proof of validity. However, it was not until I studied the psychometrician Samuel Messick that I was able to make a cogent distinction between anti-positivism and post-positivism, that is, seriously dealing with the limitations of positivism without abandoning their achievements. That is how I have begun to view Rorty and Wittgenstein (Though I would be the last to claim I "understand" Wittgenstein or Rorty for that matte; to use their ideas appropriately is my objective). This Wittgesteinian approach seems like what Neil Gross is doing from your previous posts concerning Richard Rorty as well as Camic, Gross and Lamont. Is this also true of this new European school of thought.
P.S. Thanks for referencing Gross's 2009 book. I think it may be a fascinating study.

I wonder why you so easily dismiss critical approa...

2012-05-10T07:24:31.198-04:00
I wonder why you so easily dismiss critical approaches to the Philosophy of Social Sciences. Of course, analytic philosophy has many desirable features, but there are many interesting challanges to the analytical approach coming from the "classic" European school (as you call it). In particular scholars like Habermas have shown the possibility of fruitfull discourse between analytic and continental philosophy that is both clear and rigorous. Take for example http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=5804&mode=toc or http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262083183/ref=rdr_ext_tmb.

For me a big difference in US and China health esp...

2012-05-08T23:54:11.843-04:00
For me a big difference in US and China health especially in rural areas. China's most medicine contains harmful chemicals while US medicines were carefully study to ensure the safety of the patients.

One psychological perspective on micro analysis is...

2012-05-07T14:00:34.301-04:00
One psychological perspective on micro analysis is Vygotsky's breakdown of mental processes into lower and higher mental functions. The reflective nature and social origins of higher mental functions complicates the idea of finding neurological correlates to cognition. Shotter's dialogical take on consciousness, that much of our cognition is a gestural response to others and the world (Johnsohtter.com - especially -http://www.johnshotter.com/papers/Shotter%2008%20Org%20Studies%20Polyphony.pdf), make this even more problematic. Everything might not reduce to neurology.

Thank you. This kind of occasional overview/survey...

2012-05-06T22:13:41.437-04:00
Thank you. This kind of occasional overview/survey/review post is very useful for those of us non-specialists who try to keep up with these issues via your blog.

Tom, Thanks for the comment. I think it's co...

2012-05-06T11:33:40.751-04:00
Tom,

Thanks for the comment. I think it's consistent. I'm intending to further explicate this paragraph from late in that posting:

"The position I would like to defend is two-fold And is a defense of type-4 explanations...."

This post is intended to address the question of whether it's consistent to hold that meso structures require microfoundations and also that they have causal properties of their own.

On an albeit-quick reading, this piece seems to ja...

2012-05-06T11:11:34.328-04:00
On an albeit-quick reading, this piece seems to jar with your earlier writing on the pathways through Coleman's Boat . What am I missing?

Will has hit on a very important point that also g...

2012-05-02T14:58:52.320-04:00
Will has hit on a very important point that also got lost in the article, and that's leisure time and/or schooling. I can tell you that, no matter if an upper-class child is studying at Harvard, Brown, or even The University of Wisconsin, he or she will not be majoring in Nursing, Radiation Technology, or anything that implies manual and/or useful labor. This alone is a powerful class/status indicator no matter what the subject.

For example, I see "Gospel" listed as lower-class. Not so. If I know the history, major routes of distribution, and can comment on the background, art, and singers, that in itself implies that I have oodles of leisure time to devote to knowing such minutia, especially if I can relate this to the social background of the times the movement grew out of. Note this is not the same as spouting the stats for your top NFL teams, as that requires nothing more than reading most sports pages and no depth of understanding...quite opposite status indicators, actually. In this case "Gospel" is actually very upper-class and "snobish".

So, again, I wonder if the conclusions drawn here are a legitimate understanding of the indicators; category notwithstanding. Owing a Ferrari may be (irredeemably) vulgar (unless it is vintage). But owing one and knowing the history of Ferrari, and how it fits into the background of F1 racing and craft of Italian car-making and design houses, along with the associations to the Ecclestone empire, is clearly not.

Interesting post. My instinct is to question wheth...

2012-05-02T13:54:32.266-04:00
Interesting post. My instinct is to question whether Peterson can reach the conclusion he does. You say, "Highbrows became less snobbish." But it seems to me we could equally look at the findings and say, "Snobbishness became more complex, and less conspicuously highbrow." The set of tastes that count as "snobbish" are not fixed, in other words, but malleable and dynamic.

Let's suppose that for high-status people, snobbish taste is a means of signaling their status. It is effective as a signal because it demonstrates that a great deal of time has been devoted to the study of culture, and of what is considered refined. In other words, it signals that one has been saved the indignity of useful labor.

In other words, it may be useful for the snob to diversify, to show an even greater amount of free time and training. Being snobby about Beethoven symphonies and also about which early rap music is good -- such as the knowledge that the Sugar Hill label denotes sure quality -- trumps being snobby about Beethoven symphonies alone.

I also think that Skyman123's point is good. The nouveau riche may be scoffed at at first, but over time the tastes they bring into the high-status group will have to be viewed as suitably snobby.

-Will

UnderstandingSociety

Hello, anonymous -- take a look at this posting, w...

Your definition of a meso entity is rather like my...

I think it's quite legitimate to say that meso...

I'm currently making my way through The Cre...

Thanks Daniel. I think this is an example of us t...

Tuli, I appreciate your reflections about this con...

Jed, Good questions! I think I would respond this...

I agree with your conclusion, as far as I understa...

but first for this kind of question, I have to buy...

rjt12, Thanks. My own answer to your question is ...

As i read it, it is a specific means of conceiving...

How is this morphogenesis different than di...

What is her contributions to Bourdieu's theory...

I wonder if the complexity that stems from actors ...

May I suggest the introduction to this book from A...

i've heard Zomia(origin Zomi) in the neighbour...

Could you clarify more on how they are making prog...

I wonder why you so easily dismiss critical approa...

For me a big difference in US and China health esp...

One psychological perspective on micro analysis is...

Thank you. This kind of occasional overview/survey...

Tom, Thanks for the comment. I think it's co...

On an albeit-quick reading, this piece seems to ja...

Will has hit on a very important point that also g...

Interesting post. My instinct is to question wheth...