Précis of The Ant Trap

This article summarizes The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences. The book develops a new model for social ontology, applies it to groups and collective intentionality, and criticizes various forms of individualism. Part One of the book presents two traditional approaches to s...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Epstein Brian
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Vienna 2016-03-01
Series:Journal of Social Ontology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1515/jso-2016-0001
Description
Summary:This article summarizes The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences. The book develops a new model for social ontology, applies it to groups and collective intentionality, and criticizes various forms of individualism. Part One of the book presents two traditional approaches to social ontology and unifies them into the “grounding–anchoring model” for the building of the social world. Part Two shows that individualism is mistaken even for basic facts about groups of people, challenges prevailing views of group intention and action, and illustrates how to approach facts about groups in general.
ISSN:2196-9655
2196-9663