Material Parts in Social Structures
There has been much debate on whether and how groups of human agents can constitute social structures with causal significance. Both sides in this debate, however, implicitly privilege human individuals over non-human material objects and tend to ignore the possibility that such objects might also...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of Vienna
2017-01-01
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| Series: | Journal of Social Ontology |
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| Online Access: | https://journalofsocialontology.org/index.php/jso/article/view/6826 |
| _version_ | 1827940132180721664 |
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| author | Dave Elder-Vass |
| author_facet | Dave Elder-Vass |
| author_sort | Dave Elder-Vass |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
There has been much debate on whether and how groups of human agents can constitute social structures with causal significance. Both sides in this debate, however, implicitly privilege human individuals over non-human material objects and tend to ignore the possibility that such objects might also play a significant role in social structures. This paper argues that social entities are often composed of both human agents and non-human material objects, and that both may make essential contributions to their causal influence. In such cases the causal influence of social structures should be attributed to the emergent causal powers of what I call socio-technical entities.
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-13T09:06:07Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ad2d29a1cae04a989f58ff9edff3768d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2196-9663 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-13T09:06:07Z |
| publishDate | 2017-01-01 |
| publisher | University of Vienna |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Social Ontology |
| spelling | doaj.art-ad2d29a1cae04a989f58ff9edff3768d2023-05-28T07:32:21ZengUniversity of ViennaJournal of Social Ontology2196-96632017-01-0131Material Parts in Social StructuresDave Elder-Vass0Loughborough University There has been much debate on whether and how groups of human agents can constitute social structures with causal significance. Both sides in this debate, however, implicitly privilege human individuals over non-human material objects and tend to ignore the possibility that such objects might also play a significant role in social structures. This paper argues that social entities are often composed of both human agents and non-human material objects, and that both may make essential contributions to their causal influence. In such cases the causal influence of social structures should be attributed to the emergent causal powers of what I call socio-technical entities. https://journalofsocialontology.org/index.php/jso/article/view/6826causal powerscritical realismdistributed cognitionsocial structuresociomaterialitysocio-technical systems |
| spellingShingle | Dave Elder-Vass Material Parts in Social Structures Journal of Social Ontology causal powers critical realism distributed cognition social structure sociomateriality socio-technical systems |
| title | Material Parts in Social Structures |
| title_full | Material Parts in Social Structures |
| title_fullStr | Material Parts in Social Structures |
| title_full_unstemmed | Material Parts in Social Structures |
| title_short | Material Parts in Social Structures |
| title_sort | material parts in social structures |
| topic | causal powers critical realism distributed cognition social structure sociomateriality socio-technical systems |
| url | https://journalofsocialontology.org/index.php/jso/article/view/6826 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT daveeldervass materialpartsinsocialstructures |