Aristotle's Theory of Deviance and Contemporary Symbolic Interactionist Scholarship: Learning from the Past, Extending the Present, and Engaging the Future.

Robert Prus

doi:10.1007/s12108-014-9250-9

Abstract

Although his work has been largely overlooked by symbolic interactionists and other students of deviance, Aristotle (c384-322BCE) addresses community life, activity, agency, and persuasive interchange in ways that not only are remarkably consistent with contemporary symbolic interactionist approaches to deviance, but that also conceptually inform present day theories of deviance and provide valuable transhistorical comparison points for subsequent analysis. Following (1) a brief overview of an interactionist approach to the study of deviance, attention is given to (2) classical Greek conceptions of good and evil (especially as these are articulated by Plato) before turning more directly to (3) Aristotle’s notions of wrongdoing as this is reflected in his considerations of community, morality, agency, and culpability. While informed by Aristotle’s considerations of causality (as addressed in Physics and Metaphysics), this statement builds most centrally on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Rhetoric. Striving for a broader understanding of deviance as a humanly engaged feature of community life, the paper briefly compares Aristotle’s “theory of deviance” with Prus and Grills (2003) interactionist analysis of deviance. The paper (4) concludes with an assessment of the relative contributions of contemporary interactionist scholarship and Aristotle’s materials for the study of deviance as a community-engaged process.

Highlights

Men do wrong when they think it can be done and when they think it can be done by them; when they think that their action will either be undiscovered, or if discovered will remain unpunished; or if it is punished that the punishment will be less than the profit to themselves or to those for whom they care. (Aristotle, Rhetoric, BI, xii [Freese, trans.])
It may be tempting to assume that the social sciences and the study of human knowing and acting have made great advances compared to what scholars had developed twenty-five hundred years ago, but a closer examination of the classical Greek literature (c700-300BCE) indicates an exceedingly valuable set of materials that contemporary social scientists have overlooked
As part of a broader program of study that traces pragmatist thought back to the classical Greek era, this statement considers the particular relevance of Aristotle’s work on deviance for the contemporary social sciences, especially for the sociological theory developed in symbolic interactionism

Summary

Introduction

Men do wrong when they think it can be done and when they think it can be done by them; when they think that their action will either be undiscovered, or if discovered will remain unpunished; or if it is punished that the punishment will be less than the profit to themselves or to those for whom they care. (Aristotle, Rhetoric, BI, xii [Freese, trans.])It may be tempting to assume that the social sciences and the study of human knowing and acting have made great advances compared to what scholars had developed twenty-five hundred years ago, but a closer examination of the classical Greek literature (c700-300BCE) indicates an exceedingly valuable set of materials that contemporary social scientists have overlooked.As part of a broader program of study that traces pragmatist thought back to the classical Greek era, this statement considers the particular relevance of Aristotle’s work on deviance for the contemporary social sciences, especially for the sociological theory developed in symbolic interactionism (see Mead 1934; Blumer 1969; Lofland 1976; Strauss 1993; Prus 1996, 1997, 1999; Musolf 1998; Reynolds and Herman 2003; Prus and Grills 2003).In discussing “Aristotle’s theory of deviance,” it should be recognized that Aristotle provides an exceptional array of conceptual materials and analytic resources pertaining to the study of deviance as a community-based essence, he does not provide a text entitled, “a theory of deviance.” the material presented here is a composite statement primarily developed from Aristotle’s work on ethics (as the study of community-based knowing and acting) and rhetoric (as the study of persuasive interchange and contested reality).As a further caveat, it may be noted that the term “deviance” (broadly denoting some negatively defined human-quality) appears been derived from the Latin devia, referring to “a turning or moving away of some sort.” The term “deviance” may not found in the classical Greek literature, but it is abundantly clear that Homer, Plato, Aristotle and others of the classical Greek and Latin eras were well aware of the negative references to people’s activities, appearances, thoughts, intentions, behavioral outcomes, and reputations, along with the associated matters of deceit, maliciousness, condemnation, sanctions, accusations, defenses, compromises, and shame.

Results

Conclusion