Analytical Realism Research Articles

Historia y política en dos novelas de Patricio Pron: "El comienzo de la primavera" y "No derrames tus lágrimas por nadie que viva en estas calles"

Este artículo estudia dos novelas del escritor argentino Patricio Pron, El comienzo de la primavera (2008) y No derrames tus lágrimas por nadie que viva en estas calles (2014), agrupadas por su temática común: la evolución histórico política de Europa desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial y, más en concreto, las consecuencias del extremismo ideológico para Alemania e Italia. Partiendo de las ideas de Roberto Esposito, Walter Benjamin y Giorgio Agamben, entre otros, se analizan dos aspectos centrales en ambas novelas: el sentido de la historia y su relación con la responsabilidad individual ante el pasado, y la dicotomía entre ética y política. Ambas novelas despliegan un realismo analítico que experimen ta con las estructuras narrativas y la perspectiva para dar cuenta de qué significa construir una conciencia política en el siglo XXI.

Africa Isn’t an Island: An Emerging Continent and the Geopolitics of the 21st Century

Long treated as marginal to United States strategic interests, political, economic, and security, developments on the African continent have forced a reconsideration of Africa's geopolitical (and geoeconomics) significance in the twenty-first century. Moreover, the success of efforts to lower carbon emissions and other measures to combat the effects of climate change are highly dependent on access to Africa's mineral reserves—another factor driving both global and regional powers increasingly to become engaged on the continent. Criticism of former President Donald Trump's reported statements about African countries notwithstanding, the significant shift towards analytical realism under that administration—including not treating Africa in isolation from global trends—should be a lasting legacy.

English

  Modernity understood ‘engagement’ in individual or collective terms. Weber and Marx offered the best-known and exemplary paradigms. Since then, a great deal of sociologists have tried to combine them and have seen engagement as a co-determination between agency and social structure. Everybody knows that engagement entails acting in and with social relations, but the intrinsically relational character of engagement has remained obscure, largely implicit and unexplored. Engagement has  always been a social relation, but nowadays it is taken on an unprecedented morphogenetic connotation. The proposals for devising a new ‘relational sociology’ of engagement are on the increase. Yet these proposals are very different in their theoretical, methodological and applicative aspects. We have to clarify what ‘relational’ means. The author believes a distinction needs to be made between relational theories(based on critical and analytical realism) and (relation)istic theories (based on constructivist and relativistic assumptions). The latter perform serious central conflations between subjective and objective factors, between the individual input and the historical configuration of engagement. A new conceptual framework is put forward here in order to understand engagement as a relational reality operating through reflexivity forms, especially focussing on the meta-reflexive one as distinctive of after-modern society.   Key words: Reflexivity, relational sociology, social engagement, after-modern society.

Edmund Husserl in Talcott Parsons: Analytical Realism and Phenomenology

This article aims at clarifying the philosophical (=phenomenological) implication of Talcott Parsons’s analytical realism. Generally, his theory is understood as being confrontational to phenomenology; however, in his first book, The Structure of Social Action, Parsons positively referred to Husserl’s Logical Investigations. They shared a sense of crisis: Husserl thought that there was no certain basis in modern science, and Parsons had the feeling that there was no common theory to establish sociology as a science. Thus, both of them criticized the factual sciences of positivism (positivistic empiricism) and showed a strong orientation to the general theory. For this, they depended on conceptual realism (Platonic realism). According to Husserl, scientific knowledge will be arbitrary if the Ideal is not there as the norm of fact. He believed that in truth all people always see Ideas. Similarly, Parsons thought that in truth all people always act toward the Ideal, because the Ideal element is necessarily found through the logical framework of sociology, i.e., the action frame of reference. Hence, he maintained that the Ideal element that gives a normative orientation to actions is real, though analytical, insofar as the social order is established.

Contemporary Sociological Theory (IV)

This is the fourth part of a series of essays on contemporary sociological theory. The aim of these essays is to identify and critically assess the key concepts, ideas, epistemological principles, and the relational – symmetric and asymmetric – aspects of the ongoing global division of sociological labor. Although the concept of “theory” has deep roots in the professional discourses of East European intellectuals, sociological theory finds itself in a position where it cannot significantly affect the socio-political intellectual agenda. Moreover, sociological theory more and more is identified with the role of an “underlaborer.” If so, the problem needs to be posed in this way: it seems that current time has given us a chance to ask whether the shifting boundaries of democratic politics have begun to exert influence on the understanding of sociological theory. Thus, it is questionable that the mere “cumulative” growth of intellectual and institutional sociological recourses in a global context will automatically strengthen a theoretical sensibility. What is needed in sociological theoretical culture is not another symmetric-functional historicism, including the one-dimensional scientific mode of explanatory historicism (“from specificity to generality” [see Alexander 1982; 7]), but a deeper critical understanding of both analytical theoretical frameworks and normative discourses, including the attempts to understand the unevenly distributed global sociological field of asymmetric institutional and intellectual power relations.
 The examination of the fourfold functional model of Michael Burawoy had demonstrated that there are four dilemmas that he confronts in his attempts to articulate the idea of public sociology in a globalizing context: first, the contradiction between the universal content and national form of public sociology; second, the contradiction between analytical realism and pluralist relativism; third, the (nominal) contradiction between artificial types of public sociology and critical sociology; fourth, the contradiction between epistemological pluralism and value pluralism.
 The fourth part of a series of essays discusses the relevance of the relatively radical (“alternative”)
 conceptual proposal of Steven Seidman for contemporary metatheoretical debates, especially those concerned with (1) the relation between “analytic” and “ideological” frameworks, (2) the interplay between empirical generalizations and theoretical generalizations. Unlike Burawoy, Seidman is more genealogically conscious of local/temporal nature of social relations and various – symmetric and asymmetric – boundaries, including social theoretical and sociological theoretical. It is for this sensitive reason that Seidman rejects the “arrogance” of foundational theoretical schemes. Despite his recognition of the limits of a-contextual theorizing and the need to embrace local vs. universal perspective (for example, by evaluating conflicting perspectives and intellectual, social, moral, and political consequences), however, his model is constructed in such a way that it depends too much on the kind of one-dimensional inductive orientation. There are at least two further problems that result from the “event-based” narrative of postmodern social theory which deals carefully with its temporal and spatial boundaries: first, problems in identifying different criteria of the relation between the different multidimensional levels of epistemological continuum; second, problems related to developing ways of evaluating (a) the (probably) vital link between general categories of classical social theory and general (nevertheless, accountable) moral principles, (b) the relation between different principles of presuppositional theoretical level and moderate prognostic potentialities of postpositivistic (however, firmly classical, i.e., “social”) theory.

Šiuolaikinė sociologijos teorija (III)

The aim of this essay is to identify and critically assess the key concepts, ideas, epistemological principles, and the relational – symmetric and asymmetric – aspects of the ongoing global division of sociological labor. The third part of the essay attempts to explore the ambivalent relations between the ‘global’ content and ‘national’ form of public sociology. There are four dilemmas that confront Michael Burawoy in his attempts to articulate the idea of public sociology in a globalising context: first, the contradiction between the universal content and national form of public sociology; second, the contradiction between analytical realism and pluralist relativism; third, the (nominal) contradiction between artificial types of public sociology and critical sociology; fourth, the contradiction between epistemological pluralism and value pluralism. The conclusion is that, despite the excessively ethnocentric principles of so-called ‘methodological nationalism’, it is precisely the claim to more cosmopolitan sociological principles that makes an overly ‘national’ form of public sociology ‘global’. The main task is to ensure the ongoing power of public sociology to make global sociological discourse negotiable. What is needed in public sociology is not another symmetric-functional historicism, but a deeper critical understanding of both analytical theoretical frameworks and normative discourses, including the attempts to understand the unevenly distributed global sociological field of asymmetric institutional and intellectual power relations.

Under What Conditions Can Formal Models of Social Action Claim Explanatory Power?

This paper’s purpose is to set forth the conditions of explanation in the domain of formal modelling of social action. Explanation is defined as an adequate account of the underlying factors bringing about a phenomenon. The modelling of a social phenomenon can claim explanatory value in this sense if the following two conditions are fulfilled. (1) The generative mechanisms involved translate the effects of real factors abstracted from their phenomenal context, not those of purely ideal ones. (2) The explanatory hypotheses, which account for the effects of explanatory factors, and the purely descriptive hypotheses, which introduce conceptual simplifications and summarise complex secondary mechanisms, are relatively independent from each other with regard to the phenomenon represented. This condition subjects the model to testing by alternatives through the development of purely descriptive hypotheses in the sense of explanatory or analytical realism.

Alexander and the Cultural Refounding of American Sociology

This paper considers and evaluates Jeffrey Alexander’s strong program in cultural sociology, which represents an exercise in paradigm formation and an ambitious attempt to refound American sociology along interpretive lines. Cultural sociology is assessed according to four axes, namely its social constructivist epistemology, culturalizing methodology, analytical realism, and internal and external positioning. In addition to discussing the accomplishments and limitations of cultural sociology in all these areas, the paper indicates ways to strengthen it by setting it in conversation with other and more explicitly critical currents of thought.

Social Action Systems: Foundation and Synthesis in Sociological Theory

Preface General Theoretical Sociology in Context Process and Social Reality Classical Foundations Foundations of Analytical Realism Two Postclassical Paths of Synthesis The Structural Analysis of Social Action Systems The Analytical Theory of Social Systems A Structural-Functional Theory of Social Systems The Four-Function Paradigm: The Social System Model The Four-Function Paradigm: The General Action System Model The Behavioral Theory of Spontaneous Order: Background and Core Principles The Behavioral Theory of Spontaneous Order: Group Processes Two Strategies in Recent Theoretical Sociology The Rational Choice Strategy The Generative Structuralist Strategy Index

The Logic of “the Social” in Parsons' Theory

Contempory discussions of Parsons' theory have stumbled because they are unsuccessful in understanding his theory in terms of the synthesis of his epistemological logic, his analytical model and his substantive problems. In this paper I attempt to explore the logic of “the so-called social” in his theory, by means of an examination of the theorem of institutional integration. This theorem involves his basic ideas of “the social” and in premised on what he calls “principle of duality”. This principle is concerned with the relation of actor and social object. It is derived from analytical realism as his epistemological position and his action frame of reference.The main theme of this theorem, of course, works out a solution to “the Hobbesian problem of order”. Such sufficient solution of problem of order needs to articulate basic presuppositions of this theorem. According to my opinion, these presuppositions are, above all, voluntaristic images, of man, the theory of pluralistic structures of society and values of individualism. Particularly, this individualism is the core of his.basic ideas of “the social”. Parsons' theory.asserts that societies achieve true social integration in proportion to the degree of institutionalization of individualism. Such social integration can be realized only by changing preexisting structures so as to level up the degree of individualism.Real social integration and actual social change, however, occurs within and is influenced by constraining structures. Parsons have only insufficiently grasped such constraining factors in economic and political spheres.Nevertheless, his ideas of the dynamic relation of individual freedom and social order, in other words, the social basis of individual freedom represent a major contribution to the understanding of the logic of “the social” in Modern sociological theory.

The Logic of “the Social” in Parsons' Theory

Contempory discussions of Parsons' theory have stumbled because they are unsuccessful in understanding his theory in terms of the synthesis of his epistemological logic, his analytical model and his substantive problems. In this paper I attempt to explore the logic of “the so-called social” in his theory, by means of an examination of the theorem of institutional integration. This theorem involves his basic ideas of “the social” and in premised on what he calls “principle of duality”. This principle is concerned with the relation of actor and social object. It is derived from analytical realism as his epistemological position and his action frame of reference.The main theme of this theorem, of course, works out a solution to “the Hobbesian problem of order”. Such sufficient solution of problem of order needs to articulate basic presuppositions of this theorem. According to my opinion, these presuppositions are, above all, voluntaristic images, of man, the theory of pluralistic structures of society and values of individualism. Particularly, this individualism is the core of his.basic ideas of “the social”. Parsons' theory.asserts that societies achieve true social integration in proportion to the degree of institutionalization of individualism. Such social integration can be realized only by changing preexisting structures so as to level up the degree of individualism.Real social integration and actual social change, however, occurs within and is influenced by constraining structures. Parsons have only insufficiently grasped such constraining factors in economic and political spheres.Nevertheless, his ideas of the dynamic relation of individual freedom and social order, in other words, the social basis of individual freedom represent a major contribution to the understanding of the logic of “the social” in Modern sociological theory.