Description
Book SynopsisRecent years have seen a dramatic re-emergence of interest in ontology. From philosophy and social sciences to artificial intelligence and computer science, ontology is gaining interdisciplinary influence as a popular tool for applied research.
Contributions to Social Ontology focuses specifically on these developments within the social sciences. The contributions reveal that this revived interest in social ontology involves far more than an unquestioning acceptance or application of the concepts and methods of academic philosophers. Instead as ontology permeates so many new areas, social ontology itself is evolving in new and fascinating ways. This book engages with these new developments, pushing it forward with cutting-edge new material from leading authors in this area, from Roy Bhaskar to Margaret Archer. It also explicitly analyzes the relationship between the new ontological projects and the more traditional approaches.
Table of Contents1. Introduction – Ontology, Philosophy and the Social Science Part 1 Ontology and Social Theory 2. The Ontological Status of Subjectivity 3. Technology, Technological Determinism and the Transformational Model of Technical Activity 4. Ontological Theorising and the Assumptions Issue in Economics 5. Wittgenstein and the Ontology of the Social: Some Kripkean Reflections on Bourdieu’s ‘Theory of Practice’ 6. Deducing Natural Necessity from Purposive Activity: The Scientific Realist Logic of Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action and Luhmann’s Systems Theory 7. Underlabouring for Ethics: Lukács’s Critical Ontology Part 2 - Ontology and Philosophy 8. Quine and the Ontological Turn in Economics 9. Tracking Down the Transcendental Argument and the Synthetic a priori Chasing Fairies or Serious Ontological Business 10. Re-Examining Bhaskar’s Three Ontological Domains: the Lessons from Emergence 11. Real, Invented or Applied? Some Reflections on Scientific Objectivity and Social Ontology 12. Theorising Ontology Part 3 – Ontology and Applied Research 13. Freedom, Possibility and Ontology – Rethinking the Problem of ‘Competitive Ascent’ in the Caribbean 14. On the Ontology of International Norm Diffusion 15. Realist Social Theorising and the Emergence of State Educational Systems 16. The Educational Limits of Critical Realism? Emancipation and Rational Agency in the Compulsory Years of Schooling 17. Economics and Autism: Why the Drive Towards Closure? 18. Applying Critical Realism: Re-conceptualising the Emergent Early Music Performer Labour Market
