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Comparing Conceptions of Social Ontology: Emergent Social Entities and/or Institutional Facts?

cam.issuedOnline2016-10-02
dc.contributor.authorLawson, Tony
dc.date.accessioned2016-03-09T10:46:01Z
dc.date.available2016-03-09T10:46:01Z
dc.date.issued2016-12
dc.description.abstractIt is commonplace, if erroneous, to suppose that worldviews (or ontological con-ceptions) that underpin, or are presupposed by, substantive analyses and/ormethodological stances are somehow beyond interrogation. This is thought tobe especially so regardingsocialontological orientations (see discussion in Lawson2015a). To the contrary ontological conceptions, including those relating to thesocial realm, are easily shown to be subject to empirical assessment in both abso-lute terms (see e.g. Lawson 2003 chapter 2; Lawson 2015a) and in comparison tothe explanatory power of competing accounts (see e.g., Lawson 2015a, 2015c).In advancing a specific theory of social ontology over the years I have in factoften contrasted the conception defended with the (largely implicit) ontology ofclosed systems of isolated atoms presupposed by very many social theorists --and most especially by contemporary economists, not least in their heavy relianceon methods of mathematical modelling (see Lawson 2015c). In this, however, mypurpose in making the comparison was not so much to garner additional explan-atory support for the ontological conception I defend as to employ the (demon-strable) explanatory superiority of the latter to cast doubt on the wisdom of theprevailing uncritical reliance on methods of mathematical modelling in social the-ory (an emphasis that in modern mainstream economics yet continues unabated).
dc.description.sponsorshipI am indebted to the Independent Social Research Foundation for funding the research on which this paper draws.
dc.description.versionThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12126.
dc.identifier.citationLawson. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (2016)
dc.identifier.eissn1468-5914
dc.identifier.issn0021-8308
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/254263
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherWiley
dc.publisher.urlhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12126
dc.subject5205 Social and Personality Psychology
dc.subject44 Human Society
dc.subject50 Philosophy and Religious Studies
dc.subject52 Psychology
dc.subject5003 Philosophy
dc.subject4410 Sociology
dc.titleComparing Conceptions of Social Ontology: Emergent Social Entities and/or Institutional Facts?
dc.typeArticle
dcterms.dateAccepted2016-09-02
prism.endingPage399
prism.publicationDate2016
prism.publicationNameJournal for the Theory of Social Behaviour
prism.startingPage359
prism.volume46
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate2016-10-02
rioxxterms.licenseref.urihttp://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
rioxxterms.typeJournal Article/Review
rioxxterms.versionAM
rioxxterms.versionofrecord10.1111/jtsb.12126

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