Realist social theory : the morphogenetic approach
TL;DR: The Morphogenetic Cycle: the basis of the morphogenetic approach 7. Structural and cultural conditioning 8. The morphogenesis of agency 9. Social elaboration.
Abstract: Building on her seminal contribution to social theory in Culture and Agency, in this 1995 book Margaret Archer develops her morphogenetic approach, applying it to the problem of structure and agency. Since structure and agency constitute different levels of stratified social reality, each possesses distinctive emergent properties which are real and causally efficacious but irreducible to one another. The problem, therefore, is shown to be how to link the two rather than conflate them, as has been common theoretical practice. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world. The morphogenetic approach is the sociological complement of transcendental realism, and together they provide a basis for non-conflationary theorizing which is also of direct utility to the practising social analyst.
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TL;DR: The aim is to reflect upon the role that a well defined ontology, based on the crossing of the philosophical and the computer science insights, can play to solve such questions and help the model building.
Abstract: Agent-Based Models are useful to describe and understand social, economic and spatial systems' dynamics. But, beside the facilities which this methodology offers, evaluation and comparison of simulation models are sometimes problematic. A rigorous conceptual frame needs to be developed. This is in order to ensure the coherence in the chain linking at the one extreme the scientist's hypotheses about the modeled phenomenon and at the other the structure of rules in the computer program. This also systematizes the model design from the thematician conceptual framework as well. The aim is to reflect upon the role that a well defined ontology, based on the crossing of the philosophical and the computer science insights, can play to solve such questions and help the model building. We analyze different conceptions of ontology, introduce the 'ontological test' and show its usefulness to compare models. Then we focus on the model building and show the place of a systematic ABM ontology. The latter process is situated within a larger framework called the 'knowledge framework' in which not only the ontologies but also the notions of theory, model and empirical data take place. At last the relation between emergence and ontology is discussed.
38 citations
Cites background from "Realist social theory : the morphog..."
...According to Archer [ 2 ], social structures emerged in the past from actions of agents (bottom-up), but continue to exert effects in the present (top down)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse the nature of competition in the schools public market and argue that the character of engagement with the public market is better represented by interconnecting and mutually influential modes of engagement (competitive, professional, bureaucratic, cultural).
Abstract: This paper analyses producer agency in the structural setting of the schools public-market. The initial focus for this analysis was the nature of competition, but, it is argued, the character of engagement with the public-market is better represented by inter-connecting and mutually influential modes of engagement (competitive, professional, bureaucratic, cultural) elaborated in the paper. These have been developed through analyses of headteachers' accounts (one of the data sets in a study of the impact of competition on secondary schools), in a process of 'dialogue' with relevant literature, and build upon prior work by the author. The elaboration of the modes is set within the theoretical frame of analytical dualism. Conclusions highlight, inter alia, the tendency for competitive engagement to be present in a subordinated, although nevertheless significant, form, and the continual inter-weaving of different foms of engagement, at the core of which is an increasingly permeable public professional model .
38 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the dichotomy between power and competition in economics is ontologically untenable and pointed out that if power relations necessarily involve power, it is not simply because neoclassical competition does not exist in reality, as radical mainstream economists suggest, but rather because capitalism altogether is a system of power.
Abstract: Mainstream economics conceives power to be incompatible with perfect competition. This conception, I argue, derives from its deductivist method and the ‘empirical realist’ ontology that it presupposes. Following Marx, I show that capitalism constantly reproduces asymmetrical constraints on classes of individuals, independent of the market form. My ontological argument is rooted in the philosophy of ‘critical realism’. My conclusion is that the dichotomy ‘power–competition’ is ontologically untenable. If capitalist relations necessarily involve power, it is not simply because neoclassical competition does not exist in reality, as radical mainstream economists suggest, but rather because capitalism altogether is a ‘system of power’.
38 citations
Cites background from "Realist social theory : the morphog..."
...In the context of philosophy and economics, the works of Archer (1995), Bhaskar (1978, 1979, 1986, 1993), Collier (1994), Lawson (1997, 2003) and Outhwaite (1987) constitute some of the main theoretical references....
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TL;DR: This issue of Information and Organization contains two papers written in response to mine (Klein, Seeking the new and the critical in critical realism: Deja vu? and Mingers, Real-izing information systems: critical realism as an under pinning philosophy for information systems).
38 citations
Cites background from "Realist social theory : the morphog..."
...I am quite happy to accept that my reference to Kant’s possibilities of knowledge is rather inadequate....
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TL;DR: The authors defend an outlook that Margaret S. Archer has dubbed "central conflation", which is an antidualistic position appreciating the interdependency of agency and structure, individuals and society.
Abstract: Taking a side in the debate over ontological emergentism in social theory, this article defends an outlook that Margaret S. Archer has dubbed “central conflation”: an antidualistic position appreciating the interdependency of agency and structure, individuals and society. This has been a popular outlook in recent years, advocated broadly by such theorists as Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins, and Anthony Giddens. However, antidualism has been challenged by those who believe the key to success in social science lies in level-ontological emergentism. Archer’s own morphogenetic theory is an explicitly dualist version of that approach. I answer Archer’s arguments for emergentism, in so doing clearing a path for the even fuller acceptance of antidualism by theorists.
37 citations