Showing papers on "Structure and agency published in 1982"
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TL;DR: Giddens as mentioned in this paper proposes a post-metaphysical theory of human agency, based on the ontological underpinnings and the historical genesis of individual consciousness and autonomy, which can be seen as a rare exception to the modern infatuation with subjectivity and ego-centricity.
Abstract: The status of the individual or of the accountable human agent today is rather precarious: not only in the political arena (in the face of technocratic and totalitarian dangers), but also in the context of social and sociological theory. Several factors have contributed to this condition. At least since the turn of the century, strong positivist trends in sociology have tended to deemphasize if not efface the individual in favour of larger collectivities or of quasi-organic, functional imperatives. During subsequent decades, philosophically more ambitious efforts-predicated on non-positivst premisses-were undertaken, seeking to explore the ontological underpinnings and the historical genesis of individual consciousness and autonomy. No doubt, efforts of this kind provided a valuable antidote to the modern infatuation with ‘subjectivity’ and egotentrism. an infatuation permeating in large measure both rationalist and empiricist perspectives in recent centuries. Nevertheless, if rashly or thoughtlessly pursued, the endeavour to ‘decentre the subject’ and to dislodge modem ‘egological’ metaphysics is prone to entail detrimental or noxious effects: practically/politically by lending implicit support to collectivist designs, and theoretically by obfuscating important themes of social analysis. For clearly, as long as the modem aspiration of human autonomy is still alive, ‘social action’-no matter how closely interwoven with non-intentional forces-is bound to remain a crucial sociological topic. Contemporary social theory offers few if any guideposts for tackling the topic in a manner congruent with its intrinsic complexity. Against this background, Anthony Giddens’ study must be seen as a rare exception and indeed as a major contribution to the task of formulating a post-metaphysical theory of human agency. Giddens, known as the author of a series of important and justly acclaimed texts on sociological theory,’ places his new study squarely in the context of the malaise or ‘state of disarray’ characterizing the social sciences today (pp. 2343 7 t t h e disarray resulting from the disintegration of the ‘orthodox consensus’ which prevailed in English-speaking countries during the post-war period and which was marked by the widespread endorsement of the ‘theory of industrial society’ (a society devoid of class conflicts and ideological fervour) and by the intellectual commitment t o various brands of positivism, especially ‘functionalism’ (associated with ‘the idea that biology provides the proximate model for sociology’) and ‘naturalism’ (understood to refer to ‘the thesis that the logical frameworks of natural and social science are in essential respects the same’). Surveying the ‘Babel of theoretical voices’ that ‘clamour for attention’ following the collapse of this consensus, Giddens (pp. 238-40) distinguishes
23 citations
TL;DR: Ley as discussed by the authors argues that the models of structuration which I discussed are scarcely foreign to either the particular or the general case: that repeated allusions to context identify the necessary limits to voluntarism and idealism, and that within the emerging tradition of humanistic geography these references typically flow from formulations like those of Berger and Luckmann which are so close to those of Giddens that it is incumbent upon me to spell out the differences between them.
Abstract: I am grateful to David Ley for his generous response to my commentary, although I should say that it was an invited review of Humanistic geography rather than an inclusive critique of humanistic geography. And on this basis I see little reason to change my previous evaluations. But one of Ley's central arguments is that the models of structuration which I discussed are scarcely foreign to either the particular or the general case: that the 'repeated allusions to context.., identify the necessary limits to voluntarism and idealism', and that within the emerging tradition of humanistic geography these references typically flow from formulations like those of Berger and Luckmann which are so close to those of Giddens that it is incumbent upon me to spell out the differences between them. Further, and closely connected to this, Ley regards my 'failure to examine the treatment of human agency by Marxist geographers' as 'indicative', in large measure because he considers the most successful attempts to substantiate the relations between agency and structure, culture and economy, to have distanced themselves from the formal theoretical protocols of historical materialism. I will discuss each of these in turn.
14 citations