The Ontology of Social Practices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25365/jso-2023-7701Keywords:
group action, group agency, group reasons, social constructionism, social practicesAbstract
Although social practices are widely considered to be essential building blocks in the construction of our social world, there is not much of an agreement regarding what kind of entities they are and what constitutes their nature. As an attempt to make progress in this direction, I provide here a general account of their ontology. By implementing specific resources from contemporary social ontology and collective intentionality, I argue that social practices are composite, material entities socially constructed by organised social groups through their individual members acting according to collective reasons. With this, I intend to contribute towards the understanding of both the reality of social practices and their role in the construction of other social entities; particularly, artifacts and institutions.
References
Baker, L R (1997). “Why Constitution is Not Identity”. The Journal of Philosophy 94(12), pp. 599–621. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2564596.
Baker, L R (2007). The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511487545.
Barnes, B (2001). “Practice as collective action”. In: The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. Ed. by Theodore Schatzki, Karin Knorr, and Eike von Savigny. New York: Routledge, pp. 25–36.
Bourdieu, P (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davidson, D (2006). The Essential Davidson. New York: Oxford University Press.
Epstein, B (2019). “What are social groups? Their metaphysics and how to classify them”. Synthese 196, pp. 4899–4932. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1387-y.
Garcia-Godinez, M (2020a). “What Are Institutional Groups?” In: Social Ontology, Normativity and Law. Ed. by Miguel Garcia-Godinez, Rachael Mellin, and Raimo Tuomela. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 39–62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110663617-004.
Garcia-Godinez, M (2020b). The Institutional Nature of Law: An Ontological Analysis. PhD thesis. University of Glasgow.
Garcia-Godinez, M (2023). “Easy Social Ontology”. In: Thomasson on Ontology. Ed. by Miguel Garcia-Godinez. London: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 183–208. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23672-3_9.
Giddens, A (1984). The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goswick, D (2020). “Constructivism in Metaphysics”. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. URL: https://iep.utm.edu/con-mphy/.
Griffith, A (2018). “Social Construction and Grounding”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97(2), pp. 393–409. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12376.
Hacking, I (1999). The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1bzfp1z.
Hale, B (1998). “Abstract Objects”. In: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780415249126-N080-1.
Hart, H. L. A. (1994). The Concept of Law. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Haslanger, S (2018). “What is a Social Practice?” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 82, pp. 231–247. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1358246118000085.
Haugeland, J (1998). Having Thought: Essays in the metaphysics of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hilpinen, R (1993). “Authors and Artifacts”. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 93, pp. 155–178. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/93.1.155.
Holtz, G (2014). “Generating Social Practices”. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 17(1), pp. 1–17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18564/jasss.2333.
Kuhn, T (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ludwig, K (2016). “From Individual to Plural Agency. Collective Action I”. In: New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198755623.001.0001.
MacCormick, N (2007). Institutions of Law: An Essay in Legal Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198267911.001.0001.
Mcmillan, K (2018). The Constitution of Social Practices. New York: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315179902.
Oakeshott, M (1975). On Human Conduct. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Polanyi, M (2009). The Tacit Dimension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Reckwitz, A (2002). “Toward a Theory of Social Practices. A Development in Culturalists Theorizing”. European Journal of Social Theory 5(2), pp. 243–63. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310222225432.
Ritchie, K (2018). “Social Creationism and Social Groups”. In: Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice. Ed. by Kendy Hess, Violetta Igneski, Tracy Lynn Isaacs, et al. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, pp. 13–34.
Ritchie, K (2020). “Social Structures and the Ontology of Social Groups”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100(2), pp. 402–424. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12555.
Rouse, J (2007a). “Social Practices and Normativity”. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 37(1), pp. 46–56. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0048393106296542.
Rouse, J (2007b). “Practice Theory”. In: Philosophy of Anthropology and Sociology. Ed. by Stephen Turner and Mark Risjord. Elsevier, pp. 639–681.
Salice, A (2015). “There are no primitive we-intentions”. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6(4), pp. 695–715. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-014-0203-6.
Schaffer, J (2017). “Social construction as grounding; or: fundamentality for feminists, a reply to Barnes and Mikkola”. Philosophical Studies 174, pp. 2449–2465. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0738-8.
Schatzki, T (1996). Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511527470.
Searle, J (1990). “Collective Intentions and Actions”. In: Intentions in Communication. Ed. by Philip Cohen, Jerry Morgan, and Martha Pollack. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 401–415.
Searle, J (1995). The Construction of Social Reality. London: Penguin Press.
Searle, J (2003). “Social Ontology and Political Power”. In: Socializing Metaphysics. The Nature of Social Reality. Ed. by Frederick Schmitt. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, pp. 195–210.
Sheehy, P (2003). “Social Groups, Explanation and Ontological Holism”. Philosophical Papers 32(2), pp. 193–224. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/05568640309485123.
Thomasson, A (2007a). Ordinary Objects. New York: Oxford University Press.
Thomasson, A (2007b). “Artifacts and Human Concepts”. In: Creations of the Mind: Theories of Artifacts and Their Representation. Ed. by Eric Margolis and Stephen Laurence. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 52–73.
Thomasson, A (2013). “The Ontological Significance of Constitution”. The Monist 96(1), pp. 54–72. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/monist20139613.
Thomasson, A (2019). “The Ontology of Social Groups”. Synthese 196, pp. 4829–4845. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1185-y.
Tollefsen, D (2015). Groups as Agents. Polity Press.
Tuomela, R (2002). The Philosophy of Social Practices. A Collective Acceptance View. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511487446.
Tuomela, R (2007). The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View. New York: Oxford University Press.
Tuomela, R (2008). “Collective Intentionality and Group Reasons”. In: Concepts of Sharedness. Essays on Collective Intentionality. Ed. by Hans Bernhard Schmid, Katinka Schulte-Ostermann, and Nikos Psarros. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110327175.
Tuomela, R (2013). Social Ontology. Collective Intentionality and Group Agents. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199978267.001.0001.
Turner, S (1994). The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge and Presuppositions. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Wasserman, R (2017). “Material Constitution”. In: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. by Edward Zalta. URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/material-constitution/.
Weinberger, O (1986). “The Norm as Thought and as Reality”. In: An Institutional Theory of Law. New Approaches to Legal Positivism. Ed. by Neil MacCormick and Ota Weinberger. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, pp. 31–48.
Wittgenstein, L (1972). Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Miguel Garcia Godinez
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
