The Causal Power of Social Structures: Emergence, Structure and Agency
Cambridge University Press (2010)
Abstract |
The problem of structure and agency has been the subject of intense debate in the social sciences for over 100 years. This book offers a solution. Using a critical realist version of the theory of emergence, Dave Elder-Vass argues that, instead of ascribing causal significance to an abstract notion of social structure or a monolithic concept of society, we must recognise that it is specific groups of people that have social structural power. Some of these groups are entities with emergent causal powers, distinct from those of human individuals. Yet these powers also depend on the contributions of human individuals, and this book examines the mechanisms through which interactions between human individuals generate the causal powers of some types of social structures. The Causal Power of Social Structures makes particularly important contributions to the theory of human agency and to our understanding of normative institutions.
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Reprint years | 2011 |
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ISBN(s) | 9780521194457 9781107402973 1107402972 0521194458 |
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Citations of this work BETA
Why Critical Realists Ought to Be Transcendental Idealists.Guus Duindam - 2018 - Journal of Critical Realism 17 (3):297-307.
Philosophical Purpose and Purposive Philosophy: An Interview with Nicholas Rescher.Nicholas Rescher & Jamie Morgan - 2019 - Journal of Critical Realism 19 (1):58-77.
Elder-Vass on the Causal Power of Social Structures.Tobias Hansson Wahlberg - 2014 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 44 (6):774-791.
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