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Start Over Topic interactionism Publication Year Range Last 50 years Journal journal for the theory of social behaviour
3 results

1. Experience, Subjectivity, Selfhood: Beyond a Meadian Sociology of the Self.

Author

Zahavi, Dan and Zelinsky, Dominik

Subjects
*SELF, *SOCIOLOGY, *SUBJECTIVITY, *SOCIAL interaction, *PHENOMENOLOGY, *SOCIOLOGISTS
Abstract

Sociologists tend to see G. H. Mead's conceptualization of self as fundamentally correct. In this paper, we develop a critique of Mead's notion of the self as constituted through social interactions. Our focus will be on Mead's categorial distinction between the socially constructed self and subjective experience, as well as on the tendency of post‐Meadian sociologists to push Mead's position in ever more radical directions. Drawing inspiration from a multifaceted understanding of selfhood that can be found in Husserlian phenomenology, we then propose that the most basic level of selfhood is anchored in irreducible subjective experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2024
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2. Social positioning theory and quantum mechanics.

Author

Lawson, Tony

Subjects
*QUANTUM theory, *SOCIAL status, *QUANTUM mechanics, *SOCIAL theory, *QUANTUM information theory, *QUANTUM information science
Abstract

Social positioning theory, or an account of the human individual that it grounds, qualifies as a quantum social theory. This is an assessment that I explain and defend in the paper. It is of interest in that, in a world where increasing numbers are seeking to construct quantum social theories, it serves to help demonstrate that this goal can be achieved without giving up on meeting criteria like explanatory intelligibility or power or discarding real‐world notions like human (and other) entities. As it turns out, a central feature of the account defended and a core element of the 'standard' interpretation of quantum mechanics are found to stand in an interesting, unanticipated and suggestive relation to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2023
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3. Micro-situational Foundations of Social Structure: An Interactionist Exploration of Affective Sanctioning

Author

Irene Rafanell

Subjects
Sociological theory, Philosophy, Interactionism, Practice theory, Social Psychology, Performativity, Habitus, Performative utterance, Sociology, Situational ethics, Methodological individualism, General Psychology, Epistemology
Abstract

Micro-interaction dynamics of affective sanctioning have been widely acknowledged but rarely related to the emergence of social phenomena. This paper aims to highlight the constitutive force of interaction activity by critically analysing two sociological models, Bourdieu's theory of practice and Barnes's Performative Theory of Social Institutions (PTSI). Such a comparison allows me to reveal two differing models of social phenomena currently operating in sociological debates: an extrinsic structuralist model which tacitly conveys macro-structural phenomena as prior and determinant of individuals and their micro-interactions, and an intrinsic structuralism model which prioritizes individuals’ interactions and conceives them as constituting both the individual and the structural. I argue that the latter's emphasis on the dynamics of mutual susceptibility to affective sanctioning as underpinning consensus among inherently heterogeneous individuals provides a platform to further support the tenets of Interactionism and helps to expose Bourdieu's over-deterministic methodological individualism prevalent in most sociological theory. I conclude that by conceiving emotions as causal, rather than the effect of social forces, sociological theory can provide an explanation of both individual practices and systemic phenomena which resolves macro-structural tensions. In doing so, I suggest an ontological understanding of the “social” which supports the Interactionist central tenet that the local takes priority over wider structural phenomena.

Published
2013