Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 10:51:35 -0800 (PST) From: Gary D <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: HAB: re: Hab's sociocentrism --- Stephen Chilton <schilton-AT-d.umn.edu> wrote: >...what is termed the > "fallacy of composition": that there are no emergent properties > of a collection beyond the properties of its components. In > sociological theory this problem is known as the micro-macro > problem. Fallacy of composition is a very useful critical notion! I haven't happened to have heard of the phrase before, but its meaning is very familiar,in at least the gestaltist sense and the basic hermeneutical distinction between part / whole. However, accounting for the character or nature of the gestalt or the whole--accounting for the emergence--relative to the parts is as difficult an issue as accounting for mind relative to brain. John Searle says: The mind is what the brain does. So, to some extent--to *what* extent?--macro is what micro makes? Sociality is what inter-individuality constitutes? Searle writes of "the construction of social reality," as a cognitivist would. So, there's a delicious field of interrelated issues that can be seen to emerge--a gestalt of ontological character. > You (M.P.) will find that your concerns are > well-founded; societal development is like individual cognitive / > moral development, but other dynamics need to be introduced. But > at the end of the day, my analysis shows that H.'s use of > Piagetian theory remains valid. Following upon this, I'm reminded that Habermas believes that there is "isomorphism" between one-to-one and group-to-group. In TCA, the term is 'homology'. I like to keep in mind that this is all a matter of modelling in scientific inquiry. Emergence in a field is a discursive or model-theoretic notion, ontogenically based in lifeworld processes of perception, institutionally based in archeologies of description, and so on. Gary __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. All in one Place. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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