Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 08:59:54 -0600 (MDT)
From: Hans Ehrbar <ehrbar-AT-econ.utah.edu>
Subject: Origins



Dear Seminar participants:

My apologiex if the following summary of the ongoing discussion
simplifies things too much and omits some of the finer points:

Greg pointed out a circularity in Bhaskar's theory.  On
the one hand, Bhaskar says that society pre-exists people:
"people do not create society.  For it always pre-exists
them and is a necessary condition for their activity."

On the other hand, Bhaskar also says that society exists
only in the actions of people.  This implies that people
pre-exist society.

Can a theory which makes such contradictory claims
about the relation between people and society be correct?

My answer would be: yes, both of these claims about society
are correct.  Society generates the conditions and
constraints for people to act, and people, through their
actions, reproduce and transform society.  This circularity
does exist in reality, just as the circularity between
chicken and eggs exists in reality.

But the circularity of this relationship allows us to draw
one conclusion: the relationship between individuals and
society cannot always have been the one we see today.  Greg
conjectured that perhaps a long time back methodological
individualism was correct.  This would solve the logical
puzzle, but so would the opposite conjecture, that a long time
back an upwards reduction of the individual to the
the precurser of society was right, i.e., that the individual
animal only saw itself and acted as part of the herd.

If one argues this way, one assumes that both individuals
and societies have their separate histories, which (in my
view) is an important and little appreciated implication of
Bhaskar's hiatus between individual and society.


If I understand Victor and Grant right, they try to escape
the circularity by saying: society does not exist in the
actions of people, but society is a potential in nature and
human nature which may or may not be realized.  This view
assumes that people could exist without society, they could
be as smart as we and have the same potentialities as we but
society would not exist.  This is an empirical question, but
I don't think it is the case.

However, I agree with Victor and Grant that the definition
"society consists of relations" seems a little thin.
Individuals are forced to enter these relations because only
within these relations can they produce, i.e., meet their
bodily needs.  Society is therefore essentially a production
organism.  Functioning relations between individuals are
necessary for this, but a functioning production apparatus
is necessary too.  I.e., society not only has a nervous
system but also a stomach.


--Hans.



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