Title: Social structure: a history of the concept
Source document: Pro-Fil. 2023, vol. 24, iss. 2, pp. 18-29
Extent
18-29
-
ISSN1212-9097 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/pf23-2-37336
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/digilib.79840
Type: Article
Language
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Rights access
open access
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
The concept of social structure, present in social ontology since the 19 th century, has been used in various, not always clearly specified, meanings. The present use of the concept has been decisively influenced by the elaborations in the hands of the so called "new structuralists" of the 1970s: Pierre Bourdieu, Roy Bhaskar and Anthony Giddens. To understand the contemporary developments, it is necessary to be acquainted with its formative influences. In the paper, we compare the approaches of Bha skar and Giddens, especially in the context of their mutual compatibility and the challenges facing anyone wanting to develop their own concept of social structure based on the elaborations of the concept by Bhaskar and Giddens. The most fundamental issues appear to be especially the mode of existence of social structures, the heterogeneous character of different kinds of social structures, and the transition from the ontology of the natural world to that of the social world by Bhaskar.
Note
The work on this paper was supported by the Czech Science Foundation grant No. 21-25233S.
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[13] Giddens, A. (1984): The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.
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[19] Lawson, T. (2016): Comparing conceptions of social ontology: emergent social entities and/or institutional facts? Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour46(4), 359–399. DOI 10.1111/jtsb.12126.
[20] Lawson, T. (2022): Social positioning theory. Cambridge Journal of Economics 46(1), 1–39. DOI 10.1093/cje/beab040.
[21] Lévi-Strauss, C. (1977 [1963]): Structural Anthropology. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
[22] Lizardo, O. (2010): Beyond the antinomies of structure: Levi-strauss, Giddens, Bourdieu, and Sewell. Theory and Society, 39, 651-688, DOI 10.1007/s11186-010-9125-1.
[23] Martin, J. L. (2009): Social structures, Princeton University Press.
[24] Menšík, J. (2018): Structuralism in Social Science: Obsolete or Promising? Teorie Vědy/Theory of Science 40(2), 129–132, DOI 10.46938/tv.2018.412.
[25] Nadel, S. F. (1957): The Theory of Social Structure, Glencoe: The Free Press.
[26] Parsons,T. (1966 [1937]): The Structure of Social Action, New York: The Free Press.
[27] Parsons,T. (1970 [1951]): The Social System, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
[28] Porpora, D. V. (1989): Four Concepts of Social Structure, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 19(2), pp. 195–211, DOI 10.1111/j.1468-5914.1989.tb00144.x.
[29] de Saussure, F. (2015 [1916]): Course in General Linguistics. London: Bloomsbury.
[30] Schatzki, T. R. (1990): Do Social Structures Govern Action? Midwest Studies In Philosophy 15(1), pp. 280–295, DOI 10.1111/j.1475-4975.1990.tb00218.x.
[31] Spencer, H. (1897 [1874]): The Principles of Sociology, New York: D. Appleton and company.