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Comparing Conceptions of Social Ontology: Emergent Social Entities and/or Institutional Facts?
Author(s) -
Lawson Tony
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/jtsb.12126
Subject(s) - citation , social ontology , sociology , ontology , foundation (evidence) , library science , epistemology , political science , computer science , law , philosophy
It is commonplace, if erroneous, to suppose that worldviews (or ontological conceptions) that underpin, or are presupposed by, substantive analyses and/or methodological stances are somehow beyond interrogation2. This is thought to be especially so regarding social ontological orientations (see discussion in Lawson 2014). To the contrary ontological conceptions, including those relating to the social realm, are easily shown to be subject to empirical assessment in both absolute terms (see e.g. Lawson 2003 chapter 2; Lawson 2014) and in comparison to the explanatory power of competing accounts (see e.g., Lawson 2014,2015a).