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How to think of ‘social reality’?

SOSC 1000

Lecture 4

Jan Krouzil PhD

May 20, 2021

Agenda

Announcements

Part I What is meant by 'social reality’?

Part II Hermeneutic phenomenology

Keywords

Readings & supplementary sources

Part I What is meant by 'social reality’? (1)

Conceptions of ‘social reality’

‘social realities’ are all around us

think of cocktail parties, football games, bar mitzvahs, political rallies, even nations

all made up of ‘social entities’

‘social entity’ can be defined in reference to ‘the separate existence of an organization that is perceived to exist by its members and the public at large as a given, i.e. something that exists before and outside of them.’

‘social realities’ are creations of not individual human minds, but

collectives of human minds

by their very nature, they are mostly founded on agreement (or contract)

What is meant by 'social reality’? (2)

humans are immersed both physically (somatically) and virtually in

a universe of ever changing ‘social realities’

they play a major role both in determining how humans live and how well they live

the social realm affects not only how humans relate to one another

but also how they interact with the rest of the biological and

physical realms

science, for example, is a complex social undertaking by which humans collectively seek to understand the physical, biological, and even the social realm itself

What is meant by 'social reality’? (3)

The constitution of the ‘social reality’

virtually all social entities are 'plastic’ - their properties change significantly over time, as a result of the purposive and unintentional behavior of the socially constructed individuals who make up a society

organizations, labor unions, universities, churches, and social identities all show a substantial degree of flexibility and fluidity over time, and this fact leads to a substantial degree of heterogeneity among groups of similar social organizations and institutions

the properties of a social entity or practice can change over time

they are not rigid, fixed, timeless; they are not bound into consistent and unchanging categories of entities

such as 'bureaucratic state', 'Islamic society', or 'leftist labor organization’

‘molecules of water preserve their physical characteristics no matter what. But in contrast to natural substances such as gold or water, social things can change their properties indefinitely.' (Little 2007)

What is meant by 'social reality’? (4)

the objects studied by social science include ‘social structure’

e.g., kinship structure, historical events, artistic and political movements, types of government, socio-economic classes, historical eras, technology, and the functioning of a market economy

if there is something like ‘social reality’ then all social

phenomena and thus all objects of social inquiry will be aspects

or parts of it

an account of social reality possible as a comprehensive account of the constitution of all objects of social science

‘social reality’ can be conceived of as the concrete, empirical reality of actual social life

What is meant by 'social reality’? (5)

What is meant by the expression 'social reality’?

‘reality’ is the totality of what (actually) ‘exists’

‘social reality’ can be formally and neutrally defined as part of

what is ‘social’

is experience giving us access to ‘reality’?

‘reality’ is there for the most part independent of any particular person’s experience

yet experience is something by means of which people apprehend reality

What is meant by 'social reality’? (6)

What does the word 'social’ refer to?

'socialis’ (Latin) connotes companionship

in modern times the word 'social' is used to qualify any mode of human coexistence

social reality is that part of the world to which experience gives us access that constitutes the realm of human coexistence

‘social reality’ consists in the interrelatedness of the continuous passage of different people's lives

in the interrelatedness of what determines, occurs in, and is produced by human lives

interrelated ongoing lives as the concrete, empirical reality in which actual social existence consists

What is meant by 'social reality’? (7)

Components of ‘social reality’ (Schatzki 1988)

analyzing ongoing life, or moment-to-moment existence, as series of

actions that are governed by ‘practical intelligibility’ and

performed in interconnected, local settings

‘practical intelligibility’ is what makes sense to an actor to do

it governs action by determining what an actor does

making sense to a person to perform a particular action is an instance

of ‘rationality’

what makes sense to people are actions that are considered to be permitted, appropriate, prudent, efficacious, sensible, called for, and so on

What is meant by 'social reality’? (8)

what makes sense to a person to do is determined by a range

of 'intelligibility-determining factors’

ends, ideas (including concepts and thoughts), mattering, knowledge, tasks and projects, rules, paradigms, customs, and setting

‘setting’ plays a dual role in ongoing existence

many actions are taken toward and in response to the people, events, and objects encountered in settings

the actions and entities people encounter in settings help shape which particular intelligibility-determining factors determine what makes sense to them to do

What is meant by 'social reality’? (9)

people become familiar with particular rules, paradigms, ideas, and

so on, for instance, by encountering books, movies, actions, including

linguistic actions, etc

the role that persuasion, indoctrination, threats, and pedagogy also plays in molding what makes sense to people to do

types of interrelations between lives

individual lives are not fully-formed atoms which exist independently of the external relations they maintain among one another, the entering into which would, on an atomistic way of thinking, constitute social existence

not only do lives take shape through interaction with one another but an individual life, merely by being a life, is thereby entangled in a multitude of interrelations

What is meant by 'social reality’? (10)

‘social reality’ consists in interrelated ongoing lives

the phenomena in which ‘social reality’ has its ‘being’ are the

phenomena constituting and interrelating live

actions

intelligibility-determining factors

the entities found in settings

interrelations

What is the significance of this account of social reality?

implications for the constitution of social phenomena and the

character of social inquiry

‘social construction of reality’ (Berger and Luckmann 1966)

What is meant by 'social reality’? (11)

Overarching social formations

embracing a plurality of lives, e.g., economic systems, political alliances, wars, football games, peer groups, conversations, artistic movements, and historical events

all these formations are parts of ‘social reality’

consist in combinations of phenomena of actions, entities in settings, intelligibility-determining factors, and interrelations

since ‘social reality’ consists in interrelated ongoing lives,

all social phenomena and facts must have their ‘being’ in

features of the nexus of lives

Part II Hermeneutic phenomenology (1)

Keywords - phenomenon, logos and hermeneutics

phenomenon (or phainomenon)

rooted in Greek language and derived from the verb phainesthai, meaning ‘to show itself’ (to manifest itself)

the meaning of the expression ‘phenomenon’ is established as ‘what shows itself in itself (in ‘the form of intuition’) (Heidegger 1962)

to clarify n which sense phenomenology can be ‘a science of’ phenomena the meaning of logos must be delimited

Hermeneutic phenomenology (2)

logos

can be literally translated to ‘apophantic speech’

translated and interpreted, as reason, judgment, concept, definition, ground, and relation

something to be seen (phainesthai) - what is being talked about

for the speaker or for those who speak with each other (i.e., subject matter)

phenomenology

can be defined as a universal a priori science which is the self-founding first philosophy (prima philosophia) articulated through rigorous and exhaustive

descriptive investigations of the phenomena of consciousness

Hermeneutic phenomenology (3)

human consciousness embraces transcendence in the limit concept of God

the insight that everything that actually exists is a ‘this-here-now’

hermeneutics

theory of understanding and interpretation of linguistic and non-linguistic expressions

the hermeneutic tradition stretches all the way back to ancient Greek philosophy

in the course of the middle Ages and the Renaissance emerges as a crucial branch of Biblical studies

Hermeneutic phenomenology (4)

later on it comes to include the study of ancient and classic cultures

with the emergence of German romanticism and idealism the status of hermeneutics changes and it turns to the conditions of possibility for ‘symbolic communication’ as such

the question ‘How to read?’ is replaced by the question, ‘How do we communicate at all?’

now hermeneutics is not only about symbolic communication - its area is even more fundamental – that of human life and existence as such

hermeneutics provides the critical horizon for many of the most intriguing discussions of contemporary schools of thought

as an interrogation into the deepest conditions for symbolic interaction and culture in general

Hermeneutic phenomenology (5)

‘Life as a text’

to understand this ‘text’ we need to employ a method to

interpret this text

this method must cover ontological questions and the most fundamental questions one is faced with

‘What is Being?’ is such a question and it should be understood in

relation to the whole text it is rooted in

hermeneutics as ontology - about the most fundamental conditions of man's being in the world

Hermeneutic phenomenology (6)

hermeneutic phenomenology sets out to overthrow what it takes to be the Cartesian trajectory of the modern conception of reason (‘Cogito ergo sum’)

for Descartes the task of philosophy is to show how the subject can rationally establish the norms of epistemic certainty whereby a given representation is judged to be ‘true or false’ (Heidegger 1962)

such a position leads to a conception of truth in terms of the methods provided by the natural sciences alone

such a model tends to forget the most fundamental, pre-scientific aspects of our being in the world

‘the hermeneutics of facticity’ (Heidegger 1962)

Hermeneutic phenomenology (7)

phenomenology becomes hermeneutical when its method is taken to be interpretive rather than purely descriptive

every form of human awareness is interpretive

poetry and art as expressive works for interpreting the nature of truth, language, thinking, dwelling, and being (Heidegger)

meanings are not given directly to us - we must make a hermeneutic detour through the symbolic apparatus of the culture (Ricoeur)

Hermeneutic phenomenology (7)

Hermeneutic phenomenology (text and context)

concerned with the life world or human experience as it is

lived - ‘Being in the World’ (‘Dasein’)

examines how human meanings are deposited and mediated through myth, religion, art, and language

the focus is toward illuminating details and seemingly trivial aspects within experience that may be taken for granted in our lives, with a goal of creating meaning and achieving a sense of understanding (Wilson & Hutchinson, 1991)

views humans as primarily concerned Beings with an emphasis on their fate in an alien world (Heidegger)

Hermeneutic phenomenology (8)

Keywords

social construction of reality

action/practical intelligibility

setting

interrelations

overarching social formations

phenomenon

logos

hermeneutic phenomenology

epistemic certainty