Product Description

Building on her seminal contribution to social theory in Culture and Agency, Margaret Archer develops here her morphogenetic approach, applying it to the problem of structure and agency. Since structure and agency constitute different levels of stratified social reality, each possesses distinctive emergent properties which are real and causally efficacious but irreducible to one another. The problem, therefore, is shown to be how to link the two rather than conflate them, as has been common theoretical practice. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world. The morphogenetic approach is the sociological complement of transcendental realism, and together they provide a basis for non-conflationary theorizing which is also of direct utility to the practising social analyst.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #195952 in Books
• Published on: 1995-10-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Customer Reviews

An abiological theory can't be realism!
Realist social theory, like much modern social thought, is defined by Judeo-Christian anthropocentrism which was reconfigured as a secular model during the enlightenment. This model places humans at the centre of the universe. Archer's theorising in this text is an example of the modern social scientific version of monotheistic anthropocentrism. This may seem paradoxical as Archer promulgates the notion of social structures as real entities that restrict and shape human behaviour. However, with Judeo-Christian folklore man [sic] is created and constrained by a transcendental deity; in Archer's ontology the reified object replacing god is society.

In both cases humans would seemingly be all-powerful were it not for the constraining input of a reified entity. In the case of realist social theory it is claimed that we would live in a context-less world and be completely free omnipotent agents were it not for an overarching societal level keeping us in check. However, sociological theory is a biology-free domain: Archer is always searching for the constraints over and above the individual, but no mention is made of biological constraints which underpin human activity. Humans are not separate from the natural world, despite the claims of monotheistic religions and social science. Structured patterns and regularities of human activity are not evidence for the causal influence of social structures; they are an outcome of the fact that we are subject to the algorithms of nature like every other creature on the planet.

The image of social theory presented in this book suggests that this sub-discipline provides rigorous underpinnings for sociology and that it incrementally advances in symbiosis with sociology's evolution. The actual aim of social theory, however, is the attempt to define and defend an academic niche which is exclusive to sociology. Real social structures are required as otherwise there are no separable and distinct phenomena in the social world that provide exclusive items of enquiry for sociology. Without these referents, sociology cannot be separated from psychology, which in turn cannot be separated from biology. Therefore, if sociological theory is to progress, it needs to be reconciled with biological theories: however, protection of parochial disciplinary boundaries is perhaps of greater concern to sociologists than genuine intellectual advancement.