Subject: RE: Emergence
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 08:29:58 -0500


i don't find the either-or statements below (societal behavior causing
individual behavior or vice-vers) helpful to my thinking about how the world
works.  i see billions of people acting alone and in groups of common
interest ("nations", "clubs", "interest groups", "classes", etc.) as
jostling for survival, power, expression, etc.

then try to make some "sense" of this world-wide jostling around!  Marx
tried to do that, it seems.

norm


-----Original Message-----
From: Ruth Groff [mailto:rgroff-AT-yorku.ca]
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 2:04 AM
To: seminar-14-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Emergence


Hi guys,

This is just a small point, but the question of whether, on Bhaskar's
technical definition of "emergence," individuals emerge out of society or
society emerges out of individuals is an interesting one.  

I haven't thought a lot about this stuff, but I guess that I have always
thought that it's the latter -- that, for RB, it is society that is the
emergent reality.  I think there's probably some textual support for this.
In ch 5 of *Reclaiming Reality* for sure, which means in PON too.  

But Victor's post made me think about how RB very specifically says that
social structures are the material causes (very much in the Aristotelian
sense) of individual agency.  This might be all it takes to make a case for
it being individuals that emerge out of social relations, rather than the
reverse.  I don't know.  I don't think it can be both ways, though.

r.  




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