Causal Powers and Social Ontology
(2020) In Synthese 197(3). p.1357-1377- Abstract
Over the last few decades, philosophers and social scientists have applied the so-called powers ontology to the social domain. I argue that this application is highly problematic: many of the alleged powers in the social realm violate the intrinsicality condition, and those that can be coherently taken to be intrinsic to their bearers are arguably causally redundant. I end the paper by offering a diagnosis of why philosophers and social scientists have been tempted to think that there are powers in social realm.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/afafdab8-1e43-4549-a118-5f4032c1e27e
- author
- Hansson Wahlberg, Tobias LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2020
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Causal powers, Causation, Critical realism, Deontic powers, Dispositions, Emergence, Extrinsic, Intrinsic, Social ontology
- in
- Synthese
- volume
- 197
- issue
- 3
- pages
- 21 pages
- publisher
- Springer
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85044378846
- ISSN
- 1573-0964
- DOI
- 10.1007/s11229-018-1763-2
- project
- Causation in the Social Domain
- Metaphysics and Collectivity
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- afafdab8-1e43-4549-a118-5f4032c1e27e
- date added to LUP
- 2018-03-14 09:58:27
- date last changed
- 2022-04-25 05:49:32
@article{afafdab8-1e43-4549-a118-5f4032c1e27e,
abstract = {{<p>Over the last few decades, philosophers and social scientists have applied the so-called powers ontology to the social domain. I argue that this application is highly problematic: many of the alleged powers in the social realm violate the intrinsicality condition, and those that can be coherently taken to be intrinsic to their bearers are arguably causally redundant. I end the paper by offering a diagnosis of why philosophers and social scientists have been tempted to think that there are powers in social realm.</p>}},
author = {{Hansson Wahlberg, Tobias}},
issn = {{1573-0964}},
keywords = {{Causal powers; Causation; Critical realism; Deontic powers; Dispositions; Emergence; Extrinsic; Intrinsic; Social ontology}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{3}},
pages = {{1357--1377}},
publisher = {{Springer}},
series = {{Synthese}},
title = {{Causal Powers and Social Ontology}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1763-2}},
doi = {{10.1007/s11229-018-1763-2}},
volume = {{197}},
year = {{2020}},
}