Events

PhD Workshop: What’s the point of social ontology?

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What’s the Point of Social Ontology?
PhD Workshop at the University of Warwick
18th June 2014, 10am – 5:30pm

Ontology can often prove a contested and confusing issue within social research. Everyone has an ontology, explicit or otherwise, but the process of drawing this out and thinking through its implications for research can often be a confusing part of the PhD process. This participatory workshop explores the practical significance of ontological questions for social research, inviting participants to reflect on their own research projects in a collaborative and supportive context. It aims to help participants negotiate the sometimes abstruse matter of social ontology, linking theory to practice in the context of their own research projects. The main focus throughout the day will be on how ontological questions are encountered in social research, the questions posed by such encounters and how engaging explicitly with social ontology can often help resolve such issues.

All participants will offer a brief (5 minute) presentation of their research project and the ontological questions which have been or are expected to be encountered within it. Those still early in the PhD process are welcome to substitute this for a discussion of their research interests and potential project. We’d like to ask all participants to reflect in advance on their own social ontology and how it pertains to their project. Uncertainty here is not a problem, in fact it will be a useful contribution to discussions on the day!

We also invite two more substantial presentations (10 mins) for the first afternoon session, reflecting on your engagement with ontological questions in your own project in order to help begin a practical engagement which encompasses the entire group. If you would be interested in leading the discussion in this way then please make this known when registering.

To register please contact socialontology@warwick.ac.uk with a brief description of your research and your interest in social ontology (500 words or less) by May 15th. The event is free but places are limited. Travel bursaries are available, please ask for more details.

Events

From Modernity to Morphogenesis

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From Modernity to Morphogenesis was the CSO’s first annual invited workshop. The workshop was headed by Margaret Archer and the papers were published as Social Morphogenesis.

The workshop attendees were (in order of presentations):

Andrea Maccarini

Andrea Maccarini:
Network Dynamics and the regulatory process: a neo-structural approach to morphogenesis

Immanuel Lazéga

Emmanuel Lazéga:
Regularity and Emergence: two frontiers in the morphogenetic approach

Pierpaolo DonatiPierpaolo Donati:
Relations of Authority, obligations and roles

Ismael Al-Amoudi

Ismael Al-Amoudi:
The Morphogenesis of Social Networks: relational steering beyond positive and negative feedbacks

Wolfgang HofkirchnerWolfgang Hofkirchner:
Self-organizing as the mechanism of development and evolution in social systems

Kate Forbes-Pitt

Kate Forbes-Pitt:
Emergence: relating emergents and morphogenesis

Tony LawsonTony Lawson:
Emergence, Downward Causation and Causal Reduction

Doug Porpora

Doug Porpora:
Social Change as Morphogenesis

Colin WightColin Wight:
Morphogenesis, Continuity and Change in the International Political System

Workshop attendees

 

Announcement

Farewell, Margaret Archer († 21st May 2023)

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It is with great sadness that we share news of the death of Prof. Margaret Archer, who passed away on 21st May 2023.

Prof. Margaret Archer founded the Centre for Social Ontology in 2011 at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland). She led the Centre as its Director until 2017 and then as its General Editor.
For many members of the CSO, Maggie was a cherished friend in addition to being a colleague of outstanding talent, dedication and integrity.

Margaret Archer’s contributions to social theory are too vast, numerous and subtle to be adequately summarized on a single webpage. Over the coming months, members of the CSO will gather reflections on how she made a difference to the study of people, cultures and societies.

Overview of Margaret Archer’s research interests and accomplishments as she reflected on them

Updated list of Margaret Archer’s publications (will be complemented in the coming months)

Oil on canvas by von Tamm, ‘Still Life of Roses, Morning Glory, Carnations, Forget-Me-Nots and Other Flowers on a Stone Ledge, Together with a Bunch of Peaches’ (ca. 1700), Public Domain.

Events

IACR Conference 2023 – Manila, Philippines + Online, August 7-11

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The 2023 Annual Conference of the International Association for Critical Realism (IACR) will take place from the 9th to the 11th of August 2023 (+ pre-conference on the 7th and the 8th of August 2023). It will be hosted by the Gokongwei Brothers School of Education and Learning Design (GBSEALD) of the Ateneo de Manila University. All details of the event – including themes, call for papers, plenary speakers, submission timeline and transportation & accommodation information – can be found on the conference website here.

Other books

Research Features synthesis of Andrea Maccarini’s book Deep change and emergent structures in global society.

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The CSO is glad to share a two-page Research Features synthesis ‘Transition and the morphogenetic approach to social change’ of the book Deep change and emergent structures in global society: Explorations in social morphogenesis (2019) by Andrea Maccarini, professor of Sociology at the University of Padova (Italy), Department of Political Science, Law & International Studies.  

“Dr Maccarini explains: “The idea is that such an approach can help keep together chance, structural forces, human plans and agency in one model. The approach is focussed on the points where structure, culture, agency, and chance interact to generate, establish or reject social novelties.”” (Maccarini, cited by Research Features).

research-feature-transition-and-the-morphogenetic-approach-to-social-change-2021Download

Image from Ibex73, Wikipedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0

Academic articles

Are post-human technologies dehumanizing? Human enhancement and artificial intelligence in contemporary societies – Ismael Al-Amoudi.

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Ismael Al-Amoudi, Director of the CSO, Professor at Grenoble Ecole de Management, has recently published an article in the Journal of Critical Realism, entitled Are post-human technologies dehumanizing? Human enhancement and artificial intelligence in contemporary societies.

We are happy to highlight this article, in which Ismael Al-Amoudi mobilises a number of chapters published by CSO members within the latest book series ‘Post-human society and the future of humanity’, so to explore dehumanizing potentials of post-human technologies.

“I cannot state how much my thinking has benefitted from discussing and reading the works of other CSO writers while I was treading my own little path through the wonders of post-human society. This intellectual journey has allowed me to investigate the following question: post-human technologies offer great hopes and great perils to human beings, but in what sense are post-human technologies dehumanizing?” (Al-Amoudi, 2022, p. 521).

On that note, the CSO wishes all a fully human Christmastime!

Image from David S. Soriano, Wikipedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0

Book reviews

Book review: Carrigan, M., & Porpora, D. (Eds.). (2021). Post-human futures: Human enhancement, artifical intelligence and social theory. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

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Dr. Birgül Ulutaş (Eregli Faculty of Education, Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University, Zonguldak, Turkey) has just written a book review for Post‑Human Futures: Human Enhancement, Artificial
Intelligence and Social Theory. This third volume of the CSO’s latest book series on ‘Post-human society and the future of humanity’ was edited by Dr. Mark Carrigan and Prof. Douglas Porpora.

The review appears in the journal Postdigital Science and Education and can be accessed here.

“Post-Human Futures: Human Enhancement, Artificial Intelligence and Social Theory (Carrigan and Porpora 2021) distinguishes between the epistemological and the ontological realms and establishes a new humanism that will be meaningful to praxis.” (Ulutaş, 2022).

Image: ‘Humani Victus Instrumenta: Ars Coquinaria’ (Unknown Italian master, 1569), Public Domain.

Book reviews

Book review: Al-Amoudi, I., & Morgan, J. (Eds.). (2019). Realist responses to post-human society: Ex machina. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

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Prof. Andrew Sayer (Lancaster University, Sociology department) has just written a book review for Realist Responses to Post-Human Society: Ex Machina. This first volume of the CSO’s latest book series on ‘Post-human society and the future of humanity’ was edited by Profs. Ismael Al-Amoudi and Jamie Morgan.

The review appears in the journal Organization and can be accessed here.

“What comes across most clearly is that we cannot avoid issues of how we characterise the human, the nature of personhood, intelligence and the components of flourishing, and how we should value them vis-a-vis other species or intelligent machines” (Sayer, 2022).

Image from Geralt, CC0 1.0

Academic articles

Reading the Technological Society to Understand the Mechanization of Values and Its Ontological Consequences – Dirk Lindebaum et al.

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Dirk Lindebaum, Professor at Grenoble Ecole de Management, together with his co-authors Christine Moser of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Mehreen Ashraf of Cardiff Business School & Vern L. Glaser of University of Alberta, has recently published an article in the Academy of Management Review, entitled Reading the Technological Society to Understand the Mechanization of Values and Its Ontological Consequences.

The CSO is glad to share this essay article. It creatively reviews Jacques Ellul’s book The Technological Society to develop theories at the intersection of ‘technique’, ethics, organisations, institutions, and ontology.

Image from Pierre André Leclercq, CC BY-SA 4.0

Events

IACR Conference 2022 – The Hague + Zoom, August 8-12

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The 2022 Annual Conference of the International Association for Critical Realism (IACR) will take place from the 10th to the 12th of August 2022 (+ pre-conference on the 8th and the 9th of August 2022). It will be hosted by the International Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) in the Hague (Netherlands) part of the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. Details of the event, including themes this year centred around ‘Realist Complexity, between Causal and Complex Systems’ can be found on the conference website here.

Events

Roundtable discussion: The Limits of the Human in Post-human Society – Grenoble Ecole de Management, Jan 14 2022

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The ninth annual Centre for Social Ontology workshop will take place at Grenoble Ecole de Management from January 11th to January 14th, 2022. It will culminate in a roundtable with Prof. Margaret Archer and colleagues on the morning of Friday January 14th.

This roundtable is intended both as an intellectual exchange and as a celebration of the recent quadrilogy The Future of the Human.

Until the most recent decades, natural and social science could regard the ‘human being’ as their unproblematic point of reference, with monsters, clones and drones being acknowledged as fantasies dreamed up for the purposes of fiction or academic argument. In future, this common, taken for granted benchmark will be replaced by various amalgams of human biology supplemented by technology – a fact that has direct implications for democracy, social governance and human rights, owing to questions surrounding standards for social inclusion, participation and legal protection.

Considering the question of who or what counts as a human being and the challenges posed by anti-humanism, the implications for the global social order of the technological ability of some regions of the world to ‘enhance’ human biology, and the defence of humankind in the face of artificial intelligence, the books in this series examine the challenges posed to the universalism of humankind by various forms of anti-humanism, and seek to defend ‘human essentialism’ by accentuating the liabilities and capacities particular to human beings alone.

Those interested in attending are requested to RSVP before December 15th with Ismael Al-Amoudi: ismael[dot]al-amoudi[at]gmail.com.

Friday 14th January 2022, Grenoble Ecole de Management, room E341

09.30: Roundtable with Prof. Margaret Archer and colleagues from the Centre for Social Ontology
12:00: Light buffet
Events

IACR Conference 2021 – online, September 20-24

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The 2021 Annual Conference of the International Association for Critical Realism (#IACR2021) will be held online this year. Hosted by Rhodes University and the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa), it will take place via Zoom from the 20th to the 24th of September. Details of the event, including subthemes this year centred around the unifying theme of emancipation, can be found here.