Re: Multiple levels of context and sociological theory

From: Keith Sawyer (ksawyer@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 19 2002 - 13:37:42 PDT


Ricardo, I agree with you that the macro, or sociological, level is essential in any social-scientific study, even in psychology.  That's what makes us "socioculturalists" (in my terms).  But we haven't convinced everyone; there are still many die-hard methodological individualists out there, including most of mainstream psychology, but also a significant minority in the discipline of sociology (and of course pretty much all of contemporary economics).  That's why I have been exploring emergence theories--as a way of providing a better argument for the necessity of a collective level of analysis, a better argument against the methodological individualists. 

At 10:42 PM 4/17/02 -0300, you wrote:

Yes, I'd like to have permission for acessing it - the article.
 
Your thinking emerged much more clear to me after your clarifying explanation below. But I think, personally, that it would be something absolutelly unthinkable one to dischage the macro levels as conditions that contingence the construction of mind and subject. The subject, in my oppinion, is something elaborated, constructed over the individual. The individual seems to me our animal, strictly biological frame. So, the subject would be something built over it - our typically human nature raised over given biological condictions. 

R. Keith Sawyer

http://www.keithsawyer.com/
Assistant Professor
Department of Education
Washington University
Campus Box 1183
St. Louis, MO  63130
314-935-8724



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