Multi-level Methodology and Multi-world Ontology:
A Core Architecture of Realist Social Theory*

by 

Alexander Hong Lam Vu

Abstract: 

The central problem of social theorizing lies in the relations or mediations between system (in particular, structure and function), agency (particularly,action and subject) and time (in particular, history and process). Historically, these problems can be grouped in what I call the four micro-macro problems. In this paper, I show that Margaret Archer′s "morphogenetic approach" can be seen as an attempt to simultaneously address these four micro-macro problems. Reconstructing a core architecture of Archer′s model of sociological explanation, the "analytical dualism," I argue that this is a marriage of a two-level methodology based upon the distinction structure/interaction and a three-world ontology based on Karl Popper′s metaphysics. As such, Archer′s social theory shares a basic feature with Jürgen Habermas′s "theory of communicative action," Bernhard Giesen′s "evolution-theoretical model," and Manfred Hennen′s and Elisabeth Springer′s "basic schema of action theories." By pointing that out, I propose a hypothesis that a solution for the four-fold micro-macro problem would be a construct combining a multi-world ontology that allows the possibility of emergence in social reality and a multi-level methodology that provides a linkage between the different levels of social life.

 CONTENTS

1. The Four Problems of Social Theorizing

2. The Two Levels of Facts

3. The Three Worlds of Emergent Entities

4. The Interplay Between Levels and Worlds

5. A Hypothesis for Further Research

References

1. The Four Problems of Social Theorizing

It would not be exaggerated to say that the central problem of social theorizing1 lies in the relations or mediations between system (in particular, structure and function), agency (particularly, action and subject) and time (in particular, history and process). This problem arises due to a number of dichotomies. Historically, these various dichotomies can be grouped under four headings:

1. Local vs. Global, which refers to the dichotomy of the local scale, on which individuals interact, and the global scale, on which society as a system is identified;
2. Static vs. Dynamic, which refers to the dichotomy of the static aspect, which is a feature of situations and structures, and the dynamic aspect, which is a characteristic of interactions and processes;
3. Circular vs. Open, which refers to the dichotomy of the circular form of the generative mechanisms operating in focal complex of analysis - often called "recursivity" (e.g., Giddens 1984) or "self-reference" (e.g., Luhmann 1984) - and the open form of connections between levels of analysis;2 and
4. Continuous vs. Discontinuous, which refers to the dichotomy of the assumed continuous nature of history, which is often asserted by "grand narratives" (Lyotard), and the discontinuous nature of distinctive episodes, according to which there is no such thing as general plot for a historical process.

All these dichotomies can be seen as variants of an overall micro-macro problem. Thus, the four dichotomies listed above can be termed first order, second order, third order and fourth order micro-macro problem respectively. The theme of an overall micro-macro problem may be a controversial and therefore interesting topic. However, I will not dwell here since my central concern in this paper is not the micro-macro problem itself but the architecture of Margaret Archer′s "realist social theory" (Archer 1995) that elegantly seeks to respond to this central challenge in sociological theorizing.

It is tempting to reconcile dichotomies in the form of reduction, or "conflation" in Archer′s terminology. The two main traditions in methodology of social sciences, namely, methodological individualism and functionalism, both tend to be reductionistic or, to say with Archer, conflationary in their own ways. Methodological individualism follows a kind of theorizing that Archer terms "upwards conflation," while functionalism works with "downwards conflation." Upwards conflation asserts the primacy of agency and views "structural properties as reducible to the effects of other actors, which are in their turn always recoverable by agency" (Archer 1995: 84). On the other hand, downwards conflation "cede(s) the explanatory rights of social theory to human biology, individual psychology, economic inevitability, evolutionary adaptation or simply to speculative metaphysics" (ibid.). In short, downwards conflation tries to establish the explanation of social phenomena at a level outside of the one of agency. Although pure reductionism is rare and many of sociological theories tries to search for linkage between the micro and the macro levels (Alexander et al. 1987), the majority of them remains reductionist in their core, for they locate their respective theoretical (or explanatory) primacy at a single level.

In the recent time, we have witnessed another kind of conflation which does not reduce its theoretical primacy to the micro or the macro level and considers both as the two sides of the same coin. For our convenience, we can lay the theoretical primacy of this kind of theory somewhere between the micro and the macro levels. Archer calls it "central conflationism" and refers chiefly to Anthony Giddens′s theory of structuration3 as an example. Her realist social theory (or "morphogenetic approach") is thought to be a response to Giddens′s social theory, but it is in fact an enlarged response. The core idea of the realist social theory, which she terms "analytical dualism," seeks to avoid what she calls the "Fallacy of Conflation," whose three variants are downwards, upwards and central conflation. Basically, the fallacy of conflation means the refutation of the real status of emergent properties. By adopting the reality of emergent entities, viewing them as really (though not always actually) existent within time and space, the realist social theory tries to give resolute answers to the main questions raised by the four micro-macro problems as I have identified above.

[...]

NOTES

* This paper is given to the seminar "Der Beitrag Margaret Archers zur modernen soziologischen Theoriebildung", Institute for Sociology, University of Mainz, 1998-1999.

[1] There is an ideological and/or epistemological distinction between "social theory" and "sociological theory", which entails a division between social theorizing and sociological theorizing. This distinction is pushed forward by some post-modernist authors in order to categorically reject, among others, the micro-macro theme as one of the main concern in social theorizing (e.g., Seidman 1994). Their argument is that sociological theory has become more and more "divorced from current social movements and political struggles, and either ignorant of major political and moral public debates or unable to address them in ways that are compelling or even understandable by nontheorists" (Seidman 1992: 47). Or that sociological theory is founded on a positivist epistemology which is a kind of "scientific imperialism." However, the cleavage between rationalists and post-modernists can be seen as one of the facets of the micro-macro problem as I conceive of in this paper. Hence, I do not ideologically contrast social theory with sociological theory, nor do I reduce social to sociological theory. By sociological theory I mean that kind of social theory which is pursued within the discipline of sociology.

[2] The concept of level, as Niklas Luhmann correctly noted, "has been invented to exclude self-references insofar as they amount to tautologies or paradoxes" (Luhmann 1987: 126, original italic). In order to approach self-references as empirical phenomena, other concepts such as "duality" (of structure in Giddens 1984), "complex" (of power/knowledge in Foucault 1980), or "system" (Luhmann 1984) have been utilised. However, some authors still employ the concept of level to describe the collapse of the different levels and to approach, in this way, the problems of self-reference, circularity, "tangled hierarchy," and paradoxes (Luhmann 1987: 130f, fn. 69).