An Evolutionary Approach to Emergence and Social Causation

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21159631
AutoresNuno Ornelas Martins (0000-0001-7966-6435, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, autor de correspondencia), Nuno Martins (0009-0003-4142-562X)
Año2011
Volumen10
Número2
Páginas192-218
Fecha de publicación2011-04-05
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Critical Realism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1476-7430 • E-ISSN: 1572-5138
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1558/jcr.v10i2.192
OpenAlexW2161210220
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas21

Rom Harr criticizes critical realism for ascribing causal powers to social structures, arguing that it is human individuals, and not social structures, that possess causal powers, and that a false conception of structural causation undermines the emancipatory potential of critical realism. I argue that an interpretation of the category of process as the spatio-temporalization of the category of structure, which underpins much evolutionary theory, provides the conceptual tools to explain how the critical realist transformational model of social activity can escape from Harr's criticism, leading to a general conception of social development within which various types of evolutionary processes can be identified as particular cases. I then argue that Tony Lawson's PVRS model provides an evolutionary perspective that enables the conceptualization of coercive power as selective pressure

Causation · Epistemology · Sociology · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Philosophy