Tero Piiroinen
Biographic Data
| ID | 357730 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tero Piiroinen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tero |
| FAMILY NAME | Piiroinen |
| SIGNATURE | PIIROINEN T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Turku |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6560-5428 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 73 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Autonomous Agency in Anti‐Dualistic Social Ontologies: A Compatibilist Notion
Anti‐dualistic social ontologies, those highlighting the intrinsic interdependency of agency and structure as two sides of the same coin, are sometimes criticized for failing to provide a satisfactory account of autonomous – capable and free – agency, or even denying the reality of such agency. This paper contests these claims, arguing that anti‐dualistic ontologies only conflict with autonomous agency when the latter is understood in a highly vo…
Epoch‐Making Changes in the Cultural Evolution of Communication: Communication technologies seen as organized hubs of skillful human activities
This paper applies methodological relationalism, leaning on a pragmatist theory of action of classical Deweyan origin, supplemented among other things with Alva Noë’s enactivism, to analyze the development of communication technologies as a part of human cultural evolution. Tool‐use and technologies are understood as skillful human activities that form hubs of organized activity in developed human communities. Appreciating the quite slow pace of …
Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism in Sociological Understanding of Evolving Human Culture
A meaning holistic (dis)solution of subject–object dualism – its implications for the human sciences
This article presents and analyses a social-practice contextualist version of meaning holism, whose main root lies in American pragmatism. Proposing that beliefs depend on systems of language-use in social practices, which involve communities of people and worldly objects, such meaning holism effectively breaks down the Enlightenment tradition’s philosophical subject–object dualism (and scepticism). It also opens the human mind up for empirical r…
The evolution of Homo Discens: Natural selection and human learning
This article takes an evolutionary “reverse engineering” standpoint on Homo discens , learning man, to track down the (learning) mechanisms that played a pivotal role in the natural selection of human being. The approach is “evolutionary sociological”—as opposed to gene‐centred or psychologising—and utilises notions of co‐evolutionary organism–environment transactions and niche construction. These are compatible with a Deweyan theory of action, w…
Relationalism
The term “relationalism” covers a variety of positions that emphasize the importance of some sort of relation in sociological theory or research. Many of these positions are ontological, but there are also epistemological and purely methodological relationalisms. Although they do not constitute a single unified school of thought, there are certain family resemblances between these positions, and there have been attempts to collaborate, even to st…
For 'Central Conflation: A Critique of Archerian Dualism
Taking a side in the debate over ontological emergentism in social theory, this article defends an outlook that Margaret S. Archer has dubbed 'central conflation': an antidualistic position appreciating the interdependency of agency and structure, individuals and society. This has been a popular outlook in recent years, advocated broadly by such theorists as Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins, and Anthony Giddens. However, antidualism has been chal…
Human Transaction Mechanisms in Evolutionary Niches—a Methodological Relationalist Standpoint
There is a great variety of relationalisms on offer for social scientists these days (see, e.g., Archer, 1995; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Dépelteau, 2008; Emirbayer, 1997; Fuchs, 2001; Kivinen and Piiroinen, 2006; Powell, 2007; Tilly, 2001). Some of the most interesting ones of them share an anti-dualistic vein of thought that can be traced back to John Dewey (e.g., [1920] 1988a, pp. 187–198; [1925–1927] 1988c, pp. 355–356) and Norbert Elias (e…
On the Distinctively Human: Two Perspectives on the Evolution of Language and Conscious Mind
In this paper, two alternative naturalistic standpoints on the relations between language, human consciousness and social life are contrasted. The first, dubbed “intrinsic naturalism,” is advocated among others by the realist philosopher John Searle; it starts with intrinsic intentionality and consciousness emerging from the brain, explains language as an outgrowth of consciousness and ends with institutional reality being created by language‐use…
Hacia un relacionalismo metodológico pragmático. De la filosofización de la sociología a la sociologización de la filosofía
En el presente artículo se analizan los enfoques relacionalistas de las ciencias sociales en términos de una distinción conceptual entre la "filosofización de la sociología" y la "sociologización de la filosofía". Estos marcan dos actitudes diferentes con respecto a la metafísica filosófica y sus compromisos ontológicos. El pragmatismo de los autores tiene su origen en el relacionalismo metodológico de Dewey, el cual se compara con los enfoques r…
Hacia un relacionalismo pragmático metodológico: De Una Filosofización De La Sociología a Una Socialización De La Filosofía
En este artículo se analizan los enfoques relacionalistas en ciencias sociales en términos de una distinción conceptual entre ¿filosofizando la sociología¿ y ¿sociologizando la filosofía¿. Estos marcan dos diferentes actitudes hacia la metafísica filosófica y sus compromisos ontológicos. El pragmatismo de los autores tiene origen en el relacionalismo metodológico de Dewey, el cual es comparado con los compromisos ontológicos de los enfoques reali…
Sociologizing metaphysics and mind: A pragmatist point of view on the methodology of the social sciences
Toward Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism: From Philosophizing Sociology to Sociologizing Philosophy
In this article, relationalist approaches to social sciences are analyzed in terms of a conceptual distinction between “philosophizing sociology” and “sociologizing philosophy.” These mark two different attitudes toward philosophical metaphysics and ontological commitments. The authors’ own pragmatist methodological relationalism of Deweyan origin is compared with ontologically committed realist approaches, as well as with Bourdieuan methodologic…
On the Limits of a Realist Conception of Knowledge: A Pragmatist Critique of Archerian Realism
In her book Being Human (2000), Margaret Archer presents intriguing pragmatist emphases on practice, embodiment and non-linguistic knowing-how, as regards to understanding humanity. However, as Archer attempts to conjoin these ideas with the morphogenetic realism she has been working on for the last few decades, she ends up holding on to a subject-object dualism, which makes things complicated. The authors' alternative pragmatist account defended…
The Relevance of Ontological Commitments in Social Sciences: Realist and Pragmatist Viewpoints
The article discusses the relevance of ontology, the metaphysical study of being, in social sciences through a comparison of three distinct outlooks: Roy Bhaskar's version of critical realism, a pragmatic realist approach the most renowned representatives of which are Rom Harré and Hilary Putnam, and the authors’ own synthesis of the pragmatist John Dewey's and the neopragmatist Richard Rorty's ideas, here called methodological relationalism. The…
The Relevance of Ontological Commitments in Social Sciences: Realist and Pragmatist Viewpoints
The article discusses the relevance of ontology, the metaphysical study of being, in social sciences through a comparison of three distinct outlooks: Roy Bhaskar's version of critical realism, a pragmatic realist approach the most renowned representatives of which are Rom Harré and Hilary Putnam, and the authors’ own synthesis of the pragmatist John Dewey's and the neopragmatist Richard Rorty's ideas, here called methodological relationalism. The…
For 'Central Conflation: A Critique of Archerian Dualism
Taking a side in the debate over ontological emergentism in social theory, this article defends an outlook that Margaret S. Archer has dubbed 'central conflation': an antidualistic position appreciating the interdependency of agency and structure, individuals and society. This has been a popular outlook in recent years, advocated broadly by such theorists as Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins, and Anthony Giddens. However, antidualism has been chal…
Toward Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism: From Philosophizing Sociology to Sociologizing Philosophy
In this article, relationalist approaches to social sciences are analyzed in terms of a conceptual distinction between “philosophizing sociology” and “sociologizing philosophy.” These mark two different attitudes toward philosophical metaphysics and ontological commitments. The authors’ own pragmatist methodological relationalism of Deweyan origin is compared with ontologically committed realist approaches, as well as with Bourdieuan methodologic…
Sociologizing metaphysics and mind: A pragmatist point of view on the methodology of the social sciences
On the Limits of a Realist Conception of Knowledge: A Pragmatist Critique of Archerian Realism
In her book Being Human (2000), Margaret Archer presents intriguing pragmatist emphases on practice, embodiment and non-linguistic knowing-how, as regards to understanding humanity. However, as Archer attempts to conjoin these ideas with the morphogenetic realism she has been working on for the last few decades, she ends up holding on to a subject-object dualism, which makes things complicated. The authors' alternative pragmatist account defended…
On the Distinctively Human: Two Perspectives on the Evolution of Language and Conscious Mind
In this paper, two alternative naturalistic standpoints on the relations between language, human consciousness and social life are contrasted. The first, dubbed “intrinsic naturalism,” is advocated among others by the realist philosopher John Searle; it starts with intrinsic intentionality and consciousness emerging from the brain, explains language as an outgrowth of consciousness and ends with institutional reality being created by language‐use…
A meaning holistic (dis)solution of subject–object dualism – its implications for the human sciences
This article presents and analyses a social-practice contextualist version of meaning holism, whose main root lies in American pragmatism. Proposing that beliefs depend on systems of language-use in social practices, which involve communities of people and worldly objects, such meaning holism effectively breaks down the Enlightenment tradition’s philosophical subject–object dualism (and scepticism). It also opens the human mind up for empirical r…
The evolution of Homo Discens: Natural selection and human learning
This article takes an evolutionary “reverse engineering” standpoint on Homo discens , learning man, to track down the (learning) mechanisms that played a pivotal role in the natural selection of human being. The approach is “evolutionary sociological”—as opposed to gene‐centred or psychologising—and utilises notions of co‐evolutionary organism–environment transactions and niche construction. These are compatible with a Deweyan theory of action, w…
Epoch‐Making Changes in the Cultural Evolution of Communication: Communication technologies seen as organized hubs of skillful human activities
This paper applies methodological relationalism, leaning on a pragmatist theory of action of classical Deweyan origin, supplemented among other things with Alva Noë’s enactivism, to analyze the development of communication technologies as a part of human cultural evolution. Tool‐use and technologies are understood as skillful human activities that form hubs of organized activity in developed human communities. Appreciating the quite slow pace of …
Relationalism
The term “relationalism” covers a variety of positions that emphasize the importance of some sort of relation in sociological theory or research. Many of these positions are ontological, but there are also epistemological and purely methodological relationalisms. Although they do not constitute a single unified school of thought, there are certain family resemblances between these positions, and there have been attempts to collaborate, even to st…
The Relevance of Ontological Commitments in Social Sciences: Realist and Pragmatist Viewpoints
The article discusses the relevance of ontology, the metaphysical study of being, in social sciences through a comparison of three distinct outlooks: Roy Bhaskar's version of critical realism, a pragmatic realist approach the most renowned representatives of which are Rom Harré and Hilary Putnam, and the authors’ own synthesis of the pragmatist John Dewey's and the neopragmatist Richard Rorty's ideas, here called methodological relationalism. The…
Toward Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism: From Philosophizing Sociology to Sociologizing Philosophy
In this article, relationalist approaches to social sciences are analyzed in terms of a conceptual distinction between “philosophizing sociology” and “sociologizing philosophy.” These mark two different attitudes toward philosophical metaphysics and ontological commitments. The authors’ own pragmatist methodological relationalism of Deweyan origin is compared with ontologically committed realist approaches, as well as with Bourdieuan methodologic…
On the Limits of a Realist Conception of Knowledge: A Pragmatist Critique of Archerian Realism
In her book Being Human (2000), Margaret Archer presents intriguing pragmatist emphases on practice, embodiment and non-linguistic knowing-how, as regards to understanding humanity. However, as Archer attempts to conjoin these ideas with the morphogenetic realism she has been working on for the last few decades, she ends up holding on to a subject-object dualism, which makes things complicated. The authors' alternative pragmatist account defended…
Sociologizing metaphysics and mind: A pragmatist point of view on the methodology of the social sciences
Hacia un relacionalismo metodológico pragmático. De la filosofización de la sociología a la sociologización de la filosofía
En el presente artículo se analizan los enfoques relacionalistas de las ciencias sociales en términos de una distinción conceptual entre la "filosofización de la sociología" y la "sociologización de la filosofía". Estos marcan dos actitudes diferentes con respecto a la metafísica filosófica y sus compromisos ontológicos. El pragmatismo de los autores tiene su origen en el relacionalismo metodológico de Dewey, el cual se compara con los enfoques r…
Hacia un relacionalismo pragmático metodológico: De Una Filosofización De La Sociología a Una Socialización De La Filosofía
En este artículo se analizan los enfoques relacionalistas en ciencias sociales en términos de una distinción conceptual entre ¿filosofizando la sociología¿ y ¿sociologizando la filosofía¿. Estos marcan dos diferentes actitudes hacia la metafísica filosófica y sus compromisos ontológicos. El pragmatismo de los autores tiene origen en el relacionalismo metodológico de Dewey, el cual es comparado con los compromisos ontológicos de los enfoques reali…
On the Distinctively Human: Two Perspectives on the Evolution of Language and Conscious Mind
In this paper, two alternative naturalistic standpoints on the relations between language, human consciousness and social life are contrasted. The first, dubbed “intrinsic naturalism,” is advocated among others by the realist philosopher John Searle; it starts with intrinsic intentionality and consciousness emerging from the brain, explains language as an outgrowth of consciousness and ends with institutional reality being created by language‐use…
Human Transaction Mechanisms in Evolutionary Niches—a Methodological Relationalist Standpoint
There is a great variety of relationalisms on offer for social scientists these days (see, e.g., Archer, 1995; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Dépelteau, 2008; Emirbayer, 1997; Fuchs, 2001; Kivinen and Piiroinen, 2006; Powell, 2007; Tilly, 2001). Some of the most interesting ones of them share an anti-dualistic vein of thought that can be traced back to John Dewey (e.g., [1920] 1988a, pp. 187–198; [1925–1927] 1988c, pp. 355–356) and Norbert Elias (e…
For 'Central Conflation: A Critique of Archerian Dualism
Taking a side in the debate over ontological emergentism in social theory, this article defends an outlook that Margaret S. Archer has dubbed 'central conflation': an antidualistic position appreciating the interdependency of agency and structure, individuals and society. This has been a popular outlook in recent years, advocated broadly by such theorists as Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins, and Anthony Giddens. However, antidualism has been chal…
Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism in Sociological Understanding of Evolving Human Culture
A meaning holistic (dis)solution of subject–object dualism – its implications for the human sciences
This article presents and analyses a social-practice contextualist version of meaning holism, whose main root lies in American pragmatism. Proposing that beliefs depend on systems of language-use in social practices, which involve communities of people and worldly objects, such meaning holism effectively breaks down the Enlightenment tradition’s philosophical subject–object dualism (and scepticism). It also opens the human mind up for empirical r…
The evolution of Homo Discens: Natural selection and human learning
This article takes an evolutionary “reverse engineering” standpoint on Homo discens , learning man, to track down the (learning) mechanisms that played a pivotal role in the natural selection of human being. The approach is “evolutionary sociological”—as opposed to gene‐centred or psychologising—and utilises notions of co‐evolutionary organism–environment transactions and niche construction. These are compatible with a Deweyan theory of action, w…
Relationalism
The term “relationalism” covers a variety of positions that emphasize the importance of some sort of relation in sociological theory or research. Many of these positions are ontological, but there are also epistemological and purely methodological relationalisms. Although they do not constitute a single unified school of thought, there are certain family resemblances between these positions, and there have been attempts to collaborate, even to st…
Epoch‐Making Changes in the Cultural Evolution of Communication: Communication technologies seen as organized hubs of skillful human activities
This paper applies methodological relationalism, leaning on a pragmatist theory of action of classical Deweyan origin, supplemented among other things with Alva Noë’s enactivism, to analyze the development of communication technologies as a part of human cultural evolution. Tool‐use and technologies are understood as skillful human activities that form hubs of organized activity in developed human communities. Appreciating the quite slow pace of …
Autonomous Agency in Anti‐Dualistic Social Ontologies: A Compatibilist Notion
Anti‐dualistic social ontologies, those highlighting the intrinsic interdependency of agency and structure as two sides of the same coin, are sometimes criticized for failing to provide a satisfactory account of autonomous – capable and free – agency, or even denying the reality of such agency. This paper contests these claims, arguing that anti‐dualistic ontologies only conflict with autonomous agency when the latter is understood in a highly vo…
Philosophy (14 works) · Epistemology (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Critical Realism in Sociology (10 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Pragmatism (7 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (5 works) · Pragmatism in Philosophy and Education (5 works) · Embodied and Extended Cognition (4 works)