Coincidence
A word with two meanings for explaining and predicting the future
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8975346 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Melanie S Archer (0000-0002-4632-775X, Department of Sociology Warwick University Coventry UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 354-365 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8308 • E-ISSN: 1468-5914 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/jtsb.12405 |
| OpenAlex | W4391229429 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 15 |
Connecting the critical realist morphogenetic model to insights made by Nicholas Rescher, this paper argues that our predictions are always subject to chance and contingency but nevertheless ineluctably useful for both practical and scientific inquiry. Contingency results from the causal openness of the world, including the causal openness of our own decision‐making. On the other hand, as Rescher notes, human interaction would fail without a degree of stability, which makes the predictions of morphostatic relations if not lawlike at least predictable in a practical sense. Nor is it just habit that makes for morphostasis. Human agents strive reflectively to produce in morphostatic ways the human goods they have created by their interaction. And beyond individual actors, there is, from the critical realist point of view, the combined effects of structure and culture inclining at least in the short‐term to reliably predictable if not lawlike outcomes. With that background, the paper reflects on the dual role of coincidence in social theory, on the one hand signalling contingency and the other on what, according to the active causal mechanisms, generally co‐occur
Cognitive psychology · Coincidence · Contingency · Economics · Epistemology · Openness to experience · Positive economics · Sociology · Subject (documents · Computer Science · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Critical Realism in Sociology · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology · Social Psychology
Introduction
Does Intensive Morphogenesis Foster Human Capacities or Liabilities
Late Modernity
Morphogenesis and the Crisis of Normativity
Realist Social Theory
Understanding “plausibility”
Critical Realism and Concrete Utopias
Philosophical purpose and purposive philosophy
The Myth of Cultural Integration
Cultural System or norm circles? An exchange
The Structure of Contingency
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |