The Reality of the Social World : Medieval, Early Modern, and Contemporary Perspectives on Social Ontology

This book offers a collection of contributions on medieval, early modern, and contemporary perspectives on social ontology. Since the 1990s, social ontology has emerged as a vibrant research area in contemporary analytical philosophy. Questions concerning the nature and properties of social groups, institutions, facts, and objects like money and marriage, have been thoroughly discussed. However, the historical perspective has been largely neglected. One of the central aims of this volume is to show that relevant views on social ontology can be found in medieval and early modern philosophy (ca. 1200-1700 C.E.), when, for example, the ontological status of money, law, and the sacraments was hotly debated. We see, furthermore, diverging positions between Aristotelian-inspired authors, who resort to a more naturalistic view of the emergence of the social realm, and authors like Olivi and Ockham, who emphasize the role of human free will and contractualist agreements. This book is the very first to address historical and contemporary social ontologies. Both historians of philosophy and philosophers will benefit from this juxtaposition, which fosters a better understanding of historical positions and approaches by using today’s conceptual and analytical tools, and allows the contemporary debate to gain new perspectives by confronting its own medieval and early modern history. Acknowledgements Contents Chapter 1: Introduction to the Reality of the Social World: Medieval, Early Modern, and Contemporary Perspectives on Social Ontology 1.1 Social Ontology and the History of Philosophy 1.1.1 The Historical Contribution 1.2 Objectives and Description of the Volume 1.2.1 Contents 1.3 Possible Further Research References Part I: Medieval and Early Modern Perspectives on Issues in Social Ontology Chapter 2: Thomas Aquinas on the Ontology of the Political Community 2.1 Introduction: Aquinas and Social Ontology 2.2 Aquinas’s View of Social Aggregates: Four Basic Claims 2.3 Political Community and Naturalism 2.4 The Ontology of Political Entities 2.5 Conclusion References Chapter 3: Ontology of Power Relations in Peter Olivi 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Political Power as a Relation: How to Read Quid ponat ius? 3.3 Olivi on Relations 3.4 Human Will, Normative Facts, and God References Chapter 4: Transgressing the Pact of Meanings: Ontology and Its Social Implications in Peter John Olivi’s Theory of the Signification of Words 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Twofold Signification According to Olivi 4.3 The Ontology of Signs and Significations in Quid ponat ius vel dominium 4.4 The Common Right of Language 4.5 Conclusion References Chapter 5: Enrico del Carretto: Why a Religious Order Is Not a Mere Collection of Individuals 5.1 Context 5.2 Enrico del Carretto and His Treatise 5.3 Societas and Collegium 5.4 Communities Are Real Beings 5.5 Conclusion References Chapter 6: The Emergence of Social Life and the Ontology of Consociatio in the Political Theory of Johannes Althusius 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Three Main Factors of the Emergence Social Life: Nature, God and Human Will 6.3 The Existence of Consociatio in Communicatio and Symbiotic Right 6.3.1 The Right of the Consociatio as the Basis of Its Existence 6.3.2 Origin of the Right of the Consociatio 6.4 Substantial, Relational and Processual Dimensions of the Ontology of Consociatio 6.5 Conclusion References Chapter 7: Spinoza on the Ontology of Justice: The Role of ‘Beings of Reason’ (Entia Rationis) 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The Problem of Justice 7.3 Beings of Reason (Entia Rationis) 7.4 Justice as a Being of Reason 7.5 Conclusion References Part II: Contemporary Issues Chapter 8: Social Entities with and without Explicit Establishment 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Searle and Gilbert on Explicit Establishment 8.3 Making It Explicitly 8.3.1 Presuppositions of Explicit Establishments of Institutions 8.3.2 What Happens in an Explicit Establishment of Institutions? 8.3.3 Properties of Explicitly Established Institutions 8.3.4 The Objects of Explicit Establishments: Kinds and Their Instances 8.4 Beyond Explicitly Established Social Entities 8.4.1 Two Kinds of Deviant Examples 8.4.2 The Presupposition of Language 8.4.3 Friendship as a Paradigmatic Informal Institution 8.4.4 Establishment of Informal Social Kinds and Their Instances 8.5 Classification of Social Kinds 8.6 Grounding and Anchoring 8.7 Conclusion References Chapter 9: From Legal Fiction to Collective Agency: Contemporary Arguments for Collective Personhood 9.1 Introduction 9.2 What Makes a (Group) Person? 9.3 Three Arguments for Group Personhood 9.3.1 Internal Decision-Making and Corporate Personhood 9.3.2 Revising Metaphysics 9.3.3 Functionally Performing as a Person 9.4 Motivations and Evaluations 9.5 Further Developments 9.6 Conclusion References Part III: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives in Dialogue Chapter 10: Cooperation, Community, and Institution 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Margaret Gilbert on the Structure of Social Groups 10.3 Searle’s Conception of Community as an Institution 10.4 Community and Friendship in Aquinas 10.5 Conclusion References Chapter 11: ‘I Obey the Rule Blindly’. Wittgenstein’s Contribution to the Ontological Conceptualization of the Social 11.1 The Intentionalist Paradigm in Social Ontology 11.2 Wittgenstein’s Use Theory of Linguistic Meaning 11.3 The Private Language Argument 11.4 Wittgenstein’s Conventionalism and the Normativity of Rule-Following 11.5 The Problem of Rule-Following 11.6 Neither ‘Expression’ nor ‘Interpretation’ of the Rule 11.7 Wittgenstein on the Other ‘Way of Grasping a Rule’ 11.8 Implicit Knowledge 11.9 The Refutation of the Intentionalist Paradigm References Index