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Escaping the straightjacket of cognitivism. Developing a theoretical basis for planned intervention and change in social systems
Nick McDonald
Anti-realism
There are 2 main philosophical positions in social science which deny that we can have knowledge of reality All reality consists in conscious states
phenomenalist idealism E.g. cognitive psychology
Social construction Represents reality as experienced by participants Rich interpretation No evaluation criteria
Cannot evaluate strengths or weaknesses of social organisations
No causal analysis
What social constraints influence how people act?
A logical fallacy
Denial of reality is based on a logical fallacy:
We are only aware of reality through mental states
Tautology
Therefore the object of human / social science is only cognition / mental constructions
False conclusion
3 varieties of realism
Nave realism
Gibsons theory of visual perception
Critical realism
Bhaskar: Possibility of Naturalism
Individuals
Small scale
Short term Action Movement / change
Social system
Remote
System
Aggregation of social action in regular generic pattern Operational processes are only part of the social system Formal system may differ radically from real system
Context
Causal influence on action, mediated by people making sense of their situation, understanding (imperfectly) the constraints in which they are acting and formulating intentions Understanding context often makes intentions transparent
Social Systems
Reality of social systems (SS)
They have compelling force upon their members
Other social processes (not directed at the functional goal) may facilitate or inhibit operational processes
Should not assume all social processes are goal-driven (teleology)
Action
Actions instantiate social processes
Stability of social systems is only relative Constantly reproduced or transformed by aggregated activity
4 logical possibilities
Doing something Undoing something Preserving some state Preventing some state coming about
Context
Structured model of context / situation?
Current social processes Actions of others Environment
Physical, technology, social, organisational
Relevant history
Self, group, organisation
Culture
Culture and system are two sides of the same coin Therefore a cultural account has to mirror all the same relations as outlined above
In the domain of meanings and values Not the domain of functions and causality
Culture links, through sensemaking, to intentions Cultural accounts give interpretive richness to system descriptions
Individuals
If B is correct then the motivation of action is not comprehensible & cognition is essentially conservative (no possibility of intentional change in actions and hence of planned social change) It is difficult to reconstruct intentions, but it can be done through exhaustive reconstruction of the context of action
If we want to change the ways which social systems function in order to improve outcomes, we need a theory which is relevant (addresses actions in social systems) and which gives leverage (identifies how to change the system to improve the outcome).
Bibliography
Searle, J.R.(1995): The Construction of Social Reality. Allen Lane: the Penguin Press Von Wright, G.H. (1963): Norm and Action. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Chapter III Act and Ability, pp 35-55
Readings
Robson C. (2002): Real World Research (second edition). Oxford: Blackwell
Chapters 1 & 2, pp. 3-44
Some of our own work discussed in the lecture can be seen in:
McDonald N.(2006): Organisational resilience and industrial risk. In Resilience Engineering (Eds.: E. Hollnagel, D. Woods., N. Leveson) Aldershot:Ashgate