The relational subject

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Bibliographic Information

The relational subject

Pierpaolo Donati and Margaret S. Archer

Cambridge University Press, 2015

  • : pbk

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Many social theorists now call themselves 'relational sociologists', but mean entirely different things by it. The majority endorse a 'flat ontology', dealing exclusively with dyadic relations. Consequently, they cannot explain the context in which relationships occur or their consequences, except as resultants of endless 'transactions'. This book adopts a different approach which regards 'the relation' itself as an emergent property, with internal causal effects upon its participants and external ones on others. The authors argue that most 'relationists' seem unaware that analytical philosophers, such as Searle, Gilbert and Tuomela, have spent years trying to conceptualize the 'We' as dependent upon shared intentionality. Donati and Archer change the focus away from 'We thinking' and argue that 'We-ness' derives from subjects' reflexive orientations towards the emergent relational 'goods' and 'evils' they themselves generate. Their approach could be called 'relational realism', though they suggest that realists, too, have failed to explore the 'relational subject'.

Table of Contents

  • Part I: 1. Introduction: relational sociology: reflexive and realist
  • 2. The plural subject versus the relational subject
  • Part II: Prologue: the sources of relational subjects and their resources
  • 3. The relational subject and the person: self, agent and actor
  • 4. Socialization as relational reflexivity
  • 5. Culture reproaches to relationist sociology
  • Part III: Prologue: the range of relational subjects: where and how they emerge
  • 6. When relational subjects generate relational goods
  • 7. The emergence of collective relational subjects and their societal impact: beyond the market/state binary code
  • 8. Relational subjects and the ravages of globalized markets: the need for subjects with relational ethics
  • 9. Conclusions: collective subjects and the added value of social relations.

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