Social Emergence
Social Emergence
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USDCan we understand important social issues by studying individual personalities and decisions? Or are societies somehow more than the people in them? Sociologists have long believed that psychology can't explain what happens when people work together in complex modern societies. In contrast, most psychologists and economists believe that if we have an accurate theory of how individuals make choices and act on them, we can explain pretty much everything about social life. Social Emergence takes a new approach to these longstanding questions. Sawyer argues that societies are complex dynamical systems, and that the best way to resolve these debates is by developing the concept of emergence, focusing on multiple levels of analysis - individuals, interactions, and groups - and with a dynamic focus on how social group phenomena emerge from communication processes among individual members. This book makes a unique contribution not only to complex systems research but also to social theory.
- Addresses the most fundamental issue in sociology, the relation between the individual and the group
- Draws on the latest theories in the philosophy of science, material that will be new to most sociologists
- Draws on a new computer technology that allows a new kind of simulation of societies
Reviews & endorsements
"Following many other contemporary social scientists K. Sawyer presents a theoretical discussion of a recurrent and important question in the social sciences: How should we explain the relations between individuals and social structures?" -François Dépelteau, Canadian Journal of Sociology Online
Product details
April 2011Adobe eBook Reader
9780511838705
0 pages
0kg
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1. Emergence, complexity, and social science
- 2. Emergence, complexity, and the third wave of social systems theory
- 3. The history of emergence
- 4. Emergence in psychology
- 5. Emergence in sociology
- 6. Durkheim's theory of social emergence
- 7. Emergence and elisionism
- 8. Simulating social emergence with artificial societies
- 9. Communication and improvisation
- 10. The Emergence paradigm.
