Social Emergence
Social Emergence
$35.00
USDSociologists have long believed that psychology alone can't explain what happens when people work together in complex modern societies. In contrast, most psychologists and economists believe that we can explain much about social life with an accurate theory of how individuals make choices and act on them. R. Keith Sawyer argues, however, that societies are complex dynamical systems, and that the best way to resolve these debates is by developing the concept of emergence, paying attention to multiple levels of analysis--individuals, interactions, and groups--with a dynamic focus on how social group phenomena emerge from communication processes among individual members.
- 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
November 2005Paperback
9780521606370
288 pages
229 × 152 × 18 mm
0.461kg
Available
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.
