Causal powers and social ontology

Synthese 197 (3):1357-1377 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Over the last few decades, philosophers and social scientists have applied the so-called powers ontology to the social domain. I argue that this application is highly problematic: many of the alleged powers in the social realm violate the intrinsicality condition, and those that can be coherently taken to be intrinsic to their bearers are arguably causally redundant. I end the paper by offering a diagnosis of why philosophers and social scientists have been tempted to think that there are powers in social realm.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,854

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-07-18

Downloads
176 (#136,449)

6 months
13 (#272,256)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

References found in this work

How to do things with words.John L. Austin - 1962 - Oxford [Eng.]: Clarendon Press. Edited by Marina Sbisá & J. O. Urmson.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
How the laws of physics lie.Nancy Cartwright - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 78 references / Add more references