Ok, Glenn, let’s have some fun regarding the existence of society. GK: Society does not exist. Only individuals exist. GK: I give up, Harold. You are invincibly ignorant. ====================== What is your line of reasoning? You make an assertion without an argument and call me “invincibly ignorant” because I reject a position that amounts to little more than, “I said so; so believe it.” Actually, I see your position as related to the nominalist/realist problem, and you don’t seem to be able to acknowledge that there is another side to the position. My first point about the coin was intended to develop this aspect of the conversation, but rather than address the point, you resort to ad hominems. Please permit me to tell you why I resist your assertion. One implication of your position that I am uncomfortable with is the idea that the science of sociology has no object of study. You seem to be implying that every sociologist and every sociology department at every university in the world is guilty of this gross epistemological error. The same implication seems to apply to cultural anthropology as well. How can different cultures exist and different societies not exist? You would reduce these fields to psychology. Even social psychology is a field without a foundation according to your view. This is just tough for me to accept on your word. I want to explore this a little bit, “Society does not exist. Only individuals exist.” The pattern I see you rejecting here is that the whole is not the sum of its parts and anything that can be understood in terms of smaller parts does not exist, only the smaller parts exists. In other words, in my mind you are saying that a deck of cards does not exist, only individual cards. But it goes beyond that. In the field of mathematics, your position seems to imply that number sets do not exist, only individual numbers. Please explain to me how a deck of cards can exist, number sets can exist, and society cannot exist. What are the criteria by which you can say society does not exist and the others can exist? Or do you deny the existence of a deck of cards and number sets? Perhaps the issue is edges, borders, or endings that make a thing real. For example, a coin has an edge, a deck of cards has an edge, and number sets have edges as designated by brackets. Is it possible that you see no edges that would make human society a thing? I would ask you to imagine a photograph of the earth taken from space. On that earth there are many populations of species evolving as individual units across time. In other words, all species evolved as populations, not individuals. I read one time that the entire human genome could be preserved in about 200,000 carefully selected people. The idea was that in order for homo sapiens to emerge as a species, the population would have to be greater than 200,000 people. The point I am trying to communicate is that each of those 200,000 people are like the particular cards in a deck. The biosphere we call earth is the edge of the deck of cards. Homo sapiens, as an interbreeding population, is a single thing evolving across time. How individuals interact across time WITHIN and TO that single interbreeding body is the object of study of sociology. And in the same way that physicists have identifying divisions of quarks beneath the heading “quarks,” sociologists have identifying divisions of human interaction. These divisions are also called “societies.” In fairness to you, I do see this as somewhat confusing because “society” is used in two, not always obviously distinct, ways. Through one lens there is only one human society, global human society limned by the biosphere earth and interbreeding. As we analyze global human society and group like things and behaviors with like things and behaviors, we end up with sub-divisions of global human societies also called “societies.” If you address some of these issues rationally, I would be taught by you. Forever invincibly ignorant, Harry
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 19:06:11 +0000
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