Individuals
Individuals
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In order to coordinate and cooperate,
people need to understand each other
This requires communication
Communication

Ants communicate via pheromones
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Bees communicate via elaborate dances
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E. O. Wilson
Von Frisch
Humans communicate principally
through language
The importance of common
language
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Communication facilitated by common
language
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The Tower of Babel
Genesis 11 (King James Version):
11:1
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
11:2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a
plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
11:3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them
thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
11:4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may
reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad
upon the face of the whole earth.
11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children
of men builded.
11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one
language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from
them, which they have imagined to do.
11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may
not understand one another's speech.
11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the
earth: and they left off to build the city.
11:9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there
confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter
them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Insufficiency of common
language
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Shared language is essential
But it is not enough
Insufficiency of common
language

Language offers a means of describing
objects and feelings

Without common knowledge, no
understanding


Cricket vs. baseball
But the meaning given to objects is
variable
For example
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Weights and measures
Currency
Time (the calendar)
For example
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What is the meaning of a coke bottle to
you?
What is the meaning of a coke bottle to
the people in the movie “The Gods Must
Be Crazy?”
Meaning, cont’d
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
What is the meaning of an apple to
you?
What is the meaning of an apple to
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Snow White?
A teacher?
A Kazakh?
An American?
Meaning, cont’d
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Meaning affects how people behave
Lack of shared meaning may create
conflicts
Explaining meaning
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If shared meanings matter so much,
then we need to explain them
Karl Marx
Marx
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What is Marx trying to explain?
Shared meaning:
consciousness/ideology
Marx: Cause
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Men differ from animals in that they
produce their means of life
What individuals are corresponds with
what they produce and how they
produce it
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The production of ideas and concepts flows
from man’s material activity and commerce
Marx: Cause
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Cause: The mode of production
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What we produce and how we produce it
Marx: Causal Relation
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Mode of Production  Ideology
Marx: Mechanisms/Assumptions

People are malleable

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Not innately “good” or “evil”
Rather, we change depending on our
material world
Marx: Draw the theory
Mode of Production
Ideology
Marx: How do we know if the
theory has merit?

Look at the empirical world
Empirical implications
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Ideals of sharing should be more pronounced
in societies dominated by big game hunters
than in those dominated by gatherers of
salmon and berries
Groups that participate in the global economy
ought to see things differently than those
that engage primarily in subsistence
agriculture (see work by the Norms and Preferences Network)
Emile Durkheim
Durkheim

What is Durkheim trying to explain?
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Religion/Beliefs
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Why some objects/actors/ideas are viewed as
sacred
So,
Outcome = Beliefs
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Durkheim, cont’d
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Religion involves sacred things
Sacred versus profane
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Sacred things
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Set apart by a peculiar attitude of respect toward them
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Totem
Profane things
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Defined by their intrinsic properties
Durkheim on ritual
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Rites are the actions that are performed
in relation to sacred things
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Without knowing its beliefs, the ritual of
religion is incomprehensible
You cannot understand rituals by invoking
instrumental logic
Rituals are symbolic
Rituals are indicative of the existence of
common values in a society
Where do notions of sacredness
come from?
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Society
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The intensity of social interactions
So,
Cause = Intensity of Interaction
Durkheim:
Mechanism/Assumption
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Social interaction produces emotion
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Sense of obligation
General efferverscence
People have the desire and capacity to
attribute cause

They attribute their strong emotions to the
divine
Durkheim
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Thus strong emotions generate religious
beliefs and sentiments
Durkheim

In turn, beliefs affect behavior

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Individuals living in moral harmony have a
sense of confidence
Individuals act in accordance with their
beliefs
Contradictory beliefs are held at bay
Durkheim: Draw the theory
Intensity of
social
interaction
Belief
Individual action
consistent with
belief
Durkheim

How do we know whether the theory
has merit?

Look at the empirical world
Fleck on scientific facts

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Durkheim: religious and political
concepts have social roots, but scientific
concepts are universal
Fleck: scientific concepts are also social
constructions
Fleck, cont’d
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Research findings only become scientific
facts via extended social negotiation
‘thought styles’

Cf. T. S. Kuhn: ‘paradigms’ in The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions (1970)
The case of syphillis

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15th c: syphillis first described. Cause:
the product of a particular astrological
configuration on 11/25/1484
21st c: syphillis caused by the bacterium
Spirochaeta pallida
One-sex vs. two sex model

From ancient Greece to the 18th c, men
and women were regarded as having
the same type -- a male type -- of body
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Females thought to have the same
reproductive organs as men, only turned
inside out (Laqueur 1990)
18th c. onward: prominence of the ‘twosex’ model
Fleck: Cause

Networks of interaction
Fleck: Outcome


‘thought collective’
‘thought style’
Fleck: Mechanisms

Communication, misinterpretation


Because we can’t see inside each others’
heads, communication is imperfect
Furthermore, people have ideas when
interacting with each other that they
wouldn’t have had otherwise
Fleck: Draw the theory
Networks of
interaction
Thought
style
Fleck

How do we know if the theory has
merit?

Look at the empirical world
George Herbert Mead
Mead
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Not only are ideologies, beliefs, and
scientific facts socially constructed, so is
the individual
We know who we are only by
understanding how others see us
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We take on their attitudes towards us
Mead
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The unity of the ‘self’ comes from
membership in social groups

We can only be ourselves if we are
members of a group
Mead: The generalized other

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We not only take on the attitudes of
others towards us. We also take on
their attitudes towards activities.
Only when people take on the same
attitudes towards social activities is it
possible to organize social life
Mead

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For Mead, the problem of social order is
like a game
The problem is making sure that
everyone knows the rules of the game
Mead
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Example: The game of baseball
The game
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Once everyone knows the rules of the
game, they behave accordingly
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When people take on the attitudes of the
community, then in some way their
behavior is dictated by the group
Note that individuals direct their own
behavior because they have internalized
the attitudes of the group
Mead
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In summary

Cause = social roles
Mead: Mechanisms

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People put themselves in the shoes of the
other and imagine what the other’s
expectations are
People generalize those expectations
People internalize those expectations
Mead

Outcome

Internalized attitudes
Mead: Draw the theory
Social roles
Attitudes
Mead

How do we know if the theory has
merit?

Look at the empirical world
Order via meaning
Mechanisms:
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Situational:
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Behavioral

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Social and physical environment affects meaning
Shared meaning  individual behavior is consistent with
meaning, and therefore predictable.
Transformational

Individual behaviors aggregate to produce social order
(coordination)
Empirical implications of meaning
theories
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
Cohen and Vandello on the different
conceptions of violence in the American
South and North
Why is there more violence in the South
than the North?
Southerners and Northerners attach
different meanings to violence