The Analysis of the Borders of the Social World: A Challenge for Sociological Theory

Abstract

In order to delimit the realm of social phenomena, sociologists refer implicitly or explicitly to a distinction between living human beings and other entities, that is, sociologists equate the social world with the world of living humans. This consensus has been questioned by only a few authors, such as Luckmann, and some scholars of science studies. According to these approaches, it would be ethnocentric to treat as self-evident the premise that only living human beings can be social actors. The methodological consequence of such critique is a radical deanthropologization of sociological research. It must be considered an open question whether or not only living human can be social actors. The paper starts with a discussion of the methodological problems posed by such an analysis of the borders of the social world, and presents the results of an empirical analysis of these borders in the fields of intensive care and neurological rehabilitation. Within these fields it must be determined whether a body is a living human body or a symbol using human body. The analysis of these elementary border phenomena challenges basic sociological concepts. The relevant contemporary sociological theories refer to a dyadic constellation as the systematic starting point of their concept of sociality. The complex relationship between at least two entities is understood as the basis of the development of a novel order that functions as a mediating structure between the involved parties. Based upon empirical data, I argue that it is necessary to change this foundational assumption. Not the dyad but the triad must be understood as the foundational constellation. This implies a new understanding of the third actor, which is distinct from the concepts developed by Simmel and Berger and Luckmann.

Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology. Perspectives and Prospects

“…Now we can describe more concretely what is meant by adopting a second-person perspective in understanding biological phenomena. The starting point is sociation to social persons: At least two or three actors (Lindemann 2005) relate to each other such that they anticipate the expectations of the other and behave accordingly. These organisms must not only have minds, but also be mind-reading organisms.…”

Empathy with Non-Player Characters? An Empirical approach to the Foundations of Human/Non-Human Relationships

“…Therefore, human players can always be expected to match their play-style with their habits. In addition, the practical emergence of such relationships must also be seen as coupled with the question to whether and how the concept of "personhood" (Lindemann, 2005) emerges in the interaction. According to Luhmann (2012), persons condense as a side effect of the need to solve the problem of double contingency of social situations.…”

Puttings things into words. Ethnographic description and the silence of the social

“…It is not by accident that such description problems at the ''borders of the social world'' (Luckmann, 1980) arise primarily in the sociology of the body (Lindemann, 2005) and in ethnographic research in science studies. Various approaches in the social studies of science and technology have demonstrated that on the level of tacit knowledge not only bodies, but also artifacts have to be included into sociological analysis.…”