The Dialectic of Bottom-up and Top-down Emergence in Social Systems

Fuchs, Christian; Hofkirchner, Wolfgang; Klauninger, Bert

doi:10.2139/ssrn.385300

Cited by 18 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…As such, institutions exercise profound influences over individual actors, but are equally liable to change profoundly as a result of intentional human agency in response to them; a concept that does not exclude the uniquely creative role that can be played by individuals living and working within specific cultural traditions (as also argued, e.g. by Fuchs et al 2002 and debated in an economic context by, e.g. Stigler and Becker 1977;Hodgson 2003;Bathelt and Gluckler 2013).…”

Section: Social Interaction: Methodological Individualism Versus Ontomentioning

confidence: 99%

A philosophical case for process-based modelling of land use change

Brown

Rounsevell

2016

Model. Earth Syst. Environ.

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Modelling is used to describe, explore and predict changes in land use and other human systems. 'Top-down' and 'bottom-up' modelling approaches are both popular, and each has important philosophical implications that correspond closely to major debates in social science. We outline some key contributions to these debates and argue that social processes such as those underlying land use decisions are fundamentally determined by individual intentionality, interacting with social norms of language, culture and institutions, rather than by general and predictable 'laws'. Therefore, bottom-up models that reflect these processes offer far more informative accounts of system development. However, prediction remains outside the scope of either approach, and methods of validation based on tests of historical predictive ability risk over-fitting to trends and underestimating uncertainties. We explore the implications of these arguments for model design and use, and for general understanding of such fundamentally complex, spontaneously evolving systems.

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Section: Social Interaction: Methodological Individualism Versus Ontomentioning

confidence: 99%

A philosophical case for process-based modelling of land use change

Brown

Rounsevell

2016

Model. Earth Syst. Environ.

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“…Social network structure therefore evolves in a historically dependent manner, in which the role of the participants and the patterns of behavior they follow cannot be ignored" (Newman et al 2006, 7). Therefore, social theorists and researchers ought to maintain a critical explanatory view on the ongoing dialectic of bottom-up and top-down emergence in contemporary complex social systems (Fuchs and Hofkirchner 2005).…”

Section: Network and Critical Awarenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on a Critical Sociology of Networks

Tsekeris

2016

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Social life is rife with networks of any kind. Nowadays, sociological concerns for networks, relations, associations, processes, mobilities, and flows are intensive and emblematic. This reflection takes "networks" and their multiple products as starting points for a new sociological imagination. It hence outlines a set of current theoretical and methodological issues for approaching the wide and diverse field of the sociology of networks in a critical manner, beginning from the analytical distinction between the critical and the normativefunctionalist sociology of networks. The paper concludes with reference to contemporary digital society and the critical use of network data (Big Data), that is, ever-larger quantities of information generated by human communicative interactions in social networking platforms and other web activities.

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“…La discusión contemporánea en ciencias sociales sobre este concepto es amplia (Archer 1995, Bashkar 1978, Stephan 1999, Fuchs/Hofkirchner 2005, Emmeche et al 2000, Bedau 2000, Mihata 1997). Las distinciones propuestas para hablar de los tipos de emergencia son por tanto múltiples.…”

Section: Fundamento Dinámica Y Performatividad Teóricaunclassified

Acción, estructura y emergencia en la teoría sociológica

Mascareño

2011

Revista De Sociología

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ResumenLa distinción acción/estructura es inmanente al desarrollo de la sociología. Su alto nivel de abstracción, su capacidad para ordenar la imagen de lo social y su correlación con la perspectiva interna de los actores, le han permitido sostenerse desde los inicios de la disciplina como una pieza clave en la arquitectura de la teoría sociológica. El objeto de este artículo es evaluar de qué manera ella responde al creciente uso que la sociología contemporánea hace de otro concepto que se transforma progresivamente en un programa transversal de ella: el concepto de emergencia. Este supone la comprensión de acción y estructura como niveles de lo social con propiedades autónomas mutuamente irreductibles que se relacionan por medio de irritaciones en secuencias temporales diferenciadas. James Coleman, Talcott Parsons, Margaret Archer y Niklas Luhmann son los autores revisados. Subyace la hipótesis que las construcciones teóricas que trabajan con el concepto de emergencia están en mejor posición de captar la complejidad de la sociedad moderna que aquellas que entienden la relación acción/estructura de manera reduccionista.Action, structure and emergency in the sociological theory Abstract The distinction action/structure is immanent to the development of sociology. Its high level of abstraction, its ability to offer an ordered conception of the social, and its correlation with the actor's internal perspective, have allowed it to remain a key feature of the architecture of sociological theory from its very beginning. The aim of this article is to revise how it reacts to the increasing use of another concept which progressively becomes a transversal programme in contemporary sociology: the concept of emergence. This implies the comprehension of action and structure as levels of the social containing autonomous and mutually irreducible properties related to each other through irritations in differentiated temporal sequences. James Coleman, Talcott Parsons, Margaret Archer and Niklas Luhmann are the reviewed authors. The underlying hypothesis is that the theoretical constructions based on the concept of emergence are better positioned to apprehend the complexity of modern society than those understanding the relationship between action and structure in a reductionistic manner.1 Doctor en Sociología, Universidad de Bielefeld, Alemania. Académico del Departamento de Sociología de la Universidad Alberto Hurtado (amascaren@uahurtado.cl). Agradezco a Daniel Chernilo sus comentarios críticos y sustantivas sugerencias en relación a las formulaciones centrales de este texto. El artículo se enmarca dentro de la investigación teórica del proyecto Fondecyt 1070826.

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The Dialectic of Bottom-up and Top-down Emergence in Social Systems

Cited by 18 publications

References 9 publications

A philosophical case for process-based modelling of land use change

A philosophical case for process-based modelling of land use change

Reflections on a Critical Sociology of Networks

Acción, estructura y emergencia en la teoría sociológica

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