How Social Institutions Can Imitate Nature.
The opposition between nature and culture has always been paradigmatic in the philosophy of society, and in this sense it is certainly striking that, in contemporary theories of collective acceptance in social ontology-theories which actually entail the presence of individual mental content in the f...
| Publicado en: | Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 327 - 339 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Apr2016
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=114245923&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 114245923 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01677411 NM2 jtl: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy issn: 01677411 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2016 vid: 35 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 114245923 10.1007/s11245-015-9300-0 ppf: 327 ppct: 12 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 553KB tig: atl: How Social Institutions Can Imitate Nature. aug: au: Roversi, Corrado affil: School of Law and CIRSFID, University of Bologna, Via Galliera 3 40121 Bologna Italy su: Social institutions Social reality Mimesis Cognitive psychology Ontology sug: subj: Social institutions Social reality Mimesis Cognitive psychology Ontology keyword: Conceptual blending Conceptual metaphors Historical ontology Institutional reality Nature and culture ab: The opposition between nature and culture has always been paradigmatic in the philosophy of society, and in this sense it is certainly striking that, in contemporary theories of collective acceptance in social ontology-theories which actually entail the presence of individual mental content in the form of (at least dispositional) beliefs-the shaping role of culture has not found significant recognition. However, it cannot but be trivially true that cultural presuppositions play a role in the maintenance and development of beliefs on rules and other kinds of abstract artifacts. But once we recognize that the reality of social institutions is at least culturally-dependent, the question emerges whether there is still room for nature as a possible determinant of social reality. Many authors maintain that there is and argue that there are objective natural features shared by human beings which are necessary conditions to explain the emergence of institutional structures within society. This is a culture-independent relation between nature and social institutions. In this paper, however, I will try to argue that there is another, very peculiar, way in which nature can work as a possible determinant of social reality, a way which is instead culture-dependent. In particular, I will give three examples of this kind of culture-dependent relations-examples about states, corporations, and contracts-and I will introduce a new concept to account for it, that of 'institutional mimesis.' I will then provide an explanation of how institutional mimesis can have an impact on the content of collective acceptance by appealing to two influential theories in contemporary cognitive psychology (those regarding conceptual metaphors and conceptual blending). Finally, I will explain the ontological significance of institutional mimesis using Ian Hacking's concept of historical ontology. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy is a copyright of Springer, 2016. All Rights Reserved. item: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2016 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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