LIT 1 - Guala - Introduction - Extended Flashcards
GUALA: What is a central observation made at the beginning of the text about the world around us? Provide an example.
The text starts by observing that most of the things we see are institutional entities.
For example, the author sees a colleague ‘reviewing a paper for a scientific journal’ and notes that the colleague is a colleague because they are both employees of the University of Milan, which is an institution. Similarly, a map of China is meaningful within a system of political and geographical institutions.
GUALA: What is ‘social ontology,’ and what kind of questions does it aim to answer?
Social ontology is described as a field of philosophical inquiry that studies what there is in the social world. It grapples with fundamental questions like:
* What are institutions?
* What do they have in common?
* What are they made of, and how do they work?
* What is the social world made of?
* How many kinds of social entities are there?
GUALA: Describe the relationship between philosophy and social science in the study of institutions as presented in the text. What is the author’s view on this relationship?
The text highlights a significant divide and lack of communication between philosophy and social science in their approaches to institutions. The author finds this situation ‘odd’ since both sides are asking fundamentally the same questions about the nature of institutions and the social world. The author’s aim in the book is to unify the main traditions in social ontology.
GUALA: Why does the author primarily focus on human sociality and human institutions in the book?
The author focuses on human sociality because human societies are more complex and much more diverse. The sheer variety and complexity of human institutions make them a particularly rich subject for studying the fundamental questions of social ontology.
GUALA: Explain the difference between ‘token institutions’ and ‘types of institutions’ using examples from the text.
The text distinguishes between two levels of analysis when studying institutions:
* Token institutions: These are specific, concrete instances of an institution that have a history and a geographical location. Examples include the British monarchy, the Catholic Church, or the Gandhi family.
* Types of institutions: These are classes or categories of institutions that share important properties. Examples include ‘monarchy,’ ‘political party,’ ‘bank,’ ‘firm,’ and the author’s paradigmatic examples: marriage, private property, and money.
GUALA: What are the author’s ‘paradigmatic institutions,’ and why are they considered important for studying institutions in general?
The author identifies three ‘paradigmatic institutions’: marriage, private property, and money. These institutions are considered important because they are high-level types that can be further analyzed into lower-level types and specific tokens. They illustrate how institutions often regulate activities related to fundamental aspects of human life.
GUALA: Explain the idea of ‘functional definitions’ of institutions using the example of money or marriage.
Functional definitions define institutions based on what they do or their purpose. For example, money is defined by economists as whatever entity is used as a store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of accounting. Similarly, the institution of marriage is often grouped by scientists according to its functions, such as regulating procreation, the rearing of children, inheritance, and economic cooperation.
GUALA: According to the text, what is a primary purpose or goal of institutions? Explain this with an example.
A primary purpose of institutions is to facilitate coordination and cooperation among groups of individuals. The example of organizing a dinner party illustrates this, where roles need to be established for the party to succeed.
GUALA: Briefly describe the ‘rules account’ and the ‘equilibria approach’ to understanding institutions.
- The ‘rules account’ views institutions as rules that guide behaviour.
- The ‘equilibria approach’ understands institutions as persistent behavioural patterns that arise because individuals have no incentive to deviate from them unilaterally.
GUALA: What is the ‘rules-in-equilibrium’ approach, and how does it attempt to unify the two perspectives on institutions?
The ‘rules-in-equilibrium’ approach argues that the rules account and the equilibria approach are complementary. It suggests that institutions are rules that people are motivated to follow.
GUALA: Explain Searle’s distinction between constitutive and regulative rules, and the author’s argument regarding this distinction.
- Regulative rules are of the form ‘do X’ or ‘if X do Y,’ regulating existing behaviour.
- Constitutive rules create the possibility of new types of behaviour. The author argues that constitutive rules have a more limited role and can be understood as systems of (regulative) rules in equilibrium.
GUALA: What is the ‘mind-dependence of social reality,’ and how does it relate to the study of social science?
The mind-dependence of social reality refers to the idea that social entities depend essentially on our representations, beliefs, or collective recognition. This thesis has been used to challenge the scientific ambitions of social science.
GUALA: What is the author’s stance on reforming institutions like marriage, and how does it relate to the concepts of realism and normativity?
The author believes it is legitimate to use existing institutional terms to refer to reformed practices. The author aims to propose a solution based on the unified ‘rules-in-equilibrium’ theory to reconcile the realist principle with the intuition that we can reform institutional rules.
