Christoforos’ expertise spans various fields, including philosophy, sociological theory, theories of the self and organization studies. In this blog Christoforos discusses his recently published book “Social Imaginary and the Metaphysical Discourse: On the Fundamental Predicament of Contemporary Philosophy and Social Sciences” written and developed as part of his current project exploring the possibility socio-theoretical anti-realism as an alternative approach to social ontology.
Christoforos Bouzanis, Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies
The field of the social sciences is a fragmented terrain of disagreements, often fuelled by mutual ignorance of the tendencies in other fields and disciplines. In this chaotic landscape, with “mountains” of books and papers that scarcely link to other specialties, there is one battle that stands out – let’s call it the mother of all battles in the social sciences – between those researchers who think that we can provide non-biased analyses of clear data, and those researchers who think that we can never eliminate suppositions or assumptions from the choices we make about our topics of enquiry, our methodologies and/or relevant variables to investigate.
The first perspective is characterized by a belief in drawing objective and unbiased conclusions in social scientific reasoning. The second perspective, on the other hand, often draws on theoretical traditions or schools of thought (or research philosophies or “paradigms”) in an effort to reflect on the ontologies (key assumptions about what exists in a domain of reality) and epistemologies (key assumptions about the possibility and status of scientific knowledge that we can achieve in a domain of reality) that influence the rationale of researchers’ steps and “observations” in conducting social research.
This book intends to contribute to this debate by taking the side of the latter perspective. It emphasises the need to reflect on ontological and epistemological assumptions in social research and social philosophy and emphasises the idea of the a priori status of social ontology – the idea that our implicit or explicit core theories about the nature of social reality are centrally placed in the web of our beliefs and thus necessarily inform social research and enquiry. It explains that ontologies are theories of being that theoretically systematise the world-imageries that are more or less shared by the various scientific and philosophical communities. For this reason ontologies are cognitionally (though not necessarily temporally) prior to epistemology, methodology and scientific findings – as the world-views that these ontological schemes systematise set the limits of the existent and the possible.
I argue that this is a generic principle: shared world-imageries – whether philosophical, scientific or lay ones – shape the limits of action for all social agents. This book delves into ongoing discussions in philosophy and the social sciences to explore key ideas such as scientific realism, critical realism, social constructionism, and socio-theoretical pragmatism, and presents an alternative perspective called “anti-realist social ontology”.
Traditionally, realism asserts that the world exists independently of our minds and theories. This viewpoint extends to the social realm, where social realists argue that social structures and institutions possess their own powers, influencing our actions and thoughts. According to this view, these powerful social forms resist intentional changes, and people are unable to alter them. The main political message here is that people cannot intentionally change social structures and institutions since these social forms are objective and mind-independent realities that can resist change.
… the anti-realist ontological model I propose offers a comprehensive framework for the discursive transformation of worldviews…
In contrast, the anti-realist ontological model I propose offers a comprehensive framework for the discursive transformation of worldviews. It emphasizes the importance of imaginative agents and their ability to reflect upon and reshape the social imaginary. In this context, the concept of “social imaginary” is redefined to undermine the idea that social forms are independent of our thoughts and theories. Furthermore, it argues for the primacy of imaginative worldviews in shaping our understanding of reality, asserting their significance over material/structural and institutional dimensions.
Ultimately, this book invites social researchers to think at the crossroads of the humanities and the social sciences. Our social scientific reasoning has persistent, underlying ontological assumptions and in this book I argue that this is also the case for methodological traditions in the natural sciences: there are ontological schemes that systematise world-imageries that are shared by a variety of scientific communities. The surprising element in this analysis – widely overlooked in contemporary philosophy of science – is that in our effort to examine the status of these ontological schemes (in both the natural and the social scientific fields), we necessarily utilise socio-ontological assumptions and concepts (whether implicitly or explicitly). These hidden and unexamined links between philosophy and the social sciences form the labyrinth of contemporary meta-analysis in which we remain entrapped as long as we refuse to reflect on the predicament that results from these overlaps between philosophy and social science. This book is an invitation to scholars in the humanities and social sciences to reflect on this predicament of meta-analysis.
You can acquire a copy of of “Social Imaginary and the Metaphysical Discourse” from the publisher, Routledge. Alternatively, there is a copy at UWE’s Frenchay library.
For more information about the book, Christorfors’s ideas or his research you can contact him via Email – Christoforos.Bouzanis@uwe.ac.uk