Drafts by Aleksander Manterys
The aim of the article is to show social recognition as a relational property of human interactio... more The aim of the article is to show social recognition as a relational property of human interactions, and more precisely, as constituting and maintaining the views desired by actors of events, including positional images of oneself in particular situational stages or installments.
The analysis involves several steps. The first is an outline of an alternative perspective on generating social recognition. Its starting point is Cooley’s conception, understood as a theoretical alternative to Honneth’s microsociological addressing of social recognition, which, in a way, completes the Hegelian pedigree of Honneth’s own interpretation of social recognition through the reconstruction of Mead’s views. The second step is to point out heuristically fertile continuations and transformations of Cooley’s ideas by referring to the findings of Goffman and Scheff (self-presentation as a component of experience management), Garfinkel (maintaining background expectancies), and Collins (shaping and sustaining chains of interaction rituals). The third step is a kind of deconstruction referring to the transactional understanding of social life, based on Dewey’s transactionalism, Wiley’s inner speech concept, and Dépelteau’s processual-transactional version of relational sociology.
The category of paradigm appears, apparently contrary to Kuhn and his commentators' intentions , ... more The category of paradigm appears, apparently contrary to Kuhn and his commentators' intentions , usually as a marker of dissimilarities within the discipline's standards, a prop substantiated on the stage, similar to Homans' stimulus from the second social exchange proposition: its presence, in whatever form compatible with the stimulus generalization rule, is concurrent with activity leading to success. Leaving aside the question if any science can be normal (according to Kuhn), the main issue is to decide whether the science/scientific discipline creates a common theoretical reference system, a framework organizing the practices of its agents. In case of sociology we usually speak of its multiparadigmatic character, which describes a situation when there are various theoretical-research perspectives achieving the paradigm status, with mutually rivaling views on the social world and its proper investigative strategies, at the same time stimulating the quality that is considered a development, or respectively, increased creativity within the disciplinary matrix. Adapting a slightly subsequent stylistics, what is important is if there are being formed scientific research programs that would promise not only codification of scientific knowledge, but also positive problem shifting (see: Lakatos 1970), signifying a change within management of scientific production (see , or reorganizing the sphere of key issues, both the ones firmly embedded in sociological tradition, and the ones that fuel dynamics of the contemporary theoretical debates.
Papers by Aleksander Manterys
Kultura i Społeczeństwo
Dominika Oramus’s book Darwinowskie paradygmaty: mit teorii ewolucji w kulturze współczesnej [Dar... more Dominika Oramus’s book Darwinowskie paradygmaty: mit teorii ewolucji w kulturze współczesnej [Darwinian Paradigms: The Myth of the Theory of Evolution in Contemporary Culture] is an attempt to trace Darwin’s theory of evolution in today’s world. The presence of this idea is noted in numerous complexes of fact and fiction, which are transformations of the original theory of evolution. These are the stuff of cultural production, whose creations shape individual and collective representations in almost every area of human activity. Commentary on Oramus’s findings is placed in the context of the disputes—ever present in the social sciences—over the reception of Darwin’s theory.
Stan Rzeczy
This article is an analysis of three original variants of relational sociology. Jan A. Fuhse’s co... more This article is an analysis of three original variants of relational sociology. Jan A. Fuhse’s conception, which is part of the tradition of social network research, situates network analyses in the context of connections between culture and symbolic forms and styles. Fuhse’s idea involves a communicative base of relations, and he perceives institutions as spheres of communication that reduce uncertainty and activate roles in the process of communication. François Dépelteau’s approach, which is inspired by Dewey’s pragmatism, recognizes transaction fields as configurations of relations forming interdependency between people. The practices of actors entering transactions within social fields are important, and this makes it possible for an impression of continuity, order, and complexity to be created. Pierpaolo Donati’s relational realism is an attempt to describe the relational dimensions of human actions, while at the same time it is a consistent “relationization” of key social cat...
People in networks: Individuals and their social contexts
ISP PAN, 2018
Individuals and their social contexts
Classical idea of the definition of the situation
Civitas. Studia z Filozofii Polityki, 2016
This paper discusses three research perspectives on political culture, civic culture and citizens... more This paper discusses three research perspectives on political culture, civic culture and citizenship: the classic approach of Almond and Verba; contemporary analyses of citizenship referring to the book Civic Culture by Almond and Verba and oriented to the empirical description of social reality; and theoretical analyses of new relational sociology, oriented to the ontology and epistemology of social reality. The authors’ analysis leads to two conclusions. Firstly, it is necessary to combine these three approaches – relational social theory with empirical analyses departing from methodological individualism. This requires conducting an empirical analysis, where the basic ‘analytical units’ – of collection, interpretation and generalization of data – are not separate but combined by relations and networks within which people act. Secondly, Edmund Wnuk-Lipiński’s statements are the best starting point for conducting such a new research programme. What is decisive is his systematic, th...
Perspectives on further analyses
Relational Ontology of the Social World: Charles H. Cooley's Paradigm
Bilans transformacji: jedna czy wiele Polsk? - esej
Przegląd Socjologiczny, 2014
Relational Reason, Morals and Sociality
Czech Sociological Review, 2002
The author analyses the individual-empire relationship in the Soviet Union. The literary work Mos... more The author analyses the individual-empire relationship in the Soviet Union. The literary work Moscow-Pietushki, by Venedikt Yerofeyev, is treated as a superb instantiation of Soviet interaction rituals. The author rejects the Homo sovieticus model, the orthodox implementation of which leads to a recognition of individuals as puppets of the system. The analysis, inspired by Goffman's and Collins' findings, shows the social mechanisms which make possible the construction of a temporary world of transcendental delirium, located on the borderline of system reality. The constitution and duration of this anti-utopia system inside society reveal the relative autonomy of Soviet social actors: their conduct within this world is conditioned mainly by the availability of alcohol and the capability to play the 'parlour game'. Such analysis, which surveys the universal logic of interaction rituals, facilitates a reasonable comparison of the practices of Soviet actors with the practices of actors located on the 'friendly' peripheries of the system, and with the relevancy systems and the actions of the CEE and the Western bourgeoisie.
Cultural practices and social relations
ISP PAN, 2018
In this chapter the author examines how the term "cultural capital" can be used... more In this chapter the author examines how the term "cultural capital" can be used in analysis and reflects upon possible methods of operationalizing the concept. The first step involves defining cultural capital and its dimensions. The concept is then applied to the class system and status groups. Subsequently, the author addresses the performative aspect of cultural capital, that is, cultural practices. The main objective is to clarify a conceptual "foreground" and define the meaning and potential of key analytical categories to help construct a "map" of cultural practices, with the simultaneous indication of their rank, importance, and applicability to classes and status groups.
Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 2002
The author analyses the individual-empire relationship in the Soviet Union. The literary work Mos... more The author analyses the individual-empire relationship in the Soviet Union. The literary work Moscow–Pietushki, by Venedikt Yerofeyev, is treated as a superb instantiation of Soviet interaction rituals. The author rejects the Homo sovieticus model , the orthodox implementation of which leads to a recognition of individuals as puppets of the system. The analysis, inspired by Goffman's and Collins' findings, shows the social mechanisms which make possible the construction of a temporary world of transcendental delirium, located on the borderline of system reality. The constitution and duration of this anti-utopia system inside society reveal the relative autonomy of Soviet social actors: their conduct within this world is conditioned mainly by the availability of alcohol and the capability to play the 'parlour game'. Such analysis, which surveys the universal logic of interaction rituals, facilitates a reasonable comparison of the practices of Soviet actors with the practices of actors located on the 'friendly' peripheries of the system, and with the relevancy systems and the actions of the CEE and the Western bourgeoisie.
Stan Rzeczy [State of Affairs], 2017
Stan Rzeczy [State of Affairs], 2017
This article is an analysis of three original variants of relational sociology. Jan A. Fuhse’s co... more This article is an analysis of three original variants of relational sociology. Jan A. Fuhse’s conception, which is part of the tradition of social network research, situates network analyses in the context of connections between culture and symbolic forms and styles. Fuhse’s idea involves a communicative base of relations, and he perceives institutions as spheres of communication that reduce uncertainty and activate roles in the process of communication. François Dépelteau’s approach, which is inspired by Dewey’s pragmatism, recognizes transaction fields as configurations of relations forming interdependency between people. The practices of actors entering transactions within social fields are important, and this makes it possible for an impression of continuity, order, and complexity to be created. Pierpaolo Donati’s relational realism is an attempt to describe the relational dimensions of human actions, while at the same time it is a consistent “relationization” of key social categories, and is also useful in understanding after-modernity.
This article emphasizes the fruitfulness of new attempts to demarcate sociological genealogies and to read the classics of relational sociology. The author discusses the creation of new puzzles for sociological theory, the necessity of analysing the ontologies of social life, the phenomena of emergency and agency, and the use of relational theory in regard to categories of the common good and social capital. He encourages multidimensional and multilevel analyses of social reality.
Polish Sociological Review, 1997
Two seemingly contradictory, yet in fact complementary concepts, offering convenient frameworks f... more Two seemingly contradictory, yet in fact complementary concepts, offering convenient frameworks for theoretical discussion within the social sciences, are presented. The first of these two concepts is the homo duplex formula according to which the human being is viewed in terms of the biological determinants/social influences dichotomy. However, in this concept it is the latter component which serves as the ultimate legitimating agent. The second formula, i.e., homo multiplex, views the individual-society relationship as basically mediated; this relationship is actualized by means of multiple structures and processes which form an almost complete barrier between the individual and society. The aim of this article is to present and discuss arguments for and against each of these two concepts and to delineate and characterize possible and analytically reasonable ways in which to understand them. The heuristic potential of each of these two concepts, and their utility for the descripti...
Classical sociology and its significance for deductive theories
Polish Sociological Review, 1998
The author addresses the following question: How can classical and contemporary sociology relate ... more The author addresses the following question: How can classical and contemporary sociology relate within the discourse framework delineated by the deductionist understanding of theory? Three basic strategies of theoretical exploitation of classical theory have been distinguished: (1) the reductionist strategy, which involves restriction of the impact of classical sociology's legacy by means of rooting sociology in the body of allegedly better developed scientific disciplines (George C. Homans); (2) the verification strategy, i.e., the attempt to appraise the significance of classical theorems and theories, theoretically and empirically, by relating them to theories or orientations which are currently being developed (Peter M. Blau); and (3) the convergent-composite strategy, which involves multiple attempts at codification, in the form of theoretical syntheses (Jonathan H. Turner). The basic thrust of the article is that, in light of deductionist praxis...
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Drafts by Aleksander Manterys
The analysis involves several steps. The first is an outline of an alternative perspective on generating social recognition. Its starting point is Cooley’s conception, understood as a theoretical alternative to Honneth’s microsociological addressing of social recognition, which, in a way, completes the Hegelian pedigree of Honneth’s own interpretation of social recognition through the reconstruction of Mead’s views. The second step is to point out heuristically fertile continuations and transformations of Cooley’s ideas by referring to the findings of Goffman and Scheff (self-presentation as a component of experience management), Garfinkel (maintaining background expectancies), and Collins (shaping and sustaining chains of interaction rituals). The third step is a kind of deconstruction referring to the transactional understanding of social life, based on Dewey’s transactionalism, Wiley’s inner speech concept, and Dépelteau’s processual-transactional version of relational sociology.
Papers by Aleksander Manterys
This article emphasizes the fruitfulness of new attempts to demarcate sociological genealogies and to read the classics of relational sociology. The author discusses the creation of new puzzles for sociological theory, the necessity of analysing the ontologies of social life, the phenomena of emergency and agency, and the use of relational theory in regard to categories of the common good and social capital. He encourages multidimensional and multilevel analyses of social reality.