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Socializing Metaphysics

The Nature of Social Reality

Frederick Schmitt

Human life is conducted within a network of social relations, social groups, and societies. Grasping the implications of that fact starts with understanding social metaphysics. Social metaphysics provides a foundation for social theory, as well as for social epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, action theory, ethics, and political philosophy. This volume will interest anyone concerned with mind, action, or the foundations of social theory. Socializing Metaphysics supplies diverse answers, from a broad array of voices, to the basic questions of social metaphysics. What is it for human beings to stand in social relations or form social groups? Do these relations and groups bring about something above and beyond the individuals involved? Is there any sense to the notion of a human being apart from social relations? How can an individual achieve autonomy within a society? In what sense are human kinds like race and gender socially constructed? The answers are found within.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 400 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-0-7425-1428-7 • Hardback • June 2003 • $162.00 • (£125.00)

978-0-7425-1429-4 • Paperback • June 2003 • $66.00 • (£51.00)

978-0-585-46665-1 • eBook • September 2004 • $62.50 • (£48.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Metaphysics, Philosophy / Methodology

Socializing Metaphysics

The Nature of Social Reality

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Human life is conducted within a network of social relations, social groups, and societies. Grasping the implications of that fact starts with understanding social metaphysics. Social metaphysics provides a foundation for social theory, as well as for social epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, action theory, ethics, and political philosophy. This volume will interest anyone concerned with mind, action, or the foundations of social theory. Socializing Metaphysics supplies diverse answers, from a broad array of voices, to the basic questions of social metaphysics. What is it for human beings to stand in social relations or form social groups? Do these relations and groups bring about something above and beyond the individuals involved? Is there any sense to the notion of a human being apart from social relations? How can an individual achieve autonomy within a society? In what sense are human kinds like race and gender socially constructed? The answers are found within.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 400 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-0-7425-1428-7 • Hardback • June 2003 • $162.00 • (£125.00)

978-0-7425-1429-4 • Paperback • June 2003 • $66.00 • (£51.00)

978-0-585-46665-1 • eBook • September 2004 • $62.50 • (£48.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Metaphysics, Philosophy / Methodology

Author

Frederick F. Schmitt is professor of philosophy at Indiana University. He is author of Knowledge and Belief (1992) and Truth: A Primer (1995), and editor of Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge (Rowman & Littlefield, 1994).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Socializing Metaphysics: An Introduction
Chapter 2 The Structure of the Social Atom: Joint Commitment as the Foundation of Human Social Behavior
Chapter 3 Practical Intersubjectivity
Chapter 4 The We-Mode and the I-Mode
Chapter 5 Joint Action: From Individualism to Supraindividualism
Chapter 6 Group with Minds of their Own
Chapter 7 Social Ontology and Political Power
Chapter 8 Conventions and Form of Life
Chapter 9 Denotation and Discovery
Chapter 10 Individual Autonomy and Sociality
Chapter 11 Social Construction: The "Debunking" Project
Chapter 12 Social Construction, Social Roles, and Stability

Socializing Metaphysics

The Nature of Social Reality

Frederick Schmitt

Socializing Metaphysics

The Nature of Social Reality

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