Keywords
culture
semiotics
systemism
social sciences
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper incorporates a broad understanding of culture into Mario Bunge’s systemic philosophy. Cultures are viewed as semiotic systems. Semiotic systems are symbolic systems which include their users and view each culture as a semiotic system. This approach makes it possible to relate immaterial symbolic systems to real material social systems via semiotic systems, which are neither purely material nor purely ideal but combine elements of both. The goal is to sketch an ontology of culture that is consistent with emergentist materialism as well as being useful for the integration of culture into social science analysis.
References
Bourdieu, P. (1990), The Logic of Practice. Cambridge, Polity Press.
Bunge, M. (2003), Philosophical Dictionary (Edición extendida). Amherst, NY, Prometheus Books.
Bunge, M. y M. Mahner (ed.), (2001). Scientific Realism. Selected Essays of Mario Bunge. Amherst, NY, Prometheus Books.
Bunge, M. (1998), Social Science Under Debate: A Philosophical Perspective. Toronto, University of Toronto Press.
Bunge, M., Finding Philosophy in Social Science. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1996.
Bunge, M., Scientific Materialism. Dordrecht, Reidel, 1981.
Dimaggio, P. (1997), Culture and cognition. Annual Review of Sociology 23, 263-287.
Fine, G. A. (2012), Tiny publics: A theory of group action and culture. New York, Russell Sage Foundation.
Franzosi, R. (1998), Narrative analysis -- or why (and how) sociologists should be interested in narrative. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 517-554.
Fullwiley, D. (2014), “The ‘Contemporary Synthesis’: When Politically Inclusive Genomic Science Relies on Biological Notions of Race.” Isis, 105(4) 803-814.
Goddard, C., y Wierzbicka, A. (2004), “Cultural scripts: What are they and what are they good for?” Intercultural Pragmatics, 1 (2), 153-166.
Jodelet, D. (2008), “Social representations: The beautiful invention.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 38(4), 411-430.
Lamont, M., y Small, M. L. (2008), “Culture matters. the role of culture in explaining poverty.” en D. Harris, & A. Lin (Eds.), The colors of poverty: Why racial and ethnic disparities persist. (pp. 76-102). New York, Russell Sage Foundation.
Lizardo, O. (2011), “Bourdieu as a Post-cultural Theorist”. Cultural Sociology, 5 (1), 25-44.
Lizardo, O. (2005), “Can cultural capital theory be reconsidered in the light of world polity institutionalism? Evidence from Spain.” Poetics, 33(2), 81-110.
Morrill, C. (2008), “Culture and organization theory.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 619(1), 15-40.
Nishida, H., Hammer, M. R., y Wiseman, R. L. (1998), “Cognitive differences between Japanese and Americans in their perceptions of difficult social situations.” Journal of .oss-Cultural Psychology, 29(4), 499.
Pickel, A. (2015), “Nacionalismo y violencia: una explicación mecanísmica. Con especial referencia a las teorías de Charles Tilly y Michael Mann”, Cultura y representaciones sociales. Revista electrónica de ciencias sociales (Mexico D.F.) 18 (marzo), 26-62.
Pickel, A. (2013), “Nations, National Cultures, and Natural Languages: A Contribution to the Sociology of Nations,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 43 (4), 425-445.
Pickel, A. (2012), “Between Homo Sociologicus and Homo Biologicus: The Reflexive Self in the Age of Social Neuroscience,” Science and Education 21, 10: 1507-1526.
Pickel, A. (Ed.) (2004a) “Systems and mechanisms: A symposium on Mario Bunge‘s philosophy of social science”. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 34 (2 y 3).
Pickel, A. (2004b), “Homo nationis: The Psychosocial Infrastructure of the Nation-State Order,” Global Society, 18, 4, 324-346.
Pickel, A. (2003), “Explaining, and Explaining With, Economic Nationalism,” Nations and Nationalism, 9, 1, 105-127.
Schmidt, V. (2008), “Discursive institutionalism: The explanatory power of ideas and discourse.” Annual Review of Political Science, 11, 303-326.
Swidler, A. (2001), Talk of love: How culture matters. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Taylor, C. (2004), Modern social imaginaries. Durham, Duke University Press.
Therborn, G.(2011), The World. A Beginner’s Guide. Cambridge, Polity Press.
Wierzbicka, A. (2014), Imprisoned in English: The Hazards of English as a Default Language, Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. (2010a), “Cross-cultural communication and miscommunication: The role of cultural keywords.” Intercultural Pragmatics, 7(1), 1-23.
Wierzbicka, A., “A Conceptual Basis for Cultural Psychology.” Ethos (1993), 21(2), 205-231.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2018 Andreas Pickel