A Theory of Social Action

543 Pages·1984·51.667 MB·English

by  Raimo Tuomela (auth.)

A THEORY OF SOCIAL ACTION
SYNTHESE LIBRARY
STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Managing Editor:
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Florida State University, Tallahassee
Editors:
DON ALD DA VIDSON , University of California, Berkeley
GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden
WESLEY C. SALMON, University ofP ittsburgh
VOLUME 171
RAIMO TUOMELA
Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki
A THEORY
OF SOCIAL ACTION
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
A MEMBER OF TIlE KLUWER .. ACADEMIC PUBUSHERS GROUP
DORDRECHT/BOSTON/LANCASTER
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Tuomela, Raimo.
A theory of social action.
(Synthese library; v. 171)
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
1. Social action. I. Title. II. Series.
HM51.T777 1984 361.2 84-6863
ISBN-13: 978-94-009-6319-1 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-6317-7
001: 10.1007/978-94-009-6317-7
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland.
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All Rights Reserved.
© 1984 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1984
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface ix
Chapter 1:
PHILOSOPHY AND THE THEORY OF SOCIAL ACTION
I Scientific Realism and the Social Sciences
II Theorizing about Social Action 10
Chapter 2:
INDIVIDUALISM AND CONCEPT FORMATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 17
I 'Holistic Social Concepts 17
II Conceptual Individualism 25
III We-Intentions and Social Motivation 31
Chapter 3:
THEORIES OF ACTION 55
I Views of Human Action 55
II Mental Cause Theory 58
III Agency Theory 64
IV Hermeneutic Theory 66
V Arguments for and against Causal Theories of Action 71
Chapter 4:
THE PURPOSIVE-CAUSAL THEORY OF HUMAN ACTION 79
I The Fundamental Elements of the Purposive-Causal
Theory of Action 79
II The Structure of Single-Agent Action 94
Chapter 5:
THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL ACTION 111
I The General Nature of Social Action 111
II Simple Social Actions 118
III Complex Social Actions 134
IV The Acting of Social Collectives 144
V Group Interests Revisited 150
Chapter 6:
ACTION GENERATION 159
I Action Generation and the By-Relation 159
II Action Generation and the Theory of Automata 170
III Social Actions, Grammars, and Social Conduct Plans 188
v
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 7:
PRACTICAL INFERENCE AND SOCIAL ACTION 197
I Loop Beliefs and Practical Inference 197
II Mutual Beliefs 205
III The Replicative Justification of Social Beliefs 212
IV Social Action and Practical Inference 216
V Mixed Interest Games and Practical Inference 221
VI Social Rules and the Scope of Social Action 229
Chapter 8:
NORMS, RULES, AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES 236
I Social Norms 236
II Social Rules 246
III Similarity and Roles 253
IV Social Structures 262
Chapter 9:
SOCIAL INTERACTION AND CONTROL 269
I Acting in Social Relation 269
II Overt Social Interaction 278
III Covert Social Interaction 284
Chapter 10:
A PRAGMATIC THEORY OF EXPLANATION 312
I Explaining as Communicative Action 312
II Emphasis 329
III Understanding and Presuppositions 333
Appendix 338
Chapter 11:
PROXIMATE EXPLANATION OF SOCIAL ACTION 345
I Explanation and Social Action 345
II Teleological Explanation 357
III Purposive-Causal Explanation 365
IV Reason-Explanation 368
V Explaining the Style of Action '378
VI Understanding Action 384
Chapter 12:
DYNAMIC EXPLANATION OF SOCIAL ACTION 388
I Explanation and Other-Regarding Utilities 388
II Expected Utilities, Motives, and the Explanation of
Social Action 400
III The Nature of Dynamic Action Explanations 416
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
Chapter 13:
FUNCTIONAL AND INVISIBLE HAND EXPLANATION OF SOCIAL ACTION 430
I Action-Functions and Functional Explanations 430
II Invisible Hand Explanations of Social Action 448
Chapter 14:
EXPLANATORY INDIVIDUALISM AND EXPLANATION OF SOCIAL LAWS 455
I Explanatory Individualism 455
II Explanation of Social Laws 461
Notes 476
Bibliography 500
Name index 511
Subject Index 516
Index of Symbols, Definitions, and Theses 530
PREFACE
It is somewhat surprising to find out how little serious
theorizing there is in philosophy (and in social psychology as
well as sociology) on the nature of social actions or joint
act.hons in the sense of actions performed together by several
agents. Actions performed by single agents have been extensively
discussed both in philosophy and in psycho~ogy. There is, ac
cordingly, a booming field called action theory in philosophy
but it has so far strongly concentrated on actions performed by
single agents only. We of course should not forget game theory,
a discipline that systematically studies the strategic interac
tion between several rational agents. Yet this important theory,
besides being restricted to strongly rational acting, fails to
study properly several central problems related to the concep
tual nature of social action. Thus, it does not adequately
clarify and classify the various types of joint action (except
perhaps from the point of view of the agents' utilities).
This book presents a systematic theory of social action.
Because of its reliance on so-called purposive causation and
generation it is called the purposive-causal theory. This work
also discusses several problems related to the topic of social
action, for instance that of how to create from this perspective
the most central concepts needed by social psychology and soci
ology. While quite a lot of ground is covered in the book, many
important questions have been left unanswered and many others
unasked as well. Some of the problems studied could perhaps have
been discussed at greater length and depth and in a less ideal
ized setting. But some lack (and shortness) of argumentation is
perhaps compensated for by the highly systematic nature of the
theory presented in this book. The central parts of the theory
hang closely together and this gives systematic support to i~s
parts.
To the reader who wants to find out quickly my main ideas
and theses about social action I suggest he take a look at
Chapters 5 and 6, perhaps complemented by Chapters 3 and 4 for
some preliminaries. The book divides naturally into two parts.
The first part, consisting of Chapters 1-9, creates the main
systematic theory and the second part, Chapters 10-14, deals
with relevant problems of explanation.
x PREFACE
As to the syntactic conventions used in the book, first,
symbols are generally used autonymously whenever this is not
expected to cause confusion. Secondly, the single quote oper
ation is used to form names of expressions, as usual. Numbered
formulas and statements are referred to only by their numbers
when they occur in the same chapter (e.g., (18); otherwise they
may be referred to by the number of the chapter and the formula
number (e.g., by (9.18) when formula (18) of Chapter 9 is
meant). Depending on chapter and context, special definitions
and theses have been either numbered or given abbreviated names
(e.g., (WI».
I would especially like to thank Professors Robert Audi and
Ingmar Porn each of whom read drafts of several of the chapters
and made important comments. I am also indebted to Professors
Lawrence Davis, George Berger, Andreas Kemmerling, and David
Copp, Dr Matti Sintonen as well as Martti Kuokkanen and Kaarlo
Miller for stimulating criticisms and remarks concerning some
topics dealt with in the book. I am indebted to Professor Mi-
chael McKinsey for checking the English of most of this work. My
thanks are also due to Auli Kaipainen who patiently and skill
fully typed and retyped my drafts.
A grant from the Academy of Finland for the latter half of
1981 helped me very much in the final work on the first draft of
the manuscript.
With appropriate permission, I have in this book used some
passages of the following papers of mine:
'Action Generation', in Niiniluoto, I. and Saarinen, E. (eds.),
Intensional Logic: Theory and Applications, Acta Philosop
hica Fennica, vol. 35, pp. 282-301
'Explaining Explaining', Erkenntnis 15 (1980), 211-243
'Individualism and Concept Formation in the Social Sciences', in
Agassi, J. and Cohen, R.S. (eds.), Scientific Philosophy
Today, Reidel, 1981, pp. 425-438.
'Social Action-Functions', Philosophy of the Social Sciences,
forthcoming
'Explanation of Action', in Floistad, G. (ed.), (1982), Contem
porary Philosophy, vol. 3, pp. 15-43.
Helsinki, May 1984
Raimo Tuomela
CHAPTER 1
PHILOSOPHY AND THE THEORY OF SOCIAL ACTION
I. SCIENTIFIC REALISM AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
1. Most of our actions are social in the wide sense that they
conceptually presuppose the existence of other agents and vari
ous social institutions. Of actions that are social in this
sense, some are performed by single agents while the rest are
either performed jOintly by several agents or performed by
collectives of agents. Here I understand that an action's being
performed jointly by several agents, and its being performed by
a collective of agents, are not the same thing. Actions that are
performed jointly by several agents we shall call multi-agent
actions and also social actions proper. Multi-agent actions are
of course social in the above wide sense. Examples of such
multi-agent actions would be two or more agents' (jointly,
rather than separately) carrying a table upstairs, playing ten
nis, toasting, or, at the other extreme, performing a political
revolution.
It is the main purpose of this book to investigate the
conceptual nature and the structure of multi-agent actions as
well as the explanation of such actions. A great part of this
study will, accordingly, be concerned with the conceptual nature
of social interaction. To that extent at least, this book is
about the philosophical foundations of social psychology, for
social psychology is often defined just as the study of the
interaction between people. The present chapter will serve to
lay bare some of our underlying philosophical ideas as well as
to give a brief preview of what the book contains.
To start with our philosophical views and commitments, some
central general assumptions will be made. The first underlying
assumption is that of (a specific kind of) scientific realism.
The second assumption, which actually is part and parcel of our
brand of scientifiC realism, is the importance of having a de
scriptive-prescriptive dichotomy of discourse and of, so to
speak, centrally applying both sides of the dichotomy to the
study of persons and their interaction. The third fundamental
assumption we shall make is that men cannot be adequately
studied as social beings and in a social setting unless they are
treated as interacting agents, and this entails the adoption of