Précis of Nonideal Social Ontology: The Power View

Abstract

The central claim of this book is that a paradigm shift from ideal to nonideal social ontology is currently underway, and that this shift ought to be fully followed through. I present a summary of three central ideas to argue for this claim. First, to develop and criticize the standard model of ideal social ontology. Second, to argue that social power, rather than collective intentionality, ought to play a key role in our general theories of the social world. Third, that my own nonideal account—the power view—can incorporate opaque kinds of social facts, such as economic classes.

This book is about social ontology, or the nature and the existence of the social world. ¹ More specifically, it offers a synthesis of contemporary social ontology by showing that the key divisions between two prominent research frameworks can be fruitfully reconstructed as a clash between ideal and nonideal social ontology. Given that we want a general theory of the social world, I argue that we ought to shift away from using the standard model of ideal social ontology due to one of its central assumptions being false: that collective intentionality, understood in an irreducible sense, is necessary for the existence of institutions and institutional facts. Additionally, we ought to move away from using this standard model since it makes central social phenomena, such as economic class, drop out of sight. I then argue that we should instead shift to nonideal social ontology for core concepts, and I offer a specific version of nonideal social ontology called “the power view,” which takes social power rather than collective intentionality as its central notion. “The central claim is that a paradigm shift is underway from ideal to nonideal social ontology and that this shift should be fully followed through” (Burman 2023, 5). Below, I summarize the three core ideas that are essential to arguing for this claim and that capture the central contributions of the book.

The first is to characterize the key differences between two research frameworks in contemporary social ontology, what I refer to as ideal social ontology and nonideal social ontology. I start out with the two-worlds metaphor to fix ideas. The world of ideal social ontology is characterized by consensus and cooperation, while the world of nonideal social ontology involves conflict and contestation. I then draw on Charles Mills’s distinction between ideal and nonideal theory to show that this distinction is in fact more general than previously assumed, in the sense that it is also applicable to contemporary social ontology. More specifically, I use Mills’s characterization of ideal theory as idealized theory (Mills 2005) and refer to ideal theories in social ontology as sharing these features identified by Mills: “An idealized social ontology, silence on oppression, ideal social institutions, and an idealized cognitive sphere. The silence on oppression is especially important because the most significant difference between ideal and nonideal social ontology is being silent on or vocal about oppression or illegitimate power relations” (Burman 2023, 14). Lastly, I offer my own characterization of ideal and nonideal social ontology by moving beyond Mills’s distinction ² and developing the standard model of ideal social ontology, which is comprised of the main features that theories that shaped the field from the beginning have in common. On my account, ideal and nonideal social ontology should be understood as positions along a continuum in terms of how many of the features of the standard model of ideal social ontology they exhibit (Burman 2023, 14–15). The standard model of ideal social ontology is detailed in these five categories (Burman 2023, 72–74):

Main Aims

• The scope claim: To offer general theories of the ontology of social and institutional reality.

• The foundation claim: Theories in social ontology are the foundation of the social sciences, either by providing and clarifying fundamental concepts or by giving an account of the nature and existence of social phenomena.

Basic Building Blocks and Features of Social Phenomena

• The collective intentionality claim: Collective intentionality is the basic building block of social reality and a necessary condition for the existence of either all institutions or standard institutions.

• The deonticity claim: Deontic notions such as commitment, right, and obligation, are key notions and, indeed the very glue of society.

• The power claim: The enabling and restricting aspects of social and institutional power, such as rights and obligations, are emphasized as key phenomena.

• The reflexivity claim: Primary social phenomena are constituted by “self-fulfilling prophecies”.

• The performativity claim: Social phenomena are created and maintained by individuals who belong to a given social group through explicit performatives or acts that have the same logical structure as performatives.

Method

• Generic stylized facts: Abstract examples, void of much empirical detail, are often used as paradigmatic examples in conducting conceptual analysis. ³

• The first-person point of view: The social world is to be explained through the first-person intentionalist perspective.

Objects of Analysis

• Collective intentionality, such as walking together. ⁴

• Institutions, such as money and private property.

• Social and institutional facts, such as the fact that Tom is a U.S. citizen.

Features of the Paradigmatic Social Phenomena

• The string quartet paradigm of social groups: Small and egalitarian groups as the paradigmatic example of collective intentionality. ⁵

• The bright side of institutions: Emphasis on the benefits of institutions, such as solving collective action dilemmas and enabling action.

• The direct social phenomena: Nearly exclusive emphasis on phenomena that are directly dependent on collective intentionality. ⁶

• The visible aspects of social reality: Nearly exclusive emphasis on transparent social phenomena such as being a professor.

The book’s first core contribution is thus to synthesize a dominant tradition in social ontology by developing the standard model of ideal social ontology.

The second core idea is to show what dimensions of social reality drop out of sight due to the standard model’s features. In an early review of the book, Amie Thomasson referred to the dimensions dropping out of sight due to using the standard model as “the negative space”: “Burman gives us a top-down view of the landscape that enables us to focus on the negative space, what is not said, and what shared presuppositions in the dominant prior discourse are false. She also shows why it matters, and how we should aim to change things” (Thomasson 2024). Taking this new terminology onboard, one could say that I show that the negative space consists in the social phenomena that Muhammad Ali Khalidi refers to as “the first kind of social kind” (Khalidi 2015).

This is an internal critique of the standard model since it aims to offer general theories of the social world that can also be the foundation of the social sciences (cf. the scope claim and the foundation claim). It is also a challenge to other social ontologists to redirect attention to this central dimension of social reality, which shapes our lives in all kinds of ways that might be unknown to us. I offer economic class as a crucial example of the first kind of social kind due to its significance for understanding the social world, its central role in the social sciences, and its relative neglect in contemporary social ontology, despite its significance. Economic class differs from many of the other social phenomena frequently discussed in contemporary social ontology. ⁷ It is common for theories in social ontology to assume attitude-dependence or perception-dependence in the sense that social phenomena exist if we perceive them or hold certain attitudes toward them. Social class thus poses no challenge to these theories, but economic class does since it does not depend on our attitudes or perceptions in the same way. How, then, should we try to fill this negative space? How can we accommodate phenomena of the first kind of social kind, such as economic class?

This question reflects the book’s second core contribution: to explore the overlooked role of the first kind of social kind in contemporary social ontology, and a specific example of this category—economic class. ⁸

The book’s third core idea is to offer a positive proposal—the power view—to fill the negative space. I thus offer a new theory in social ontology that shares the main aims of the standard model (the scope claim and the foundation claim) and that accommodates the first kind of social kind. The power view is an example of descriptive nonideal social ontology and consists of two interrelated parts: first, a taxonomy of social facts in virtue of social power; second, definitions of central forms of power. My starting point is that power rather than collective intentionality is central to social reality. I thus offer a taxonomy of social facts in virtue of different kinds of social powers. The categories in the taxonomy are taken to be mutually exclusive but not exhaustive in the sense that I am open to the possibility of other forms of social power. ⁹ This taxonomy includes one category of social facts that are not about power. The taxonomy is built on the fundamental distinction between direct and indirect social facts. With respect to direct social facts, “our beliefs about that very kind of social fact, such as money, are partly constitutive of the social phenomenon in question, while the latter [indirect social facts] exist due to our beliefs about other social phenomena” (Burman 2023, 204). There are two types of direct social facts in this taxonomy, “social facts about deontic power” and “social facts about telic power.” There are also two types of indirect social facts, “social facts about spillover power” and “social facts about structural power.” In this way, I offer a richer and more extensive conception of social power than has hitherto been presented. I especially want to draw attention to the category of telic power that I identify and introduce in this work (Burman 2023, 191).

TELIC POWER*: An agent A has telic power in a domain if and only if there exists an ideal such that agent A can be measured against it and the distance perceived by other agents of A from the ideal affects A’s ability to effect certain outcomes in that domain.

The third central contribution, then, is to offer a new theory of nonideal social ontology, the power view, and as part of this theory the newly identified category of social power referred to as telic power.

It might be helpful to end this précis with a general point. I hope to have convinced readers of the use of nonideal theory in contemporary social ontology.