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Failures of Individualism: Materiality

1. Introduction
Methodological individualism (MI) has been a major topic in the philosophy of social science over
the past several decades. Originally, the idea was that the social world is made up of
individuals, and so explanation of social phenomena should be in terms of the behavior and
attitudes of individuals.
all phenomena of society are phenomena of human natureand the Laws of the
phenomena of society are, and can be, nothing but the laws of the actions and
passions of human beings, that is to say, the laws of individual human nature. Men
are not, when brought together, converted into another kind of substance (Popper
1945/2011, 303; quoting Mill (1882/2009), quoted in Epstein (2015a, 8)).
This idea can be divided into two claims1:
Ontological individualism is the view that the social world is exhaustively constituted by individuals
(persons) and their relations and interactions. The slogan is: there is nothing in the social
world over and above individuals and their interactions.
Explanatory individualism is the view that social phenomena should be explained in terms of
individuals and their interaction.
Explanatory individualism has some plausibility if you accept ontological individualism.
Suppose that the social domain consists entirely of individuals, their attitudes, the actions
driven by these attitudes, and their consequences. So, the fact that crime increases in the
summer (Lauritsen 2014) is just a fact about the actions of individuals in the summer, and
these actions are the result of a pattern of attitudes that people have when the weather is
warmer. But then the target should be to explain attitudes. As Jackson and Pettit put it:
If a social fact obtains in virtue of a certain distribution of attitudes or actions, perhaps
in a certain context, then the factors which would be invoked in our folk psychology
as the sources of those attitudes and actions are also at the causal origin of the social
fact. We might conceivably look to the detailed psychological antecedents of such
facts in attempting to explain them. But if we are to do social theory then the
explanation we seek must be relatively more abstract than this. It must prescind in
some degree from that level of detail. Or so at least we shall assume. (Jackson and
Pettit 2004, 132)
Social explanation is not trying to explain a particular event, but a pattern. So, given one
form of ontological individualism, we must look for an explanation of the pattern of attitudes that
gives rise to the pattern of actions which, in turn, constitutes the social fact. A familiar way to do
this is to illuminate what would make the attitudes in question rational. This is the motivation
behind at least some forms of rational choice explanation. However, one need not focus on
rationality, if one builds into the picture that there are certain robust patters of irrationality.
Thus, some explanations relying on implicit bias, or social imaginaries, as a systematic
irrational influence on individual behavior may (or may not) count as individualistic in the
relevant sense (Brownstein and Saul 2016; cf. Medina 2013, Gatens 1996).

1 It is also possible to find interpretations of MI as normative individualism (Ross 2013): A normative


individualist is someone who maintains that the justification of all values ultimately lies in the normative
judgements of individual people, and in assessments about the effects of change on the welfare of individuals. (p. 2
of chapter).

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I think there are compelling reasons to reject both ontological and explanatory individualism
(See also Epstein 2015a). Here is an example that illuminates a problem with each:
Question: Why did the Native Americans in what is now the northeastern United
States rely on a diet of root vegetables in the winter months, rather than leafy
vegetables and fruits?
Answer: Because the climate and storage techniques available wouldnt support the
preservation of leafy vegetables and fruits through the winter.
Note that the explanation of the Native American diet is in terms of the climate, technology,
and properties of leafy vegetables and fruits, not in terms of individuals and their interactions.
But surely the diet of Native Americans is a social phenomenon to be explained. So
explanatory individualism is unwarranted. This example challenges ontological individualism
as well: diet or cuisine is part of the social world, but is not constituted by individuals and their
interactions. It is constituted, at least in part, by edible things such as roots, vegetables, and
fruits. The aim of this paper is to illuminate the materiality of the social world.
More needs to be said about this example (and others like it). But before getting into details,
we should ask: why does this matter? One thought is just that it is an interesting ontological
question: there has been a long history of asking what the relationship is between physical
facts and psychological facts: Are psychological facts constituted by physical facts? The
same set of questions can also be asked about the relationship between psychological facts and
social facts. How close is the parallel between these two issues? Can we think of the relation
between the social world and human psychology in the same way we think about the relation
between psychology and physical reality? These are definitely worthy topics of inquiry.
However, I raise this question as a critical social theorist. I am interested in the ontological
question, but I am also interested in how and to what extent metaphysical issues are relevant
to politics. Methodological individualism has been a dominant assumption in the academy,
but it isnt obvious that it matters for activist efforts. And yet, insofar as activism depends on
empirical research, and empirical research in the social sciences still often assumes
methodological individualism, there are reasons to challenge it. Beyond that, I find that there
is a pattern of relying on overly individualistic explanations of social injustice both in the
academy and outside of it and this prevents us from identifying potential sites for resistance
and intervention. So it is worth considering whether attention to a richer social ontology is
valuable for critique and activism.

2. Ontological Dependence
Lets begin with the proposed ontological dependence of the social domain on facts about
individuals and their relations. It is important to note that the facts or properties of a
particular domain may depend on the facts or properties of a different domain, without being
constituted by those facts. This is particularly true if the higher-level domain is a system and its
parts are functional parts of the system. For example, a human body is an organism made
up of organs that perform certain functions, e.g., the eye, the kidney, the heart.2 A heart,

2 It is a complicated and delicate matter how to determine what somethings function is, whether it has more than
one function, or even any function. This is especially challenging in the case of human bodies. For example, there
are humans whose eyes do not enable them to see. Should we conclude, following Aristotle (e.g., Meta 1035a23-25,
also Shields 2002), that they are eyes in name only because eyes are defined functionally allowing that such
an individuals hands function as eyes (enabling them to read, navigate using a cane, etc.)? Or should we say
that the individual has eyes being now defined in material terms and that their use of hands to read and

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however, is not simply a package of muscle, blood vessels, nerves, etc., for its components
must be structured in a particular way to pump blood. (As Aristotle would put it, form is
required in addition to matter.) Moreover, there are artificial hearts that are made of plastic
and metal, not muscle. Functional parts of systems, such as organs or carburetors, are
multiply realizable because what matters is that they are capable of performing the relevant
function, not what they are made of. (So form is, in some sense, more important than the
matter in such cases.) Yet, it is not as if the functional part can exist without being realized in
some way or other.
Societies are plausibly systems with functional parts, some of which are themselves systems,
e.g., an education system functions to educate, a judicial system to interpret and apply the law
and to judge disputes. Individuals are parts of society, and some patterns of human
interactions are all that is needed to get a functional structure. For example, a choir is a
group of people singing, but not just randomly; it is a group of humans who sing music together.
To sing music together, a group must interact in certain ways to coordinate their behavior.
But societies are not like choirs. Not all of a societys parts are even human and much more
than human interaction is required to provide the relevant structure to function as needed.
For example, complex modern societies include transportation systems. Transportation
systems will typically consist of a network of rights-of-way, vehicles (bikes, cars, trucks, trains,
boats, planes) and a set of regulations for coordinating safe and efficient passage. One might
argue that a transportation system depends, in some sense, on humans and their psychological
attitudes, but it would be wrong to say that it consists of them in the sense that it is entirely
made up of humans or human psychology.
Brian Epstein (2009, 2011, 2014, 2015a, 2015b) has made important contributions to our
understanding of ontological individualism and the different ways in which social phenomena
might depend on individuals. In particular, he has articulated a valuable distinction between
anchoring and grounding. Consider, for example, Interstate 95. Interstate 95 is a highway that
runs along the East Coast of the United States. It is made of concrete, asphalt, and natural
aggregates, with steel and aluminum for drainage pipes, reinforcement, guard rails, etc. It
also functions as a legal right of way for cars and trucks and is constructed to adhere to strict
guidelines. It is an Interstate by virtue of meeting the guidelines set by the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) and being recognized to do so. In what sense does I-95 depend on
us? Consider the following things occupying the space of I-95:3
i) A network of concrete extending from Florida to Maine that is at least 86 feet wide, with a
divider down the middle, a slope no more than 6%, with at least 16 feet clearance above and
with limited paved access to local streets (etc.). Call this the concrete network.
ii) A network of concrete (as described in (i)) that functions as a route for passage. Call this the
thoroughfare.4

navigate does not show they can see with their hands, but instead shows us some of the amazing things that
hands can do? Thanks to Elizabeth Barnes for discussion of this issue.
3 For the purposes of exposition, Im assuming a multiple occupancy view of composition, so I refer to overlapping

things, rather than properties of the concrete network (being a thoroughfare, being I-95) or facts (the fact that the
concrete network is a thoroughfare, that it is I-95). This is not essential to the discussion and can be adjusted as
needed, depending on ones metaphysical commitments.
4 I think we should distinguish a thoroughfare from a road: ii*) A network of concrete (as described in (i) and (ii))
that was designed and built as such for transportation. Roads wont be relevant for our current purposes.

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iii) A network of concrete (as described in (i) and (ii)) that has been designated as part of the
Interstate System (I-95), and that is administered by State and Federal agencies. Call this I-
95.
In order for the concrete network to exist, certainly people had to build and design it. But it is
a concrete network by virtue of its physical properties. Under post-apocalyptic conditions,
perhaps after a pandemic in which most humans are killed, it might not be used for anything
(consider life in Atwoods (2003) Oryx and Crake). Plausibly, the concrete network is only
causally dependent on us. It is not, in the sense relevant to MI, ontologically dependent on us
we surely dont compose it!
The concrete network is (or composes) a thoroughfare insofar as it functions as regular route
for passage, and presumably will function as such only if individuals use it as a right of way.
But there need be no institution that designates it as a thoroughfare. Paths that preceded the
paving of the concrete network functioned as thoroughfares long before there was a United
States Highway system or even a road.5 In fact, one might even argue that it can function as a
thoroughfare without being thought of as a thoroughfare or as a right of way. Non-human animals
use paths in the woods and rivers as thoroughfares without thinking of them as such, and
presumably humans can do the same. Moreover, the thoroughfare that became I-95 was not
always covered in concrete, and there may be a time in the future when we will use a different
substrate for our highways (hovercraft over grass?). So the functional kind, thoroughfare,
depends on its uses, but not necessarily on how the users think of those activities; it is also can
have different material realizers. (Well return to discuss the thoroughfare more fully in 4.)
Finally, the concrete network is I-95 only by virtue of there being an institution the Federal
Highway Administration that has a designated status Interstate Highway that roads
meeting certain conditions can obtain, that I-95 has satisfied, and which brings with it a set of
responsibilities administered by State and Federal agencies.
Neither the thoroughfare nor I-95 is composed of humans and their interactions, but they do
seem to be in some sense social entities. How should we think of their dependence on humans?
Epstein argues that there are two additional ways, beyond causal dependence, in which
something might depend on us. We might (partly or wholly) ground it, or anchor it.
In Epsteins terms, grounds are the metaphysical reason in virtue of which a fact obtains, or
why something is of the kind of thing it is (2015, 70-71); one might also say that they are the
conditions something must meet in order to be of the kind. So, e.g., something is concrete just
in case it is a mixture of rock aggregate, cement, and water. To be a thoroughfare is to
function as a route of passage for living things. And to be an Interstate highway is to meet
and be certified as meeting the conditions specified by the FHWA. These are grounds.
In addition to the question of what conditions must be met in order for something to count as
a member of a kind, we might ask a higher-level question: what makes these conditions the ones
that must be met? In the language of reasons why, we might say that there is:
A distinction between different levels of reasons why. There are, on the one hand, the
reasons why it is the case that F, and on the other, the reasons why those reasons are
reasons. (Skow 2016, 4; see also 85).

5 For example, parts of it were once Native American trading paths. http://www.ncpedia.org/indian-trading-paths

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Epstein calls at least some of these the higher-level reasons, in the context of grounding,
anchors.6 Anchors are especially significant in social ontology because they are a site for social
involvement. Consider, for example, the distinction between a miniature poodle and a
standard poodle. The difference is a matter of physical size: a standard poodle is over 15
inches at the withers. A miniature poodle is between 10-15 inches. Why is this size whats
required for being a toy dog? The higher-level reason is that this range is determined by the
American Kennel Club. So being a standard or miniature poodle is a physical distinction
anchored by a social decision.
The Interstate highway system was created by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The
Act doesnt ground what it is to be an Interstate (thats done by the conditions specified by the
FHWA), but instead provides a frame within which grounding occurs. Consider the visual
heuristic that Epstein offers (figure 1):

Applying this to the case at hand (see figure 2), the passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act
(Fact a) anchors a Frame Principle, viz., meeting the conditions determined by the FHWA and
being certified as such grounds being an Interstate Highway. The concrete network that
underlies I-95 meets the FHWA conditions and has been certified as such (Facts g1-gn) and in
virtue of this, I-95 is an Interstate Social fact f). In this case, fact that I-95 is an Interstate is
anchored by a social fact and is grounded by both physical facts (about materials, dimensions,
etc.) and social facts (being certified to do so by the FHWA).

Social Fact: The concrete network is I-95


grounds
The concrete network meets conditions C, and is
certified by the FHWA to do so.

anchors
Passage of
Federal Highway Act
(Frame Principle) Meeting conditions C [determined
by the FHWA] and being certified as such ground what
is an Interstate highway.

So in thinking about ontological dependence, there are at least four general forms of
dependence: causing, constituting, grounding, and anchoring (allowing that there are multiple
kinds of grounding as well (Bennett 2011)). Each form of dependence can have social relata.
For example, there is a sense in which the concrete network is a social entity (artifact) because
it is caused by human design and effort. There are multiple senses in which the Interstate is a

6 Skow (2016) is mainly interested in reasons that are causes, but also allows that reasons can be grounds. Reasons
why C causes E arent anchors in Epsteins sense. Anchors are reasons why G-facts ground F-facts. Epstein argues
that anchors cant be grounds. I disagree. I think that there are different kinds of grounds, and some anchors, at
least, are grounds. In this context, I will continue with the terminology of anchors and grounds, however.

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social entity: it is composed of a concrete network that was created by humans, it is grounded by as
an Interstate by meeting the conditions set by the FHWA and certified as such. It is also
anchored by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that created the Interstate System.7
At this point, I hope it is clear that we should reject the simple version of Methodological
Individualism according to which all social phenomena are composed of individuals and
their interactions. Keeping in mind the multiple senses of dependence, our social ontology
should include many things that dont satisfy MIs conditions. We have already considered:
Socially caused, socially grounded, and socially anchored: I-95
Socially caused, not socially grounded, and socially anchored: miniature poodles, diet?
Socially caused, not socially grounded and not socially anchored: concrete network, climate
change?
A contemporary defender of Methodological Individualism might complain, however, that
the core individualist commitment isnt the idea that the social domain is composed of
individuals and their interactions, but that the social domain supervenes on individuals and their
interactions. In other words, (necessarily) no difference in the social domain occurs without a
difference in individuals and their interactions. This would surely be the case if all social
phenomena were socially grounded. But weve seen that this isnt the case. It might also
seem plausible if one thinks of the social domain as consisting of those facts and entities that
are socially anchored, i.e. we determine what they are by determining what grounds them.
This would also explain why some are tempted to think that the social is mind-dependent, or
up to us. However, once we differentiate grounding and anchoring, evaluating the
supervenience claim is more complex than if we are only considering grounds.
There are two ways in which we might apply modal notions to a framework that includes
both anchors and grounds (Einheuser 2006; also Epstein 2015, 115).8 On one hand, we might
consider how things might have been if the anchors had been different but the grounds the
same; and on the other, we might consider how things might have been if the anchors had
been the same but the grounds different. If the Federal Highway Act had not been passed,
the concrete network might still exist, but not be an Interstate; so there would be no I-95. Or
on the other hand, there might be no I-95 because even though the Federal Highway Act had
been passed, no concrete network was created that met the relevant conditions.
Consider a variation on the latter case.9 Suppose that the Federal Highway Act is passed and
a concrete network is built that, according to the FHWA, meets the conditions required to be
an Interstate. The Interstate is named I-95, people use it just as we use I-95, etc. But
suppose that a segment of the concrete network in Pennsylvania doesnt actually meet the
conditions. Then, I think we should say that the Pennsylvania segment isnt an Interstate (or
isnt part of I-95) because the conditions on being an I-95 require that the concrete network
satisfy the FHWAs conditions and be certified to do so. But, by hypothesis, it doesnt meet
the conditions. (In fact, there is a segment of road in Pennsylvania that doesnt meet the

7 It is important to note that on Epsteins view, not all anchors are social. In some cases, the answer to the higher-
level question: why are these the reasons why? has nothing to do with us. Natural science provides many examples
in which we turn to a law for answers to second-level why questions (Epistein 2015a, 75-6).
8 Einheusers (2006) discussion concerns the ontological commitments of conventionalism uses the terminology of

carvings and substratum. Her take on the evaluation of counterfactuals, however, can be usefully extended to
anchors and grounds.
9 Epstein (2015a) considers several such counterexamples to supervenience, e.g., pp. 37ff, 41, 115-16.

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conditions and I-95 is considered incomplete.10) This shows that there could be two worlds
w and w* with the same individuals and interactions between them, but in w I-95 runs
through Pennsylvania (because the concrete network meets the relevant conditions) and in w*
I-95 doesnt run through Pennsylvania. This, I take it, is a case where the individuals, their
attitudes, and their actions are the same in the two worlds, but there is a social difference (the
Interstate exists in one, but not the other).11
This example may be controversial because one could argue that the FHWA has exercitive
power to determine what is an Interstate, i.e., that the FHWAs judgment makes it so. (At
least as I have set up the case, and evidence from discussions of the gaps mentioned above,
this is not true, because meeting the conditions is required. The FHWAs judgement is
verdictive (aiming to be true), but can be corrected.12) But, regardless, there are plenty of
other cases in which this isnt at all plausible. Consider a medical diagnosis as a basis for an
insurance claim. The fact that an individual is eligible for insurance benefits is a social fact
that depends both on the individuals condition and a doctors diagnosis. Two worlds might
be just the same with respect to the attitudes and behaviors of individuals concerning a
patients condition, the paperwork filed, the benefits received, etc. but the worlds differ with
respect to the patients actual condition: the diagnosis is accurate in one world but not the
other. In the latter world, the patient received benefits, but was not eligible. Being eligible
and being not eligible (though wrongly believed to be) are importantly different circumstances
in the social domain.
Such complications concerning the supervenience of the social on individuals and their
interactions are especially apt to arise when we confuse anchors and grounds. In the case of
the status of eligibility for insurance, or Federal Interstate funding, the grounds are up to us
in some sense, i.e., we could have written different policies and anchored things differently.
But it doesnt follow that the social facts are up to us. Once the grounds have been set in a
way that involves worldly conditions (the patient must actually have the medical condition to
be eligible for benefits, the poodle must actually be over 15 inches at the withers), the results
are not just up to us. So in such cases, supervenience of the social on individuals and their
attitudes can fail.
This dependence of categories on both social and non-social features is relevant to the
political significance of social constructionist work. For example, consider gender. On some
accounts, gender is a purely anatomical fact that does not depend on us or our practices. On

10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gaps_in_Interstate_Highways,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Turnpike/Interstate_95_Interchange_Project,
11 An externalist about propositional content might argue that the beliefs of the individuals in the two worlds differ

because the facts about the concrete network differ. This would, I think, take the wind out of the sails of MI the
anti-individualist would allow that the social globally supervenes on psychological and physical facts. The debate
over MIT concerns to what extent the social depends on us. Thanks to Miguel ngel Sebastin (UNAM) for
conversations about this.
12 Sometimes verdictives are taken to be authoritative, like exercitives. But as I read Austin, he intends to
differentiate verdictives and exercitives in part by virtue of their finality. verdictives, are typified by the giving of
a verdict, as the name implies, by a jury, arbitrator, or umpire. But they need not be final; they may be, for
example, an estimate, reckoning, or appraisal. It is essentially giving a finding as to something fact, or value
which is for different reasons hard to be certain about. (Austin 1962, 150) The examples of jury, arbitrator, or
umpire, suggest that the judgment makes it so, but what follows, and the examples offered in the passages that
follow (calculate, measure, diagnose (152)), make it clear that whats crucial is that there is a judgment the attempts
to capture the truth, but may be wrong and so not constitute the fact in question. Note that sports differ in the
extent to which the referees are authorized to determine the facts of play. In baseball, umpires have exercitive
authority, but in basketball, given the use of replays to check their calls, make verdictive judgments that can be
overturned by the facts.

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individualist constructionist accounts, gender depends entirely on individual(s) attitudes (either
ascriptive or first personal). And on a non-individualist constructionist account, it depends on
our attitudes and also material/physical facts (that may, or may not, have to do with the body,
e.g., ones position in a social structure). Although a shift away from an anatomical/biological
account of gender to a social constructionist one has been valuable, but controversies remain
over how to locate gender within our practices.
So far, Ive said a lot about the concrete network and I-95, but not so much about the
thoroughfare. Is the thoroughfare a social entity?

4. Social Systems and Social Functions


I mentioned above that something is a thoroughfare by virtue functioning as a route for
passage. Function, in the sense intended, is not a matter of being designed for a purpose.
Rather, it is about the role something plays in a broader system. There are several ways,
however, of understanding the notion of a function and functional role.
An etiological conception of function links an entity (or feature), e.g., an organ, to its evolution
and survival. For example, in the context of biology, one might discern the function of gills by
determining the specific contribution gills made (extracting oxygen from water) to the survival
of organisms that have them, The ancestors with gills had greater fitness in their
environments than those without them. To say that they had greater fitness is to say that more
organisms survived to adulthood and reproduced than their competitors. (Risjord 1998,
S304-5). Etiological functions are self-sustaining: X has the function F, just in case Xs ancestors
functioning in that sort of way explains Xs existence (or the reproduction of X-type things).
Ruth Millikan has developed a sustained line of thought that employs the idea of etiological
function to explain the development of language, thought, and related biological,
psychological, and social phenomena (Millikan 1984, 1989). Traditional functionalists in
social science, e.g., Spencer (1882-1898), Parsons (1951), Radcliffe-Brown (1952), Malinowski
(1944), viewed society on the model of an integrated organism whose parts functioned to meet
basic human needs and maintain the societys survival and stability.
Since the 1960s, such etiological functionalism in social science has been in disrepute. There
are three basic complaints. First, society is not fully integrated and not all of its parts function
to support and sustain the whole; in fact, societies are typically ridden with conflict and
contestation. Second, societies are not stable, but are constantly evolving, mixing, and
mutating; there is as much a need to explain change as stability. Third, functionalisms focus
on structural phenomena fails to adequately capture the complex relationship between
individuals and the structures they embody, e.g., the enactment of institutions, norms, and
identities. That being said, however, these criticisms are consistent with there being some
parts of society that have an etiological function, e.g., one might argue that primary education
has the function of producing literate and numerate individuals because the fact that there
were prior institutions that produced literate and numerate individuals (and gave rise to values
and institutions that draw on such capacities) is causally relevant to our ongoing commitment
to and the existence of primary education.13

13 I am not arguing that this is the function of primary education it may be that this is only a manifest function of
primary education and it has a quite different latent function, or it may not be possible to isolate a proper function
at all. This is just an example to show that one may attribute functions to some parts of society without embracing
a full-blown functionalism. On manifest and latent functions, see Merton (1957, 60-69); I have used the terms
manifest and operative for similar phenomena (Haslanger 2012, Ch. 2).

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Another example of something social with an etiological function is money: money is plausibly
understood to have the function of serving as a medium of exchange, and as a measure and
store of value (Mason 2015, 846). Whether, something, say, a popsicle stick, is money, is a
function of our practices; it depends on the role certain objects play in an economy (Krugman
1997, Numbersguy 2010, Graeber 2011). But the fact that being money is grounded in our
practices doesnt make it up to us in the sense that we stipulate what money is (though we
may stipulate that a particular sound or orthographic form be used to talk or write about
money.) In contrast, it is up to us that a dollar bill or a Euro coin is money it is a matter of
stipulation (broadly understood) that a bill or coin, a cowrie shell or popsicle stick is to
function as a medium of exchange and as a measure and store of value.14 The nature of
money, however, is not up to us.15 In Epsteins terms, we might say that the fact that
money functions as a medium of exchange (etc.) is grounded in our practices, but it is not
anchored by us: we do not create or stipulate its essence.
Another conception of function does not seek the function of something, but how things
function, i.e., the functioning of something within system. Mark Risjord characterizes this
system conception of function, drawing on Cummins (1980) classic article.
[such] function statements arise out of the attempt to analyze and explain the
capacities of a system. Suppose we are trying to understand the operation of a given
system. A natural way to proceed is to analyze the system into component parts and
demonstrate how its capacities are nothing more than the operation of its
components. On the "system" conception of a function, the function of an item is
simply the contribution it makes to the capacities of the whole system. (Risjord 1998,
S306)
Millikan (1989) offers a helpful example:
according to Cummins' definition it is, arguably, the function of clouds to make
rain with which to fill the streams and rivers, this in the context of the water- cycle
system, the end result to be explained being, say, how moisture is maintained in the
soil so that vegetation can grow. Now it is quite true that, in the context of the water
cycle, clouds function to produce rain, function as rain producers; that is their
function in that cycle. But in another sense of "function", the clouds have no function
at all-because they have no purpose. (1989, 294)
On this conception of function, things may have different functions relative to different
systems. For example, a particular primary school may have one function in a familys life,
another in the neighborhood community, a different function in the school district, and other
functions in the state and federal education systems. Of some things, it might be appropriate
to understand what they are in functional terms, but also allow that they can function in other
ways.
It is important to note that the function of something, in this sense, does not depend on
intentions or purposes, and even if designed for a purpose, it may function in ways that are at

14 Another way to put this point is to say that money is not a conventional kind. But, of course, it is controversial
what counts as conventional. On Lewiss (1969) classic view, conventions are arbitrary solutions to coordination
problems under conditions of common knowledge and the practical rationality of agents; they are durable, i.e., self-
perpetuating, because conformity to the convention serves everyones interests. There have been many criticisms
of this view, e.g., in Millikans work quoted below. I dont want to take a stand on an account of convention here,
so Ive followed Mason (2016) in using the expression up to us.
15 Rebecca Mason has argued this convincingly and at length in her dissertation, Social Ontology Naturalized, 2015.

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odds with the intention. For example, a local school district has the policy that if you are late
to a class nine times during a term, you fail the class. The policy was designed to encourage a
learning environment where every student would gain the full benefit of instruction. The
effect, however, is that low income students who rely on public transportation to get to high
school are often late to their first class due to delayed buses and trains, and so have a higher
than average rate of failure. (The neighborhood within walking distance of the school is
relatively affluent, the higher income students who live further away either have a car, or have
friends who have a car, or rely on parents to drive them to school.) In the context of the
broader educational system, the policy holds back lower income students, results in frustration
and alienation, reinforces class stereotypes, and creates systematic advantages for the more
affluent students not only in the high school, but in pursuing future job opportunities. Within
the broader system, the policy functions to prevent students from gaining the benefits of
instruction, which is directly contrary to its intent. (See also Haslanger 2012, Ch. 13;
Haslanger 2014)
Lets return to the thoroughfare that is Interstate 95. Recall that, as I suggested above, to be a
thoroughfare is to function as a (public?) route of passage. This particular one happens
currently to be made of concrete and to be designated as I-95, but thats a contingent matter.
Is the thoroughfare a social entity?
This raises the difficult question of what it means to say that something is social. A common
theme in contemporary social ontology is that what distinguishes the social world is its
grounding in collective intentionality, e.g., in forming joint intentions to take a walk (Gilbert
1989), paint a house (Bratman 1992), or assign a status function (Searle 1995). Ive argued
elsewhere that such collective attitudes depend on more basic forms of sociality that enable us
to coordinate and communicate with each other in more basic ways, and that are shared with
social animals. (Haslanger forthcoming a; forthcoming b).
On my view, the core notion for understanding the social domain is of a social practice.
Roughly, I take social practices to be patterns of behavior that depend on learned skills and
locally transmitted information, in response to resources, and whose performances are
mutually accountable by reference to some shared schemas/social meanings.16 The slogan
is that practices are constituted by interdependent cultural schemas (aka social meanings) and
resources, i.e., things taken to have (+/-) value (Sewell 1992; Haslanger 2012).17 To engage in a
practice is to act in relation to others and to relevant parts of the world, in ways that are
(interpretable as) part of a pattern or system of behavior, and to be subject to the relevant
norms. Although some practices depend on rules (such as games), most do not. And practices
are not necessarily transparent to the performer. One may not be aware that one is engaged
in a practice or be aware of its point or how it functions.

16 I develop this account more fully in my What is a Social Practice? forthcoming in Philosophy. Social relations are
defined by roles in practices, and networks of such relations make up social structures. For example, the teacher-
student relation is defined by a set of educational practices and is part of a broader education system. Practices
are a key mechanism for social coordination.
17 In the past I have used the term schemas both for public cultural schemas and internalization of them as

psychological schemas. (This is how Sewell (1992), I believe, uses the term; see also Howard (1994), Hollander and
Howard (2000). This has caused confusion, so I will aim to use the term social meaning, and for webs of
meanings, cultural techn, in place of cultural schema going forward; though as I will indicate below, social
meanings include narratives, patterns of inference, and other cultural memes that one might not normally
consider meanings in a narrow sense. See also Balkin (1998).

Haslanger 21 June 2017


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Ruth Millikans (2005) discussion of convention is helpful in distinguishing some of the
different forms and degrees of sociality that are constitutive of different practices.18 On her
view, being perpetuated by reproduction is crucial to natural conventions. She explains:
A pattern has been reproduced if its form is derived from a previous item or items
having, in certain respects the same form, such that had the model(s) been different in
these respects the copy would have differed accordingly. A reproduction is never
determined by its model in all respects. (3)
The idea is that social practices (or conventions) are part of and a result of culture, where a
distinguishing feature of culture is that it is not hard-wired but learned from others. Many
animals rely on instinct to determine what to eat, with whom to mate, how to build shelter.
Humans evolved to be social foragers in a broad variety of ecological contexts. This required
social learning, reliable cross-generational transmission, and the material and technological
resources for building on what came before (Sterelney 2012, esp. Chs. 2-3; Zawidzki 2013).
Other non-human animals also have a capacity to develop rudimentary culture in the sense
that they develop skills and tools that are passed from one generation to the next. But the
flexibility, fascination, and joy that humans have in creating culture has played a huge role in
our ability to coordinate and successfully occupy a wide range of environments.
In considering whether a thoroughfare should be considered a social entity, we should look to
the ways in which its function as a route of passage is realized. If the geography of an area is
hard to traverse and only one route is feasible to a desirable destination, such as a water
source, a pattern may emerge such that animals regularly use that route. Individual bears,
say, happen to use the route because they determine it is the best one for their purposes, but
not due to any form of coordination or social learning; and the precedent of others using it
doesnt matter (beyond having a causal impact on the terrain, perhaps keeping it clear of
vegetation). Lets call this a route. A route of this kind constitutes a social entity lets call it a
thoroughfare if its use is part of a social practice. For example, if a group is camping in the
woods and one of the party finds the best route to the nearest stream and points it out to
others, and a pattern of use develops, then the thoroughfare is part of their social world.
Relative to the system of coordination and precedent they develop on the trip, it functions as a
thoroughfare. In this case, the routes function is quite explicit, but as mentioned before, not
all functions are intended or transparent.
Millikan suggests three modes of reproduction that are relevant when considering social
practices (no doubt there are others):
Direct copying: One person [tells] another how the pattern goes. (4)
Counterpart reproduction: A needs to fit (coordinate?) with B, and each does so as counterpart
to the other, e.g., nuts and bolts, Phillips-head screws and Phillips-head screwdrivers,
ballroom dancing.

18 Millikan (2005) is critical of Lewiss account of convention. She says, Lewiss analysis of conventions was very
complex, involving solutions to coordination problems defined in a complex way, regular conformity to
convention within a group, mutual knowledge of this conformity supporting its continuation on rational grounds,
and so forth. In contrast, on her account conventions may be simple, and require neither coordinations, regular
conformity, nor rational underpinnings. (2) I agree with Millikan, though I prefer to use a different term for the
phenomena she describes. My interest is in a broader category of social practices that also, contrary to Lewis, need
not be arbitrary, need not be in the interests of all participants, and are often a source of preferences, not just a way
to manage them.

Haslanger 21 June 2017


11
Handshake reproduction: A needs to fit (coordinate?) with B, and each does so by doing what
the other does, e.g., handshake, driving on the right.
Social practices that emerge through counterpart reproduction and handshake reproduction
are often tacit and hard to identify. Millikan gives the example of social distances: If you are
standing at the wrong social distance, the person to whom you are talking will move; so to
prevent slow circling about the room as you talk, you unconsciously reproduce the
conventional social distance by handshake reproduction (2005, 5). Similarly, on the camping
trip, the water-seeker may not actually tell the other campers where to find water, but simply
return with a filled pail. They, in turn, may just follow the direction she took when she set off,
thus learning the route without direct instruction. This can be regarded as a kind of
apprenticeship that is common to social learning: take a cue from the more knowledgeable
around you, figure it out as best you can how to accomplish the task based on their lead, and
await correction (from the circumstances or from those more knowledgeable), when you go
wrong (Sterelny 2013; on social reproduction, see also Zawidzki 2013; McGeer 2007).
How does this discussion of function bear on Methodological Individualism? Recall that the
MI principle takes both an ontological and explanatory form. I argued in the previous section
that social domain is neither composed of, grounded in, or supervenient on individuals and
their attitudes. From this section I think we can push these conclusions further and in new
directions.
First, weve seen that there is a sense of (system) function according to which somethings
functioning is a matter of its contribution to the capacities of a system. For example, in the
climate water cycle, rain functions to fill rivers and streams, even if this is not the function of
rain. In a social system, rain can have many other functions:
it can make it time to harvest the grapes; it can officially signal the end of a baseball
game; it can make it time to move the fire into the cave, and so forth[T]he material
features of rain constrain what sorts of world-involving normative practices can be
developed in relation to it, and once these are developed, rain has concrete normative
significance from inside these practices.We are the ones who institute, maintain,
and practice the norms of vinification, baseball, fashion, and so forth. But we cannot
do this except as embodied beings who engage with rain and its absence; within such
engagements, rain has specific normative meanings and consequences. (Kukla and
Lance 2014, 26)
Social systems are, necessarily, world-involving and embodied. As a result, many of the
meanings we attach to the world are not arbitrary and unconstrained. We have to cooperate
with the world as we coordinate with each other. A social ontology suited to understanding
social systems, then, must include the worldly components upon which our attitudes and
activities depend; and social explanations will be incomplete without taking into account the
worldly constraints on the systems we are part of.
Understanding the interdependence between social reality and material reality matters for
social justice. The fact that the concrete network is a thoroughfare that it functions as a
route of passage for millions every day positions it in a transportation system that has had
both positive and deeply problematic effects. The Interstate System prioritizes the use of
private cars as opposed to public transportation, has destroyed poor and Black communities,
supported segregation through White flight to the suburbs, hollowed out urban commercial
districts, insulates the affluent from bearing witness to poverty, disrupts non-human animal

Haslanger 21 June 2017


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migration patterns, increases carbon emissions leading to climate change, etc. These effects
are the result of interacting systems. Many of the effects of the Interstate system have nothing
at all to do with how people think about it, and everything to do with the unintended and
unforeseen effects of a built environment. All this may be obvious, but it is hard to locate
within the standard models of individualist social ontology.
As the discussion of function demonstrates, social theory often pursues a system level of
analysis. Why does the system as a whole have certain properties, e.g., why (and how) does the
system create and/or sustain gross disparities of wealth, or certain patterns of domestic
violence? The explanatory project is to identify relevant parts of the system and show how
their interactions function to have the result in question.19 However, how the parts function
may not be how people think they function. In fact, this is often how ideology works: we
participate willingly in systems whose effects we abhor because we dont see how the practices
contribute to the pernicious features of the system.
Second, effective intervention into systems requires an appreciation of the interdependence of
its parts. Many social systems are dynamically homeostatic, i.e., they are in some ways or
along some dimension, self-reproducing, allowing for changes and evolution over time. For
example, a transportation system that relies on an interstate network will pour money into
roads and traffic management and leave less for public transportation, which will pressure
people travel by car which places more demand on the roads and less on other forms of
transportation, thus motivating support for the interstate network. The options for
intervention in such a system depends not just on attitudes, but material facts, e.g., about the
landscape (is it too hilly for a train to manage?), economics and technology (what are the
energy and space demands of different vehicles?), and history (can the existing infrastructure
be adapted to a new mode of transport? And is there a historical and cultural openness to
more direct human contact?). The materiality of the social world provides both limitations
and opportunities: peoples behavior is not just a response to others, but to the material world
as well. If a bridge collapses, people have to find other ways to get where they need to go.

5. Conclusion: The Materiality of Resistance


If the social world just consists in individuals and their interactions, then it is also difficult to
understand what is at stake in many social movements, how the stakes become sites of
contention, and what tools we have for shifting power relations. For example, the meaning,
distribution, production, modification of resources, i.e., things taken to have +/- value, are
typically the basis for claims and contention. But it is unclear where they appear on the
individualist model. We dont only fight for rights, but for food and water, medical care, land,
and decent jobs. And we do so both through words and through a wide variety of nonverbal

19 I find it plausible to think of such explanations as pointing to mechanisms that give rise to the features of the
broader system. Tilly (2001), however, seems to contrast mechanistic explanations and systems explanations.
(See also Tilly and Tarrow 2015, Ch 2.) My reading of Tillys resistance to systems explanations is that he assumes
that such explanations involve an etiological approach to function: systemic explanations, strictly speaking,
consist of specifying a place for some event, structure, or process within a larger self-maintaining set of interdependent
elements and showing how the event, structure, or process in question serves and/or results from interactions among
the larger set of elements (2001, 23, my emphasis). He suggests, however, that system explanations can avoid
problematic functionalism. On his view, mechanistic explanations need not make reference to broader systems:
Compared with covering law, propensity, and system approaches, mechanism- and process-based explanations
aim at modest ends selective explanation of salient features by means of partial causal analogies (2001, 24); but
we might allow that some systems explanations are mechanistic. Thanks to David Hills for reminding me that not
all social practices, or social structures, are self-maintaining. Some, such as resistance movements, are even
designed to be self-destructive: success will make the movement obsolete.

Haslanger 21 June 2017


13
interchangesnot only gestures, body language, and deployment of physical objects, but also
displays of symbols, spatial shifts, altered relations to physical settings, and interventions of
third parties (Tilly 1998, 507-8).
Moreover, space is a crucial factor in contentious politics. As William Sewell argues,
Spatial structures, like other sorts of structures, are durable and constraining, but they also
are subject to transformation as a consequence of the very social action that they shape.
Such spatial structures as the built environment, transportation and communications
infrastructures, the distribution of pilgrimage sites, or the conformation of mountain
ranges, coastlines, and river valleys pose very real constraints on social actions of all kinds.
But even the seemingly most solid and durable of these constraints are also enabling.
(Sewell 2001, 55)
In contestation, the dominant often have control over space, and changing the meaning of
and access to space is a disruptive strategy that insurgents can deploy. The very possibility of
co-presence is crucial to contestation: to bring the disenfranchised together en masse is a sign of
power. To communicate across distance is essential to strategic organization. The
appropriation of meaningful space for alternative purposes can be deeply challenging. Space
is not simply part of the natural world, but is social resource to be managed, and whose
ideological management should be contested. Such social resources are notably absent from
the individualist model.
Although methodological individualism is a dominant theme in contemporary social ontology
and in some areas of social science, it does not provide the tools we need to make sense of or
to effectively intervene in social life. Its explanatory restrictions are unwarranted, and its
ontology is inadequate to make sense of the extent of the materiality of the social domain and
its role in constituting individuals through engagement in social practices. More importantly,
a critical theory engaged in resistant social movements must attend to the many ways in which
material conditions shape the possibilities of resistance.

Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Michael Bratman, David Chalmers, Brian Epstein, Ruth Groff, Helen
Longino, Rebecca Mason, Ron Mallon, Laura Schroeter, Miguel ngel Sebastin, Daniel
Stoljar, Ken Taylor, Stephen Yablo, and the participants at the First Annual Critical Social
Ontology Workshop, St. Louis, MO, June 2017.

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