Man in the world of institutions: on logics and mechanisms оf social construction of reality

Man in the world of institutions: on logics and mechanisms оf social construction of reality


Podvoiskiy D.G.

Institute of Sociology of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Univeristy of Peoples’ Friendship, Моscow, Russia dpodvoiski@yandex.ru

ID of the Article:


For citation:

Podvoiskiy D.G. Man in the world of institutions: on logics and mechanisms оf social construction of reality. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2016. No 11. P. 15-25




Abstract

The author treats opposting «subject – structure» notions as a key problem of social science; descriptions of this opposition reveal in different manners competing conceptual and methodological strategies in sociological theorizing (metodological individualism vs. holism, sociological nominalism vs. realism, subjectivism vs. objectivism etc.). Attention is paid to attempts at synthetical resolution of «subject – structure» problem, as reflected in some sociological theories of the second half o f the 20th century («social contruction of reality» by P. Berger and T. Luckman, A. Gidden’s structuration theory e. a.). A possible convergence of «contructivist» и «struturalist» positions is argued for as demonstrated by theoretical interpretation of societal institutions emergence from inner logic of social interaction with their subsequent «аutonomization».


Keywords
«subject – structure» opposition; social theory; sociological constructvism; social action; institutions; routinization; reification; alienation
Content No 11, 2016