Social Ontology Research Unit

Society

Social Ontology Research Unit

The Social Ontology Research Unit was formed to pursue collaborative and interdisciplinary research projects, seminars, conferences, summer schools and other activities concerned with social ontology—the systematic study of the nature and basic structure of social reality.

The Unit has long established links with the Cambridge Social Ontology Group with whom it often engages in joint projects. The current central focus of the Unit is the development and elaboration, in collaboration with the Cambridge Social Ontology Group, of a conception of social ontology most appropriately referred to as the theory of social positioning.

Social researchers—including those engaged in theoretical and applied investigations as well as those interested in policy and/or advancing programmes aimed at progressive social change—all have much to gain from a better understanding of the nature and constitution of the social realm.

Ontology includes the study of features common to all phenomena of any domain of reality as well as the study of specific phenomena of a domain. Thus, social ontology is, in part, concerned with investigating the manner in which social phenomena depend necessarily on human interactions.

Research in social ontology undertaken by members of the unit advances, defends and explores the implications of the view that social reality is an emergent realm that is everywhere open, structured, processual and relational. It is in exploring the relational nature of the social realm that the theory of social positioning has become the central focus for members of the Unit.

Social ontology is also concerned with the nature of such existents as money, gender, technology, the corporation, community, institutions, norms, rules, custom, identity and so forth. Members of the Unit have also been interested to explore how the theory of social positioning can enhance our understanding of various of these social existents.

The Social Ontology Research Unit is a part of the Public Services Management and Organisation Research Group at King's Business School.

The Social Ontology Research Unit will be hosting an online workshop, Advances in Social Positioning Theory on 23 May 2022.

Project Team

Professor Stephen Pratten

Professor of Economics and Philosophy

Mr Antonis Ragkousis

PhD Student in Public Services Management and Organisation

Dr Yannick Slade-Caffarel

Lecturer in Economics and Philosophy

Publications

Pratten, S. (2022). Social positioning theory and Dewey’s ontology of persons, objects and offices. Journal of Critical Realism. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2049091

Slade-Caffarel, Y. (2022). Rights and obligations in Cambridge social ontology. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12332

Pratten, S. (2021). Veblen, Marshall and neoclassical economics. Journal of Classical Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X211068999

Pratten, S. (2020). Social positioning and Commons's monetary theorising. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 44(5), 1137-1157. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beaa036

Slade-Caffarel, Y. (2020). The Nature of Social Reality: Issues in Social Ontology (Review)

Slade-Caffarel, Y. (2020). Organisation, Emergence and Cambridge Social Ontology. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 50(3), 391-408. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12251

Pratten, S. (2019). Dewey on Organisation. European Journal Of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 11(2), 1. [8]. http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/1671

Slade-Caffarel, Y. (2019). The nature of heterodox economics revisited. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 43(3), 527-539. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bey043

Slade-Caffarel, Y. (2018). The Nature Of Heterodox Economics Revisited

Pratten, S. (2018). Positioning and the Nature of Social Objects. In P. Rona, & L. Zsolnai (Eds.), Economic Objects and the Objects of Economics. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94529-3_3

Pratten, S., Faulkner, P., & Runde, J. (2017). Cambridge Social Ontology: Clarification, Development and Deployment. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 41(5), 1265-1277. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bex048

Pratten, S. (2017). Trust and the Social Positioning Process. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 41(5), 1419-1436. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bex040

Pratten, S. (2015). Social Ontology and Modern Economics. Routledge.

The publication feed is not currently available.

Conferences

Slade-Caffarel, Y. “What do we mean by social?”, 2022 Critical Social Ontology Workshop, 5th March 2022.

Ragkousis, A. "Critical Ethical Naturalism: towards an Alternative Modern Aristotelianism in Ethics”, 2021 IACR Annual Conference, 22nd September 2021.

Slade Caffarel, Y. “Rights and Obligations in Cambridge Social Ontology”, Cambridge Journal of Economics Conference, 8th September 2021.

Pratten, S. “Money, Social Positioning and Trust”, Cambridge Realist Workshop, 24th February 2020.

Slade-Caffarel, Y. “The Cambridge View of Emergence”, Social Ontology 2018, Tufts University, 25th August 2018.