sui generis - their own
qua talis - as such
 

Foreword - Preface - Acknowledgements xi-xvii

xv There is an invisible world generated by human beings, but that human beings do not see or come to see very rarely. This is the world of social relations. They 'act' [JLJ - in?] this world, they live in it, but they do so with very little awareness. They take it for granted, as they do the air they breathe... This book has been written to shed a new light on this world. In order to see it, we need an adequate framework... I propose a new way to perceive, to conceptualize and to deal with it... To my mind, society does not host relations, it is not space-time where relations happen, it is relations... a relational sociology redefines all the concepts commonly advanced and employed in the social sciences, and adds new ones. It operates in synergy with the morphogenetic approach developed by [Margaret] Archer from the viewpoint of critical realism

xvi I will try to show that there exists a sui generis reality which I will call 'the order of relations... My hope is that this book can help the social sciences, as well as ordinary people, to learn to read the 'world as a social relation' and, thus, to gain an increased awareness of the reasons why social relations, as a sui generis reality, can make society better or worse, happy or sad, just or unjust. [JLJ - I just knew that social scientists were not 'ordinary people'...]

xvi We are what we care about, and if we do not relate to significant others, we are nothing, we become nothing. We are our 'relational concerns', as individuals as well as social agents/actors [JLJ - No, sorry. We are what we become after our efforts of caring]

Introduction 1-19

p.1 My key point is that what is common to the classical sociological tradition is implicit and not yet still well understood today: i.e. that the nature of 'social facts' is a relational matter.

p.6 Georg Simmel's 'relational turning-point' can be considered the very beginning of a proper relational theory in sociology... For Simmel... The social is the relational as such, that is, reciprocal action, inasmuch as it produces interaction, is incorporated and manifested in something that, even though non-observable, has its own solidity.

p.7 Simmel... looked for a 'logic (or a grammar) of social relations' internal to the social domain... His formalism must be understood... as a heuristic instrument with which to understand that the 'game' of social relations has rules and nonarbitrary dynamics. Money, as a 'substantialized social relation' is only one of its paradigms. [JLJ - perhaps in playing a social game, 'commanded attention' is the equivalent paradigm. A thing becomes real in a social game when an experienced and useful 'rule of thumb' or diagnostic test suggests we pay (initial) attention to a specific action or structure of 'mobilized coercion'. This 'thing' remains gamewise-real if it continues to command our attention, in light of the other competing 'pulls' to/for it.]

p.8 In the end, for Parsons the social relation is the reciprocal action of actors in a social system, but, insofar as the actor disappears from the scene, the relation becomes... a product of social structure... Parsons' analytic schemes of both social action... and of social systems... can be considered as heuristic instruments of exceptional importance for the relational perspective... through these schemes and their more or less implicit 'theoretical logic', it becomes possible to understand how social relations can be involved within a single action (unit act) in co-relation with what occurs in the broader social system encompassing it. [JLJ - hmmmm....]

p.9 postmodern sociology begins when social relations are considered as products of themselves, or else as an end in themselves.

p.10 In the postmodern, the dialectic between... agency and structure or the like, follows the simple unfolding of relations as such, in general conceived as a flow of communication. The symbolic code which interprets this process is predominantly communicative: relations are subsumed and... reduced to communications and only to communications.

p.12-13 To speak in a relationally adequate manner means: (a) first of all, that social relations should be accorded the status of an ontological 'stratum', that is a level of sui generis [JLJ - their own] reality embodied in 'social facts', and (b) that every sociological object must be defined as a social relation in a sensible manner, since sociology is concerned with the social relation 'embodied' in the object itself, insofar as it is a social phenomenon, i.e. arises, exists and is transformed socially.

p.13 To maintain that social relations have a reality of their own (sui generis) means saying that they are not simply derived from something else, but reflect an order of reality of their own with internal dynamics that require theoretical-practical conceptualization.

p.13 That the existence of any particular relation is a matter of contingency is no good reason for saying that they have no reality... What is this reality? It is a reality of a relation constituting the object... the 'social fact'... a reality which requires an appropriate theory for the process of observation... to adopt the relational outlook means to be dealing with a non-observable but equally real level of reality, where the relation is the tertium.

p.14 Every sociological object can and must be defined in relational terms... sociology... studies social realities as relations. To do this it must redefine its objects and then its concepts as relations... it must never be forgotten that the phenomenon under investigation is derived from a relational context, is immersed in a relational context and brings about a relational context... In sociology, the phenomenon we want to know about is the social relation

p.14-15 In a general sense, to understand increasing social complexity it is necessary to have codes which are capable of keeping this complexity open to selectivity (i.e. choices, or even reductions) broader than which operates in terms of binary codes (of the type either... or). This has at least the following requirements.

1. ...it requires a symbolic code that not only refers to the poles of the relation (relata), but concerns the relation itself, as a mediation or mediator that is irreducible to the terms that are connected.
2. At the level of the explanatory paradigm and of pragmatics, it requires appropriate analytical network models to undergrid social interventions that can show not only the contribution made by the particular elements of the relation, considered in isolation, but also the contribution of the relation (interaction) viewed as an 'emergent effect', in order to be able to investigate and treat the social system in question as 'condensing' the underlying social network.

p.15 In reality we see persons and, having posited or supposed certain relations among them, we say that this is the White family... The presupposition is therefore of the existence of a certain relationship which connects the elements that we observe. We see persons, but we think in terms of relationships and we speak on the supposition of relationships... All the language that we adopt to describe what we 'see' beyond single individuals is essentially relational.

p.15-16 All our thinking processes are relational: they connect and refer through relations

p.17 Social processes, with all their various characteristics, proceed through, with and across relations. This can be said about social reality, and also about theory. In other words, the relational is the 'start' of social reality, both in theory and in practice.

p.17 Society is understood as a net or web of relations. Society is a relation of relations, which unfold themselves according to their relational symbolic codes, a term that can also be interpreted as a 'logic'

p.18 The practical implications of such a relational sociology can be conceived and structured in accord with network analysis and result in approaches that can broadly be called 'networking interventions'.
 The basic idea is that the operation of a sociology, which is required as a support for practical or clinical action... must clarify that:

1. subjects and objects do not exist in an isolated state, but as complex relational webs in which subjects and objects are defined relationally, auto- and allo-poietically... The problem of relativism is resolved by specifying the relations among the different systems of reference, or by specifying the variables characteristic of nontrivial states of the system, which are used for analysis;
2. when one intervenes with respect to a phenomenon, it is necessary to work on the relational web in which what is observed is maintained, that is, to consider other relevant subjects and surrounding objects plus the 'effects of the network', which the actions can involve;
3. such interventions must be conducted with an awareness that a relatedness exists between the observer and the observed, between the actor and the acted upon, which entails the double hermeneutic.

p.18-19 What we want to know are social 'facts' insofar as they are real. However, we cannot know them except in and through relations:

1. the relation is the key to entering reality and to leaving it;
2. the relation does not eliminate the terms which it connects; instead, it reclaims, explores and expresses them;
3. the relation is not a pure abstraction, that is pure form or pure communication, but it is a concrete reality;
4. ...a concrete relational entity... Normally, it has a network structure: it connects, bonds and creates interdependencies, but tensions, conflicts, and also contradictions stem from it too;
5. norms and rules are an absolutely necessary and inevitable mode through which to regulate (i.e. under non-extreme conditions) the contingency of situations which, in the social world, are not determined a priori.

In brief, the relation... is 'the game of games'.

1: The relational paradigm: its implications for the understanding and organization of society 20-58

p.28 In many theories and scientific practises the relational point of view is absent simply because the relation is not viewed as a reality and as a problem in itself. It is considered to be an obvious and banal fact. It is treated like part of nature that does not call for any special attention.

p.29 Contrary to traditional thought, all modern thought is an exaltation of the social.

p.30 [Talcott] Parsons is the last of the great modern thinkers to hold that the social... maintains human characteristics by virtue of the exchanges that social action actuates at the boundaries between the biological, psychic, social and cultural.

p.38 The only certainty is that there is no certainty [JLJ - No. The only certainty is that statements made about certainty are not certain - including this one.]

p.39 To understand the meaning of the human within the social, sociology has to adopt a relational perspective.

p.39 there is the projection of certain human characteristics onto objects, entities or entire 'worlds' that would deprive humanity of certain of its functions and abilities, previously considered to pertain only to the human race. Examples include... artificial intelligence, if considered as potential extensions of and substitutions for the limited technical abilities of human beings.

p.41 the social must be understood as an effervescent sociality, which necessarily defies its possessing any (relatively) durable form or conforming to any logical system. The social is all there is and the human becomes the expression of society, thus appropriating reasons, emotions, aims and concerns from it... From the perspective advanced here, none of these conceptual modalities are acceptable. Instead, it is necessary to adopt a different mode of conceptualization, namely the relational.

p.45 The novelty here is the possibility of constructing an 'after-modern' paradigm for social science, which conceptualizes the human person as a relational subject who grows and matures in and through social relations. This growth and maturation represents an 'economy of human actions' based on the ultimate concerns of human beings in their singularity; in other words, we are what we care about.

p.48 in the relational paradigm, socialization is a process which follows the actualization of an 'interior conversation' through which and in which the person elaborates their self-consciousness. Socialization is therefore an active process on the part of the subject, while still taking place within an external context of social conditioning.

p.50 Transcendental reality is attained reflexively through the internal conversation the subject has with himself when surveying and passing through society's practices.

p.50 Ultimate concerns are the answers given to the existential questions that people ask of themselves when they consider their own happiness and the desire for a 'good life' for themselves.

p.51 The ultimate concern does not begin in our 'pure I', which would be solipsistic, but is progressively defined in relation to how the I defines his choices when he acts as a you and must answer, on one hand, to the demands of society and, on the other, to the deeper demands of the I, when he must declare himself satisfied or not with the me that he has been attributed to him by others, when he confronts and compares the meaning of his belonging (the us to which he belongs) to that of other potential membership groups.[JLJ - this is the philosophy that Isaac Asimov failed to articulate in his I Robot series of science fiction books. The Laws of Robotics (which drove the 'internal conversation' of the robots) failed to follow this thinking and therefore needed another way to derive ultimate concerns - a hierarchy of 'Laws' which could not be negotiated among an I-me-we-you interaction scheme, such as the one proposed here by Donati.]

p.51 Every way of being one's self - as the I, me, we, or you - is a dialogue (an internal conversation) with one's I (personal identity).

p.53 My view... is that self is a latent reality rooted in nature, whilst the means that realize the human person as a being... consist of the ultimate concerns with which the person confronts him/herself when it must, that is when in a social relation as a you, that is, within social roles. [JLJ - in my view, these are the critical success factors, which we strive to maintain within limits, and which draw our attention when they fall outside (or threaten to fall outside) limits practically imposed as a practical means to sustain the way of living we care about]

p.57 relational sociology brings to light the fact that a society is civil if and when 'it takes social relations seriously' (Donati 1997: 70-74) and organizes its networks and its institutions on this fundamental criterion.

2: Society as a relation 59-96

p.59 Sociology is the science of society.

p.60 The social relation, not the individual or the single act qua talis [JLJ - as such], constitutes the cell of the social system.

p.61 This is the paradox on which the whole of sociology is constructed, namely that social relations are the products of human actions and at the same time a reality which, as an emergent phenomenon, has independent properties and powers that condition its makers. [JLJ - This has applications for game theory.]

p.62-63 What is a 'social fact'? Sociology is a science in the sense that it identifies 'social facts' whose existence has to be understood and explained. But what is a social fact (or phenomenon)? ...the relational approach views any social fact as an 'emergent phenomenon'... the social fact is 'located' neither in the individuals nor in the structures nor in their fusion. Instead, it is generated by their relations.

p.66 The reality of the relation is of a different order... To grasp this order, we must adopt a 'relational' paradigm, according to which social change consists in the 'emergence' of social realities from the actions of subjects (individual and collective) in relation to one another in a determinate context. In sociology, 'explaining' means identifying the relations that generate a phenomenon, which is itself a relational fact. 'Understanding' means to 'put oneself in relation with', implying all that putting-oneself-in-such-a-relation (social!) means and comprises.

p.71 the relation provides the 'key' to interconnected terms and also indicates the 'path' through which to explore them.

p.73 the social relation is more than a symbolic reference: it also implies an 'exchange of something', a reciprocal action in which something passes from ego to alter and vice versa, which generates a reciprocal link of some kind between them.
 Hence, the notion that exchange... is the generating mechanism or motor of social relations... the exchange in question has a complex internal structure... Relations seen as exchanges can configure themselves in every way it is possible to realize the passage of something between the subjects in the relation. This passage (or exchange) creates a new entity or situation in which the relation also involves discovery, building and elaboration

p.80 Simmel's fundamental assumption was that society is reciprocal between individuals and the social is the emergent effect of this reciprocity or 'exchange of actions'

p.83 Talcott Parsons assumes right from the start... and consistently maintains the same position through to his last works... that the most general and fundamental property of every social phenomenon (considered as an action system) is the constitutive relationality of its parts, dimensions or variables. Interdependence, grounded in such relationality, consists in the existence of determinate relations between the parts or variables, in contrast with causal, indeterminate variability. In other words, the relation is a matter of inter-dependence (with inter-penetrations), and inter-dependence is both the very order of relations between the components of a system, and their emergent effect.

3: Critical realism as viewed by relational sociology 97-119

p.98 Facts are social inasmuch as they are made up of social relations.

p.98 It is necessary for any social relation to be a real relation and not a nominal one, but it is contingent on whether or not and how it occurs within the space-time of society (Donati 1983, 1991; Morandi 2009). In order to grasp this reality, what is needed is a critical realism that is both analytical and relational.

p.103 I believe that Margaret Archer made a unique and original contribution to sociological knowledge when she proposed the morphogenetic argument as an explanatory conceptual framework for critical realist sociology. [JLJ - a pop-up advertisement in a sociology book]

p.104 Relational theory begins by formulating a general sketch of sociological knowledge.

p.109 To relational sociology, social structure is made up/consists of social relations, not of individuals and mechanisms.

p.109 the sociologist... in order to investigate social facts empirically... needs an operational paradigm allowing her/him to analyse social relations in their making. That paradigm is the explanatory morphogenesis/morphostasis scheme, clarifying the logic and rules needed to analyse the processes through which social facts are generated... Archer... shows that social reality emerges out of processes in which the human being is an active and not a passive agent/actor... internal conversation... plays a mediating role between socio-cultural structures and agency's free choices, from which the dual structural and agential morphogenesis unfurls. [JLJ - what Donati is saying is that the social reality of an agent depends on the agent conversing with him/herself along the lines of "I want to do this, but if I did such and such, I would not get there. But what if I did this instead. I might then get as far as X, before I would then be stuck. But NOW if I got help from Y, I might get further. But instead..." in an endless fashion. Our "choice" emerges from these ramblings and musings, where we decide on a project which attempts to leverage our abilities and existing forces and relationships, a scheme which (when executed) might just get us what we want. I attend a University, get a degree, which now gives me leverage in an interview, and now I land a job. Now I do this other thing, but that won't work without a recommendation, so instead I ask for some help from Mr. Z, and, but no I have to do this first... ]

p.114 Relational sociology highlights the need to extend the notation of reflexivity beyond the dialogical self (the internal conversation) to the configuration of social forms.

4: Observing and thinking relationally: the premises of the relational theory of society 120-167

p.120 Relational sociology is a way of observing and thinking which starts from the assumption that the problems of society are generated by social relations and aims to understand, and if possible, 'solve' them, not purely on the basis of individual or voluntary actions, nor conversely, purely through collective or structural ones, but via new social relations and a new articulation of these relations.

p.123 To say that social relations have a reality of their own means that they are not a simple derivative of something else, but constitute a proper order of reality with its own internal strata, each of which requires particular attention and theoretical and practical treatment. [JLJ - Debates about what is real will go on forever. What matters, however, is what helps us, or helps us determine how to "go on" - whether this is real or not. We each sit in our web of relations and contemplate how to maneuver within it. The cues, actions, dialogues, diagnostic tests, trusted associations, imagined scenarios and more help us to determine how to go on. There are a lot of things that are "real" that do not help me, or contribute to helping me figure out how to go on. In addition, things like hope, dreams, wonder, and imagination are not real, yet might help me figure out what to do next. The state of our relations with others is uniquely real - to us. The real is not the only thing that, ultimately, matters to the actor.]

p.135 In the social sciences, the subject of action cannot be observed, understood or explained in and of itself, except through - inside of, with and by means of - social relations. [JLJ - or my view - action is only understood within the context of an actor within a predicament where there are consequences, real and imagined]

p.135 What we want to know are the social facts insofar as they are real. But we cannot know them other than in and through relations.

5: Social change in the light of relational sociology 168-191

p.168 My objective is to develop a relational theory of 'understanding'.

p.168 Knowledge is conceived of as a translation of what is unknown (non familiar) into what is familiar to the observer.

p.178 Context of subjects in relation → Dynamics of relations and social inter-actions → Emerging social forms

p.181 In parallel to the two preceding shifts (from linear to circular causality, and from historical temporality to an interactional register of time) the understanding of social change has changed from deterministic schemes to indeterminate ones.

p.189 Social change becomes the outcome of the social relation.

p.191 Orientating oneself to understand social change therefore means orientating oneself to detect the intimate relational nature of the social.

6: Reflexivity after modernity: from the viewpoint of relational sociology 192-210

p.194 Reflexivity is synonymous with internal conversation, and therefore pertains to human persons... It can, however, be extended to social groups, insofar as they can express a collective mode of reflexivity. [JLJ - it can also be extended to artificially intelligent entities, as they ponder their imagined place in the world and seek to maneuver to pragmatically position themselves as initial and continuing steps in attempts at overcoming the forces that keep them from reaching their goals.]

p.194 Archer defines reflexivity as 'the regular exercise of the mental ability, shared by all normal people, to consider themselves in relation to their (social) contexts and vice versa' (Archer 1007a: 4).

7: Doing sociology in the age of globalization 211-232

p.227 Action, as an 'external' relation, is made up of a stuff which is elaborated in the internal conversation (as you think of it) of ego... since they are part of the definition of the situation by ego