Cart
Defining and Defending Social Holism
Abstract
This paper offers a definition of social holism that makes the doctrine non-trivial but possibly true. According to that definition, the social holist maintains that people depend non-causally on interaction with one another for possession of the capacity to think; the thesis is meant to be a contingent truth but one, like physicalism, that is plausible in the light of some a priori argument and some plausible empirical assumptions. The paper also sketches an argument in support of social holism, which connects with themes in a number of traditions, philosophical and sociological. The key idea is that people depend on socially shared dispositions and responses for the ability to identify – identify fallibly – the properties and other entities that they consider in each individual has to the course of thinking.
- Recommend to:
- A friend
First page preview
Details
- Available online: 24 Sep 2007
Author biographies
Philip Pettit is Professor of Social and Political Theory at the Australian National University and is a regular visiting Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, New York. Among his recent books are The Common Mind: An Essay on Psychology, Society and Politics (OUP 1993, 1996), Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (OUP 1997) and (with Marcia Baron and Michael Slote) Three Methods of Ethics: A Debate (Blackwell 1997).
Journal news
- Listed in the Thomson Reuters Arts & Humanities Citation Index
- Essay Prize 2013: Call for Papers
Librarians
- Librarians' area
- Pricing
- Institutional account
- Access entitlements
- Co-branding
- IP ranges
- Link resolver preferences
- Usage reports