Positioning and the Nature of Social Objects

Abstract

In opposition to the ontological neglect that characterizes so much economics a group of researchers based in Cambridge in the UK argue that method and substantive theory can benefit if informed by explicit, systematic and sustained social ontology. This paper sets out key elements of the general socio philosophical ontology that this Cambridge group outline and explores how within this approach social reality is understood as being constituted through the emergence and transformation of social totalities. A particular focus is on the importance placed by the Cambridge approach on processes of social positioning and in exploring what this involves. The paper highlights that it is this general socio philosophical ontology that provides the basis for the critique of the dominant methods of modern economics since these presuppose an implicit ontology quite inconsistent with both it and indeed any realistic conception. This implicit ontology is also shown to constrain the way economic objects are characterized within mainstream economics. Finally the paper provides an illustration of how powerful accounts of specific social existents can be developed that are consistent with the broader social ontological conception that the Cambridge group defend by sketching one account of the firm and the modern corporation recently forwarded that draws systematically upon the notion of social positioning.