Why is Social Life Explicable, but Unpredictable, or How Does Freedom Give Rise to Determinism?

Why is Social Life Explicable, but Unpredictable, or How Does Freedom Give Rise to Determinism?


Podvoiskiy D.G.

Cand. Sci. (Philos.), Assoc. Prof. of the Lomonosov MSU; Assoc. Prof. of the RUDN University; Leading Researcher of the Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russia dpodvoiski@yandex.ru

ID of the Article:


The research was supported by RSF grant No. 24-18-00440.

Rubric: Sociologycal yournalism

For citation:

Podvoiskiy D.G. Why is Social Life Explicable, but Unpredictable, or How Does Freedom Give Rise to Determinism?. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2024. No 7. P. 159-169



Abstract

The article presents a critical reinterpretation and reconstruction of а key problem of social science: how a logically consistent and empirically substantiated explanation of social phenomena generated by the voluntarism of human actions, linked into complexes by a seemingly infinitely multiple contingency, is possible? In other words, we are talking about an attempt to answer the questions: how such a logically imaginary contingency is capable to generate elements of order at the empirical level, why social interactions have relative stability and reproducible character, what role do so-called unintended consequences of socially oriented (but dictated by «personal motives») human actions play in the processes of morphogenesis of society?


Keywords
causality; cause-and-effect relationships; regularity; free will; contingency; social action; social relationship; social institutions; methodology of social sciences and humanities

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Content No 7, 2024