Alle Publikationen
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2014
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(2014): Minds as social institutions. In: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (1), S. 121-143. DOI: 10.1007/s11097-013-9324-0
Abstract: I will first discuss how social interactions organize, coordinate, and specialize as "artifacts," tools; how these tools are not only for coordination but for achieving something, for some outcome (goal/function), for a collective work. In particular, I will argue that these artifacts specify (predict and prescribe) the mental contents of the participants, both in terms of beliefs and acceptances and in terms of motives and plans. We have to revise the behavioristic view of "scripts" and "roles"; when we play a role we wear a "mind." No collective action would be possible without shared and/or ascribed mental contents. This is also very crucial for a central form of automatic mind-reading (mind ascription). Second, I will argue that often what really matters is the ascribed/prescribed, worn, mind not the real, private one. We have to play (like in the symbolic play) "as if" we had those mental contents. This social convention and mutual assumption makes the interaction work. The ascribed beliefs and goals are not necessarily explicitly there; they might be just implicit as inactive (we act just by routine and automatically) or implicit as potential. The coordination and social action works thanks to these "as if" (ascribed and pretended) minds, thanks to those conventional constructs. Our social minds for social interactions are coordination artifacts and social institutions.
Keywords: als ob, belief in beliefs, Coordination, coordination artifacts, Extended mind, Interaktion, Kooperation, Kognitionswissenschaft/Social Sciences/Humanities, Konventionen, philosophy of mind, script, Social frames, Social institutions, social interaction, soziale Kognition, theory of mind, Überzeugungen, Voraussetzungen für sozial angemessenes Verhalten 2012
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(2012): How institutions think. London: Routledge (Routledge revivals)
2010
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(2010): The moral foundations of social institutions. A philosophical study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Abstract: Theory -- A teleological account of institutions -- The moral foundations of institutions -- Individual autonomy : agency and structure -- Collective moral responsibility -- Institutional corruption -- Applications -- The professions -- Welfare institutions -- The university -- The police -- The business corporation -- Institutions and information and communication technology -- Government In this book, Seumas Miller examines the moral foundations of contemporary social institutions. Offering an original general theory of social institutions, he posits that all social institutions exist to realize various collective ends, indeed, to produce collective goods. He analyses key concepts such as collective responsibility and institutional corruption. Miller also provides distinctive special theories of particular institutions, including governments, welfare agencies, universities, police organizations, business corporations, and communications and information technology entities. These theories are philosophical and, thus, foundational and synoptic in character. They are normative accounts of a sampling of contemporary social institutions, not descriptive accounts of all social institutions, both past and present. Miller also addresses various ethical challenges confronting contemporary institutional designers and policymakers, including the renovation of the international financial system, the 'dumbing down' of the media, the challenge of world poverty, and human rights infringements by security agencies combating global terrorism
1998
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(1998): Individual strategy and social structure. An evolutionary theory of institutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
Abstract: Neoclassical economics as-sumes that people are highly rational and can reason their way through even the most complex economic problems. In Individual Strategy and Social Structure, Peyton Young argues for a more realistic view in which people have a limited understanding of their environment, are sometimes short-sighted, and occasionally act in perverse ways. He shows how the cumulative experiences of many such individuals coalesce over time into customs, norms, and institutions that govern economic and social life. He develops a theory that predicts how such institutions evolve and characterizes their welfare properties. The ideas are illustrated through a variety of examples, including patterns of residential segregation, rules of the road, claims on property, forms of economic contracts, and norms of equity. The book relies on new results in evolutionary game theory and stochastic dynamical systems theory, many of them originated by the author. It can serve as an introductory text, or be read on its own as a contribution to the study of economic and social institutions.
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