Theory Beyond Structure and Agency: Introducing the Metric/Nonmetric Distinction

Description

This book offers a solution for the problem of structure and agency in sociological theory by developing a new pair of fundamental concepts: metric and nonmetric. Nonmetric forms, arising in a crowd made out of innumerable individuals, correspond to social groups that divide the many individuals in the crowd into insiders and outsiders. Metric forms correspond to congested zones like traffic jams on a highway: individuals are constantly entering and leaving these zones so that they continue to exist, even though the individuals passing through them change. Building from these concepts, we can understand “agency” as a requirement for group identity and group membership, thus associating it with nonmetric forms, and “structure” as a building-up effect following the accumulation of metric forms. This reveals the contradiction between structure and agency to be a case of forced perspective, leaving us victim to an optical illusion. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Introduction (Jean-Sébastien Guy)....Pages 1-24 Structure and Agency: Problem and Solution (Jean-Sébastien Guy)....Pages 25-47 DeLanda and the Metric/Nonmetric Distinction (Jean-Sébastien Guy)....Pages 49-89 Metric and Nonmetric in Weber and Durkheim (Jean-Sébastien Guy)....Pages 91-136 Form and Medium in Luhmann’s Systems Theory (Jean-Sébastien Guy)....Pages 137-182 Bourdieu, Giddens and Foucault Through the Metric/Nonmetric Distinction (Jean-Sébastien Guy)....Pages 183-226 Applying the Metric/Nonmetric Distinction (Jean-Sébastien Guy)....Pages 227-250 General Conclusion (Jean-Sébastien Guy)....Pages 251-258 Back Matter ....Pages 259-277