The Glue of Society: A Social Ontology of Social Cohesion

Introduction

Social cohesion is a key concept in how we think about the social world. And yet, we have a very poor conceptual understanding of what social cohesion is, how it relates to other social phenomena, and which role it plays in maintaining social order and facilitating cooperation.

Current Challenges

To date, this challenge has not been taken up by social ontology. Contemporary social ontology primarily focuses on understanding the nature of collective cooperation in which people coalesce around a joint purpose in such a way that we can attribute attitudes and actions to them as a collective rather than as an aggregation of individuals.

Definition of Social Cohesion

But social cohesion is not only a function of collective cooperation but also the extent to which a social system enables mutually sustaining cooperation among agents with separate goals. Call this converging cooperation.

Project Aim

It seems then that social cohesion is a key concept in how we think about the social world that lies beyond the scope of social ontology in its current form. Responding to this impasse, the aim of the GLUE project is to secure philosophical clarification of the concept of social cohesion and to account for its role in constituting and maintaining the social world.

Research Questions

The primary research questions are:

1. What is social cohesion, and which distinct social phenomenon might it refer to?
2. What are the semantically explanatory relations between (a) social cohesion and (b) the concepts often used in social ontology and the social sciences to account for collective cooperation?
3. How can a clearer account of social cohesion be used to foster social stability?

Methodology

Combining descriptive, explanatory, and critical approaches to social ontology, GLUE:

• Enriches our typology of social dynamics,
• Expands the scope of social ontology beyond collective cooperation,
• Introduces concepts that can help identify and mitigate forms of social destabilisation, and
• Develops a new and integrative research method for social ontology.