Do We Have to Choose Between Different Concepts of Social Structure? A Comparative Analysis of Approaches and Ideas From Nigel Pleasants, Douglas V. Porpora, and David Easton

Abstract

This study of three different approaches to social structure finds Pleasants’s ideas for the use of different concepts of social structure intriguing but based on an untenable view about the possibility to discern an empirical modality. Porpora’s approach is based on the idea that the relational concept of social structure cannot be bypassed, ontologically speaking. Easton’s idea is to apply the two relational concepts of higher-order and lower-order structure. Relational structures are also salient in the specific scholarly debate studied, which strengthens the idea that it is this concept of social structure that we primarily should focus on.