Duality and value realism

Abstract

Classical Western thought presupposes a value realism, in which values and meanings are part of the “furniture of things.” Ushering in a radical change in the locus of thought, a modern dualistic metaphysics generally rejects external sources of value in favor of understanding meaning and value as a subjective projection of the individual. Because the subject's interiority is the exclusive source of meaning and value, theories of action within this tradition tend to understand action in terms of self-action. Another metaphysics of action, a metaphysics of immanence, suggests a different basis for understanding the source of meaning and value in action: the agent-environment coupling. The network-analytic principle of duality, as exemplified in the work of Roger Friedland and Pierre Bourdieu, is an invaluable conceptual resource within this alternative tradition, as it enables the mathematical formalization of processes of alignment that produce meaning and action. In my conclusion, I suggest that a modified value realism, exploiting the network-analytic principle of duality, offers an alternative explanatory paradigm in cultural sociology.