Re: Weber and rationality

Andy:
Do animals act intentionally? What about the principle of emergence? Given
that reality is stratified, is it not possible that development on one
level operates according to an emergent logic qualitatively different from
the logic of intentional action at another level? 

ricardo:
Intentional action presupposes self-awareness; and while we may think 
of material reality as a layered structure, with each level  - 
physical, chemical, biological - having its own emergent properties, 
no self-awareness exists here. 

Andy:
What about the
structures that emerge from unintended action? What about the consequences
that result from inattention and inaction? What about history? Which is to
say, what about the consequences of the intentional and unintentional
collective activities of past actors on the intentional choices and
collective development of present and future generations? 

ricardo: 
Some say sociology is the study of the unintended consequences 
of intended actions....But this dualism can be transcended once we 
realize that structures do not simply constraint human action but 
enhance our capacity to act.   

Andy:
It seems to me
that saying that "structures can ONLY be produced and reproduced through
the intentional action of groups or individuals" (my emphasis) is refuted
by what is know about the actual behavior of systems, social or otherwise.


ricardo: 
Yes, but what I added about Giddens suggested that the 
unintended consequences of intentional actions may create 
unacknowledge conditions of action. 

Highly complex *autonomous* social systems like bureaucracies do 
exist, with their own codes and regulations, but such codes are best 
seen as intitutionalized forms of  rationality. Even AGF, as I showed 
earlier, recognizes that the world-system (which I think is just another 
system and not the whole system) includes individuals consciously 
pursuing their practical interests in the world market. This is why 
nomothetic explanations, in terms of a general or covering law that 
explains the behavior of variables x, y, and z,  are insufficient to 
understand historical events - because if we acknowledge that we 
humans are rational, then, we must make reference to our 
intentions-motivations, which is what Weber meant by *verstehen*. 

Recently Wallerstein, in "Hold the Tiller Firm", decided to move into 
this methodological debate in the 19th century social sciences. But 
as he is so committed to the idea that the modern world system must be 
the ultimate "unit of analysis",  he misses altogether this 
difference between covering law explanations and intentional 
explanations, stating that "all explanation is ultimately in terms of 
a covering law" (criticizing Frank's version of the world system only 
on the grounds that it is too general a covering law!). World system 
theory has yet to come to terms with this 19th century 
methodological debate, never mind all the theoretical developments of 
the 20th century.

ricardo