Social Emergence
Societies As Complex Systems

This book argues that societies are complex dynamical systems that can be understood through the concept of emergence.

R. Keith Sawyer (Author)

9780521606370, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 October 2005

288 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.43 kg

'… I enjoyed reading this book. It is clearly written and describes challenging theories in an accessible way. I also found it thought provoking for my own research.' Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation

Can we understand important social issues by studying individual personalities and decisions? Or are societies somehow more than the people in them? Sociologists have long believed that psychology can't explain what happens when people work together in complex modern societies. In contrast, most psychologists and economists believe that if we have an accurate theory of how individuals make choices and act on them, we can explain pretty much everything about social life. Social Emergence takes a new approach to these longstanding questions. Sawyer argues that societies are complex dynamical systems, and that the best way to resolve these debates is by developing the concept of emergence, focusing on multiple levels of analysis - individuals, interactions, and groups - and with a dynamic focus on how social group phenomena emerge from communication processes among individual members. This book makes a unique contribution not only to complex systems research but also to social theory.

Acknowledgements
1. Emergence, complexity, and social science
2. Emergence, complexity, and the third wave of social systems theory
3. The history of emergence
4. Emergence in psychology
5. Emergence in sociology
6. Durkheim's theory of social emergence
7. Emergence and elisionism
8. Simulating social emergence with artificial societies
9. Communication and improvisation
10. The Emergence paradigm.

Subject Areas: Social theory [JHBA], Social & political philosophy [HPS]