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In this final book by renowned sociologist Margaret S. Archer, her groundbreaking morphogenetic approach is defended, refined and extended through a series of engagements with her critics. Archer, a pioneer of critical realism, addresses key debates surrounding her work on structure, agency, and social change. Each chapter responds to critiques from a different scholar, using these exchanges as springboards to further develop her powerful explanatory framework. Through these lively dialogues, Archer elaborates her tools for analysing social and cultural dynamics. This book offers readers a unique window into Archer's thought as she clarifies, sharpens and expands her theoretical contributions in response to constructive criticism. It will be an essential read for scholars and students across the social sciences, and for anyone seeking to understand the forces that shape our social world and how we can reshape it.

Acknowledgement to the Independent Social Research Foundation -- Contents -- 1 Introduction: Has a Morphogenic Society Arrived? -- Preface -- Summary Characteristics of Morphogenic Society -- Morphogenesis and Eudaimonia -- Why Morphogenesis Does Not Entail Eudaimonia -- Equality, Participation and Eudaimonia -- Networking Eudaimonia: The Processes of Participation -- Conclusion -- References -- 2 Human Flourishing and Human Morphogenesis: A Critical Realist Interpretation and Critique -- Human Flourishing I: Aristotelian Foundations -- Human Flourishing II: Critical Realist Foundations and Elaborations -- Human Morphogenesis: The Transhumanist Challenge -- Morphogenesis and Metaethics -- References -- 3 Some Reservations About Flourishing -- Flourishing and the Case Against Value Neutrality in the Social Sciences -- So What's My Issue? -- So What Words Are Better? -- Is Our Current Trajectory Toward Flourishing? -- References -- 4 Reflexivity in a Just Morphogenic Society: A Sociological Contribution to Political Philosophy -- Introduction: Reflexivity, Side-Lined in Public Debates and Political Philosophy? -- The Contribution of Sociological Theory to Political Philosophy -- Morphogenic Society: What It Is and Why It Matters -- What Morphogenic Society Is and What It Is Not -- The Dimensions of Social Morphogenesis -- Are We Currently Living in a Morphogenic Society? -- Normative Problems in Morphogenic Societies -- Social Reflexivity: How Should I Make My Way Through the World? -- Modes of Social Reflexivity: A Very Brief Refresher -- The Morphostatic Assumptions of Theories of Justice -- The Meagre Assumptions of Theories of Justice on Social Reflexivity -- Should Social Reflexivity Be Listed as a Central Human Capability? -- Injustice Resulting from Unequal Social Reflexivity in Morphogenic Society

This book, the last volume in the Social Morphogenesis series, examines whether or not a Morphogenic society can foster new modes of human relations that could exercise a form of 'relational steering', protecting and promoting a nuanced version of the good life for all. It analyses the way in which the intensification of morphogenesis and the diminishing of morphostasis impact upon human flourishing. The book links intensified morphogenesis to promoting human flourishing based on the assumption that new opportunities open up novel experiences, skills, and modes of communication that appeal to talents previously lacking any outlet or recognition. It proposes that equality of opportunity would increase as ascribed characteristics diminished in importance, and it could be maintained as the notion of achievement continued to diversify. Digitalization has opened the cultural 'archive' for more to explore and, as it expands exponentially, so do new complementary compatibilities whose development foster yet further opportunities. If more people can do more of what they do best, these represent stepping stones towards the 'good life' for more of them.

This volume explores the development and consequences of morphogenesis on normative regulation. It starts out by describing the great normative transformations from morphostasis, as the precondition of a harmonious relationship between legal validity and normative consensus in society, to morphogenesis, which tends to strongly undermine existing laws, norms, rules, rights and obligations because of the new variety it introduces. Next, it studies the decline of normative consensus resulting from the changes in the social contexts that made previous forms of normativity, based upon 'habits, 'habit us' and 'routine action', unhelpfully misleading because they no longer constituted relevant guidelines to action. It shows how this led to the 'Reflexive Imperative' with subjects having to work out their own purposeful actions in relation to their objective social circumstances and their personal concerns, if they were to be active rather than passive agents. Finally, the book analyses what makes for chance in normativity, and what will underwrite future social regulation. It discusses whether it is possible to establish a new corpus of laws, norms and rules, given that intense morphogenesis denies the durability of any new stable context

This volume examines how generative mechanisms emerge in the social order and their consequences. It does so in the light of finding answers to the general question posed in this book series: Will Late Modernity be replaced by a social formation that could be called Morphogenic Society? This volume clarifies what a 'generative mechanism' is, to achieve a better understanding of their social origins, and to delineate in what way such mechanisms exert effects within a current social formation, either stabilizing it or leading to changes potentially replacing it . The book explores questions about conjuncture, convergence and countervailing effects of morphogenetic mechanisms in order to assess their impact. Simultaneously, it looks at how products of positive feedback intertwine with the results of (morphostatic) negative feedback. This process also requires clarification, especially about the conditions under which morphostasis prevails over morphogenesis and vice versa. It raises the issue as to whether their co-existence can be other than short-lived. The volume addresses whether or not there also is a process of 'morpho-necrosis', i.e. the ultimate demise of certain morphostatic mechanisms, such that they cannot 'recover'. The book concludes that not only are generative mechanisms required to explain associations between variables involved in the replacement of Late Modernity by Morphogenic Society, but they are also robust enough to account for cases and times when such variables show no significant correlations

This volume examines how generative mechanisms emerge in the social order and their consequences. It does so in the light of finding answers to the general question posed in this book series: Will Late Modernity be replaced by a social formation that could be called Morphogenic Society? This volume clarifies what a ℓ́ℓgenerative mechanismℓ́ℓ is, to achieve a better understanding of their social origins, and to delineate in what way such mechanisms exert effects within a current social formation, either stabilizing it or leading to changes potentially replacing it . The book explores questions about conjuncture, convergence and countervailing effects of morphogenetic mechanisms in order to assess their impact. Simultaneously, it looks at how products of positive feedback intertwine with the results of (morphostatic) negative feedback. This process also requires clarification, especially about the conditions under which morphostasis prevails over morphogenesis and vice versa. It raises the issue as to whether their co-existence can be other than short-lived. The volume addresses whether or not there also is a process of ℓ́ℓmorpho-necrosisℓ́ℓ, i.e. the ultimate demise of certain morphostatic mechanisms, such that they cannot ℓ́ℓrecoverℓ́ℓ. The book concludes that not only are generative mechanisms required to explain associations between variables involved in the replacement of Late Modernity by Morphogenic Society, but they are also robust enough to account for cases and times when such variables show no significant correlations.

This volume examines the reasons for intensified social change after 1980; a peaceful process of a magnitude that is historically unprecedented. It examines the kinds of novelty that have come about through morphogenesis and the elements of stability that remain because of morphostasis. It is argued that this pattern cannot be explained simply by 'acceleration'. Instead, we must specify the generative mechanism(s) involved that underlie and unify ordinary people's experiences of different disjunctions in their lives. The book discusses the umbrella concept of 'social morphogenesis' and the possibility of transition to a 'Morphogenic Society'. It examines possible 'generative mechanisms' accounting for the effects of 'social morphogenesis' in transforming previous and much more stable practices. Finally, it seeks to answer the question of what is required in order to justify the claim that Morphogenic society can supersede modernity.

First published in 1979, this now classic text presents a major study of the development of educational systems, focusing in detail on those of England, Denmark, France, and Russia - chosen because of their present educational differences and the historical diversity of their cultures and social structures. Professor Archer goes on to provide a theoretical framework which accounts for the major characteristics of national education and the principal changes that such systems have undergone.Now with a new introduction, Social Origins of Educational Systems is vital reading for all tho

The rate of social change has speeded up in the last three decades, but how do we explain this? This volume ventures what the generative mechanism is that produces such rapid change and discusses how this differs from late Modernity. Contributors examine if an intensification of morphogenesis (positive feedback that results in a change in social form) and a corresponding reduction in morphostasis (negative feedback that restores or reproduces the form of the social order) best captures the process involved. This volume resists proclaiming a new social formation as so many books written by empiricists have done by extrapolating from empirical data. Until we can convincingly demonstrate that a new generative mechanism is at work, it is premature to argue what accounts for the global changes that are taking place and where they will lead. More concisely we seek to answer the question whether or not current social change can be regarded as social morphogenesis. Only then, in the next volumes will the same team of authors be able to remove the question mark

AbstractComplexity is not 'the same as simply complicated'. This is because its advocates present it as a theoretical approach to explaining major aspects of the social order, usually at the macro level, whereas many social phenomena, at any level, can be full of complications (such as the incidence of road accidents) without a unifying theoretical key. Thus, the latter have a strong tendency to remain at the level of events and their study to be confined to a 'variables' approach, statistically combining the most variable of potentially contributory factors, without being troubled by the absence, in particular cases of one or more common contributors to accidents (such as drivers' alcohol consumption). But 'the Complexity Turn' does much more than leaving empiricism behind, like Critical Realism from its earliest beginnings, and in some hands is seen as the senior partner of these two approaches.

AbstractConnecting the critical realist morphogenetic model to insights made by Nicholas Rescher, this paper argues that our predictions are always subject to chance and contingency but nevertheless ineluctably useful for both practical and scientific inquiry. Contingency results from the causal openness of the world, including the causal openness of our own decision‐making. On the other hand, as Rescher notes, human interaction would fail without a degree of stability, which makes the predictions of morphostatic relations if not lawlike at least predictable in a practical sense. Nor is it just habit that makes for morphostasis. Human agents strive reflectively to produce in morphostatic ways the human goods they have created by their interaction. And beyond individual actors, there is, from the critical realist point of view, the combined effects of structure and culture inclining at least in the short‐term to reliably predictable if not lawlike outcomes. With that background, the paper reflects on the dual role of coincidence in social theory, on the one hand signalling contingency and the other on what, according to the active causal mechanisms, generally co‐occur.