Abstract
Symbol systems and social structures are gprominent concepts with long historical legacies in the social sciences. This chapter traces how symbol systems and social structures have been theorized independently of each other in the social sciences during the twentieth century, before elaborating the ways in which sociologists have theorized the relationship between the two. Marx, Weber, and Simmel offered important ideas about this relationship, but Durkheim’s account of the social origins of mental structures provides the most direct and elaborated theory about the relationship between mental and social structures within the classical sociological period. Subsequently, we trace Durkheim’s legacy through three contemporary perspectives: field theory, neo-institutionalism, and culture and cognition. While maintaining analytical continuity with the Durkheimian tradition, these perspectives also represent new theoretical, analytical, and methodological advances in locating and specifying correspondences between symbol systems and social structures. Nevertheless, we find that pressing questions remain pertaining to how symbol systems and social structures interrelate, and how exactly this relationship shapes both cognition and action.
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Notes
- 1.
Moreover, Saussure saw linguistics as part of a broader semiological science.
- 2.
Saussure used the terms sign and signifier rather than symbol, because the latter denotes a less arbitrary association than that of a sign. For example, a pair of scales does not have an arbitrary relationship to justice and could not be easily replaced by a chariot.
- 3.
- 4.
This being said, Foucault continuously rejected the “structuralist” label throughout his career (Foucault [1970] 2005: xv).
- 5.
Durkheim was not the only sociologist whose work set the foundation for structural analyses. Marx’s ([1845] 1965) philosophy of history and dialectical materialism are certainly foundational for structuralism, and Simmel’s (1950) formal sociology offered its own new way of understanding social life based on the structural properties of relations between individuals (though more commonly associated with relational than structural approaches).
- 6.
- 7.
These principles are based on those outlined by Maryanski and Turner (1991: 109), but we use different terminology and include different elements in each principle.
- 8.
We follow Porpora’s basic typology but depart from it somewhat in how we describe each conceptualization and the perspectives associated with them. This departure has to do in part with the fact that his article is now 30 years old, and in part with analytical differences.
- 9.
In effect, Marx’ philosophy of history and dialectical materialism revolve precisely around the relationship between the material and symbolic dimensions of social life, as a response to Hegel and the Young Hegelians’ emphasis on the primacy of ideas as the motor of history (see Marx [1845] 1965).
- 10.
As an example, Simmel (1971) saw domination, not as the imposition of an individual’s will over another, but as a social form, characterized by a mutually determined relationship between a subordinate and a superordinate, which always possesses a degree of freedom. Whatever contents bring about the interaction (e.g., hatred, amusement), it is always structured based on its formal properties as a two-way relation.
- 11.
For Durkheim, classification is essentially the arrangement of things (including ideas, space, time) into distinct and clearly demarcated groups. These groups constitute categories, whose function is to govern and contain concepts. Concepts in turn are collective representations provided by society. For Durkheim ([1912] 1995), the faculties of classification, categorization, and conceptualization are all dependent upon social conditions.
- 12.
Developments in cognitive psychology, and later other cognitive sciences, have debunked this claim (cf. Rosch 1978) but, in Durkheim’s defense, this knowledge was not available in the early twentieth century.
- 13.
- 14.
Bourdieu did not consistently refer to the same number of types of capital across his publications, but used the four we mention above most solidly and often.
- 15.
Bourdieu (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) wrote about the influence of Durkheim, Marx, and Weber on his work. We only discuss the influence of Durkheim given the focus of our chapter.
- 16.
Bourdieu’s interest in categories of thinking, and judgment in particular, ought to be traced further back to Kant (see especially Bourdieu [1979] 1984).
- 17.
Neo-institutionalism (or new institutionalism) developed across several social sciences, with distinct characteristics. Here, we focus on neo-institutionalism in sociology and organizational analysis (see DiMaggio and Powell 1991) but, for the sake of simplicity, we will refer to it just as neo-institutionalism.
- 18.
The other major sociological theory of fields is the Strategic Action Fields perspective, formulated by Fligstein and McAdam (2011). This perspective places more emphasis on the emergence and change of fields, and the role of power and political processes, and less so on mental structures and their interrelationship with social structures, thus why we do not discuss it here. For an excellent analysis of the similarities and differences among the three theories of fields, see Kluttz and Fligstein (2016).
- 19.
- 20.
In 1997, there was also a conference on Culture and Cognition organized by Cerulo, whose presentations were subsequently published in an edited volume (Cerulo 2002). “Culture and Cognition” was already recognized as an area of study in anthropology and psychology prior to 1997, but it had no connection with sociology. The term Cognitive Sociology was introduced to sociology by Cicourel a couple of decades earlier (see Cicourel 1974) but it did not have much influence in the discipline and, for what concerns us here, the perspective it offered was quite distinct from what has come to be known as Culture and Cognition.
- 21.
The perspective developed by Zerubavel is often referred to as “cognitive sociology,” to distinguish it from “culture and cognition,” more interested in general patterns of cognition than in the more specific relationship between cognition, action, and social structure that characterizes the latter.
- 22.
This argument is in line with Swidler (1986, 2001). Swidler does not write about cognition, but has formulated an important critique of long-held assumptions about how culture shapes action, specifically criticizing the notion that culture shapes action by being “deeply internalized.” She points out, by contrast, that culture shapes action from the outside in, in that individuals often adapt their actions to external cultural symbols, even if they do not believe in them.
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Leschziner, V., Brett, G. (2021). Symbol Systems and Social Structures. In: Abrutyn, S., Lizardo, O. (eds) Handbook of Classical Sociological Theory. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78205-4_26
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