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Ideational Structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2025

Aaron James
Aaron James*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of California, Irvine
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This essay characterizes one way people are organized by their ideas about the ideas of others, namely, “ideational structure.” I clarify its role in social explanation, compare it to some standard social ontologies, and propose that it is an important element in an ideology.

Keywords

ideationsocial structuresocial organizationcoordinationcommon knowledgesocial ontologyJohn SearleMichael BratmanMargaret Gilbertideology
Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , Summer 2024 , pp. 126 - 138
Copyright
© 2025 Social Philosophy & Policy Foundation. Printed in the USA

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References

1 On the question of what “ideology” is, see other essays in this volume—especially those by Allen Buchanan and Elizabeth Levinson and Molly McGrath as well as the section “Ideology” below.

2 Hans Christian Andersen, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” (1837).

3 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), Part IIICrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6 James, Aaron, Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 For elaboration, see James, Aaron, “Replies to Critics,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 44, no. 2 (2014): 286–304 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; James, Aaron, “How Cynical Can Ideal Theory Be?” Journal of International Political Theory 12, no. 2 (2016): 118–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Krasner, Stephen D., Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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12 Searle, John, Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 On money, see James, Aaron, “Money, Recognition, and the Outer Limits of Obliviousness,” Synthese 202, no. 2 (2023): 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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16 Shapiro, “Massively Shared Agency,” 282. Kutz, Compare Christopher, Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, whose account of “complicity” with large-scale coordination similarly relies only on “participatory intention.”

17 Michael Bratman, email message to author, Fall 2016.

18 Margaret Gilbert, email message to author, Spring 2017.

19 Gilbert, Margaret, A Theory of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, and the Bonds of Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), Part IIICrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Gilbert, Margaret, Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 See Allen Buchanan, “The Explanatory Power of Ideology,” elsewhere in this volume.

22 Allen Buchanan and Alex Motchoulski, “Ideology and Political Revolutions in Conditions of Disorder,” in Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy (forthcoming).

23 Compare Virgil Henry Storr, Michael Romero, and Nona Martin Storr, “Ideology and Extreme Protests,” elsewhere in this volume.

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25 Haslanger, Sally, “Culture and Critique,” Aristotelian Society Supplementary 91, no. 1 (2017): 150 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Leiter, Brian, “How Are Ideologies False?” elsewhere in this volume; Ann E. Cudd, Analyzing Oppression (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Leopold, David, “Marxism and Ideology: From Marx to Althusser,” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, ed. Michael Freeden, , Sargent, Lyman, and Stears, Marc (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 22 Google Scholar; Meyerson, Denise, False Consciousness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For critical discussion, see Brian Kogelmann, “The Demand and Supply of False Consciousness,” elsewhere in this volume.

26 James, Aaron, “Constructing Justice for Existing Practice: Rawls and the Status Quo,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 33, no. 3 (2005): 281–316 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; James, Fairness in Practice; Aaron James, “Why Practices?” Raison Politiques 51 (2013): 43–61.

27 James, Fairness in Practice; James, “Replies to Critics”; James, “How Cynical Can Ideal Theory Be?”

28 Dworkin, Ronald, Law’s Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

29 James, “Why Practices?”