Structure, Agency and Ontological Confusion: A Response to Hay
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2009.00818.x |
| Author | Nigel Pleasants |
| Subject Matter | Article |
P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 0 9 VO L 5 7 , 8 8 5 – 8 9 1
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2009.00818.x
Structure, Agency and Ontological
Confusion: A Response to Haypost_818885..891
Nigel Pleasants
University of Exeter
Colin Hay’s article ‘King Canute and the “Problem” of Structure and Agency’ aims to: (1) ‘gain an
interesting political analytical purchase on a seemingly familiar tale’, and (2) ‘generate a series of valuable
and more general insights into our understanding of the structure–agency relationship’. I argue that he
fails on both counts.
Debate over structure and agency in one form or another is almost coextensive
with theoretical reflection on the subject matter of the social sciences. It reached
its height of sophistication with the programmatic writings of Anthony Giddens
in the 1980s on the ‘theory of structuration’. More recently, the debate has been
enthusiastically taken up by a section of political scientists and international
relations theorists. These scholars have been agitating for their colleagues through-
out the field of political studies1 to see the concept of structure and agency not just
as a project for specialists in philosophy of social science or social and political
theory, but as of intrinsic significance to all forms and instances of political inquiry.
Colin Hay is one of the chief protagonists in this crusade, insisting that ‘every time
we construct, however tentatively, a notion of social, political or economic
causality we appeal, whether explicitly (or more likely) implicitly, to ideas about
structure and agency’ (Hay, 1995, p. 189). In a 45-page chapter on the subject in
his book Political Analysis, he maintains that ‘the question of structure and agency
is about the explanation of social and political phenomena. It is about what is
deemed to constitute a valid or adequate explanation of a political effect or
outcome’ (Hay, 2002, pp. 93–4).‘King Canute and the “Problem” of Structure and
Agency’2 (Hay, 2009) is Hay’s latest contribution to the debate and the crusade.
The stated aim of his article is twofold: to ‘gain an interesting political analytical
purchase on a seemingly familiar tale’, and to ‘generate a series of valuable and
more general insights into our understanding of the structure–agency relation-
ship’ (p. 260), each via the other. I think he fails on both counts.
The debate over structure and agency concerns the nature of the relation between
human beings qua individual agents and the causality of the social systems,
structures and forces that bear upon their conditions of action. A distinctive
feature of the debate in the political science literature is the widespread concur-
© 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 Political Studies Association
886
N I G E L P L E A S A N T S
rence that structure and agency raises specifically ontological questions and issues.
And one of the core aims of Hay’s article is to warn political scientists of the
desideratum, as he sees it, of cognising ‘a clear distinction between the empirical
and the ontological’ (p. 260). I shall endeavour to show that Hay is seriously
confused about the proper usage, if not the meaning, of the concept of ontology,
and that ontological inquiry cannot, in any case, do for political scientists what he
expects of it.
Oddly, Hay’s attempt at explicating the ‘distinction between the empirical and the
ontological’ is based on the observation that the nature, causes and consequences
of a social event – such as Canute’s apparent attempt to impress his subjects with
supernatural powers – can be interpreted in various ways.‘The empirical’, he says,
is ‘amenable to a multitude of different interpretations’, and these different
interpretations are ‘informed by a multitude of competing ontologies’ (p. 263).
Moreover, in any attempt to interpret or explain a social event, ‘we cannot help
but invoke ontological assumptions – whether we choose to acknowledge this or
not’ (p. 262). This is an unfortunate way of trying to explicate the concept of ‘the
ontological’, because it consists solely in (epistemic) propositions about the
cognitive process of seeking to know or understand something, with no reference
to the putative object of that process.What is it about ‘ontological assumptions’ that
makes them ontological assumptions? The key point that Hay should have made
about the concept of ontology is that it is used to refer to the fundamental mode
of existence of things, which is beyond the possibility of empirical observation or
inquiry (either that which is necessarily super-empirical, or just that which is
contingently beyond our current means of empirical inquiry). Initial clarity on this
basic point might have saved him from some of the...
To continue reading
Request your trial