On the focus imaginarius of the nascent global society and contemporary social theory: what is the status and role of the idea of harmony?

Strydom, Piet

On the focus imaginarius of the nascent global society and contemporary social theory: what is the status and role of the idea of harmony?

Files

2013Strydom_Harmony_GANDHI.pdf(445.56 KB)

Accepted Version

Date

2013

Authors

Strydom, Piet

Publisher

Gandhi Marg, Gandhi Peace Foundation

Abstract

This article offers a theoretical assessment of the idea of harmony as a potential focus imaginarius for the construction and organisation of the emerging global society as well for the social scientific study of this process. The assessment is couched in cognitive social-theoretical terms. While the limits of the idea of harmony are highlighted by drawing on aesthetic theory, it is nevertheless retained as an essential formal presupposition possessing both ontological and epistemological significance. Social-scientifically, however, the idea is located on the meta-level, counterfactual, cognitive order of society as only one among a wide range of different cognitive suppositions which get selectively and variably combined and used as structuring elements when distinct actor-agents in concrete social life competitively engage in the pursuit of their own particular visions of a harmonious society. The task today is to study this process in order to identify learning processes and potentials pointing toward a harmonious society that could be social-scientifically enhanced and supported.

Keywords

Aesthetics , Cognitive order , Global society , Learning processes , Social theory , Triple contingency

Citation

Strydom, P. (2013) 'On the focus imaginarius of the nascent global society and contemporary social theory: what is the status and role of the idea of harmony?', Gandhi Marg: Quarterly Journal of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, 35(1), pp. 73-88.