Publisher's Synopsis
This book raises and examines the philosophical problem of how it is possible that the social world is constituted as a unified totality. A novel theory of social i holism is put forward on the basis of what is specified as formal ontology. The first part of the book discloses the non-extensional constitution of the social world and proposes that the individual is to be understood as a 'Leibnizian entelechial monad' in conceptual communication with the others. it is further established that the categories of social holism must be placed within a transcendental locus. in the second part, this conceptual communication is analysed as the possession and application of social concepts, meaningful linguistic behaviour, and the intentionality of mental acts. Finally, in the last part, the event-structure to the social world is described. Social states of affairs as constituents of an event-dense social world are shown to be complex wholes irreducible to their subjects and instantiating an intensional nexus of relations of social properties.
