'Moral Agents and Moral Structures: a new ontological perspective on the study of people & societies' is the title of the lecture that will be delivered by Prof. Luk van Langenhove (Institute of European Studies, VUB; United Nations University). The lecture is organised by the Psychology Lab, Department of Psychology at the Faculty for Social Wellbeing.
The lecture will be held on Tuesday 25 April from 16:00 to 18:00 in the Psychology Lab (OH101).
This lecture presents the outline of an ontology of the social realm that aims to provide a new perspective to the study of psychological and social phenomena. The presentation draws upon the author’s work with Rom Harré on ‘positioning theory’ as well as on his experiences with interdisciplinary research in the social sciences and his work in the field of international relations. It will be argued that in order to raise the impact of the social sciences, research should start from a new ontological perspective that puts discourse and practices central. Within this perspective the ‘substance’ of the social realm can be regarded as a species-wide and history-long web of conversations between people (and other actors with personhood properties), in which ideas and speech-acts can be regarded as the basic forces that create agents and structures. The agents that emerge out of conversations are persons and institutions that can act as if they are persons. The structures can be regarded as moral orders that influence what actors can and should do. A typology of moral orders will be presented that allows integration of insights in the functioning of societies, institutions and practices with how persons cope with everyday life. The lecture will end with a brief presentation of the methodological implications of such a new ontological perspective for the social sciences.
Biosketch: Luk Van Langenhove (°1957; www.lukvanlangenhove.be) studied psychology and criminology at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) where he also obtained his Ph.D. in 1981. He started his career as a researcher at VUB and became Deputy Secretary-General of the Belgian federal ministry of Science Policy in 1992. In October 2001 he was appointed founding Director of UNU-CRIS, the Institute for Comparative Regional Integration Studies of the United Nations University in Bruges, a position he held until September 2016. From 2008 until 2010 he acted as Vice-President of the International Social Sciences Council. Since March 2016 he holds the position of Research professor at the Institute of European Studies (VUB) as the Scientific Coordinator of the EL-CSID project under the Horizon2020 programme. This project studies the potentials of science and cultural diplomacy for the EU’s policies. He is currently also Associate Senior Research Fellow at UNU-CRIS and Senior Advisor EU Strategy at the University of Warwick. He has published widely on regional integration, international relations as well as on social sciences theory, positioning theory and psychology. Recent books include De Opmars van de Regio's (Die Keure, 2014), Building Regions (Ashgate, 2011), People and Societies (Routledge, 2010) and Innovating the Social Sciences (Passagen Verlag, 2007). Recent publications in journals include European Integration, International Spectator, Review of International Studies, Contemporary Politics and Nature.
Places for this event are limited. Register by sending an email to luke.buhagiar@um.edu.mt
Places for this event are limited. Register by sending an email to luke.buhagiar@um.edu.mt