Society
A group of perennial problems in social philosophy arises from the concept "society" itself and from its relation to the "individual." What is the ontological status of a society? When one speaks of it as having members, is that to recognize it as a whole with parts, or is the relation of some different kind? Or is this a case of what Alfred North Whitehead called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness?
Social Action and Social Relations
"Society" is used both abstractly and to refer to entities that can be particularized, identified, and distinguished from each other as social systems or organizations. The phrase "man in society" is an instance of the more abstract use, for it refers neither to some particular form of association nor to a particular collectivity in which individuals find themselves. It refers, rather, to the social dimension of human action—to a certain generalized type of human relationship. Purely spatial or physical relations between human beings, like contiguity, are not social; for social relations give to human actions a dimension possessed neither by the mere behavior of things nor, indeed, of animals.
Max Weber defined a social action as one which, "by virtue of the subjective meaning attached to it by the acting individual (or individuals), … takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course" (Theory of Social and Economic Organization, p.
