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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

225467

Visibility and social theory

pp. 37-70

Abstract

In the previous chapter we observed the curious zone of convergence according to which, on the one hand, neurophysiological cognitive research is discovering and increasingly recognising the relevance of the social (traditionally conceived) and emotional aspects of seeing, while on the other fashionable social theories like ANT tell us that we should displace the centrality of humans in the ensemble of the social world as exclusive agents and the only entities entitled to perceive. My suggestion here is that the only possible advantageous zone of convergence between these apparently dissonant claims is a relational social theory in which the percipiens and the perceptum are analysed as flexions of the same perceptive phenomenon, event or act, which constitutes a territory within a social environment. I call this perspective an ecological phenomenology, and I will try to explain why.

Publication details

Published in:

(2010) Visibility in social theory and social research. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 37-70

DOI: 10.1057/9780230282056_2

Full citation:

(2010) Visibility and social theory, In: Visibility in social theory and social research, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 37–70.