Internal vs. External Change

Dr. Green

Change vs. Permanence

• Everything changes—Heraclitus

• Nothing changes—Parmenides

• Something changes and some things don’t—Aristotle

Aristotle’s Theory of Change

• The view that dismisses all change is incompatible with the facts of experience

• The view that everything changes is conceptually incoherent– If you dyed a t-shirt and all aspects of the t-

shirt changed, the would be no t-shirt to contain the dye because it would have changed into something other than a t-shirt

– Every change requires a substrate that is conserved through the change

Conditions of change

• A conserved substrate

• Two opposing states, s(1) and s(2)

• At t(1), the substrate has s(1) and at t(2) is has s(2)

• An initiating cause that caused the change of state from s(1) to s(2)

Initiating Cause

• Theories of type of initiating cause affect– Methodology– Types of Theories

Initiating Cause

• Externalistic theory of change—the cause of any change is outside the social system

• Arises from a mechanistic metaphysics

Mechanistic Theory of Change

• Complex situations are a combination of simple elements

• All the elements are qualitatively the same• Each element exists independently of every

other element• Each elements remain constant over time• Each element is passive• A complete analysis is the sum of the simples

that are present in a closed situation

Examples

• Environmentalism– Change due to exogenous shocks to a

system in equilibrium– Sociological theory of crime

• Behaviorism– Every response comes from an external

stimulus

Reductionism

• Society explained by– Psychology, which can be explained by

• Biology, which can be explained by– Chemistry, which can be explained by

» Physics

Immanent Theory of Change

• Every system has within itself the seeds of change

• Derives from a holistic metaphysics

Holistic Metaphysics

• Reality is a process of constituting complex systems

• Complex systems have ontology priority in the study of reality

• There is a multiplicity of such complexly organized systems

• Complex systems are self-directing and self-organizing

Immanent Change

• Focuses on– Inner potentialities– Inner tendencies or efforts of the system itself

Combinational Theory

• Which is most important?

Sorokin’s Arguments

• Empirical support

• Conceptual arguments– Processual nature of reality– Decay through use– Components are changing

• Humans• Meanings

– Constant environment with changing system

Critique of Externalism

• Indefinite postponement of answer

• End regression by– Infinite series with no self-acting agent– Positing some self-acting agent—First Mover– Ascribing immanent change to some aspect of

the system, such as the – Ascribing change to nothing

Consequences

• Immanent generation of consequences

• Immanent self-determination– Forms, phases, and transitions– External accelerate or retard– Acorn becomes an oak– Realization of inherent potentialities

Consequences

• Different degrees of self-determination– Dependence and independence are adjusted

• More integrated, the more self-determining– Causally in institutions– Meanings in culture

• More self-determining, the more independent of external forces

Example-Minsky

• Minsky defines three financial positions of increasing fragility: – Hedge finance: income flows are expected to

meet financial obligations in every period. – Speculative finance: the firm must roll over

debt because income flows are expected to only cover interest costs.

– Ponzi finance: income flows won’t even cover interest cost, so the firm must borrow more or sell off assets simply to service its debt.

Minsky

• Over a protracted period of good times, economies tend to move from a financial structure dominated by hedge financing to a structure with increasing speculative and Ponzi financing.

Economic Cycles

• Capitalism economies subject to an immanent tendency to unsustainable credit expansion

• Periods of credit expansion reach unsustainable limits, i.e., debt saturation

• Periods of debt liquidation follow