New Social Realism for a Sociological Concept of Resilience

The concept of resilience poses theoretical challenges that are inextricably linked to both empirical and normative sociology, forcing us to reconsider our understanding of society and societal health. Social realism is a particularly relevant theoretical position in this context. Although it has been relegated to the status of a relic of the past since the establishment of methodological individualism, whether behaviorist or constructionist, with associated social nominalism, social realism provides us with an important theoretical orientation as we reexamine this fundamental problem.This paper suggests three viewpoints that might offer valuable insights for envisioning new social realism that could form a basis of a sociological conceptualization of resilience. The first are the sociological theories emerged in the early twentieth century, most notably those of Charles H. Cooley and Emile Durkheim. These theorists may have been considered as pioneers of constructionist sociology, but their work, which expanded upon the legacy of organismic understanding of society, suggests the importance of social realism that goes beyond any strands of nominalist thought. The second is the way that various disciplines have recently approached the ontological modality of the social. Along with other sciences such as neuroscience and physics, biology, which has historically had a significant impact on sociological thinking, is offering particularly notable viewpoints that can be useful for our purpose. The third is the field concept of societal embodiment that theorizes the relationship between society and individuals in a new light. It enables us to view society as the effects and components of a certain energy field that organizes individuals, groups, and the entire physical/biological environment, providing a means of conceptualizing societal health in a way that is relevant to both empirical and normative theory construction in sociology.