John Dewey, Arthur Bentley and the Concept of Trans-Actions
This book encompasses several emerging and interconnected approaches, including pragmatism , system theory, processual thinking and relational thinking, which work towards a non-ontological or essentialist grounding of sociology . In recent decades, many have observed a ‘pragmatic turn’, a ‘network turn’, a ‘relational turn’ or a ‘processual turn’ in the social sciences (see, for example, Abbott 2016; Crossley 2010; Donati 2012; Fushe 2015; Pyyhtinen 2016; Dépelteau 2018; Dépelteau and Powell 2013; Powell and Dépelteau 2013; Burkitt 2016). Thanks in part to the works of Charles Tilly, Pierre Bourdieu, Andrew Abbott, Harrison C. White and Niklas Luhmann, researchers using the method of process-tracing in pursuit of meaning and social network analysis among other approaches have contributed to the proliferation of publications related to processual thinking, relational sociology, system theory and pragmatism in multiple disciplines and on various topics. The work of John Dewey has been a key influence for many thinkers engaged in this quest for a new approach. Social thinkers, such as Kenneth J. Gergen, Hans Joas, Mustafa Emirbayer and Bruno Latour, for example, have been influenced by the work of the famous American pragmatist. In this sense, this book is the outcome of a growing intellectual movement in philosophy and the social sciences. It offers the opportunity to attain greater specificity with regard to these notions, and to demonstrate why and how we should use them in empirical analysis. In this respect, this book will be of interest to scholars seeking another promising sociology founded on a different mode of perception (and definition) of the ‘object’ of the social sciences. Evidently, this alone will not change or reinforce these disciplines, but it could be a significant event in a longer chain of interactions and discussions inspired by this goal.
This book is for all social scientists, graduate students and professionals interested in these emerging approaches, and it proposes a very different perspective on social life and social problems. Its focus is on one highly promising—but often misunderstood—concept in philosophy , sociology and other social sciences: the Dewey and Bentley notion of ‘trans-action ’. Briefly, this innovative concept offers the possibility of revisiting and redefining our perception of our social relations and social life by helping us to move beyond views based on mechanical and essentialist notions of ‘self-action ’ and ‘inter-action ’. It offers a new mode of perception of ourselves, others and the social fields , networks, organizations and institutions in which we make our way through the world.
There is growing sociological interest in incorporating these concepts into current social science and relational thinking. For example, Emirbayer (1997) explored them in his ‘relational manifesto’, but did not really develop the idea. Recently, and in their own ways, Peeter Selg (2016) and Sarah Hillcoat-Nalletamby (2018) also based their work on the notions of ‘trans-action ’, ‘inter-action ’ and ‘self-action ’. In one way or another, and more or less explicitly, other relational scholars have also been influenced by John Dewey’s and Arthur Bentley’s concepts. This publication will be the first collective sociological attempt to discuss and apply the concept of trans-action to various issues and topics, in a context wherein scholars are increasingly beginning to adopt this notion and/or think in terms of social processes and relations. Despite this growing interest, sociology is very much a latecomer in the reception of these ideas. This chapter is divided into three parts. In the first part of this chapter, we will introduce the interdisciplinary reception of this publication in areas that include philosophy , psychology , educational theory, literary studies and political science . This overview is followed by a summary that outlines the concepts of self-action , inter-action and trans-actions . This part will develop a framework that provides an encompassing narrative for the chapters in this volume. This framework will be used in the third part to discuss and connect the chapters of this book as well as their contribution to a new thinking in sociology .
The Concept of Trans-Action: An Interdisciplinary History
The concept of ‘trans-action ’ was first proposed in a book published in 1949 by John Dewey and Arthur J. Bentley , entitled Knowing and the Known. Both authors had been in intellectual exchange for almost two decades prior to its publication (see Dewey and Bentley 1964) and some of the book’s chapters had already been published in philosophical journals, including Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. The book consisted of twelve chapters, with Chapters One, Eight and Nine written by Bentley , Chapter Ten contributed by Dewey , and the remaining chapters written collaboratively. The posthumous publication of Dewey’s writings revealed that he had planned to contribute several other chapters to the book. These typescripts are found in his collected works. In this publication, therefore, we will refer to this latest version of Knowing and the Known (Dewey and Bentley 1989 [1949]).
The prior publication of some chapters in philosophical journals, as well as the introduction (a critical review of logicians such as Carnap, Cohen, Nagel, Ducasse, Lewis, Morris and Tarski) led to an initial, modest reception, mainly within philosophical circles. Some of the journal publications received technical as well as negative reviews (see Church 1945), and the book was also reviewed on its publication. In the United States, Harold A. Larrabee (1950) was one of the first philosophers to review the book. While he had high praise for Dewey and Bentley , his review did not mention self-action , inter-action or trans-action . The philosopher Sidney Ratner (1950) provided a more detailed review of the book. Ratner acknowledged the two great philosophers who collaborated on this important publication, as well as the timely subjects, for example, the critique of mentalistic, positivistic and realistic approaches to logic. However, he found the book in large part to be vague and inaccessible. He (1950, p. 249) calls the act of reading the book an ‘ardent quest’. However, he also looks favourably upon the concepts of self-action , inter-action and trans-action , saying that the work’s impact on the philosophical community will depend significantly on the reception of these concepts. On the other side of the Atlantic, the British philosopher Wolfe Mays (1952) struck an even more negative tone, claiming that Dewey and Bentley’s book provided an overview of the ‘intellectual ills’ of philosophy in the United States presenting ‘primarily a variety of old-fashioned pragmatism of the best American vintage’ (1952, p. 263). Again, the concepts of self-action , inter-action and trans-action were not mentioned. By this time, philosophical interest in the book had waned.
Despite the lack of a philosophical interest in the book, as early as 1951, Anselm Strauss recommended the book to social psychologists. Strauss highlighted the fact that the experimental psychology of his time separated sign from behaviour and organism from environment , whereas Dewey and Bentley’s conceptions of self-action , inter-action and trans-action overcome these fallacies. As a particularly pertinent example, he mentioned the notion of the sign , which Dewey and Bentley conceptualize as an activity that is neither in the organism , in the environment , nor a thing. Other psychologists seem to have agreed with Strauss, because the initial uptake of the book was concentrated in the area of a psychology of learning and perception .
The psychological and psychophysicist theories of perception that dominated research in the 1930s and 1940s framed perception as a simple mediating process. Perception was merely a constant in the transformation of external stimuli received by organisms . These stimuli had to have forms (texture, sound , weight) that could be utilized by the receiving organism. Perception was, in psychological terms, a translation of the characteristic of a pre-existing external world (Bevan 1958). In other words, perception was regarded as an entirely passive affair (Toch and MacLean 1962). The psychological study of media effects in that period seemed to confirm this common-sense understanding. Viewing was passive, and the external would translate itself almost automatically into the mind of the viewer. Thus, the media were seen to exert strong effects and to be capable of easily manipulating behaviour. This paradigm became established as the hypodermic needle theory (also known as the hypodermic-syringe model, transmission-belt model, or magic bullet theory) (see Thibault 2016). The classic example that seemed to illustrate this case is Orson Welles’s radio-play “War of the Worlds”. The mass panic incited by the broadcasts suggeste...