World Ordering: A Social Theory of Cognitive Evolution: 150 (Cambridge Studies in International Relations, Series Number 150)

Adler, Emanuel

ISBN 10: 110841995X / ISBN 13: 9781108419956

Published by Cambridge University Press, 2019

About this Item

Seller Inventory # V9781108419956

Bibliographic Details

• Title: World Ordering: A Social Theory of Cognitive Evolution: 150 (Cambridge Studies in International Relations, Series Number 150)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 110841995X
• ISBN 13: 9781108419956
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Drawing on evolutionary epistemology, process ontology, and a social-cognition approach, this book suggests cognitive evolution, an evolutionary-constructivist social and normative theory of change and stability of international social orders. It argues that practices and their background knowledge survive preferentially, communities of practice serve as their vehicle, and social orders evolve. As an evolutionary theory of world ordering, which does not borrow from the natural sciences, it explains why certain configurations of practices organize and govern social orders epistemically and normatively, and why and how these configurations evolve from one social order to another. Suggesting a multiple and overlapping international social orders' approach, the book uses three running cases of contested orders - Europe's contemporary social order, the cyberspace order, and the corporate order - to illustrate the theory. Based on the concepts of common humanity and epistemological security, the author also submits a normative theory of better practices and of bounded progress.

About the Author

Emanuel Adler is the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Chair of Israeli Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, and Honorary Professor at the University of Copenhagen. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the European Academy of Sciences. His publications include Security Communities (co-edited with Michael Barnett, Cambridge, 1998) and International Practices (co-edited with Vincent Pouliot, Cambridge, 2011).