Abstract
In chapter 1, I discussed systems and actions as general concepts from the perspective of the relationship between the whole and its parts, without limiting my discussion to social phenomena. In this chapter, I will consider the nature of actors and systems that are constituted by human beings. Among the examples of actors and systems of this kind are individuals, families, societies, nations, and international relationships.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Norbert Wiener regarded the world as being fundamentally constituted by matter-energy and information; the latter, in his view, consists of qualitative and quantitative patterns of matter-energy in time and space (The Human Use of Human Beings,pp. 3–4). This approach is followed by Tamito Yoshida, who situates Wiener’s concept of information as one of four evolutionary categories or stages of information, a stage which he calls ‘information in its broadest sense.’ Yoshida regards the ‘spatio-temporal and qualitative-quantitative patterns of matter-energy’ that have come into existence since the origin of life, as a subclass of information that he calls signs; further, he regards those sign phenomena that are characteristic of human activities as symbols, a subclass of signs (Jikososhikisei no joho kagaku [The information science of self-organization], especially p. 37). In this book, I am particularly concerned with the subclass symbols, which I will define more completely later. However, as Yoshida observes, ‘information’ is a concept that has a very large number of meanings. In order to avoid needless confusion, therefore, I will not use it as an analytic concept in this book; I will employ the term only in the general sense in which it is used in everyday language.
Yoshida calls this kind of symbol system structure-control information, structural information,or a program. (In this book I use the term sign instead of information. In his later work, Yoshida concurred in the use of this term.) He defines structural information as “a set of symbol signs, continuous in time and patternized (whether written or unwritten, spontaneous or institutionalized), that is stored in a social system and controls (whether directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally) the information processing and resource processing of that system.” Yoshida, Joho to jikososhikisei no riron (The theory of information and self-organization), p. 207; for further details see ibid.,pp. 207–209.
See: Kawashima, Hoshakaigaku (The sociology of law) vol. 1, pp. 103–109; Kawashima, Nihonjin no ho-ishiki (The legal consciousness of the Japanese), pp. 22–25.
Lambert, La vengeance privée et les fondements du droit international public (Private vengeance and the foundations of international public law), p. 37.
According to Murakami, “When no common basis exists, power politics has no means by which to interrupt and to prevent the escalation of mistrust and the eventual occurrence of a catastrophe” (Hankoten no seikeizaigaku [Anticlassical political economy], p. 154). The concept of an interest system, which I employ as an analytic concept in this book, is characterized by the relationship that exists among the interests of the individual elements of a system when those interests have no common basis; that relationship consists of both coexistence and opposition. Further, I contend that an equilibrium and/or stable state is created when the interests in an interest system are provided with a common basis of some kind.
Schmitt, Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europaeum (The Nomos of the Earth in the international law of Jus Publicum Europaeum),p. 139. I will discuss these questions further in 5.4.4.
In sociology and the sociology of law, a shift from relationships based on the use of force to relationships based on deterrence is regarded as the minimum prerequisite for the existence of a society, social system, or role system. See Hirose, K., Funso to ho (Conflicts and law), pp. 111–15; Kawashima, Hoshakaigaku (The sociology of law) vol. 1, pp. 103–109; Kawashima, Nihonjin no ho-ishiki (The legal consciousness of the Japanese), pp. 22–25.
For example, the 1989 and 1990 conferences of the Japan Sociological Society included basic theory workshops on ‘The Question of Order and the Social Dilemma’ (Oct. 1989, Waseda University) and ‘The Possibility of a Rational-Choice Model’ ( Nov. 1990, Kyoto University).
The most remarkable present-day proponent of psychologism or personality reductionism is B.F. Skinner (Skinner, Science and Human Behavior,pp. 297–299). For its methodological meaning, see Bendix, “Personality Reductionism: Complaint Behavior and Individual Personality,” in Smelser and Smelser (eds.), Personality and Social Systems,pp. 55–67.
For the methodological meaning of sociologism or social reductionism, see Wrong, “Social Reductionism: The Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology,” in Smelser and Smelser(eds.), op.cit.,pp. 68–79.
For example, Toshitake Kuji has provided a good introduction to the individualistic approach to order formation and the criticisms of that approach by Durkheim, Parsons, and other sociologists. Kuji concludes, “Cooperation between egoists in the absence of social coercion is possible in principle, albeit only under certain conditions. One can explain the establishment and maintenance of social order and the origins of cooperation in terms of individual self-interest, without having recourse to altruism, morality, or external enforcement as explanatory factors.” In support of this conclusion, he cites the results of a contest conducted by Robert Axelrod involving the Prisoner’s Dilemma computer program. The ‘certain conditions’ in the example cited were four attributes, set by Axelrod, that the players must possess: niceness, provocability, forgiveness, and clarity. It should be noted, however, that in Axelrod’s game the number of players is small and they interact directly. In my view, the conditional nature of Axelrod’s results suggests that it might not be possible to extrapolate his argument to a general case where the actors interact indirectly. Kuji, “Chitsujo mondai e no kojinshugi apurochi no kanosei” (The possibility of an individualistic approach to the problem of order); Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation,pp. 20–35, 40–54.
See Smelser and Smelser(eds.), op.cit.,Part V. Therefore, in present-day sociology, confrontation between personality reductionism and social reductionism has been sublimated by the relation between methodological individualism and methodological collectivism. In the former, starting point of the analysis of social phenomena is the part of the whole (namely, individual in the case of a domestic society); whereas in the latter, starting point of the analysis of social phenomena is the whole (namely, society itself in the case of a domestic society). that interactions are occurring not only between individuals and society, but also between change at the individual level and change at the societal level (see I-3).
Mediation is a vague concept, but for my present purposes I define the word ‘mediate’ to mean ‘establish relationships and connections between different entities by processing, through the use of a symbol system, the signs that represent those entities (including their meanings).’ For example, the socialization process, social control, motivation, and internalization can all be viewed as social processes that mediate between individual behavior and the social structure.
Taking a similar viewpoint, Yoshida, in Joho to jikososhikisei no riron (The theory of information and self-organization) (chapter 5, especially pp. 113–29) situates the life sciences (among which he includes the social sciences) within a comprehensive framework and places them on a systematic basis by analyzing all life phenomena (including social phenomena) in terms of information. He presents what he calls ‘the total structure of the information concept;’ within that total structure, he examines the meanings with which information is used in each of the sciences and in everyday language, and establishes relationships among these different meanings. In this book, I examine symbol systems that can be used to analyze social phenomena within a framework similar to Yoshida’s ‘total structure of the information concept.’ See also note 2.
For details, see Onuma, “Shinkaitei kaihatsu katsudo ni taisuru kokusaihoteki hyoka, sono soronteki kosatsu” (An overview of the evaluation of development of the sea-bed, ocean floor, and subsoil thereof under international law), pp.123–163; Funao, “Uchu shigen kaihatsu to jinrui no kyodo no isan gainen” (Resource development in outer space and the concept of the common heritage of mankind), pp.132–134.
For details, see: Hirose, K., “Jikososhikika suru kokusaiho shakai” (The self-organizing international legal community); Hirose, K., “Kokusai shakai no hendo to kokusaiho no ippanka” (Changes in the international community and the generalization of international law).
I will return to this point in Part II when I discuss law and society in the context of the global community and international relations. Here I wish simply to note that, in practice, ‘individual elements’ in the present-day global community and international relations include subnational entities of various kinds; among them are races, ethnic groups (tribes, clans, etc.), nongovernmental organizations, multinational or transnational corporations, and individuals. (A race is a group defined by biological differences, and an ethnic group is a group defined by sociocultural differences, such as differences in customs, culture, or religion.)
See Hirose, “Jikososhikika suru kokusaiho shakai” (The self-organizing international legal community), pp. 36–38. The following comments by Kunz in “Zum Begriff der ‘nation civilisée’ im modernen Völkerrecht” (On the concept of ‘civilized nation’ in modern international law, pp. 89–90) reflect a view similar to my own regarding the relationship between the concepts of international law and the realities of international relationships: ‘State’ in the sense in which it is used in international law has gradually come to mean ‘civilized nation.’ “A ‘civilized nation’ as a legal technical term is nothing but a state that is a member of the (international) community based on international law (Völkerrechsgemeinshaft),” and “A community is an aggregation of nations connected by international law.”
Techniques of interpretation include grammatical interpretation, systematic interpretation (extensive, restrictive, and commutative interpretation), sociological interpretation, and analogy. For an explanation of the meanings and relationships of these techniques, see Aomi, Hotetsugaku gairon (Introduction to legal philosophy), new ed., pp. 174–87.
H. Kelsen, whose advocacy of a pure science of law has had a great influence on international jurisprudence, regarded the principle Pacta sunt servanda as a grundnorm,or basic norm. He stated that “A basic norm or source norm, as a hypothesis, must be introduced by legal recognition, in order for it to be possible to interpret the empirical material which presents itself as law as an element of a ‘legal system’ (Allgemeine Staatslehre [General theory of the state], p. 104), and, conversely, that “To interpret these acts of human beings as legal acts and their products as binding norms, and that means to interpret the empirical material which presents itself as law as such, is possible only on the condition that the basic norm is presupposed as a valid norm.” (General Theory of Law and State,p. 116).
Thus, it was logically inevitable that Kelsen, in analyzing or criticizing the grundnorm itself, was forced to adopt a sociological perspective (Aomi, “Junsui hogaku” [A pure science of law], p. 331). For further discussion, see Hirose, K., Funso to ho (Conflicts and law), pp. 14–16.
On internal models, see Deguchi, Fukuzatsukei tosite no Keizaigaku (Economics as a Complex system), pp. 114–20.
I mention fractals here simply as an intuitive analogy to action systems; I do not mean to suggest that there is a strict analytic correspondence between the two. In this book, I use one internal model, the action system, to represent all phenomena generated by human activities, from the activities of individuals and groups of individuals to those of the international community. This approach seems to me to be similar in conception to fractals, because fractal diagrams are characterized by their self-resemblance. As Masaya Yamaguchi says, “Self-resemblance means that any one part of a geometric figure is an image of the whole figure on a reduced scale; many of the complex objects in the world have this characteristic.” Yamaguchi, Kaosu to furakutaru (Chaos and fractals), pp.14953; Takayasu, Furakutaru (Fractals), pp. 1–7.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kawaguchi, K.H. (2003). Action Systems as Complex Systems. In: A Social Theory of International Law. International Law in Japanese Perspective, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4978-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4978-7_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-4672-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-4978-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive