Social Metaphysics, Social Ontology and the Possibility of Social Reality

One of the emerging fields within analytic metaphysics is social ontology. This paper argues for a distinction between social metaphysics and social ontology in order to clear up some of the confusion that is plaguing the field. That terminological distinction has deep historical and philosophical roots which are relevant for the specific case of social reality. According to the proposed distinction, social metaphysics takes up the most fundamental questions pertaining to the very nature and being of social reality, whereas social ontology has the more specific task of drawing an inventory of social reality as it exists and elucidating the properties of its items and categories. The distinction itself is further specified as involving both abstraction and asymmetry. One can abstract from one domain while focusing upon the other, which is different from separating or isolating one domain from the other. There is an asymmetry between the two domains whereby social metaphysics enables and conditions social ontology, but not vice versa.