Just as insti­tu­tions require shared ontolo­gies to func­tion, so are insti­tu­tions involved in cre­at­ing the cat­e­gories that nake up ontolo­gies. Admit­tedly, assign­ing agency to insti­tu­tions poses a num­ber of ques­tions that need to be answered; I won’t attempt that here. Essen­tially, I fol­low Mary Dou­glas (see video below), espe­cially her How Insti­tu­tions Think. The cat­e­gories and rules that com­prise human ontolo­gies fol­low and enable a prac­ti­cal logic that in turn enables sus­tain­able human interaction.

A corol­lary idea to this is that ontolo­gies exist (in large part) to medi­ate social action. They are the result of human beings’ mutual cal­i­bra­tion of indi­vid­ual cog­ni­tion through col­lec­tive inter­ac­tion. Typ­cially, this cal­i­bra­tion takes place through rit­ual. But media (old and new) — which grow out of but even­tu­ally dis­place rit­ual — also take on this role. (McLuhan’s fre­quent ref­er­ence to rit­ual to describe the effects of new media is telling.)

“Social Life Makes the Cat­e­gories“
The late Mary Dou­glas being inter­viewed in 2006
about her book Purity and Dan­ger.
See the full inter­view and films at Sci­enceS­tage.

The Com­pOnt Tenet 2: Social Life Makes the Cat­e­gories by The Trans­ducer, unless oth­er­wise expressly stated, is licensed under a Cre­ative Com­mons Attri­bu­tion 3.0 Unported License.

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