Social Networks of Ideational Networks - and beyond

Talk by Nikita Basov (University of Manchester), 2023-2024 Paris IAS Fellow, at the SRM/UTM seminar organized by the University of Toulousee.

Abstract

Networks of networks approach (Koskinen et al., 2023) overcomes one of the key limitations of statistical network modelling: the inability to account for the nestedness of one network level in the other (such as when managers' advice ties are nested in organizations connected by alliances). Particularly, networks and culture scholars can benefit from this development allowing to model the interplay between symbolic structures and the social structures of individuals affiliated with them. For instance, to study relations between the structures representing ideas as relations between terms and structures of collaboration / mentorship connecting the thinkers expressing these ideas. The talk will present an illustrative analysis focused on the philosophers associated with Edmund Husserl and working in the first half of the 20th century. It will showcase how social networks of symbolic networks are constructed, overview configurations representing key structuring mechanisms in these networks, and present results of multilevel exponential random graph modelling. Analysis shows that even though philosophers tend to distinguish from each other in their ideas, social ties stimulate them to overcome the distinction and indeed share ideas. The proposed framework can be used in a number of broader applications, extending throughout the studies of culture and society and beyond, into the scholarship of social structure effects on cognitive, linguistic, and knowledge structures of individuals, groups, organisations, institutional fields, and societies. The talk will discuss the diversity of these possible applications and propose several extensions and future developments of the approach.

Practical Information

To take part in the seminar online, please send an e-mail to Guillaume Favre, guillaume.favre@univ-tlse2.fr