Definition


General ontology has a number of subfields, domain-specific or regional ontologies. Social ontology is such(a) a domain-specific subfield, which should include the basic entities, properties and kinds studied by the social sciences. There are two kinds of social entities: social individuals and social complexes or collectives.

According to Lynne Rudder Baker, taking “social community” as a primitive, we can characterize a social property as a property the instantiation of which requires the existence of a social community. Typically, for human beings that means a linguistic community. Social ontology at a time t contains all the instantiated social properties that are irreducible and ineliminable at that time. This will comprise the social properties that are primary kinds that are instantiated at t and the entities individual or complex that earn those social properties as their primary-kind properties.