Structural Idealism: A Theory of Social and Historical Explanation

Jay Newman is a professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph. His
most recently published works include Biblical Religion and Family
Values: A Problem in the Philosophy of Culture, Competition in Religious
Life, Religion vs. Television: Competitors

Notwithstanding its title, which suggests that it will systematically
develop a metaphysical position and/or philosophy of culture, Douglas
Mann’s book brings together a number of discrete discussions with
distinctive styles and degrees of intellectual complexity. Though the
book can be traced back to Mann’s doctoral dissertation at the
University of Waterloo, it also appears to collect material developed
for different audiences on particular occasions. However, Mann is
generally interested in the area where cultural theory intersects with
metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and he does refer recurrently to
“structural ideals,” which he takes to be “extensions of Max
Weber’s ideal types.” Mann offers a “model” of social
consciousness; remarks on intention, meaning, and structure in social
explanation; a reconciliation of competing sociological theories of
deviance; a defence of Collingwood’s philosophy of history; brief
discussions of Nietzsche, Freud, sociology of knowledge, and various
postmodernist theorists; reflections on body images in commercial media;
and brief sketches, largely appreciative, of a miscellany of cultural
critiques. What Mann offers in the way of a “theory” is wildly
eclectic, and topics are raised and dropped with disconcerting rapidity.
He addresses some interesting issues and offers some intriguing
suggestions but often bewilders the reader by his digressions.

Despite his penchant for naming people only marginally relevant to his
core philosophical concerns, Mann ignores many important philosophers
who have written at length on these concerns. While impressed by
symbolic interactionism, he seems to be unfamiliar with the
philosophical theory that inspired it, the “social behaviorism” of
the pragmatist G.H. Mead. He ignores Plato and Santayana and has hardly
anything to say about Kant; and while appreciating the importance of
Collingwood, he does not draw on related insights of philosophers such
as Dilthey and Cassirer. Indeed, despite his interest in Collingwood and
social consciousness, he neglects a key work coauthored by a former
Waterloo professor, The Conceptualization of the Inner Life by Armour
and Bartlett. Still, while readers may sometimes be irritated by
Mann’s chirpy dilettantism, they may find it refreshing to read
something by an academically trained philosopher who finds philosophy so
enjoyable.