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1.1. Formation of Concepts
Initially many concepts emerge on the object-image sensual basis as a definite empirical image of an object or a phenomenon (e.g., image of a house, a park, a village) in the collective activity context. Later (when the initial content of the concept becomes more complex due to the knowledge obtained through other kinds of cognitive activity) these images maintain their function of the most illustrative representative of this concept in human consciousness.
Concepts are formed from one’s direct sensorial experience of a person – perception of reality by the sensory organ (and understanding of one’s place in this reality); from direct operations with other concepts which were already present in one’s consciousness (such operations may result in appearance of new concepts); from language communication (the concept can be explained to the person); from individual learning of meanings of linguistic units (e.g., using a dictionary). In most cases the new concept arises as an image and, through verbalization, being used in speech, can be codified as an abstraction or a contour (for instance, if it belo ngs to the multiple-meaning word system). The generally-known fact that at the stage of learning of abstractions it is better to provide examples proves the figurative nature of the majority of concepts. Figurativeness is often the most optimal and economic tool of access and updating of one or another meaning in the communication process.
As the number of attributes assigned to the concept grows, and the level of abstractness increases, the concept gradually turns from a sensual image to a mental one. But these figurativeness and sensuality coexist along with the linguistic nature. The language is one of the most important methods of concepts formation in human consciousness: the concept constantly interacts with the word, is realized in it and is corrected by the language. The language is not only a tool, but also a general precondition of our thinking. Thanks to it, thinking can move from the lower stage of its development where it is directly tied with sensing, but cannot express itself, to the spiritual maturity stage, i.e., to the proper conceptual thinking stage. Very often thinking means thinking articulated in speech. As a rule, the concept correlates with more than one lexical unit and finally – with the plan of expression of the entire lexical and semantic paradigm (Solonchak, Pesina, 2014).
Interpreting agency within the context of its duration helps link the notion of action to those concepts—that is, structure, institutions and so on—which have been so important to objectivist social scientists. To see how these connections might be made, we have however to consider afresh the concept of structure. Among English-speaking social scientists, the concept of structure has ordinarily been a received notion. In contrast, for example, to the concept of function, the idea of structure has received remarkably little discussion. Why should this be so? The reason is probably that most English-speaking social scientists have a clear idea of how the concept of structure should be understood. When they talk of structure, or of 'the structural properties of institutions', they have in mind a sort of visual analogy. They see the structural properties of institutions as like the girders of a building, or the anatomy of a body. Structure consists of the patterns or relationships observable in a diversity of social contexts. Now this notion of structure needs to be examined just as closely as the idea of action.
In the traditions of structuralism and post-structuralism, the concept of structure is used in a fashion quite divergent from that characteristic of Anglo-Saxon social science and philosophy. The easiest way to indicate this is by reference to Saussure's classic discussion oft he structural qualities of language. Structural features of language do not exist as patterns situated in time and space, like patterns of social relationships; they consist of relations of absences and presences embedded in the instantiation of language, in speech or in texts.' Structure here presumes the idea of an absent totality. To understand a sentence which a speaker utters means knowing an enormous range of rules and strategies of a syntactical and semantical kind, which are not contained with the speech act, but are nevertheless necessary to either understand it or to produce it. It is such a notion of structure (as an absent totality) which I hold to be important as a concept for the social sciences as a whole and basic to the notion of duality of structure. The problem with conceptualizing structure as a set of relations of 'presences', is that structure then appears as a constraint which is 'external' to action.
If we conceive of structure in this fashion, it is not surprising that action appears to be limited by structural constraints which have essentially nothing to do with it. For structures limit behaviour, although it may be that within those limits—so one would have to presume—the agent is capable of acting freely. According to the notion of the duality of structure, by contrast, structure is not as such external to human action, and is not identified solely with constraint. Structure is both the medium and the outcome of the human activities which it recursively organizes. Institutions, or large-scale societies, have structural properties in virtue of the continuity of the actions of their component members. But those members of society are only able to carry out their day-to-day activities in virtue of their capability of instantiating those structural properties.
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