“Symbol Systems and Social Structures” by Vanina Leschziner and Gordon Brett, forthcoming

in The Handbook of Classical Sociological Theory, published by Springer and edited by Seth
Abrutyn and Omar Lizardo.

Symbol Systems and Social Structures

Vanina Leschziner and Gordon Brett

Abstract Symbol systems and social structures are prominent concepts with long historical
legacies in the social sciences. This chapter traces how symbol systems and social structures
have been theorized independently of each other in the social sciences during the 20 th century,
before elaborating the ways in which sociologists have theorized the relationship between the
two. Marx, Weber, and Simmel offered important ideas about this relationship, but Durkheim’s
account of the social origins of mental structures provides the most direct and elaborated theory
about the relationship between mental and social structures within the classical sociological
period. Subsequently, we trace Durkheim’s legacy through three contemporary perspectives:
field theory, neo-institutionalism, and culture and cognition. While maintaining analytical
continuity with the Durkheimian tradition, these perspectives also represent new theoretical,
analytical, and methodological advances in locating and specifying correspondences between
symbol systems and social structures. Nevertheless, we find that pressing questions remain
pertaining to how symbol systems and social structures interrelate, and how exactly this
relationship shapes both cognition and action.

Keywords: symbol systems, social structures, culture, cognition, fields, organizations

1. Introduction

If sociology is a discipline that studies the organization and functioning of social groups,

it must concern itself with how actors perceive their social world and orient their actions, and

how they collectively constitute social arrangements -- whether small groups, organizations, or

institutions. If a sociological account of these processes is to be thorough, it requires analysis of

the two fundamental dimensions that undergird social life, namely symbol systems and social

structures. Whereas symbol systems account for the intersubjectively shared beliefs and

meanings that shape individuals’ perceptions, cognition, and action, social structures have to do

with material factors that produce the unequal distribution of goods and resources.

___________

1
Vanina Leschziner (✉) • Gordon Brett
Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
Email: vanina.leschziner@utoronto.ca; gordon.brett@utoronto.ca

These two dimensions -- commonly referred to as subjective and objective, or idealist and

materialist, respectively -- have often been studied on their own across the social sciences.

Moreover, some of the most prominent theories in the 20th century have been built on the

premise that these dimensions are autonomous, given that each has an internal logic that can

account for its own organization and functioning, independently of other realms. Disciplines

dedicated to the study of symbols -- language, communication, or culture -- are a prime example

of this, with the anthropologist Lévi-Strauss’ (e.g., 1963) work on the internal structure of

symbol systems being a paradigmatic case.

However, sociologists have been concerned with the relationship between symbol

systems and social structures from the early days of the discipline. The founders of sociology

already understood that the symbolic and material dimensions of social life are inherently

associated -- with each dimension organizing and sustaining the other -- and developed distinct

theoretical perspectives to account for it. Marx built his dialectical materialism around the

connection between ideology and the mode of production, Weber sought to explain the

relationship between beliefs and the organization of social life across different realms, Simmel

shaped a formal approach attentive to the structural organization of social relations, and

Durkheim developed an analytical focus on the connection between the structure of thought and

forms of social organization.

That sociological theories have been concerned with the relationship between the

material and symbolic dimensions of social life does not mean that they put equal weight on both

dimensions. Quite the contrary, most theories tend to emphasize one of the two, finding one

2
dimension to be the ultimate explanatory factor, and therefore focusing the analysis and

argumentation on it. In effect, the history of sociological theory has been marked by a tension

between materialist and idealist positions, the former emphasizing the weight of objective

structures, and the latter giving primacy to the subjective dimension of social life.

Though the founders of sociology may have laid the foundation for such emphasis, given

that they generally prioritized the study of either symbol systems or social structures, they also

firmly established the understanding that the two are inherently interconnected. Such

interconnection entails the assumption that the unequal distribution of goods and resources that

makes up a social structure is maintained by intersubjectively shared symbolic understandings

about the meaning and value of those goods and resources and, at the same time, that the

meaning and value associated with every element in a symbol system is undergirded by a

stratified structure of persons and groups associated with those elements. To the extent that

sociologists have considered the relationship between the two dimensions inherent and

fundamental, they have engaged in efforts to explain what guides such relationship, and the

particulars of the linkage between symbol systems and social structures. Some of the most

important theoretical developments in sociology of the past few decades have been built around

this goal, seeking to reconcile objective and subjective perspectives in novel theories or

approaches.

This chapter is centered around theories built on the assumption that there is a

fundamental relationship between the symbolic and material worlds, and aimed at explaining

how symbol systems and social structures acquire their internal organization through both their

own internal logics and their association with the other dimension. Our focus is on perspectives

that view the symbolic and material worlds as systems and structures -- as opposed to a looser

3
aggregate of elements -- which leads to specific kinds of analyses, as we demonstrate in the

chapter. We trace the origins of these ideas in early sociological theories, and survey how those

ideas have been taken up in contemporary sociology, highlighting some of the most innovative

and influential perspectives of the past few decades.

We begin the chapter with a discussion of how symbol systems and social structures

have been theorized -- independently of each other -- in the social sciences to build a clear

understanding of the two dimensions, and explain how they have come to be understood in

association with each other. We then briefly revisit how the founders of sociology theorized the

relationship between symbol systems and social structures, and offer a more extensive discussion

of Durkheim’s later work, given that it laid the foundation for the sociological study of the

relationship between mental and social structures in sociology. What sets Durkheim’s late work

apart is that it turned the intricacies of the relationship between mental and social structures into

an object of study, seeking to elucidate how exactly the categories and classifications that shape

thinking come to have their particular form. We therefore proceed to examine some of the major

contemporary perspectives built on Durkheim’s insights about the inherent relationship between

symbol systems and social structures.

2.1 Symbol Systems

It has often been remarked that human beings are (perhaps distinctly) symbol-making and

symbol-using animals (e.g., Burke, 1966; Cassirer, 1953; Geertz, 1973; Parsons, 1951), a quality

that has inspired many social theorists to try to explain the production, perception, and function

of symbols for thought, action, communication, and interaction (e.g., Blumer, [1969] 1986;

Durkheim, [1912] 1995; Elias, 1991; Mead, 1934; Parsons, 1951). An early theorist of the role of

4
symbols in social life, Mead (1934), for example, saw social interaction as based upon the

exchange of “significant symbols,” communicated through gestures (most commonly language)

that have shared meaning. While symbols have long held a prominent place across the social

sciences, there are far fewer accounts of symbol systems -- i.e., sets of meaningfully interrelated

symbols -- and their relationship with social life (see Alexander, 1988; Biernacki, 2000; Sewell,

2004). Below, we recount some of the major theoretical foundations to the study of symbol

systems.

The first sociological treatment of symbol systems comes from Durkheim, especially his

later work (Durkheim, [1912] 1995; Durkheim and Mauss, [1903] 1963), where he became more

interested in the symbolic dimension of social life. Durkheim’s major theoretical contribution to

the study of symbol systems was his account of the social origins of mental categories. We

develop this in full below, and therefore do not elaborate his argument here. For now, it suffices

to note that, particularly in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim ([1912] 1995)

emphasized the ubiquity of symbolic classification and its influence on social life, which

positioned symbol systems as an important sociological topic when the discipline was still in its

infancy.

Shortly after the publication of Durkheim’s work on symbolic classification, Saussure’s

Course in General Linguistics ([1916] 1959) offered a novel approach to the study of symbol

systems. In this set of posthumously published lecture notes, Saussure ([1916] 1959: 16)

developed semiotics, a new science about the nature of signs and the principles that govern them.

For Saussure ([1916] 1959: 15-16), language was a system of signs, not unlike others such as

customs, manners, rites, or military signals. His semiotics was thus meant to apply well beyond

language, and indeed became highly influential to the study of symbol systems more generally.1
1
Moreover, Saussure saw linguistics as part of a broader semiological science.

5
 Before outlining his basic principles of symbol systems, it is important to note that

Saussure’s semiotics caused a major shift in the study of language. Modern linguistics during the

19th and early 20th century had been absorbed in the diachronic study of language, an analysis

of language as it changed across time and space. While Saussure saw value in this, he proposed

to study language synchronically, as an entire set of signs at a particular moment in time.

Saussure thus introduced some key distinctions between language (or langue), as the particular

language of a speaking community, any specific execution or performance of language (or

parole), and the more general notion of speech (or langage), which includes both langue and

parole, as well as the more physical and physiological dimensions of speech like the production

and reception of speech sounds. It is at the synchronic level of langue where Saussure developed

his semiological insights.

Saussure’s principles of symbol systems are fundamentally based on his

conceptualization of the linguistic sign (i.e., a word), which he saw as a double-sided entity

composed of a signifier (a sound-image) and signified (a concept or idea), which are united in

the mind through association (Saussure, [1916] 1959: 67). So, for example, the sound of the

word “tree” (a signifier) and the concept of “tree” (signified) are separate elements, which

combine to form the sign for “tree.” Saussure noted that the relationship between the signifier

and signified is arbitrary, in the sense that it is not necessary, having no natural or inherent

connection.2

Two general principles of sign systems outlined by Saussure have had major implications

for sociology, as well as the social sciences and humanities more broadly. First, for Saussure, the

world of thought is vague and nebulous in the absence of language, for human beings could not

2
Saussure used the terms sign and signifier rather than symbol, because the latter denotes a less arbitrary association
than that of a sign. For example, a pair of scales does not have an arbitrary relationship to justice and could not be
easily replaced by a chariot.

6
make clear distinctions between any two ideas without linguistic signs. Language gives form to

thought, dividing or delimiting a thought from the stream of other jumbled ideas individuals

might hold (Saussure, [1916] 1959: 111-112). Secondly, the value (or meaning) of any sign is

derived in relation to all other signs present in a linguistic system, specifically through relations

of similarity and difference with other signs (Saussure, [1916] 1959: 114). For example, “cake”

is a sweet dessert, different from “pie,” but less so than from “custard;” our understanding of

“cake” thus depends on what is around it, that is, it emerges out of the semiotic environment in

which it exists.

For our purposes, what is important here is that Saussure’s main tenets, namely that signs

are necessary for thought, that they derive meaning from their interrelations with other signs

within a system, and that they extend to non-linguistic systems, were foundational for what came

to be known as structuralism, and influenced scholars across the social sciences and humanities

to study meaning across cultural domains as a structure of interrelations, using Saussure’s

synchronic approach to symbol systems as a model.

From the developments of Durkheim and Saussure sprang the “glory years” of social and

cultural anthropology, from the late 1950’s to the 1970’s (Sewell, 2004: 36), when some of the

most influential thinkers, including Lévi-Strauss, Douglas, and Geertz provided accounts of the

nature and importance of symbol systems.3 First, Lévi-Strauss (1963; [1964] 1970), inspired

heavily by Saussure, drew on his model of language to produce structural accounts of a variety

of social phenomena, including the nature of kinship and myth. In structuralism, Lévi-Strauss

([1964] 1970: 10) saw a way to reduce and organize complex and often contradictory

anthropological data into basic principles of meaning and patterns of mind. For example, while

the content of myths, perhaps more than any other cultural domain, appears unpredictable and
3
For other major figures from this period, see Turner (1967), Schneider ([1968] 2014), and Sahlins ([1976] 2013).

7
arbitrary, Lévi-Strauss (1963; [1964] 1970) rendered similarities in myths across a number of

cultures, which he saw as evidence for the existence of universal laws of human thought. In

particular, Lévi-Strauss (1963) locates consistent binary oppositions in the structure of myths

(like life and death, agriculture and warfare). Inspired by Saussure’s structural linguistics, Lévi-

Strauss explored the logical relations between elements in a culture to locate the deep mental

structures that these cultural patterns manifest.

In contrast to Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist approach, Geertz (1973) was largely influenced

by hermeneutics, and Weber’s (1978) interpretive approach to the study of meaning specifically.

Geertz (1973: 5) famously provided a semiotic conceptualization of culture as webs of

significance, drawing less on Saussure’s semiotics than on Weber’s interpretive sociology. This

served to orient the entire endeavor of cultural analysis in anthropology, framing the study of

culture as an interpretation of symbolic meaning, calling for a “thick description” of signification

in context (Geertz, 1973: 6-10). Although Geertz (1973: 17, 345-359) recognized that culture has

a level of coherence, he advocated for the study of culture through the observation of human

behavior, rather than the structuralist analysis of the interrelations between symbols within a

system. Instead, Geertz positions symbol systems as public and external entities, making no

imputations to internal mental states or abstracted symbolic relations.

Douglas, who wrote several influential works on symbols (e.g., Douglas, [1970] 2002;

[1975] 2002), most famously extended the Durkheimian legacy of symbolic classification in

Purity and Danger (Douglas, [1966] 2003) through an anthropological exploration of dirt,

pollution, and impurities. While we typically think about dirt in relation to hygiene, aesthetics,

etiquette, or knowledge of pathogens, Douglas argued that our ideas about dirt express symbolic

systems. At base, dirt is “matter out of place” (Douglas, [1966] 2003: 44), a by-product or

8
residual category of our systemic ordering and classification of matter. For example, we consider

it dirty to put clean shoes on the dinner table, or forks in your bedroom, not because they might

make you sick, but because they contradict our cultural classifications (i.e., shoes should be on

the floor, and cutlery in the kitchen). Further, if we are compelled to “clean” these impurities, it

is because we are essentially re-ordering our environment. Echoing Durkheim’s emphasis on the

role of binary categories, such as the sacred and profane (see Durkheim, [1912] 1995: 33-39),

Douglas argues that our notions of purity and danger, comfort and discomfort, and our

organization of taboos and punishments are at base expressions of a system of binary

classifications in a given culture. In this, she broadened the study and significance of Durkheim’s

symbolic classification.

These anthropological developments on the systemic nature of classification, symbols,

and meaning have been influential across the social sciences and humanities (e.g., Barthes,

[1957] 1973; Lacan, [1977] 2001), and Foucault’s The Order of Things ([1970] 2005) is one of

the most sociologically relevant and ambitious examples of studies of symbolic classification,

with its account of epistemological regularities spanning multiple disciplines and centuries.

Foucault’s ([1970] 2005: xvii, 50) book is at base an attempt to understand the underpinning

structure of different ways of thinking about, ordering, and classifying things. Foucault attempts

to answer this through what he referred to as the archeological method (see also Foucault, 1969)

which -- much like Saussure’s scholarly program -- is not a history of the progress of ideas, but

rather an attempt to discover the epistemic conditions that make certain ideas possible at a given

time. Foucault’s main argument is that there is a mode of classification that governs and delimits

entire systems of thought and knowledge. He locates discursive regularities across economics,

biology, and linguistics, as well as the sudden ruptures in which the mode of classification

9
changes across each discipline dramatically. These sudden discontinuities reflect changes in what

Foucault calls the episteme: the socio-cognitive grid that establishes the conditions of possibility

for thought and knowledge, and creates regularities in the production of scientific knowledge in a

given period. Echoing Saussure and Lévi-Strauss through his structuralist method of inquiry, and

Durkheim and Douglas on symbolic classification, Foucault uncovers the conditions upon which

entire systems of knowledge develop and change.4

This serves as only a summary sketch of some of the major figures in the 20 th century

who developed accounts of symbol systems that were especially influential in sociology. We

have emphasized their similarities rather than disagreements, given our interest in tracing the

general influence of Durkheim’s and Saussure’s understandings of symbol systems. Across these

works, one of the most notable axes of difference is the degree to which the analysis of symbol

systems engages with, or is kept separate from, other aspects of social life, such as practices,

institutions or, as we develop next, social structures. Before elaborating an account of the

relationship between symbol systems and social structures, we require a more detailed discussion

of how social structures have been understood in sociological theory.

2.2 Social Structures

The concept of social structure, analytically central right from the inception of sociology,

is arguably the defining concept of the discipline (Lizardo, 2010: 654). Marx, Weber, Simmel,

and Durkheim all wrote about social structure, even if they conceptualized it in starkly different

terms. What comprises social structure, how it shapes (or is shaped by) individuals’ mental

structures, and how best to analyze it, was all understood differently by the founders of

4
This being said, Foucault continuously rejected the “structuralist” label throughout his career (Foucault, [1970]
2005: xv).

10
sociology. The multiplicity of conceptualizations and approaches has not diminished over time;

there is little agreement in contemporary sociology about what social structure is, let alone the

nature of its relationship with mental structures. The lack of consensus is not helped by the fact

that social structure is rarely defined in the sociological literature and, even when it is defined, it

is not done with sufficient specificity regarding the various components that comprise and/or

sustain it.

Even Durkheim, one of the classical sociologists most closely associated with the study

of social structure and the perspective that came to be known as structuralism, did not hold a

clear-cut conception of social structure. For Durkheim, structures were alternatively material,

cultural, interpersonal, and mental (Maryanski and Turner, 1991: 107). He was interested in the

relationship between social and mental structures from early on in his career, but the emphasis

shifted over time. In his early works, Durkheim was preoccupied with social and material

structures (e.g., Durkheim, [1893] 1984), and later became increasingly interested in the study of

mental structures (cf. Durkheim, [1912] 1995; Durkheim and Mauss, [1903] 1963).

His early ideas about mechanical and organic solidarity, and collective and individual

consciousness, as elaborated in The Division of Labor in Society (Durkheim, [1893] 1984), are

precisely about the relationship between social and mental structures. Durkheim understood the

former to be comprised of levels of social differentiation and integration, and the latter to revolve

around the degree to which actors’ minds are shaped by socially shared ideas or their own

individual ones, itself associated with a society’s levels of differentiation and integration. By the

same token, his book Suicide (Durkheim, [1897] 1979) is a study of how varying levels of social

integration and regulation affect individuals’ mental make-up (and suicide specifically).

11
 Primitive Classification, written in collaboration with his nephew Mauss (Durkheim and

Mauss, [1903] 1963), and what is a revised version of its main argument, The Elementary Forms

of Religious Life (Durkheim, [1912] 1995), mark the shift in Durkheim’s primary interest. In

these books -- upon which this chapter focuses -- Durkheim’s primary interest moves from

general patterns of the relationship between social and mental structures, towards the specifics of

the categories and classifications that constitute mental structures. Mental structures thus became

his object of study, and Durkheim’s characteristically sociological contribution was to show how

mental structures reflect social structures.

Durkheim’s work constituted the foundation for a new social scientific approach based on

the analysis of the structural relations between phenomena, which came to be known as

structuralism.5 Beyond sociology, Saussure’s (Saussure, [1916] 1959) radically new way of

understanding symbol systems, institutionalized as the new discipline of semiotics, was also

pivotal for the analytical foundation of structuralism, especially in its French version, as we

explain below. While structuralists have a more concrete and specified conception of structure

than sociologists more generally (see Joas and Knöbl, 2009: 342-343), they do not comprise one

homogeneous perspective. For one thing, not all variants of structuralism were influenced by

linguistics or semiotics, with British structuralism being an especially prominent case in point

(cf. Radcliffe-Brown, 1940). However, structuralists do share a set of fundamental principles,

particularly a strong belief that cognition and action are shaped by an underlying structure

(whether mental or social), that this structure is coherent and therefore has discernible meaning,

5
Durkheim was not the only sociologist whose work set the foundation for structural analyses. Marx’s ([1845]
1965)
philosophy of history and dialectical materialism are certainly foundational for structuralism, and Simmel’s (1950)
formal sociology offered its own new way of understanding social life based on the structural properties of relations
between individuals (though more commonly associated with relational than structural approaches).

12
and that the latter can consequently be systematically investigated (see Gardner, 1972: 10; Joas

and Knöbl, 2009: 342).

The two main strands of structuralism, British and French, took shape in the first half of

the 20th century, informed by the early and latter Durkheim, respectively (see Maryanski and

Turner, 1991: 107). Whereas British structuralism followed Durkheim’s early focus on the

material components of social structures, most famously exemplified in the works of

anthropologists Radcliffe-Brown (e.g., 1930; 1952) and Nadel (1957), French structuralism

followed Durkheim’s latter focus on mental structures, most famously represented in Lévi-

Strauss’ work (1963; [1962] 1968; 1969; see Maryanski and Turner, 1991: 108).

Within British structuralism, Radcliffe-Brown (1952) followed the early Durkheim

relatively closely. Drawing on Durkheim’s organismic conceptualization of social structure and

emphasis on social structure’s function for social integration (see Lizardo, 2013: 167; Maryanski

and Turner, 1991: 111), he defined social structure as a network of relations among individuals. 6

For British structuralists such as Radcliffe-Brown (1940: 2), social structure is not a heuristic

model or methodological device, but a concrete, empirically existing system constituted by a set

of relations among actors. British anthropologists built on this view and often associated the

concept of social structure with social roles (Maryanski and Turner, 1991: 112). Nadel (1957),

one of the most renowned among these, defined social structure as an arrangement of positions,

with actors who come to occupy those positions and establish relations with others based on

personal attributes (Nadel, 1957: 7). This conceptualization of social structure is represented in

other perspectives beyond British structuralism, including role theory and social network

analysis, with decreasing attention to the functionalist implications of the early Durkheim and

6
Durkheim followed Spencer ([1873] 1896) in his use of the organismic metaphor to understand social structure
(see Martin, 2009).

13
increasing attention to the formal analysis of structures (see Maryanski and Turner, 1991: 112-

113).

By contrast, French structuralism was fundamentally shaped, not only by the latter

Durkheim’s interest in mental structures, but also by Saussure’s structuralist conceptualization of

symbol systems. A set of principles from their work laid the foundation for this perspective: (1)

mental structures are shaped after social structures, and provide the schemas for perception,

interpretation, and action, (2) mental structures show the inherent connection between the

cognitive and social worlds, (3) mental structures constitute a coherent whole, made up of logical

relations of similarity and difference, which reflect such relations in social structure (see

Maryanski and Turner, 1991: 109).7 Lévi-Strauss (1969), one of the most important figures of

French structuralism, and the social sciences in the 20 th century more generally, was inspired by

Durkheim’s concern with the relationship between social and mental structures. However,

heavily influenced by linguistics and semiotics, which had swept the French academic landscape

by the mid-20th century, Lévi-Strauss believed that the human tendency to form structures of

thought was not the product of social structures, as Durkheim and Mauss ([1903] 1963) argued,

but rather an innate cognitive tendency (Maryanski and Turner, 1991: 109).

Lévi-Strauss’ (1969) early analysis of the kinship system built on Mauss’ ([1925] 1954)

famous book on gift exchange in traditional societies, which asserted that the reciprocity

involved in giving and receiving gifts is necessary for social solidarity. But contrary to it, Lévi-

Strauss maintained that the kinship system was ultimately a structure of signs, and therefore

better understood as a form of language than social organization (see Joas and Knöbl, 2009:

350). According to Lévi-Strauss (1969: 75), the fundamental structure of kinship relations was

7
These principles are based on those outlined by Maryanski and Turner (1991: 109), but we use different
terminology and include different elements in each principle.

14
built on duality, not due to the structure of social relations, as sociologists would be inclined to

think (cf. Simmel, 1950), but given the structure of the human mind, as linguists would suggest

(cf. Jakobson, 1956). By the same token, reciprocity -- what sociologists would consider a

fundamental social relation -- did not originate in social structure for Lévi-Strauss, but rather in a

universal unconscious mental schema. In effect, for Lévi-Strauss, mental structures were prior to

-- and indeed causes for -- any cultural ordering or social structure (see Joas and Knöbl, 2009:

351; Maryanski and Turner, 1991: 111).

Lévi-Strauss’ use of structuralist schemas from linguistics and semiotics, as well as

mathematics, brought about a radical change in the social scientific understanding of structure.

From being used as an analytical representation of social organization -- with its origin in the

work of Spencer and Durkheim, followed by Radcliffe-Brown and Nadel -- structures became a

methodological device for the formal investigation of social phenomena (see Lizardo, 2010: 652,

658). This shift follows Saussure’s call for the analysis of the complete set of relations among

signs in a system in order to uncover the underlying principles of the system. From this

perspective (see Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 279), the concept of structure is not meant to mirror

empirical reality (as the British anthropologists saw it), or even capture the actual mental

structures of empirically observed subjects, but is rather a scholarly construction -- based on

empirically observed phenomena -- that proves methodologically useful (see Lizardo, 2010: 658-

660).

Lévi-Strauss’ work created a split in the understanding of structure that has continued to

shape a wide array of perspectives until today, with one side viewing structure as an empirical,

concrete set of social relations -- in the Radcliffe-Brown tradition -- and the other seeing it as a

heuristic abstraction of mental systems (see Giddens, 1979: 59-60; 1984: 16-17; Lizardo, 2010:

15
655; 2013: 157-158). Some of the most influential contemporary perspectives in sociology take a

hybrid approach, using the notion of structure to depict mental systems (typically in association

with social systems) but, in contrast to Lévi-Strauss, with the goal of representing concrete minds

of empirically observed subjects in practice (e.g., Bourdieu, [1980] 1990). It bears noting that

some of these perspectives have been more influenced by Simmel (1950) than Lévi-Strauss,

given that Simmel’s work laid the foundation for the formalist study of social structures more

specifically (see Lizardo, 2010: 676; 2019: 94). Unlike Lévi-Strauss’ concern with mental

structures, Simmel’s formal sociology focused on structures of social relations to explain

perception and behavior, and thus became the predecessor to perspectives such as social network

analysis.

Conceptualizations of structures, and structuralist frameworks for analysis, as we have

briefly shown, are widely varied. Structures have been taken as direct representations of

empirical phenomena, or methodological devices to capture patterns of social relations and/or

symbol systems. It is not unusual for the uses to be confounded, such that structures are

alternatively framed as representations of existing phenomena and analytic constructs not meant

to mirror empirically observed phenomena. This is the product of a risk inherent to structuralist

thinking, which is based on the notion that structures are heuristic devices but, given its

analytical focus on long-lasting structural arrangements of social relations or symbol systems, it

is prone to taking them as real, existing -- often static – phenomena (see Lizardo, 2010: 680;

Sewell, 2005: 369).

If we examine the sociological literature that takes social structure as a central analytic

principle beyond strictly structuralist perspectives, the conceptualization of social structure has

varied in yet more fundamental ways than those we reviewed above. We draw on Porpora’s

16
(1989) typology to outline four prominent conceptions of social structure in sociology:8

1-Patterns of aggregate behavior that are stable over time. In this view, social structure is an

abstraction, derived from the observation of individuals’ actions in particular situations. Scholars

who espouse this view typically focus on the explanation of individual behavior, and the

symbolic dimension of social life, rather than social structures. Symbolic Interactionism is the

foundational perspective for this view (cf. Blumer, [1969] 1986), and is represented in

contemporary sociology by some cultural sociologists (e.g., Collins, 2004; Fine, 1992).

2-Lawlike regularities that govern the behavior of social phenomena. According to this view,

social phenomena are governed by highly stable regularities that, in their aggregate, constitute

social structure. Social structure is viewed holistically, largely dissociated from social action (see

Porpora, 1989: 198). This approach has its origin in the early Durkheim, and is represented in

contemporary sociology by so-called structuralists (e.g., Blau, 1964; Turner, 1984).

3-Systems of relations among social positions. Social structure is here viewed as a network of

relations among social positions, and considered the causal mechanism that produces patterns of

social phenomena. Unlike the previous perspective, this one is grounded on a relational

conceptualization of structures, with its origin in Simmel, as well as Marx. It is represented in

contemporary sociology in social network analysis (e.g., Breiger, 1974) and other relational

perspectives such as field theories (cf. Bourdieu, 1993).

4-Collective rules and resources that structure behavior. Social structure is here conceptualized

as a set of intersubjectively shared rules for cognition and action; not a causal mechanism, but

rather the outcome of rule-following behavior (see Porpora, 1989: 206). It has its origin in

perspectives focused on symbol systems, such as ethnomethodology (cf. Garfinkel, 1967) and

8
We follow Porpora’s basic typology but depart from it somewhat in how we describe each conceptualization and
the perspectives associated with them. This departure has to do in part with the fact that his article is now 30 years
old, and in part with analytical differences.

17
the dramaturgical approach (cf. Goffman, 1959), and is represented in contemporary sociology in

perspectives that emphasize a duality between structure and action (cf. Giddens, 1984; Sewell,

1992).

All four conceptions of social structure involve different conceptualizations of the

relationship between social structures and symbol systems. In some cases, the relationship

between the two dimensions is explicit -- and even central -- to the analytic framework, while in

others it is more implicit. Here, we only provided broad outlines of general approaches for

reference. In the next section, we turn to a more detailed discussion of the classical sociological

foundations for the analysis of the relationship between social structures and symbol systems.

3. Symbol Systems and Social Structures: Classical Sociological Foundations

Having reviewed how both symbol systems and social structures have been theorized

independently of one another, we are now in a position to examine how they have been theorized

as interrelated within classical sociological theory. First, we provide a brief sketch of the work of

Marx, Weber, and Simmel, all of whom had relevant ideas about the interconnection of symbol

systems and social structures, even if these ideas were never as central or developed as in

Durkheim’s work. We follow this with a more extended analysis of Durkheim’s theorizing, who

offers a much more sustained elaboration for the relationship between symbol systems and social

structures than his classical counterparts. This sets the foundation upon which we can later assess

how their influence and legacies (particularly Durkheim’s) have developed over time.

Marx ([1848] 1967) was famously attentive to the structure of social, political, and

economic life, and its development throughout history. While primarily concerned with the

structural and material dimensions of life related to the organization of work and social class

relations -- what he called the mode of production, Marx also attended to the symbolic dimension

18
of life, believing it to be directly interwoven with the existing material conditions. For Marx, the

products of mind (thoughts, concepts, ideas) and more elaborated ideologies (in religion, politics,

morality, metaphysics) were directly conditioned by the social and material context (see Marx,

[1845] 1965). While not explicitly a theorist of symbol systems, he provided an important and

influential connection between material and symbolic conditions.9

Unlike Marx, Weber ([1904] 1930; 1958) turned the role of meanings, values, and

motivations driving social action into one of his main theoretical objectives, recognizing the

weight of both material and symbolic forces in explaining human action. This is perhaps best

evidenced by his works on religion (Weber, [1904] 1930; 1958), wherein he showed how

religious beliefs and interests shape social action. While not a theorist of symbol systems either,

one of the most prominent threads across Weber’s work is that the symbolic sphere (along with

the material sphere) plays a causal role in human action. This positioned symbolic meanings as a

necessary theoretical and analytical focus for sociology.

Though sometimes (perhaps unfairly) characterized as an unsystematic essayist whose

ideas are scattered across a diverse array of substantive topics, Simmel (1950; 1971) developed a

formal approach to sociology (our focus here) attentive to both the structural and symbolic

dimensions of social life. Responding to the major debates of his time about how to properly

study human affairs, Simmel formulated a sociology whose object of study was the forms of

association: recurring patterns or structural properties of social relations that organize social life.

For Simmel, the study of social forms is juxtaposed to content: the various psychic states,

impulses, purposes, and drives that bring individuals into social interaction. 10 Simmel (1971) saw
9
In effect, Marx’ philosophy of history and dialectical materialism revolve precisely around the relationship
between the material and symbolic dimensions of social life, as a response to Hegel and the Young Hegelians’
emphasis on the primacy of ideas as the motor of history (see Marx, [1846] 1978).
10
As an example, Simmel (1971) saw domination, not as the imposition of an individual’s will over another, but as a
social form, characterized by a mutually determined relationship between a subordinate and a superordinate, which
always possesses a degree of freedom. Whatever contents bring about the interaction (e.g., hatred, amusement), it is

19
form and content as inseparable in reality, but the abstraction of pure forms of association

required the analytical separation of the two, and satisfying such an approach in turn required

demonstrating that a particular form could be observed across a diverse array of contents, and

vice-versa. Whereas Simmel theorized both social structure (as forms) and various kinds of

symbols and meanings (as content), through much of his formal sociology he was interested in

demonstrating how forms shaped content across a variety of social and cultural domains, rather

than providing detailed analyses of any particular symbolic realm.

While Marx, Weber, and Simmel wrote about both the structural and symbolic

dimensions of social life, Durkheim ([1912] 1995) provides one of the first, and arguably the

most radical, sustained and explicit theoretical accounts for how social structure and symbol

systems are directly interrelated. In Primitive Classification (Durkheim and Mauss, [1903] 1963)

and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (Durkheim, [1912] 1995), Durkheim -- along with

Mauss -- develops what is first and foremost a sociological theory of the mind focused on mental

categories and classifications. Durkheim and Mauss ([1903] 1963: 4) noted that the existing

philosophical explanations at the time saw classification as a simple and innate operation which

was the product of the individual mind, and considered the origin of categories to be either

derived from the empirical world of personal sensory impressions and experiences, or as

unchanging a priori properties of the human mind. Durkheim and Mauss responded to these

philosophical explanations with a distinctly sociological account of the nature of mental

categories and classifications: it is not nature, experience, or logic, but society that provides the

first model for the human need to classify phenomena into fundamental categories of thought.11

always structured based on its formal properties as a two-way relation.

11
For Durkheim, classification is essentially the arrangement of things (including ideas, space, time) into distinct
and clearly demarcated groups. These groups constitute categories, whose function is to govern and contain
concepts. Concepts in turn are collective representations provided by society. For Durkheim ([1912] 1995), the
faculties of classification, categorization, and conceptualization are all dependent upon social conditions.

20
 Before unpacking Durkheim’s ideas further, it is worth highlighting some of the

arguments he levels against empiricist and a priori explanations of mental categories and

classification, in particular his developmental and cognitive arguments about categories and

classifications. First, Durkheim ([1912] 1995) argues that classifications and concepts only

develop when society itself emerges. Early social groupings (i.e., not fully developed societies)

blended images as well as ideas in their literature, myths, and religions, according to Durkheim

and Mauss ([1903] 1963), and this was deemed evidence of pre-conceptual and pre-categorical

thought (e.g., the metamorphoses and transmutations that transform animals, human beings, or

gods, which run counter to stable categorical distinctions). For Durkheim, categories could not

be innate or derived through individual experience, because they required a long-term

development over generations.

Durkheim maintains that the starting point of each individual mind lacks the basic mental

framework for classification, and thus consciousness operates through a “continuous flow of

representations which are lost in one another” (Durkheim, [1903] 1963: 7). 12 That is, rather than

an inborn capacity, even the adult mind requires a kind of training in order to classify and

categorize. Furthermore, the natural relations between things found in the empirical world itself

cannot produce categories and classification; we may of course perceive certain resemblances,

but resemblances alone do not lead to organizing things into definite groups or classes, or to

arranging them hierarchically. In addition, the abstract and impersonal nature of categories could

not emerge from the immediate and fleeting nature of individual sensory experiences and

impressions. For example, our understanding of time cannot simply be personal (one’s own

experience of life unfolding could not provide the notion of time as an abstract concept) but is

12
Developments in cognitive psychology, and later other cognitive sciences, have debunked this claim (cf. Rosch,
1978) but, in Durkheim’s defense, this knowledge was not available in the early 20th century.

21
necessarily shared across everyone in the same civilization (Durkheim, [1912] 1995: 10). In

totality, because categories and classifications are neither innate and ahistorical, nor personal and

experientially produced, neither the tangible empirical world nor our mind alone could provide

the template for these operations.

These arguments set the stage for the sociological exploration of the origins of categories

and classifications. Durkheim looked to develop an explanation through a historical and

comparative analysis, attending to the most basic categories and classifications of what he saw as

the simplest societies. He was particularly attentive to social organization, the various social

groupings, spatial or geographical arrangements, practices, and rituals across societies.

Durkheim ([1912] 1995: 444-445) argues that society cannot exist without certain forms

of social organization, and this calls for the creation of categories. Any society requires, for

example, the division of space, a fixed and agreed upon organization of time, and agreement

upon goals and the means to achieve them, thus making the emergence of categories like space,

time, and causality necessary. These basic categories are foundational to understanding, and

therefore essential to reason, as well as to agreement and social cooperation. Because they are

stable and impersonal, they facilitate understanding and allow individuals to think and

communicate intelligently with one another. The emergence and internalization of these

categories are thus necessary for society to exist.

For each fundamental category of human understanding, Durkheim locates their

corresponding social instantiation. Individuals divided things because they were themselves

divided into groups. Similarly, the social organization of space (the division and differentiation

of groups and societies according to spatial locations) leads to the classification of things by

specific localization (e.g., plants or animals classified as northern or southern). From the

22
organization of social life into scheduled rites, festivals, and ceremonies follows the organization

of time into weeks and years. Even the unity and totality of society produces our conceiving of

the unity and totality of a system of knowledge. Thus, categories and classifications only

emerged after their initial social instantiations, including the structure of social relationships

(into groups and sub-groups), the morphological structure of society (spatial organization), and

the nature of its institutions (like the rites of religions).

For Durkheim, society is not merely a model for categories and classifications, but also

serves as the model for logical relations. This is because we understand logical relations as being

similar to social relations. For example, the classification of natural phenomena into

hierarchically organized, descending, or encompassing groups comes from the relations between

tribes, clans, moieties and the like. That is, the way these classifications are ordered and fit

together corresponds to the way groups relate to one another. As such, Durkheim ([1902] 1963:

84) notes, “the ties which unite things of the same group or different groups to each other are

themselves conceived as social ties.” In totality, Durkheim provides a theory of cognitive

architecture in which society itself is the architect.

To be sure, Durkheim does not argue that social organization continuously dictates

cognitive architecture (i.e., that as social relations become more complex, classifications

necessarily follow). Rather, while society provides the foundation for these shared categories and

classifications, Durkheim ([1912] 1995: 446) also suggests that the expansion of social life

beyond national contexts weakens the original social classifications, extending individuals’

social and mental horizons beyond society itself. Out of this, logical organization gains

autonomy from social organization, and can contribute to its own change and differentiation

from social organization over time (see also Durkheim, [1902] 1963: 32). Nevertheless, even as

23
human beings move from simpler forms of social organization and classifications to the more

complex institutions and symbolic systems of the religious, mythological, philosophical, and

even scientific realms, we still find the same basic mental operations initially born out of society.

That is, all these realms are, at base, systems of representations which sort, group, systematize,

and hierarchically organize entities and make them stable, impersonal, and comprehensible. As

such, by noting the structural correspondences between social organization and categories and

classifications, Durkheim provides the most developed classical statement on the connection

between cognitive categories and social structures, and lays the groundwork for more specified

analyses of the linkages between social structures and symbol systems.

4. Symbol Systems and Social Structures: The Legacy of Classical Sociological

Foundations in Contemporary Scholarship

Sociological interest in the relationship between symbol systems and social structures has

only grown since the writings of the classics, and has developed into distinct analytical and

methodological perspectives. This growth was facilitated, at least in part, by the availability of

new knowledge and methods that opened the door for different kinds of investigations, such as

social network analysis (e.g., Mohr and Duquenne, 1997). Where Durkheim or Simmel built

their theories on the basis of historical and anthropological evidence, or observational insights,

the scholarship that followed Lévi-Strauss’ impactful work, in the late 20 th century, could

produce systematic, formal analyses of the relational properties of social and symbolic systems.

The recent explosion in the interest in the mind (see Cerulo, 2010) has generated a rapid growth

in research on cognition (including cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive

24
psychology), which has also pushed forward the sociological study of mental structures, and

their relationship with social structures.

In this section, we review three major contemporary perspectives on the relationship

between symbol systems and social structures that follow the legacy of the classical traditions we

have highlighted, especially Durkheim’s latter work: field theory (specifically Bourdieu’s), neo-

institutionalism in sociology and organizational analysis, and the area of culture and cognition.

These are among the most important perspectives to arise in sociology in the past 50 years, and

are all built around the formal study of the relationship between intersubjectively shared ways of

thinking (conceived as culture and/or cognition) and the organization of the social world

(typically in the context of medium-scale social configurations). While the three perspectives

differ in analytical, substantive, and methodological terms, they share two fundamental

assumptions. First, that social structures and symbol systems are inherently related such that, as

contemporary sociologists have become fond of emphasizing, they are co-constitutive (e.g.,

Mohr and Duquenne, 1997). Moreover, these perspectives are premised on the understanding

that it is precisely such interrelation that makes both social structures and symbol systems so

sticky (Hays, 1994). Second, that any sociological analysis requires attention to both social

structures and symbol systems, but that the two must be kept analytically distinct (Hays, 1994:

66). While these assumptions all find their origin in the classical sociological foundations we

reviewed above, they are the raison d’être for the three contemporary perspectives we outline in

this section.

4.1 Field Theory

25
 Considered one of the most important sociologists of the 20 th century (see Joas and

Knöbl, 2009; Ollion and Abbott, 2016), Bourdieu is a fitting figure to begin assessing the legacy

of the classics in contemporary sociology. In contrast to much contemporary sociology, which

leans towards mid-range theory (cf. Merton, 1961), Bourdieu produced a grand theory in the

style of the discipline’s founders. This theory has been alternatively characterized as practice

theory and field theory, for reasons that are associated with the emphasis on symbol systems and

social structures, respectively, as we explain below (see Joas and Knöbl, 2009; Lizardo and

Strand, 2010; Ortner, 1984).

As practice theory, Bourdieu is placed alongside sociologists and anthropologists who,

beginning in the 1970s, turned their attention to everyday practice -- the ordinary, routine

activities that make up everyday life -- as the central site from where to analyze the symbol

systems that structure the social world (cf. Bourdieu, 1977; Geertz, 1973; Giddens, 1979).

Practice theory moved away from the analysis of the social world as a complex machine guided

by rules and norms (in Durkheim’s ([1893] 1984) and later Parsons’ ([1937] 1968) tradition),

and towards the actor, the actions that constitute everyday life, and the symbolic meanings

underpinning them.13 The study of practice was not viewed as an alternative to the study of social

structure, but rather a complement to it, and a necessary one at that (see Giddens, 1979; Ortner,

1984: 147). Geertz (1973: 10), a major figure in this perspective, promoted a conceptualization

of social behavior as symbolic action (see Ortner, 1984: 144) and of culture as a symbol system.

In doing so, he increased the salience of the interpretive analysis of symbol systems in the social

sciences. Geertz (1980: 168) characterized the analytical shift that practice theory entailed aptly:

“The instruments of reasoning are changing and society is less and less represented as an

13
The focus on action, at least in formal terms, was not new. Parsons (1951) made this concept central in sociology.
But critics have noted that action, for him, was not an active or symbolically rich phenomenon, but mostly the
passive enactment of rules and norms (see Ortner, 1984: 146).

26
elaborate machine or a quasi-organism than as a serious game, a sidewalk drama, or a behavioral

text” (Geertz, 1980: 168).

Geertz’s conceptualization of culture as a symbol system has had a major influence in

sociology (see Swidler, 1986; 2001), but Geertz had little to say about social structure, or the

characteristically sociological concern with the relationship between the two. Like Geertz,

Bourdieu also made the understanding of routine action central to his theoretical apparatus but,

unlike him (or Giddens), he was ultimately interested in social structures, and the specifics of the

inherent relationship between social structures and symbol systems (see Bourdieu, [1979] 1984).

He developed the concept of field to refer to hierarchical social spaces comprised of social

positions, and the symbol systems underpinning them -- this is why his work is labeled field

theory. Inherent to fields is the understanding that external social structures and cognitive

structures interpenetrate one another such that they become ontologically equivalent (Bourdieu,

[1989] 1996: 1, 38; see also Lizardo, 2010: 678).

Bourdieu’s theoretical framework comprises three main concepts: field, capital, and

habitus. While each concept captures a distinct phenomenon, the three are intrinsically related,

such that any one of them cannot be thoroughly understood without the others, so we briefly

explain them here. First, a field is a social configuration that is relatively autonomous from the

larger social space, because it has its own internal logics which govern perception and action

therein and, in turn, constitute the structure of the field. Bourdieu’s research, as well as that of

his followers, typically examines cultural spheres, such as painting, literature, or academia (e.g.,

1993; Bourdieu, [1992] 1996; Medvetz, 2012), but the concept has also been fruitfully applied to

others areas (e.g., Fligstein, 2001; Green, 2008).

27
 The concept of capital refers to different kinds of goods or skills that serve as resources,

classified into four main types: economic, social, cultural, and symbolic (Bourdieu, 1986).14 Put

simply, economic capital refers to money and, as such, it is the most transferable of all forms of

capital (i.e., money is a useful resource in any area of social life). Social capital refers to social

connections that can be useful in a given environment. Cultural capital refers to the kind of

culture that can served as useful currency, whether it is objects, knowledge and skills, or

institutional certifications. Lastly, symbolic capital refers to prestige or recognition, and is

therefore the most specific and least transferable of all forms of capital.

If the concept of field has to do with social structure and capital with symbol systems, the

habitus is about practice. Bourdieu defines the habitus as a schema for perception and action,

which guides actors’ cognition and behavior without planning, thought, or conscious awareness

(see Bourdieu, 1998). Because the habitus is generated by particular social conditions of

existence, Bourdieu ([1979] 1984: 170) points out that it is “necessity internalized” that, as such,

produces perceptions and practices that are well suited to those conditions of existence and

operate systematically. The habitus, Bourdieu ([1979] 1984: 170) famously stated, is “a

structuring structure which organizes practices and the perception of practices, but also a

structured structure: the principle of division into logical classes which organizes the perception

of the social world is itself the product of internalization of the division into classes.”

This definition begins to show how the concepts of field, capital, and habitus, are

inherently related. Actors attain a position in a field by virtue of the types and amounts of capital

they have, and reassert the value of such capital through their field positions. The habitus, for its

part, is both generated by social structure (i.e., an actor’s position in a field) and generative of it

14
Bourdieu did not consistently refer to the same number of types of capital across his publications, but used the
four we mention above most solidly and often.

28
(i.e., it organizes action which, in the aggregate, produces social structure). In a sense, then,

habitus and field are two sides of the same phenomenon.

Bourdieu’s work has been seen as both a successor and critique of the French strand of

structuralism, especially Lévi-Strauss, who was one of the major figures in France when

Bourdieu began his academic career (see Joas and Knöbl, 2009: 377). Bourdieu ([1980] 1990: 4)

was drawn to structuralism’s anti-substantialist relational framework, which enabled him to

move from sociology’s traditional focus on entities (whether individuals or social structures) to

relations between social positions. Much like Saussure and Lévi-Strauss, Bourdieu understood

the structural properties of classificatory systems, and their power to structure the social world.

At the same time, Bourdieu was critical of structuralism, for he believed that its

overemphasis on classificatory systems reduced actors to passive receptors. His focus on practice

was indeed meant to redress what he saw as the obliteration of the actor. He opposed the “logical

relationships” drawn by anthropologists like Lévi-Strauss to “practical” relationships. For him,

social structures and the mechanisms that sustain them could not be explained through Lévi-

Strauss’ analytic constructions of mental structures, which were dissociated from actual practice,

but only through individuals’ own cognitive schemas and actions (see Bourdieu, 1977: 25, 37;

[1989] 1996: 1; Lizardo, 2010: 660, 667). Through his research, he showed that actors are

constrained by classificatory systems, but also actively manipulate rules and classifications

(Bourdieu, 1977: 24; see Joas and Knöbl, 2009: 376).

Bourdieu took inspiration in classical sociological theories well beyond structuralism,

and Durkheim was, without a doubt, a central figure for him. 15 The analytic interest in categories

and classifications that was central to Bourdieu’s theory finds a direct connection to Durkheim,

15
Bourdieu (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) wrote about the influence of Durkheim, Marx, and Weber on his work.
We only discuss the influence of Durkheim given the focus of our chapter.

29
and the French scholarly tradition more generally (see Martin, 2011: 130).16 This connection is

especially evident in Durkheim’s ([1912] 1995) goal of creating a new approach that reconciled

apriorism and empiricism, combining an objectivist method for the analysis of mental categories

with the empirical examination of individuals’ actual apprehension of the world. Bourdieu

furthered this goal in creating a theory that reconciled traditional sociological dichotomies, such

as objectivism and subjectivism, and analyzing the relationship between the properties of

classificatory systems and fields, and the perceptual and cognitive patterns of actors (see

Bourdieu, 1993; [1979] 1984; see also Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 11; Joas and Knöbl, 2009:

380). In doing so, Bourdieu distanced himself from other classical theorists such as Marx and

Weber, for their objectivist and subjectivist standpoints, respectively. His analytic focus on the

structure of relations among social positions stands in contrast to both Marx’ broad focus on the

structure of class relations and Weber’s interpretivist analysis of action (see Lizardo, 2010: 681).

The influence of Durkheim in Bourdieu is seen in a starkly clear manner in the prologue

to The State Nobility (Bourdieu, [1989] 1996: 1), titled “Social Structures and Mental

Structures:”

[T]he goal of sociology is to uncover the most deeply buried structures of the
different social worlds that make up the social universe…. Such an exploration of
objective structures is at one and the same time an exploration of the cognitive
structures that agents bring to bear in their practical knowledge of the social worlds
thus structured. Indeed, there exists a correspondence between social structures and
mental structures, between the objective divisions of the social world…. and the
principles of vision and division that agents apply to them.

The goal of sociology, as stated in this prologue, is remarkably similar to Durkheim’s

goal, as outlined in the introduction to The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Leaving issues

of terminology aside, this statement could have been written by Durkheim himself. The legacy of

16
Bourdieu’s interest in categories of thinking, and judgment in particular, ought to be traced further back to Kant
(see especially Bourdieu, [1979] 1984).

30
Durkheim’s sociological project thus found an especially prominent successor in Bourdieu, but

the latter was certainly not the only one to uphold Durkheim’s project in the past few decades, so

we turn to other perspectives next.

4.2 Neo-Institutionalism

Though Bourdieu’s field theory is one of the most influential perspectives of the 20 th

century, it is not the only sociological theory of fields to have been conceived in that period.

Among the others, one of the most important has been neo-institutionalism in sociology and

organizational analysis.17 We highlight this perspective because -- unlike others -- it revolves

around the relationship between symbol systems and social structures, and because it has

significantly influenced how sociologists think about how cognitive schemas shape action and, in

turn, social structures.18 Since its foundational statements (cf. DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), neo-

institutionalism has grown to encompass several approaches with varied analytic foci and

approaches. Below, we outline the original formulations of this perspective, and then turn to one

of the more recent approaches, focused on the role of categories and classifications in

organizational fields.

Neo-institutionalism arose in the United States around the same time as Bourdieu’s work

began to be translated to English and find a broader reception (cf. DiMaggio and Powell, 1983;

Meyer and Rowan, 1977), and it bears significant parallels with his field theory, even though the

two perspectives are rarely in dialogue with one another (but see Kluttz and Fligstein, 2016). We

17
Neo-institutionalism (or new institutionalism) developed across several social sciences, with distinct
characteristics. Here, we focus on neo-institutionalism in sociology and organizational analysis (see DiMaggio and
Powell, 1991) but, for the sake of simplicity, we will refer to it just as neo-institutionalism.
18
The other major sociological theory of fields is the Strategic Action Fields perspective, formulated by Fligstein
and McAdam (2011). This perspective places more emphasis on the emergence and change of fields, and the role of
power and political processes, and less so on mental structures and their interrelationship with social structures, thus
why we do not discuss it here. For an excellent analysis of the similarities and differences among the three theories
of fields, see Kluttz and Fligstein (2016).

31
thus briefly sketch out the similarities and differences between the two, with a focus on how they

theorize the relationship between symbol systems and social structures.

Neo-institutionalism originated out of debates in organizational behavior, specifically as

a reaction to perspectives that underscored the potential of organizations to differentiate from

others and innovate (e.g., Hannan and Freeman, 1977; see DiMaggio and Powell, 1983: 148).

From the neo-institutionalist standpoint, those perspectives overemphasized the degree to which

market competition led organizations to change, as well as actors’ tendency to engage in

instrumental-rational action (see DiMaggio and Powell, 1991). Neo-institutionalism countered

that what drives organizations is less competition than institutional pressures -- in particular the

need to be seen as legitimate -- and therefore that actors and organizations tend to emulate

successful field members, less driven by instrumental-rational action than by dispositional, non-

reflective cognition (cf. DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Neo-

institutionalism did not produce a grand theory with an arsenal of new concepts, as Bourdieu did,

but outlined a set of theoretical premises about the social forces that lead individuals and

organizations to act in isomorphic or dissimilar ways.

Akin to Bourdieu’s field theory, neo-institutionalism focuses on the explanation of action

and field processes, or what it refers to as organizational fields. Like Bourdieu, it starts from the

premise that actors are often embedded in fields, which have their established cognitive schemas

and rules for action -- of which actors are typically unaware -- that govern action therein. Like

Bourdieu’s actors, here individuals occupy different positions in a status hierarchy and,

constrained by their positions in what they can do, orient their actions to those of others in order

to maintain or improve their social positions. Neo-institutionalists define organizational fields as

“organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key

32
suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that

produce similar services or products” (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983: 148). As the definition

suggests, they are less interested in the artistic fields typical of Bourdieusian investigations than

in the dynamics of the business world (e.g., Morrill, 2001; Powell et al., 2005; Rao, 1994).

While there is disagreement about the degree to which Bourdieu’s concepts leave room

for creative action and change (see Dalton, 2004; Elder-Vass, 2007), neo-institutionalism’s

emphasis on the forces that lead organizations towards isomorphism (cf. DiMaggio and Powell,

1983) arguably leaves less room for such disagreement. Likely because it grew out of a reaction

to what it saw as an overemphasis of individuals’ potential for instrumental-rational action and

innovation, neo-institutionalism emphasized the reproductive nature of cognition and action, and

the aggregate result of organizations emulating one another. DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983)

foundational publication laid out a typology of forces that generate isomorphism in

organizational fields, including the cognitive schemas that become taken-for-granted and lead

individuals to reproduce established ways of doing things, individuals’ tendency to emulate those

they see as successful to attain legitimacy, and the normative and coercive pressures that

constrain organizations’ ability to change.

Neo-institutionalism does not offer theoretical constructs to explain how exactly

cognitive schemas shape action (such as the habitus), or what exactly leads individuals to occupy

different field positions (such as the types of capital). It is less interested in the

phenomenological explanation of action than in accounting for action at the aggregate level, and

figuring out the factors that lead individuals and organizations to conform to established ways of

doing things or innovate (see Jepperson, 1991; Zucker, 1977; Zuckerman, 1999).19 In total, neo-
19
A strand of neo-institutionalist scholars combine this perspective with the theoretical premises and methodological
techniques of social network analysis, thus shedding light on the role of social network positions on innovation (e.g.,
Burt, 1992; Phillips, 2013).

33
institutionalism shows that, to the extent that actors tend to emulate others they see as legitimate,

they reproduce established ways of thinking and acting and, in doing so, reinforce the legitimacy

of the classificatory system and the social structure that underpin the field.

Working from this perspective, Zuckerman (1999) turned the focus squarely to the

relationship between symbol systems and social structures, laying out a research agenda for the

study of the social processes that regulate actors’ ability to deviate from the market categories

wherein they are located, what Zuckerman calls the categorical imperative (e.g., Phillips, Turco

and Zuckerman, 2013; Phillips and Zuckerman, 2001). His work generated a robust body of

research that demonstrates how social categories (whether of actors, products, or services)

constrain individuals in their choices given the risk of being penalized for what may be seen as

illegitimate role performance (Zuckerman, 1999). Typecasting for actors is a clear example of

this process: being associated with a particular category (e.g., funny sidekick) makes actors

unlikely to be offered different roles (see Zuckerman et al., 2003). The emphasis of this body of

work is on the relationship between social categories and social structure, showing that there is a

distribution of incentives and penalties for different kinds of actions that varies across status

positions in a field (cf. Phillips and Zuckerman, 2001).

Zuckerman and colleagues have done much to reinvigorate the sociological interest in

categories and classifications sparked by Durkheim, and research on the relationship between

these and social structures has only grown since. Some new perspectives have zoomed in on

categories and classifications, seeking to explain their cognitive underpinnings, and the ways in

which they are mapped onto social structures. Some of this literature follows the latter

Durkheimian tradition closely, and we turn to it next.

34
4.3 Culture and Cognition

Interest in the relationship between mental and social structures has coalesced into one of

the newer areas in sociology, called Culture and Cognition. A sub-discipline within the sociology

of culture, its origins go back to 1997, with the publication of a book by Zerubavel and an article

by DiMaggio.20 Though still relatively new, the area has grown exponentially in the past few

years, in part because sociologists, like many other social and behavioral scientists, have taken

an increasing interest in the mind (see Cerulo, 2010).

Culture and Cognition encompasses a diverse body of work, varying in theoretical

approaches and methodologies, but the scholarship can be generally divided into two main

schools, originated in the perspectives outlined by Zerubavel and DiMaggio. Zerubavel (1997)

takes inspiration in Durkheim’s emphasis on the role of norms and the social origins of mental

structures, and underscores the normative foundation of mental life, as well as the arbitrary

nature of the categories and classifications that structure cognition. Zerubavel paved the way for

the analysis of perception, attention, focusing, classification, and memory, less interested in the

specifics of any particular cultural environment than in the comparison of general patterns across

time and space, so as to underscore the normative and arbitrary nature of cognition. By contrast,

DiMaggio (1997) called for a new approach that zooms in on cognitive processes in specific

social configurations, seeking to understand how particular cognitive schemas shape thinking

and action in a given environment. To achieve this goal and tease apart cognitive and cultural

20
In 1997, there was also a conference on Culture and Cognition organized by Cerulo, whose presentations were
subsequently published in an edited volume (Cerulo, 2002). “Culture and Cognition” was already recognized as an
area of study in anthropology and psychology prior to 1997, but it had no connection with sociology. The term
Cognitive Sociology was introduced to sociology by Cicourel a couple of decades earlier (see Cicourel, 1974) but it
did not have much influence in the discipline and, for what concerns us here, the perspective it offered was quite
distinct from what has come to be known as Culture and Cognition.

35
processes, DiMaggio urged sociologists to draw on knowledge of the human brain from the

cognitive sciences.21

While having significant differences, the two schools share the Durkheimian impetus in

the study of mental structures, with its combined aprioristic and empiricist approach. But

whereas the Zerubavelian school focuses on mental structures and takes social structures in a

general sense, as social context, the perspective that has followed DiMaggio’s call places its

lenses more squarely on social structures and their interrelationship with mental structures,

seeking to formalize the relationship between them, often in line with Bourdieu’s framework

(e.g., Martin, 2005; Vaisey and Lizardo, 2010). We thus focus our discussion of the literature on

this perspective.

The sociological study of how symbol systems drive action has been shaped by the

general conceptualization of culture as a symbolic web of meanings, originally introduced by

Weber and further elaborated by Geertz. From this standpoint, culture is viewed as external to

the mind, a set of beliefs and practices observable in the routine actions of a social group.

Culture is therefore to be studied through the analysis of broad collective representations

observable in the social world (see Brekhus, 2015), not unlike the early Durkheim’s social facts.

By contrast, scholars in Culture and Cognition view culture as being inside the mind, constituted

by internalized representations and schemas that guide individuals in their actions (cf. DiMaggio,

1997). The analytical attention is thus centered on cognitive processes grounded in individuals’

brain and body.

To the extent that symbolic meanings are conceptualized as external, objectified cultural

symbols (see Lizardo, 2016: 200), actors may well have conscious awareness of them, and may

21
The perspective developed by Zerubavel is often referred to as “cognitive sociology,” to distinguish it from
“culture and cognition,” more interested in general patterns of cognition than in the more specific relationship
between cognition, action, and social structure that characterizes the latter.

36
therefore be able to talk about them (Lizardo (2017) thus calls this declarative culture). Whereas

cultural sociology (cf. Swidler, 1986) has typically approached culture this way, the Culture and

Cognition literature departs from it by understanding culture (following Durkheim and Bourdieu)

as structures inside individuals’ heads, so deeply internalized and embodied that they generally

guide action without actors’ awareness (hence what Lizardo (2017) calls nondeclarative culture).

Scholars in this area draw on knowledge from the cognitive sciences to better understand how

cognition works, and specify which components of cognitive patterns may have a social origin,

and which may be inherent to the human brain.

In contrast to the classical sociological tradition that has influenced the sociology of

culture, which looks at how culture shapes action from the outside in, the Durkheimian tradition

that informs this perspective begins the analysis with the mental categories that -- with their

origin in social structure -- inform action from the inside out. This literature never loses sight of

how mental structures undergird perception, action, and social structure. Lizardo (2016: 200)

captures this standpoint in his definition of cultural symbols as “motivated mappings between

external form and cognitive meaning, used for both the private evocation of and the public

externalization of those meanings” (emphasis in original). From this perspective, cultural

symbols -- regardless of how external and objectified they may be -- necessarily have a cognitive

component.

Whereas the sociology of culture tradition assumes that external cultural meanings

become symbolically represented in the mind, scholars in Culture and Cognition point out that

mental structure is not symbolic (that is, constituted by abstract symbols), but rather perceptual

and embodied. It follows that external cultural symbols cannot be meaningful without a mental

counterpart for their apprehension, but mental structures do not require an external anchor to

37
have meaning because they are not abstract symbols but are instead perceptual symbols

grounded in bodily (i.e., sensory, motor) states and experiences (see Barsalou, 2008; Hutchins,

1995; Lizardo, 2016: 201). In line with this, Lizardo (2016: 203) suggests following Durkheim

and Saussure to understand that external culture does not shape experience directly (as

sociologists of culture might have it), but rather helps anchor it by providing cultural symbols

that help individuals select among different kinds of conceptual knowledge -- stored in the brain

-- and bring it together to shape action. 22 A growing literature in Culture and Cognition

investigates the relationship between external cultural symbols and embodied knowledge,

looking closely into how those external symbols combine with perceptual and bodily knowledge

in practice (e.g., Cerulo, 2018; McDonnell, 2014; Winchester, 2016).

This literature’s emphasis on the relationship between symbol systems and social

structures is significantly influenced by Bourdieu, not least because he has laid out what is likely

the most thorough theoretical framework for investigating such relationship. In effect, some of

the most influential publications in culture and cognition (e.g., Vaisey, 2009) draw on the

cognitive sciences to support and complement Bourdieu’s ideas about cognitive schemas and

dispositional action, and their interrelationship with social space. This perspective has given way

to a rich and varied line of research, some of which investigates the cognitive and social

structuring of fields (e.g., Leschziner, 2015; Martin and George, 2006), while others shed light

on how the physical characteristics of social space shape cognition and action (e.g., Harvey,

2010; McDonnell, 2016), and still others show how the symbolic and interactional characteristics

of social space inform cognition and action (see Danna-Lynch, 2010; Mische, 2014).

22
This argument is in line with Swidler (1986; 2001). Swidler does not write about cognition, but has formulated an
important critique of long-held assumptions about how culture shapes action, specifically criticizing the notion that
culture shapes action by being “deeply internalized.” She points out, by contrast, that culture shapes action from the
outside in, in that individuals often adapt their actions to external cultural symbols, even if they do not believe in
them.

38
 An important line of research combines these approaches with the analytical foci and

methodological techniques of social network analysis to specify the mapping of cognition,

culture, and social space. This research finds its foundation in Simmel’s formal sociology, which

paved the way for the formal investigation of social relations (see Breiger, 1974). Some of the

social network analysis literature examines the mapping of categories and classifications onto

practices and, in turn, onto organizational fields (for a paradigmatic example, see Mohr and

Duquenne, 1997), another line of work investigates the relationship between individuals’

worldviews and social network composition (e.g., Hoffmann, 2014; Vaisey and Lizardo, 2010),

and still another examines the relationship between discourses, social interactions, and positions

in social space (e.g., Fuhse et al., Forthcoming; Gibson, 2005). In all, this research focuses on

social networks as one important dimension from which to examine the particular ways in which

symbol systems and social structures map onto one another to shape the social world.

5. The Current Status of Symbol Systems and Social Structures

The store of knowledge about symbol systems and social structures is vast and varied, so

what we offered in this chapter is only a brief and limited overview of some of the major

perspectives developed over the past century to explain these phenomena. Because our concern

was the relationship between symbol systems and social structures -- a concern that characterizes

sociology more than other social (or cognitive) sciences -- we focused on Durkheim’s

foundational work, and those perspectives built on it. After offering an overview of some of the

most influential theories about each symbol systems and social structures, we revisited how the

founders of sociology saw the relationship between them, and outlined Durkheim’s theoretical

39
account. We then highlighted some of the most influential contemporary sociological

perspectives regarding the relationship between symbol systems and social structures.

Understandings of how symbol systems and social structures relate have changed over

the past century. Durkheim (and Mauss) believed that mental structures reflect social structures,

Lévi-Strauss maintained that symbol systems have an internal logic that is fully autonomous

from the social organization of life, and Douglas emphasized the priority of the (arbitrary)

structure of categories and classifications over social organization. In the past few decades, a

range of sociological perspectives have highlighted the co-constitutive nature of symbol systems

and social structures, with field theory, neo-institutionalism, and culture and cognition among the

most important of these perspectives.

While our chapter underscored analytical continuity in the literature, contemporary

scholarship differs from the classical literature in some important ways, not least of which is the

emphasis on the co-constitution of symbol systems and social structures. Some of the differences

stem from methodological and technical innovations, which have transformed the kind of

knowledge scholars have access to, and consequently conceptual understandings of mental and

social structures. Methodological innovations in the study of social networks, for instance, have

changed the understanding of social structures, the diffusion of symbol systems, and how

cognitive schemas, cultural practices, and social organization influence one another. Similarly,

scientific innovations in the cognitive sciences transformed knowledge about what mental

structures consist of, how they form and change, and how they relate to both the body and

external structures.

The contemporary sociological inquiry about symbol systems and social structures is

confronted with a few vital questions. One of the most important of these concerns the specifics

40
of the relationship between the two dimensions, namely how much influence each has on the

other, the mechanisms through which that influence operates, and the specifics of the influence.

These issues involve fundamental questions about the connection between internal and external

structures, including whether external cultural symbols (understood to be mapped on to social

structures) become internalized to shape cognition and action or simply anchor cognition, and the

mechanisms through which they do so, as well as how mental structures come to be

intersubjectively shared and sustain social structures (see Lizardo, 2017; Strand and Lizardo,

2015). Sociologists are now better equipped to specify the workings of symbol systems thanks to

advances in the cognitive sciences, but important questions remain about whether and how

symbol systems are (or are not) stored in the brain, how they shape action and, in turn, social

structure, and the degree to which mental structures are of social origin or have to do with

general features of brain functioning (see Barsalou, 2008; Cerulo, 2018; Rosch, 1978).

These are, to be sure, no easy questions. Though sociological research has made headway

in the understanding of mental and social structures, and the specifics of their relationship, it has

a long way to go. Sociologists may disagree about how to define, operationalize, and assess

social structures, but mental structures are an even thornier phenomenon, not least because they

are far more elusive than external systems. In effect, the last few decades have witnessed debates

across the social and cognitive sciences about the nature of mental structures, including the

question of how much of its architecture is symbolic -- and therefore closely linked to external

cultural structures -- and how much of it is associated with the architecture of the brain, its

connection to the body, and its interaction with the physical and social world (e.g., Barsalou,

2008; Clark, 1997; Hutchins, 1995; Lizardo, 2017; Varela, Thompson and Rosch, 1991).

41
 With the growing interest in the mind that has swept across many disciplines, sociologists

have been paying increasing attention to the role of mental structures, and such increased

attention has brought about a wider set of perspectives on the nature of mental structures and

their relationship to external structures. Whereas neo-institutionalism and the sociology of

culture point to the connections between social structures and symbolic systems that can be

semantically interpretable (such as concepts), scholars in culture and cognition emphasize the

relationship between social structures and what might be called sub-symbolic structures, which

lack semantic transparency and are therefore difficult to describe (see Lizardo, 2017; Strand and

Lizardo, 2015; Swidler, 2001). These sub-symbolic structures have been analyzed as cognitive

schemas (e.g., Shaw, 2015; Shepherd, 2011; Vaisey, 2009), or perceptual and embodied

knowledge (e.g., Cerulo, 2018; Ignatow, 2007; Leschziner and Brett, 2019; Lizardo, 2016).

A significant difference between this literature and classical theories is that symbol

systems are no longer assumed to be smoothly internalized into the mind as a structurally

identical representation -- as Durkheim might have had it -- but rather are understood to be

experientially derived representations with low structural resemblance. This complicates the

understanding of symbol systems and, furthermore, challenges any easy mapping of symbol

systems onto large social structures -- as Durkheim might have envisioned. It ought to be not

surprising, then, that much of the literature has focused on smaller scale social structures, such as

organizational fields or social networks in organizations or among friends (e.g., Burt, 1992;

Vaisey and Lizardo, 2010). Contemporary sociological inquiry about symbol systems and social

structures thus differs significantly in scope from the societal focus of classical theories, even if

it continues to explore the same fundamental question laid out by the classics about how symbol

systems and social structures shape one another.

42
43
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