Master Metaphors in Sociology as a Representation of the Spatio-Temporal Characteristics of the Social

The article analyzes the trends and patterns of changes in the spatio-temporal characteristics of the social reflected in metaphors used by sociology. Master metaphors of the social are analyzed: the organism, the field, the network, the rhizome. The article shows that all of them are spatial metaphors. In all these metaphors, the organic and evolutionist nature that was originally laid down in the ideas of the social is preserved. However, the very type of organicity implied in these metaphors is changing: the metaphors are becoming less anthropomorphic and more rhizomomorphic. While remaining spatial, all these metaphors form the image of not just a fluid, but a living social space. The change in the master metaphor in sociology correlates with the change in the type of scientific rationality. Within the framework of classical sociology, the metaphor of the organism emerges and develops into the concept and metaphor of the system; in non-classical sociology, the metaphor of the system is transformed into the metaphor of the field and the network; in post-non-classical sociology, the metaphor of the network is transformed into the metaphor of the rhizome. The article focuses on the connection between the metaphor and the spatio-temporal characteristics of the social. The author infers that the change of metaphors represents a change in the spatio-temporal characteristics of the social: from the initial division of space and time as two aspects of the consideration of the social system - through the attribution of opposite characteristics to them - and to the recognition of the fundamental relativity of the social space-time. Ideas about the space-time discreteness and the structural-functional certainty of the social are represented in the metaphor of an anthropomorphic organism. This metaphor is designed to emphasize the consistent integrity and lawfulness of the social. Ideas about the space-time relativity and the complex topological structure of the social are represented in the metaphor of an organic non-anthropomorphic fluid space. The author also focuses on the fact that, at all stages of the development of sociology, the social is conceived as integral and organized, and has spatial and temporal characteristics. These qualities serve as topological stability criteria and set the basis for thinking of the social as a system, but the foundations of this integrity, the principles of organization, and the topic-temporal characteristics have a concrete historical character and can change. At the level of metaphors, “system” features are reproduced in the form of ideas about society, not just as a system, but as a “living” system. At the present stage of the development of sociology, the basic metaphor still retains its spatial character, but the characteristics inherent in time are attributed to social space.

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