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This chapter addresses the question of ontology. It is an issue on which each scientific theory explicitly or implicitly has a position, as a theory comes with ontological assumptions. I will in this text show that the ontological question, nonetheless, has been neglected. My point is not to make a philosophical argument; instead, I approach the question of ontology by analyzing the more concrete question of order. How order is made and maintained are profound sociological questions.² Social scientists have studied order, in terms of law and order, and how, for example, institutions, identities, organizations are socially constructed and "ordered" in relation to each other. Social scientists have also discussed the more profound epistemic level of order, or in other words, the ordering principles of things.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-531-92402-1_12

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