Social Quality – opening individual well-being for a social perspective

Point of departure is the thesis that a clear understanding of the social vanished from social science itself. Over time, the interpretation of social and individual developed into a direction that confronts the two as distinct areas, relating as mutually external «faits sociaux» on the one hand and «faits individuels» on the other hand. Moreover, individuals are seen as the actual «core» of life, confronted with a society which is a seemingly superior power. The following presentation tries to oppose such a position, claiming that individual and social can fundamentally be grasped as constitutive entity. Furthermore, it is by taking such a relational view that we can understand the social – and its quality – as distinct from simple interactions.