Construct · 4 fields · 6 citations
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An order is a binary relation on a set that is reflexive, antisymmetric, and transitive, so that its elements can be compared and ranked. In Davey and Priestley's Introduction to Lattices and Order, a partially ordered set, or poset, pairs a set with such a relation; when every two elements are comparable the order is total, otherwise it is partial. The referent is a relation between elements, and the unit is the pair of a set and a relation, not a quantity. What makes this meaning distinct is that it fixes no amount of anything: order here is a structure of comparisons, and a set is either ordered by a given relation or it is not.[1]
Order is the degree of structure in a many-body system, high in an ordered phase such as a crystal or a magnet below its critical temperature and low in a disordered one. In Landau's theory of phase transitions, set out in Landau and Lifshitz's Statistical Physics and developed in Goldenfeld's Lectures on Phase Transitions and the Renormalization Group, this degree is carried by an order parameter, a quantity that is zero in the disordered phase and grows continuously, or jumps, as the system orders. The referent is the collective state of matter, and the unit is the order parameter, tied to entropy so that more order means lower entropy. This meaning is a measurable amount, which sets it apart from a relation on a set or a rank in a hierarchy.[2][3]
In narratology, order refers to the relation between the sequence of events in a story and their arrangement in the telling, including flashbacks and flash-forwards. This meaning comes from Genette (1979) in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method.[6]
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Sociology
the patterned, predictable stability of collective life, the fact that people's actions mesh with one another.Social order is the patterned, predictable stability of collective life, the fact that people's actions mesh rather than dissolving into a war of all against all. The problem of order, posed by Hobbes in Leviathan and made central to modern sociology by Parsons in The Structure of Social Action, asks how such stability is possible: Hobbes answered with a sovereign, Parsons with shared norms and values that align separate actors. The referent is a whole society and the patterning of conduct within it, not a relation, a measured quantity, or a category. What distinguishes this meaning is that order names an achievement to be explained, a standing feature of social life that could fail.[4][5]