The theory of existence highlights the tension between the empirical phenomena and the cognitive structure that explains the phenomena. The physical world differs from the world which people imagine is society.

The concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘society’ evade our attempts at definition. Philosophy offers a way of analysing these concepts. Reworking Aristotle’s concepts of ‘substance’ and ‘category’ provides a tool for studying the social reality.
The social sciences require an elucidatory definition of society. Sociologists are focused on the empirical within society but not on what society is.

Aristotle’s social human forms a society but this is the set of set theory. Rousseau’s social contract and Hobbes’ social control of people arise from the cognitive structure of set theory.
Set theory is complemented by Uuno Saarnio’s typology of the relations of the parts within the whole. Society and the nation are wholes and can be studied based on Saarnio’s typology. Leibniz’ doctrine of toleration provides a determination of the social. Society becomes tolerantia ecclesiastica. The spheres of toleration are wholes with parts.

Society as tolerantia ecclesiastica infers that society is founded on a common value judgement regarding human relations. Society permits limited conflicts between people and groups within the common unity.
Society as a community cannot exist if the common is questioned and if the conflicts therein cannot be limited.

Ragnar Stara (born 1948) received a Bachelor of Arts in Political History from the University of Helsinki in 1972. His volume The Concept of the Nation was published in 1980 after his doctoral studies in Uppsala, followed by Human Society in 2021.