Is the institution a natural species like any other? Can we understand the institution as a specific form of human solidarity that is subject to natural selection? To answer this question, the objective of this research group founded in 2008 - is to study these social arrangements and vary the distance at which we observe them. Like a biologist who adjusts the bezel over a microscope to distinguish various cell cultures, and discovers that, up close, borders disappear, become blurred and inconsistent. The institution appears to be one determination among other possible social arrangements. Consolidated institutions are precarious achievements that are perpetually being renegotiated and that cannot be assumed, but whose process of acquiring stability can be tracked. Based on this assumption, this research group aims at analyzing the life of the institution, viewed from such an angle that we can grasp and follow the progressive formation of the true substance of various ‘orders of totality.’ Understanding the shaping of institutions imply theoretical and epistemological challenges. This requires a more specific discussion about the role of causality, intentionality, and finally, the role of determinations in the social shaping.