Social constructionIn the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
ism and
social constructivismSocial constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge that applies the general philosophical constructionism into social settings, wherein groups construct knowledge for one another, collaboratively creating a small culture of shared artifacts with shared meanings...
are
sociological theoriesIn sociology, sociological perspectives, theories, or paradigms are complex theoretical and methodological frameworks used to analyze and explain objects of social study. They facilitate organizing sociological knowledge...
of
knowledgeKnowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
that consider how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction (also called a social construct) is a concept or practice that is the construct (or
artifactA cultural artifact is a term used in the social sciences, particularly anthropology, ethnology, and sociology for anything created by humans which gives information about the culture of its creator and users...
) of a particular group. When we say that something is socially constructed, we are focusing on its dependence on contingent variables of our social selves rather than any inherent quality that it possesses in itself. The underlying assumptions on which social constructivism is typically seen to be based are reality, knowledge, and learning.
Social constructs are generally understood to be the by-products of countless human choices rather than laws resulting from divine will or nature. This is not usually taken to imply a radical anti-
determinismDeterminism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
, however. Social constructionism is usually opposed to
essentialismIn philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...
, which instead defines specific phenomena in terms of inherent and
transhistoricalTranshistoricity is the quality of holding throughout human history, not merely within the frame of reference of a particular form of society at a particular stage of historical development. An entity or concept that has transhistoricity is said to be transhistorical.Certain theories of history,...
essences independent of conscious beings that determine the categorical structure of reality.
A major focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the construction of their perceived social
realityIn philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
. It involves looking at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, known, and made into
traditionA tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
by humans. The social construction of reality is an ongoing, dynamic process that is (and must be) reproduced by people acting on their
interpretationsAn interpretation is an assignment of meaning to the symbols of a formal language. Many formal languages used in mathematics, logic, and theoretical computer science are defined in solely syntactic terms, and as such do not have any meaning until they are given some interpretation...
and their
knowledgeKnowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
of it. Because social constructs as facets of reality and objects of knowledge are not "given" by nature, they must be constantly maintained and re-affirmed in order to persist. This process also introduces the possibility of change: what "justice" is and what it means shifts from one generation to the next.
Ian Hacking noted in "The Social Construction of What?" that social construction talk is often in reference not only to worldly items, like things and facts – but also to beliefs about them. It is relevant to note that this perspective is often correctly closely connected with many contemporary theories, perhaps most notably the developmental theories of
Lev VygotskyLev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Soviet psychologist, the founder of cultural-historical psychology, and the leader of the Vygotsky Circle.-Biography:...
and
Jerome BrunerJerome Seymour Bruner is an American psychologist who has contributed to cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology, as well as to history and to the general philosophy of education. Bruner is currently a senior research fellow at the New York University School...
.
Social constructivism has been studied by many educational psychologists, who are concerned with its implications for teaching and learning. For more on the psychological dimensions of social constructivism, see the work of
Ernst von GlasersfeldErnst von Glasersfeld was a philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, Research Associate at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
and A. Sullivan Palincsar.
Constructionism became prominent in the U.S. with
Peter L. BergerPeter Ludwig Berger is an Austrian-born American sociologist well known for his work, co-authored with Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge .-Biography:...
and
Thomas LuckmannThomas Luckmann is a German sociologist of Slovene origin. His main areas of research are the sociology of communication, Sociology of knowledge, sociology of religion, and the philosophy of science.- Biography :...
's 1967 book,
The Social Construction of RealityThe Social Construction of Reality is a book about the sociology of knowledge written by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann and published in 1966....
. Berger and Luckmann argue that all knowledge, including the most basic, taken-for-granted
common senseCommon sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have...
knowledge of everyday reality, is derived from and maintained by social interactions. When people interact, they do so with the understanding that their respective perceptions of reality are related, and as they act upon this understanding their common knowledge of reality becomes reinforced. Since this common sense knowledge is negotiated by people, human
typificationTypification is a process of creating standard social construction based on standard assumptions. Discrimination based on typification is called typism.-References:*...
s, significations and institutions come to be presented as part of an objective reality, particularly for future generations who were not involved in the original process of negotiation. For example, as parents negotiate rules for their children to follow, those rules confront the children as externally produced "givens" that they cannot change. Berger and Luckmann's social constructionism has its roots in phenomenology. It links to Heidegger and
Edmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
through the teaching of
Alfred SchutzAlfred Schütz was an Austrian social scientist, whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions to form a social phenomenology, and who is gradually achieving recognition as one of the foremost philosophers of social science of the [twentieth] century.-Life:Schütz was born in...
, who was also Berger's PhD adviser.
During the 1970s and 1980s, social constructionist theory underwent a transformation as constructionist sociologists engaged with the work of
Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
and others as a narrative turn in the social sciences was worked out in practice. This had a particular impact on the emergent sociology of science and the growing field of
science and technology studiesScience, technology and society is the study of how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these, in turn, affect society, politics and culture...
. In particular, Karin Knorr-Cetina,
Bruno LatourBruno Latour is a French sociologist of science and anthropologist and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies...
, Barry Barnes,
Steve WoolgarStephen Woolgar is a British sociologist. He has worked closely with Bruno Latour, with whom he co-authored Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts ....
, and others used social constructionism to relate what science has typically characterized as objective facts to the processes of social construction, with the goal of showing that human
subjectivitySubjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
imposes itself on those facts we take to be objective, not solely the other way around. A particularly provocative title in this line of thought is
Andrew PickeringAndrew Pickering is a sociologist, philosopher and historian of science at the University of Exeter. He was a professor of sociology and a director of science and technology studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign until 2007. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of...
's
Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics. At the same time, Social Constructionism shaped studies of technology - the Sofield, especially on the
Social construction of technologySocial construction of technology is a theory within the field of Science and Technology Studies. Advocates of SCOT -- that is, social constructivists -- argue that technology does not determine human action, but that rather, human action shapes technology...
, or
SCOTA Scot is a member of an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland, derived from the Latin name of Irish raiders, the Scoti.Scot may also refer to:People with the given name Scot:* Scot Brantley , American football linebacker...
, and authors as
Wiebe BijkerWiebe E. Bijker is a Dutch professor, chair of the Department of Social Science and Technology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands....
,
Trevor PinchTrevor J. Pinch is a sociologist and former chair of the Science and Technology Studies department at Cornell University.Pinch has a degree in Physics from the Imperial College London and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Bath...
,
Maarten van WeselMaarten van Wesel is a Dutch e-learning researcher, political blogger and candidate for the Heerlen city council .- Education :...
, etc. Despite its common perception as objective, mathematics is not immune to social constructionist accounts. Sociologists such as
Sal RestivoSal Restivo is a leading contributor to science studies and in particular to the sociology of mathematical knowledge. His current work focuses on the sociology and anthropology of mind and brain, and the sociology of god and religion. He has also done work in the sociology of social and sociable...
and
Randall CollinsRandall Collins, Ph.D. is the Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Advisory Editors Council of the Social Evolution & History Journal. He is considered to be one of the leading non-Marxist conflict theorists in the United...
, mathematicians including
Reuben HershReuben Hersh is an American mathematician and academic, best known for his writings on the nature, practice, and social impact of mathematics. This work challenges and complements mainstream philosophy of mathematics.After receiving a B.A...
and
Philip J. DavisPhilip J. Davis is an American applied mathematician.Davis was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He is known for his work in numerical analysis and approximation theory, as well as his investigations in the history and philosophy of mathematics...
, and philosophers including
Paul ErnestPaul Ernest is a recent contributor to the social constructivist philosophy of mathematics. He illustrates this position in his discussion of the issue of whether mathematics is discovered or invented...
have published social constructionist treatments of mathematics.
Social constructionism and postmodernism
Social constructionism can be seen as a source of the
postmodernPostmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
movement, and has been influential in the field of
cultural studiesCultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
. Some have gone so far as to attribute the rise of cultural studies (the
cultural turnThe cultural turn was a movement among scholars in the social sciences to look at culture differently. The cultural turn has been described by one of its most prominent historiographers as a “wide array of new theoretical impulses coming from fields formerly peripheral to the social sciences,”...
) to social constructionism. Within the social constructionist strand of postmodernism, the concept of socially constructed reality stresses the on-going mass-building of worldviews by
individualAn individual is a person or any specific object or thing in a collection. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires. Being self expressive...
s in
dialecticDialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
al interaction with
societyA society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
at a time. The numerous
realitiesIn philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
so formed comprise, according to this view, the
imagined worldsImagined communities are a concept coined by Benedict Anderson. He believes that a nation is a community socially constructed, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group...
of human social existence and activity, gradually crystallised by
habitHabituation can be defined as a process or as a procedure. As a process it is defined as a decrease in an elicited behavior resulting from the repeated presentation of an eliciting stimulus...
into
institutionAn institution is any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community...
s propped up by
languageLanguage may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
conventions, given ongoing legitimacy by
mythologyThe term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
,
religionReligion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, maintained by therapies and
socializationSocialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies...
, and
subjectivelySubjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
internalisedInternalisation in sociology and other social sciences is the process of acceptance of a set of norms and values established by people or groups which are influential to the individual through the process of socialisation....
by upbringing and
educationEducation in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
to become part of the
identityIdentity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...
of social citizens.
Social constructionism and personal construct psychology
Since its appearance in the 1950s, personal construct psychology (PCP) has mainly developed as a constructivist theory of personality and a system of transforming individual meaning-making processes, largely in therapeutic contexts . It was based around the notion of persons as scientists who form and test theories about their worlds. Therefore, it represented one of the first attempts to appreciate the constructive nature of experience and the meaning persons give to their experience . Social constructionism (SC), on the other hand, mainly developed as a form of a critique , aimed to transform the oppressing effects of the social meaning-making processes. Over the years, it has grown into a cluster of different approaches , with no single SC position . However, different approaches under the generic term of SC are loosely linked by some shared assumptions about language, knowledge, and reality .
A usual way of thinking about the relationship between PCP and SC is treating them as two separate entities that are similar in some aspects, but also very different in others. This way of conceptualizing this relationship is a logical result of the circumstantial differences of their emergence. In subsequent analyses these differences between PCP and SC were framed around several points of tension, formulated as binary oppositions: personal/social; individualist/relational; agency/structure; constructivist/constructionist . Although some of the most important issues in contemporary psychology are elaborated in these contributions, the polarized positioning also sustained the idea of a separation between PCP and SC, paving the way for only limited opportunities for dialogue between them (
http://tap.sagepub.com/content/21/3/396.abstract).
Reframing the relationship between PCP and SC may be of use in both the PCP and the SC communities. On one hand, it extends and enriches SC theory and points to benefits of applying the PCP “toolkit” in constructionist therapy and research. On the other hand, the reframing contributes to PCP theory and points to new ways of addressing social construction in therapeutic conversations .
The teleology of social construction
The concepts of
weak and
strong as applied to opposing philosophical positions, "isms", inform a teleology, the goal oriented, meaningful, or final end of a mode of interpretation of reality. "Isms" are not personal opinions, but the extreme, modal, formulations that actual persons, individuals, can then consider, and take a position between. There are opposing philosophical positions concerning the feasibility of co-creating a common, shared, social reality, called
weak and
strong.
John R. Searle does not elucidate the terms
strong and
weak in his book
The Construction of Social Reality, but he clearly uses them in his
Chinese roomThe Chinese room is a thought experiment by John Searle, which first appeared in his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980...
argument, where he debates the feasibility of creating a computing machine with a sharable understanding of reality, and he adds "We are precisely such machines."
Strong artificial intelligence (
Strong AIStrong AI is artificial intelligence that matches or exceeds human intelligence — the intelligence of a machine that can successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. It is a primary goal of artificial intelligence research and an important topic for science fiction writers and...
) is the bet that computer programmers will somehow eventually achieve a computing machine with a mind of its own, and that it will eventually be more powerful than a human mind. Weak AI bets they won't.
David Deutch in his book
The Fabric of Reality uses a form of
strong Turing principle to share Frank Tipler's view of the final state of the universe as an omnipotent (but not omniscient),
Omega pointOmega Point is a term coined by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving....
, computer.
But this computer is a society of creative thinkers, or people (albeit posthuman transhuman persons), having debates in order to generate information, in the never-ending attempt to attain omniscience of this physicsits evolutionary forms, its computational abilities, and the methods of its epistemologyhaving an eternity to do so. (p. 356)
Because both the Chinese room argument and the construction of social reality deal with Searle and his debates, and because they both use
weak and
strong to denote a philosophical position, and because both debate the programmability of "the other", it is worth noting the correspondence that "strong AI" is
strong social constructionism, and "weak AI" is weak social constructivism.
Strong social constructiv
ism says "none are able to
communicate either a full reality or an accurate ontology, therefore my position must impose, by a sort of
divine rightDivine Right may refer to:* The Divine right of kings, the doctrine that a monarch derives his or her power directly from God* Episcopal polity, the doctrine that is required in the church jure divino, i.e...
, my observer-relative epistemology", whereas weak social constructiv
ism says "none are able to
know a full reality, therefore
we must cooperate, informing and conveying an objective ontology as best we can."
Weak teleology
Weak social constructionism sees the underlying, objective, "
brute factBrute facts are facts which are facts in and of themselves, while institutional facts are considered conventional. Institutional facts require the support of an institution. The term was coined by G. E. M...
ual", elements of the class of languages and functional assignments of human, metaphysical, reality. Brute facts are all facts that are not institutional (metaphysical, social agreement) facts. The skeptic portrays the
weak aspect of social constructivism, and want to spend effort debating the institutional realities.
Harvard psychologist
Steven PinkerSteven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author...
writes that "some categories really are social constructions: they exist only because people tacitly agree to act as if they exist. Examples include
moneyMoney is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
,
tenureTenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
,
citizenshipCitizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
, decorations for bravery, and the presidency of the United States."
In a similar vein,
Stanley FishStanley Eugene Fish is an American literary theorist and legal scholar. He was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island...
has suggested that baseball's "balls and strikes" are social constructions.
Both Fish and Pinker agree that the sorts of
objectAn object in philosophy is a technical term often used in contrast to the term subject. Consciousness is a state of cognition that includes the subject, which can never be doubted as only it can be the one who doubts, and some object or objects that may or may not have real existence without...
s indicated here can be described as part of what
John SearleJohn Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...
calls "social reality". In particular, they are, in Searle's terms,
ontologicallyOntology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
subjectiveSubjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
but
epistemologically objectiveObjectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.- Objectivism...
. "Social facts" are temporally, ontologically, and logically dependent on "brute facts." For example, "money" in the form of its raw materials (rag, pulp, ink) as constituted socially for barter (for example by a banking system) is a social fact of "money" by virtue of (i) collectively willing and intending (ii) to impose some particular function (purpose for which), (iii) by constitutive rules atop the "brute facts." "Social facts have the remarkable feature of having no analogue among physical
brute factBrute facts are facts which are facts in and of themselves, while institutional facts are considered conventional. Institutional facts require the support of an institution. The term was coined by G. E. M...
s" (34). The existence of language is itself constitutive of the social fact (37), which natural or brute facts do not require. Natural or "brute" facts exist independently of language; thus a "mountain" is a mountain in every language and in no language; it simply is what it is.
Searle illustrates the evolution of social facts from brute facts by the constitutive rule: X counts as Y in C. "The Y terms has to assign a new
status that the object does not already have just in virtue of satisfying the Y term; and there has to be collective agreement, or at least acceptance, both in the imposition of that status on the stuff referred to by the X term and about the function that goes with that status. Furthermore, because the physical features brute facts specified by the X term are insufficient by themselves to guarantee the fulfillment of the assigned function specified by the Y term, the new status and its attendant functions have to be the sort of things that can be constituted by collective agreement or acceptance."
It is true that language is not a "brute fact", that it is an institutional fact, a human convention, a metaphysical reality (that happens to be physically uttered), but Searle points out that there are language-independent thoughts "noninstitutional, primitive, biological inclinations and cognitions not requiring any linguistic devises", and that there are many "brute facts" amongst both humans and animals that are truths that should not be altered in the social constructs because language does not truly constitute them, despite the attempt to institute them for any group's gain: money and property are language dependent, but desires (thirst, hunger) and emotions (fear, rage) are not. (
DescartesMeditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise written by René Descartes and first published in 1641 . The French translation was published in 1647 as Méditations Metaphysiques...
describes the difference between imagination as a sort of vision, or image, and intellect as conceptualizing things by symbolic manipulation.) Therefore, there is doubt that society or a computer can be completely programmed by language and images, (because there is a programmable, emotive effect of images that derives from the language of judgment towards images).
Finally, against the strong theory and for the weak theory, Searle insists, "it could not be the case, as some have maintained, that all facts are institutional [i.e., social] facts, that there are no brute facts, because the structure of institutional facts reveals that they are logically dependent on brute facts. To suppose that all facts are institutional [i.e., social] would produce an infinite regress or circularity in the account of institutional facts. In order that some facts be institutional, there must be other facts that are brute [i.e., physical, biological, natural]. This is the consequence of the logical structure of institutional facts."
Ian HackingIan Hacking, CC, FRSC, FBA is a Canadian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of science.- Life and works :...
, Canadian philosopher of science, insists, "the notion that everything is socially constructed has been going the rounds. John Searle [1995] argues vehemently (and in my opinion cogently) against universal constructionism". "Universal social constructionism is descended from the doctrine that I once named linguistic idealism and attributed, only half in jest, to Richard Nixon [Hacking, 1975, p. 182]. Linguistic idealism is the doctrine that only what is talked about exists, nothing has reality until it is spoken of, or written about. This extravagant notion is descended from Berkeley's idea-ism, which we call idealism: the doctrine that all that exists is mental". "They are a part of what John Searle [1995] calls social reality. His book is titled the
Construction of Social Reality, and as I explained elsewhere [Hacking, 1996], that is not a
social construction book at all".
Hacking observes, "the label 'social constructionism' is more code than description" of every Leftist, Marxist, Freudian, and Feminist PostModernist to call into question every moral, sex, gender, power, and deviant claim as just another essentialist claim—including the claim that members of the male and female sex are inherently different, rather than historically and socially constructed. Hacking observes that his 1995 simplistic dismissal of the concept actually revealed to many readers the outrageous implications of the theorists: Is child abuse a real evil, or a social construct, asked Hacking? His dismissive attitude, "gave some readers a way to see that there need be no clash between construction and reality", inasmuch as "the metaphor of social construction once had excellent shock value, but now it has become tired".
Informally, they require human practices to sustain their existence, but they have an effect that is (basically) universally agreed upon. The disagreement lies in whether this category should be called "socially constructed".
Ian HackingIan Hacking, CC, FRSC, FBA is a Canadian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of science.- Life and works :...
argues that it should not. Furthermore, it is not clear that authors who write "social construction" analyses ever mean "social construction" in Pinker's sense. If they never do, then Pinker (probably among others) has misunderstood the point of a social constructionist argument.
To understand how weak social constructionism can conclude that metaphysics (a human affair) is not the entire "reality", see the arguments against the study metaphysics.
KantKANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
similarly argues there are realities we cannot ever know, and therefore cannot ever tell of. This inability to accurately share the
full reality, even given time for a rational conversation, is similarly proclaimed by
weak artificial intelligence.
Strong teleology
Strong social constructionism sees everything as a social construction, everything as metaphysical. This is not to say that it sees the outer world as having beings in a non-reality, as unreal. Rather, it proposes that the notions of "real" and "unreal" are themselves social constructs, so that the question of whether anything is "real" is just a matter of social convention. The conservative proponent of institutions the way they are progressing, would, in Rudolph Carnap's words "pretend to teach knowledge which is of a higher level than that of empirical science." Everyone else has
their own reality, and take the stance that "if you have to ask, you would not understand."
Strong social constructionists oppose the existence of "brute" facts. That a mountain is a
mountain (as opposed to just another undifferentiated clump of earth) is socially engendered, and not a
brute fact. That the concept of mountain is universally admitted in all human languages reflects near-universal human consensus, but does not make it an objective reality; similarly for all apparently real objects and events: trees, cars, snow, collisions.
It reasons that all reality is thought, all thought is in a language, all language is a convention, and that all convention is socially acceptable, hence, it uses language to socially program.
A
Strong social constructionism entity convenes and forms the conventions of
consensus realityConsensus reality is an approach to answering the philosophical question "What is real?" It gives a practical answer: reality is either what exists, or what we can agree seems to exist....
, a real, human operated set of social programs, whose subjects participate in operating on the "real" to the extent they conform democratically and politely. If its ontology is accused, the pragmatic answer is "read the minutes of the meeting", both because the strong social constructionism is busy creating programs, and because sharing a reality accurately and completely is futile.
Also, in regards to Broadcast History, 'social construction' refers to the way in which the media form has been created. This relates both to its structure and regulation. It's the way that the social media outlet is constructed by our society.
The anatomy of a social constructionist analysis
"Social construction" may mean many things to many people.
Ian HackingIan Hacking, CC, FRSC, FBA is a Canadian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of science.- Life and works :...
, having examined a wide range of books and articles with titles of the form "The social construction of X" or "Constructing X", argues that when something is said to be "socially constructed", this is shorthand for at least the following two claims:
- (0) In the present state of affairs, X is taken for granted; X appears to be inevitable.
- (1) X need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. X, or X as it is at present, is not determined by the nature of things; it is not inevitable.
Hacking adds that the following claims are also often, though not always, implied by the use of the phrase "social construction":
- (2) X is quite bad as it is.
- (3) We would be much better off if X were done away with, or at least radically transformed.
Thus a claim that
genderGender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
is socially constructed probably means that gender, as currently understood, is not an inevitable result of biology, but highly contingent on social and historical processes. In addition, depending on who is making the claim, it may mean that our current understanding of gender is harmful, and should be modified or eliminated, to the extent possible.
According to Hacking, "social construction" claims are not always clear about exactly what isn't "inevitable", or exactly what "should be done away with." Consider a hypothetical claim that
quarkA quark is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never directly...
s are "socially constructed". On one reading, this means that quarks themselves are not "inevitable" or "determined by the nature of things." On another reading, this means that our
idea (or conceptualization, or understanding) of quarks is not "inevitable" or "determined by the nature of things".
Hacking is much more sympathetic to the second reading than the first. Furthermore, he argues that, if the second reading is taken, there need not always be a conflict between saying that quarks are "socially constructed" and saying that they are "real". In our gender example, this means that while a legitimate biological basis for gender may exist,
some of society's perceptions of gender may be socially constructed.
The stronger first position, however, is more-or-less an inevitable corollary of
Willard Van Orman QuineWillard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
's concept of ontological relativity, and particularly of the
Duhem-Quine thesisThe Duhem–Quine thesis is that it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis in isolation, because an empirical test of the hypothesis requires one or more background assumptions...
. That is, according to Quine and like-minded thinkers (who are not usually characterized as social constructionists) there is no single privileged explanatory framework that is closest to "the things themselves"—every theory has merit only in proportion to its explanatory power.
As we step from the phrase to the world of human beings, "social construction" analyses can become more complex. Hacking briefly examines Helène Moussa’s analysis of the social construction of "women refugees". According to him, Moussa's argument has several pieces, some of which may be implicit:
- Canadian citizens' idea of "the woman refugee" is not inevitable, but historically contingent. (Thus the idea or category "the woman refugee" can be said to be "socially constructed".)
- Women coming to Canada to seek asylum are profoundly affected by the category of "the woman refugee". Among other things, if a woman does not "count" as a "woman refugee" according to the law, she may be deported, and forced to return to very difficult conditions in her homeland.
- Such women may modify their behavior, and perhaps even their attitudes towards themselves, in order to gain the benefits of being classified as a "woman refugee".
- If such a woman does not modify her behavior, she should be considered un-Canadian and as such should not be admitted to citizenship.
Hacking suggests that this third part of the analysis, the "interaction" between a socially constructed category and the individuals that are actually or potentially included in that category, is present in many "social construction" analyses involving types of human beings.
Environmental Leftist social constructionism
The
Postmodern social construction of natureThe Postmodern social construction of nature is a theorem or speculation of postmodernist continental philosophy that poses an alternative critique of previous mainstream, promethean dialogue about environmental sustainability and ecopolitics.-Position:...
is a theory of postmodernist
continental philosophyContinental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...
that poses an alternative critique of previous mainstream, promethean dialogue about environmental sustainability and ecopolitics. Whereas traditional criticisms of environmentalism come from the more conservative "right" of politics, leftist critiques of nature pioneered by postmodernist constructionism highlight the need to recognise "the other". The implicit assumption made by theorists like Wapner is that a new "response to eco-criticism would require critics to acknowledge the ways in which they themselves silence nature and then to respect the sheer otherness of the nonhuman world."
This is because postmodernism prides itself on criticizing the urge toward mastery that characterizes modernity. But mastery is exactly what postmodernism is exerting as it captures the nonhuman world within its own conceptual domain. That in turn implies postmodern cultural criticism can deepen the modernist urge toward mastery by eliminating the ontological weight of the nonhuman world. "What else could it mean to assert that there is no such thing as nature?". Thus, the issue becomes an existentialist query about whether nature can exist in a humanist critique, and whether we can discern the "other's" views in relation to our actions on their behalf. This theorem has come to be known as "The Wapner Paradigm."
Criticisms
Social constructionism falls toward the nurture end of the spectrum of the larger nature vs. nurture debate. It generally ignores biological influences on behavior or culture, or suggests that they are unimportant to achieve an understanding of human behavior. In contrast, most psychologists and social scientists believe that behavior is a very complex interaction of both biological and cultural influences. Other disciplines, such as
evolutionary psychologyEvolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...
, behavior genetics,
behavioral neuroscienceBehavioral neuroscience, also known as biological psychology, biopsychology, or psychobiology is the application of the principles of biology , to the study of physiological, genetic, and developmental mechanisms of behavior in human and non-human animals...
,
epigeneticsIn biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence – hence the name epi- -genetics...
, etc., take a nature-nurture interactionism approach to understand behavior or cultural phenomena.
To illustrate what he believed to be the intellectual weaknesses of social constructionism and postmodernism, in 1996, physics professor
Alan SokalAlan David Sokal is a professor of mathematics at University College London and professor of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. To the general public he is best known for his criticism of postmodernism, resulting in the Sokal affair in...
submitted an article to the academic journal
Social TextSocial Text is an academic journal published by Duke University Press. Since its inception as an independent editorial collective in 1979, Social Text has addressed a wide range of social and cultural phenomena, covering questions of gender, sexuality, race, and the environment...
that was written purposely to be incomprehensible, but included phrases and jargon typical of articles published in the journal. The submission, which was published, was an experiment to see if the journal would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions.". The
Postmodernism GeneratorThe Postmodernism Generator is a computer program that automatically produces imitations of postmodernist writing, especially that of critical theory. It was written in 1996 by Andrew Bulhak of Monash University and is currently hosted at . The essays are produced from a formal grammar defined by a...
is a computer program that is designed to produce similarly incomprehensible text. In 1999, Sokal, with coauthor Jean Bricmont published the book,
Fashionable NonsenseFashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science is a book by professors Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont...
, that criticized
postmodernismPostmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
and social constructionism.
See also
Books
- Peter L. Berger
Peter Ludwig Berger is an Austrian-born American sociologist well known for his work, co-authored with Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge .-Biography:...
and Thomas LuckmannThomas Luckmann is a German sociologist of Slovene origin. His main areas of research are the sociology of communication, Sociology of knowledge, sociology of religion, and the philosophy of science.- Biography :...
, The Social Construction of Reality : A Treatise in the Sociology of KnowledgeThe Social Construction of Reality is a book about the sociology of knowledge written by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann and published in 1966....
(Anchor, 1967; ISBN 0-385-05898-5).
- Joel Best, Images of Issues: Typifying contemporary social problems, New York: Gruyter, 1989
- Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking, CC, FRSC, FBA is a Canadian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of science.- Life and works :...
, The Social Construction of What? Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999; ISBN 067481200X
- John Searle
John Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...
, The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press, 1995; ISBN 0029280451 .
- Charles Arthur Willard
Charles Arthur Willard is an American argumentation and rhetorical theorist.He received his doctorate at the University of Illinois, Urbana, USA, in 1972. From 1974 to 1982 he was the Director of Forensics at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire . He has lectured in Austria, Canada, France,...
, Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996; ISBN 0226898458.
- Vivien Burr. Social Constructionism, 2nd ed. Routledge 2003
- Wilson, D. S.
David Sloan Wilson is an American evolutionary biologist and a Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He is a son of the author Sloan Wilson.-Academic career:...
(2005), "Evolutionary Social Constructivism". In J. Gottshcall and D. S. Wilson, (Eds.), The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative. Evanston, IL, Northwestern University Press; ISBN 0810122863. Full text
- Sal Restivo
Sal Restivo is a leading contributor to science studies and in particular to the sociology of mathematical knowledge. His current work focuses on the sociology and anthropology of mind and brain, and the sociology of god and religion. He has also done work in the sociology of social and sociable...
and Jennifer Croissant, "Social Constructionism in Science and Technology Studies" (Handbook of Constructionist Research, ed. J.A. Holstein & J.F. Gubrium (Guilford, NY 2008, 213-229; ISBN 9781593853051
- Ellul, Jacques
Jacques Ellul was a French philosopher, law professor, sociologist, lay theologian, and Christian anarchist. He wrote several books about the "technological society" and the interaction between Christianity and politics....
. Propaganda: The Formation of Men's AttitudesPropaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes is a landmark work on the subject of propaganda by French philosopher,theologian, and sociologist Jacques Ellul. This book appears to be the first attempt to study propaganda from a sociological approach as well as a psychological one...
. Trans. Konrad Kellen & Jean Lerner. New York: Knopf, 1965. New York: Random House/ Vintage 1973
- Kenneth Gergen, (2009, 2nd edition), An Invitation to Social Construction. Los Angeles: Sage.
- Glasersfeld, Ernst von (1995), Radical Constructivism: A Way of Knowing and Learning. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
- Grant, Colin B. (2000), Functions and Fictions of Communication. Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang.
- Grant, Colin B. (2007), Uncertainty and Communication: New Theoretical Investigations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Hibberd, Fiona J. (2005), Unfolding Social Constructionism. New York: Springer. ISBN 0-387-22974-4
- André Kukla (2000), Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science, London: Routledge, ISBN 0415234190, 9780415234191
- P. & K. Verdyn] (2010), Understanding the Basic Dynamics of Organizing, Delft: Eburon.
- Poerksen, Bernhard (2004), The Certainty of Uncertainty: Dialogues Introducing Constructivism. Exeter: Imprint-Academic.
- Peter Lampe
Peter Lampe is a German theologian and Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.After studies in theology, philosophy and archaeology at Bielefeld and Göttingen, Germany, and Rome, Italy, he received his Ph.D. and his Dr. habil...
(2006), Die Wirklichkeit als Bild: Das Neue Testament als ein Grunddokument abendländischer Kultur im Lichte konstruktivistischer Epistemologie und Wissenssoziologie, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener.
- Schmidt, Siegfried J. (2007), Histories & Discourses: Rewriting Constructivism. Exeter: Imprint-Acadenic.
- Deissler, K. G. and Sheila McNamee
Sheila McNamee is an American academic known for her work in social constructionism. She is a Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and a founder, Vice President and board member of the Taos Institute...
(Eds.). (2000). Philosophy in Therapy: The Social Poetics of Therapeutic Conversation. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme Verlag.
- Sheila McNamee
Sheila McNamee is an American academic known for her work in social constructionism. She is a Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and a founder, Vice President and board member of the Taos Institute...
and Kenneth Gergen (1999). Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, Inc. ISBN 0761910948.
- Sheila McNamee
Sheila McNamee is an American academic known for her work in social constructionism. She is a Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and a founder, Vice President and board member of the Taos Institute...
and Kenneth Gergen (Eds.) (1992). Therapy as Social Construction. London: Sage ISBN 0803983034.
- Lowenthal, P., & Muth, R. (2008). Constructivism. In E. F. Provenzo, Jr. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the social and cultural foundations of education (pp. 177–179). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Articles
Kitsuse JI, Spector M. Toward a sociology of social problems: Social conditions, value-judgements, and social problems,
Social ProblemsSocial problems are problems and difficulties that people often face in society. These include:*crime*corruption*poverty*homelessness*hunger*disease*drug addiction*alcoholism*schizophrenia*depression*pollution...
, 20(4) 407-19, 1973
Mallon, Ron,
"Naturalistic Approaches to Social Construction", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
External links