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The Social Construction of Reality
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The Social Construction of Reality is a book about the sociology of knowledge written by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann and published in 1966.
The work introduced the term social construction into the social sciences. The central concept of The Social Construction of Reality is that persons and groups interacting together in a social system form, over time, concepts or mental representations of each other's actions, and that these concepts eventually become habituated into reciprocal roles played by the actors in relation to each other.
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Encyclopedia
The Social Construction of Reality is a book about the sociology of knowledge written by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann and published in 1966.
The work introduced the term social construction into the social sciences. The central concept of The Social Construction of Reality is that persons and groups interacting together in a social system form, over time, concepts or mental representations of each other's actions, and that these concepts eventually become habituated into reciprocal roles played by the actors in relation to each other. When these roles are made available to other members of society to enter into and play out, the reciprocal interactions are said to be institutionalised. In the process of this institutionalisation, meaning is embedded in society. Knowledge and people's conception (and belief) of what reality is becomes embedded in the institutional fabric of society. Social reality is therefore said to be socially constructed.
Basic concepts of the book
Social stock of knowledge:
earlier theories (Max Scheler, Karl Mannheim, Werner Stark, Karl Marx, Weber, etc) often focused too much on scientific and theoretical knowledge, but this is only small part of social knowledge, concerning a very limited group. Customs, common interpretations, institutions, shared routines, habitualizations, the who-is-who and who-does what in social processes and the division of labor, constitute a much larger part of knowledge in society.
“…theoretical knowledge is only a small and by no means the most important part of what passed for knowledge in a society… the primary knowledge about the institutional order is knowledge… is the sum total of ‘what everybody knows’ about a social world, an assemblage of maxims, morals, proverbial nuggets of wisdom, values and beliefs, myths, and so forth” (p.65)
Semantic fields:
the general body of knowledge is socially distributed, and classified in semantic fields. The dynamic distribution and interdependencies of these knowledge sectors provide structure to the social stock of knowledge:
“The social stock of knowledge differentiates reality by degrees of familiarity… my knowledge of my own occupation and its world is very rich and specific, while I have only very sketchy knowledge of the occupational worlds of others” (p.43) “The social distribution of knowledge thus begins with the simple fact that I do not know everything known to my fellowmen, and vice versa, and culminates in exceedingly complex and esoteric systems of expertise. Knowledge of how the socially available stock of knowledge is distributed, at least in outline, is an important element of that same stick of knowledge.” (p.46)
Social everyday reality (in contrast to other realities, such as dreams, theoretical constructs, religious or mystic beliefs, artistic and imaginary worlds, etc) is characterized by intersubjectivity (p.23-25):
“Compared to the reality of everyday life, other realities appear as finite provinces of meaning, enclaves within the paramount reality marked by circumscribed meanings and modes of experience” (p.25)
Signs and language provide interoperability for the construction of everyday reality:
“A sign [has the] explicit intention to serve as an index of subjective meanings … Language is capable of becoming the objective repository of vast accumulations of meaning and experience, which it can then preserve in time and transmit to following generations… Language also typifies experiences, allowing me to subsume them under broad categories in terms of which they have meaning not only to myself but also to my fellowmen” (p.35-39)
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