Social constructionism

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In postmodern philosophy, social constructionism is the position that knowledge, including knowledge of reality, is socially constructed; in its extreme form, that there is no such thing as objective reality to know about (or that objective reality is philosophically unknowable), only social constructs which are labeled "knowledge of reality." Science itself will carry constructions with it as it is simply a human endeavor, and it's important to be mindful of this. Science itself is not nature, but rather an attempt to model nature as closely as possible. It is not transcendent truth about nature. In this way, knowledge about nature is itself constructed.

A brief illustration

There is often much to-do about whether something is "real" or if it is "merely" a social construct. An old joke is often brought up at this point: "If you believe social constructions aren't real, then please take out all the bills in your wallet and pass them up to me." Money is, indeed, a classic example of a social construction that plays an extremely important role in our everyday lives. All those paper bills and coins are "just" paper and metal, and all that money in your bank account is "just" some numbers in a computer. Think about that for a moment — or don't, you might ruin the economy.

Another good example is the debate over Pluto's planethood. Since we've basically been conducting astronomy, we have noticed that unlike the rest of the stellar objects in the night sky, which appear "fixed," some of these objects appear to "wander" relative to the positions of the other stars. The Greeks called these objects planets. Eventually, to put a long story short, it was discovered that "planets" are not stars in their own right, but rather objects that orbit the Sun. This got muddled with the discovery of asteroids and other junk floating around in the Solar System that didn't appear to be planetary in nature, but still orbited the sun. Eventually, with the discovery of Eris in 2005, it was resolved that it was finally time to put a definition to the word "planet," which up until that point didn't have a definition. It was decided that a planet must be an object that orbited around the sun, had sufficient mass to reach a spheroidal shape, and must clear its orbit of "junk." Pluto only fit the first two of these criteria, and so was demoted from planethood. Notice that nothing about Pluto itself changed, only the way we classify astronomical objects. In this way, "planet" is also a social construct. It's merely a useful tool for scientists to classify various astronomical objects.

Strong vs. weak social constructionism

There are two general strains of social constructionism: strong and weak. The strong form denies an important distinction made by the weak form. In The Construction of Social Reality (1995), John Searle, borrowing the concept from G.E.M. Anscombe, distinguishes between "brute facts" and "institutional facts". Brute facts do not rely on any more fundamental facts. Institutional facts, however, are the product of social conventions.

The strong version of social constructionism rejects the above distinction and posits that all knowledge is socially constructed through action and speech. This position is easily refuted in a number of ways. While it may be difficult in some cases to draw a clear distinction between brute and institutional facts, one can argue (as Searle does) that there are clear instances of fact that do not rely on social convention — such as the eruption of a volcano. Another line of argumentation is to accept the basic premises of the strong version but to argue that the consequences are either trivial or incoherent.

A strong social constructivist would argue that all science does is describe measurements, rather than describe reality itself. When a tree falls in the woods, and there is no observer, it doesn't make a sound, as no one is there to measure that sound. One could argue that even if no one was around to observe a tree falling, that tree would still create vibrations in the air, but there is no observer around for those air vibrations to hit the eardrum of and create the experience of sound, which can be measured with the eardrum. The strong social constructivist would argue that this is equivalent to no sound having been produced, as there was no one around to measure those air vibrations as sound. The observer and the observed are connected (or the eardrum and the air vibrations caused by the tree fall), and this interaction between the pair creates the measurement that science then describes.

See also

• Idealism
• Pyrrhonism
• Scientific objectivity
• Solipsism
• Transubstantiation

External links

• Naturalistic Approaches to Social Construction, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• What Is Social Construction? Paul A. Boghossian