0415147964.Routledge.Social.Reality.May.1997

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differentiate between valid and invalid assertions about the
world. This the sociologist cannot possibly do. Logically, if not
stylistically, he is stuck with the quotation marks& .
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Social Constructivism and Sociology of Knowledge
It is our contention, then, that the sociology of knowledge
must concern itself with whatever passes for knowledge in a
society, regardless of the ultimate validity or invalidity (by
whatever criteria) of such knowledge . And in so far as all
human knowledge is developed, transmitted and maintained in
social situations, the sociology of knowledge must seek to
understand the processes by which this is done in such a way
that a taken-for-granted reality congeals for the man in the
street. In other words, we contend that the sociology of
knowledge is concerned with the analysis of the social
construction of reality.
In these passages, Berger and Luckmann take their stand on a
controversial issue within the sociology of knowledge, namely the
scope of this discipline. Some sociologists of knowledge (among
them Karl Mannheim) insist that sociology can do no more than
explain human error, that is, such deviations from right thinking as
are brought about by distorting societal factors; Marx held that
natural science and mathematics were immune to the influence of
social determination in virtue of their methodological rigour. This
approach makes it incumbent upon sociology to decide, somehow,
which views are erroneous or irrational and which are not, so that
the appropriate method of explanation may be applied to each. (Of
course, any such decision might emerge as a result of the discovery
that the views in question invite a certain kind of explanation, more
precisely, sociological explanation). In declaring that the sociology
of knowledge should treat impartially everything that is accepted as
knowledge in a given society, Berger and Luckmann reject this
position. The implication is clearly that sociology of knowledge
must explain all bodies of doctrine, and must do so in a non-
discriminatory manner.
Thus sociologists of knowledge are urged to regard all socially
endorsed knowledge claims as being on a par, and to consider all
occurrences of such terms as knowledge , fact , truth and
reality , encountered in the course of their investigation, as
coming furnished with invisible quotation marks. However, in
setting out this principle, Berger and Luckmann render their views
irrelevant to the discussion we are engaged in here, if we take
their claim at face value. For the view we are examining is
precisely none other than the claim that societal cognitions create
social fact, not merely social fact i.e. what is believed to be
67
The Broad Arguments
fact. Indeed, the alternative view hardly deserves consideration,
since it is a tautology that social consensus determines what is
believed to be a fact in society. After all, social consensus is
merely a synonym for what is universally believed to be a fact in
society ; hence, it is obvious that the one determines the other.
Still, I think it correct to classify Berger and Luckmann as social
constructivists. Later in their book, the authors make statements that
seem to indicate that their initial deferential remarks about
philosophy were somewhat disingenuous. Once having discarded the
quotation marks (allegedly as a purely stylistic measure) the two
authors frequently express positions that only make sense if we take
the absence of quotation marks at face value. For example, they
write:
[A] psychological theory positing demoniacal possession is
unlikely to be adequate in interpreting the identity problems
of middleclass, Jewish intellectuals in New York City. These
people simply do not have an identity capable of producing
phenomena that could be so interpreted. The demons, if such
there are, seem to avoid them. On the other hand,
psychoanalysis is unlikely to be adequate for the
interpretation of identity problems in rural Haiti, while some
sort of Voudun psychology might supply interpretive schemes
with a high degree of empirical accuracy. The two
psychologies demonstrate their empirical adequacy by their
applicability in therapy, but neither thereby demonstrates the
ontological status of its categories. Neither the Voudun gods
nor libidinal energy may exist outside the world defined in
the respective social contexts. But in these contexts they do
exist by virtue of social definition and are internalized as
realities in the course of socialization. Rural Haitians are
possessed and New York intellectuals are neurotic.
Possession and neurosis are thus constituents of both
objective and subjective reality in these contexts. This reality
is empirically available in everyday life. The respective
psychological theories are empirically adequate in precisely
the same sense. The problem of whether or how
psychological theories could be developed to transcend this
socio-historical relativity need not concern us here.
(Berger and Luckmann 1967:197 98, authors italics)
68
Social Constructivism and Sociology of Knowledge
This passage is hardly a paradigm of philosophical lucidity; but
it does seem to assert the existence of both Voudun demons and
neuroses, though granting each reality only within its particular
social context. Such ascriptions of existence, however, would be
perfectly tautological, and the emphases in the text utterly
redundant, were the authors to stick to their declared policy of
using real and exist with invisible quotation marks. The
assertions would be very circuitous ways of saying that members
of different cultures hold different beliefs. Instead, what is offered
here, I think, is genuine cultural relativism, not sociology-of-
knowledge neutralism (cf. p. 17). It is important to keep the
difference between those two stances firmly in focus. Often,
writers in the constructivist tradition move directly from the
observation that the sociology of knowledge must be neutral about
the truth value of the cognitive systems under scrutiny, to the
conclusion that these systems are all equally true, from the
sociological vantage point, and the items they comprise equally
real. However, to say that they are equally true can only mean
that their truth values are equally in abeyance.
The ontological relativism of The Social Construction of Reality
becomes even clearer at the very end of the book. Here, the authors
appear to renounce their declared neutrality and to turn their
attention to the philosophical issue of the constitution of reality.
They write:
The sociology of knowledge understands human reality as
socially constructed reality. Since the constitution of reality has
traditionally been a central problem of philosophy, this
understanding has certain philosophical implications. In so far
as there has been a strong tendency for this problem, with all
the questions it involves, to become trivialized in contemporary
philosophy, the sociologist may find himself, to his surprise
perhaps, the inheritor of philosophical questions that the
professional philosophers are no longer interested in
considering.
(Ibid.: 210 11).
It is not clear what the problems and questions are that are
purportedly trivialized in contemporary philosophy . In any case, in
so far as reality is furnished with invisible quotation marks in the
cited passage, it is far from evident why philosophy should have
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The Broad Arguments
anything to say on the matter. Reality in quotation marks means
what is believed to be real ; and it is no part of philosophy as [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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