Intro -- Social reality -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Social facts as constructions -- Clarifications of the construction claim -- Contrasting issues in social science -- Another programme of social constructivism -- Construction and causal generation -- Philosophical issues in constructivism -- Implications for philosophy and the social sciences -- Outline of the book -- Part One The Broad Arguments -- Chapter I Ethnomethodology -- The ethnomethodological argument reconstructed -- The ethnomethodological argument criticised -- The theory refined: introducing hypothetical agreement -- The flaw in the constructivist argument -- Chapter II The Cultural Relativity Argument -- The argument presented -- A prima facie objection to the argument -- The concept of rationality in anthropology -- Assessing the cultural relativity argument -- Chapter III Social Constructivism and the Sociology of Knowledge: Berger and Luckmann -- The Social Construction of Reality interpreted -- The argument assessed -- Sociology of knowledge to the rescue? -- The 'science constructivists' revisited -- Chapter IV The Linguistic Relativity Argument -- The linguistic relativity argument in Thomas Kuhn's work -- An example -- The linguistic relativity argument reconstructed -- Labelling theory -- Summary of Part One -- Part Two The Narrow Arguments -- Chapter V The Arguments from the 'Meaningfulness' of Action: The phenomenological argument -- The meaningfulness of action according Wilhelm Dilthey -- The methodology of social science according to Max Weber -- Alfred Schutz and phenomenology -- The phenomenological argument explicated -- The phenomenological argument reconstructed -- May social facts be wholly constituted by meanings? -- The construction thesis modified -- The scope of the phenomenological argument.

Chapter VI The Arguments from the 'Meaningfulness' of Action: The hermeneutic argument -- The hermeneutic position according to Peter Winch -- The hermeneutic argument according to Jürgen Habermas -- Empirical work illustrating the hermeneutic argument -- Further functions of language in social construction -- Chapter VII The Argument from the Symbolic Nature of Social Facts -- The symbolist interpretation of religion and magic -- Symbolic action in modern society -- Interaction rituals -- The dramaturgical interpretation of social action -- Symbolism and construction -- Chapter VIII The Argument from Convention -- Historical roots: the Social Contract doctrine -- Elements of convention -- Problems with fact-by-convention -- A residual difficulty -- An alternative concept of convention: David Hume -- David Lewis's analysis of convention -- The problems concerning conventional facts addressed -- Language-based conventions -- Language as a convention -- Language as an institution -- Summary of Part Two -- Part Three Methodological Implications of Constructivism -- Constructivism and the individualism/holism issue -- Notes -- References -- Index.

Social reality is currently a hotly debated topic not only in social science, but also in philosophy and the other humanities. Finn Collin, in this concise guide, asks if social reality is created by the way social agents conceive of it? Is there a difference between the kind of existence attributed to social and to physical facts - do physical facts enjoy a more independent existence? To what extent is social reality a matter of social convention. Finn Collin considers a number of traditional doctrines which support the constructivist position that social reality is generated by our 'interpretation' of it. He also examines the way social facts are contingent upon the meaning invested in them by social agents; the nature of social convention; the status of social facts as symbolic; the ways in which socially shared language is claimed to generate the reality described, as well as the limitations of some of the over-ambitious popular arguments for social constructivism.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.