 |
| Dr. Dennis Hiebert, Professor of Sociology |
A
philosophical critique of Dr. Dennis Hiebert's Provf Talk
By Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Providence University College
0. Overview
- Introduction
- Dr. Hiebert's talk “What does ‘The Social Construction of Reality’ mean?” (video)
- Transcript of Dr. Hiebert’s talk with VDB’s critique/ comments (in red)
- VDB's final comments
- Suggested resources
1. Introduction
The sociological thesis
known as Social Construction of Reality (SCR) interests me philosophically. In
what follows, I attempt to understand it with the help of sociologist Dennis
Hiebert (who is also my colleague and department chair).
Dr. Hiebert sets out the SCR
thesis in his popular short lecture “What does ‘The Social Construction of
Reality’ mean?” (Provf Talk, November 20, 2014). As Dr. Hiebert points out, he provides in this
lecture “only a brief description of the social construction of reality, not an
evaluation or critique of it.” He adds: “For that [i.e., the evaluation/
critique] you should take Social Science and Christianity, pardon the plug.”
The plug is pardoned and welcomed. Unfortunately, I—and probably many
others—cannot take Dr. Hiebert's course, which no doubt is a deeply interesting
course. Nevertheless, I wish to think philosophically about SCR as presented in
Dr. Hiebert's lecture. I wish to improve my own understanding of SCR as
presented in Dr. Hiebert's talk, and perhaps my doing so will be helpful to
others. Below, then, is a link to Dr. Hiebert’s Provf Talk followed by a
transcript of the lecture with my comments/ criticisms (in red font) interspersed within the text.
Here is an overview of my
commentary and criticisms. I argue that the SCR thesis presented by Dr. Hiebert
assumes three important philosophical positions which deserve scrutiny. First, SCR
assumes a philosophical meta-perspective, i.e., a view of reality that somehow
stands above influences of culture and is able to penetrate/ see through those
influences to discern truth via appeals to evidence and reasoning—in this case
the truth of the social construction of reality. But if such a perspective is
available to proponents of SCR, it is also available to critics of SCR, so SCR critics
can also make appeals to evidence and reasoning to discern how well the SCR
meta-perspective fares. This is significant and leads to my second and third
criticisms. Second, SCR assumes moral anti-realism, the view in ethics that
denies the existence of a real moral fabric that’s part and parcel of the
physical world. But this view is rejected by philosophers (and even an
important sociologist) who hold to moral realism. Third, SCR assumes a form of fideism,
a religious epistemological view that evidence and reason cannot be used to
discern God, i.e., that knowledge of God is only subjectively accessible/ wholly
personal. But this fideistic view is not held by all thinkers, either.
Please know that I am a
philosopher and I am seeking to understand philosophically sociology's SCR
thesis as it is presented by Dr. Hiebert; I am not criticizing Dr. Hiebert. Dr.
Hiebert may actually agree with my philosophical criticisms, at least on some
points. I set out my comments and criticisms in the spirit of academic inquiry
coupled with the hope of promoting careful truth-seeking about philosophical
assumptions.
Warning: My comments/
criticisms could be mistaken—so please read with care! Mistaken or not, my
comments/ criticisms should serve a positive function: they bring attention to
some controversial philosophical assumptions that seem to lurk at the heart of
SCR. Viewers—especially students—should be aware of these assumption so they do
not accept them uncritically.
2. Dr.
Hiebert’s talk “What does ‘The Social Construction of Reality’ mean?” (video)
YouTube video (15 minutes):
“What does ‘The Social Construction of Reality’ mean?” by Dennis Hiebert
(Providence University College, November 20, 2014):
3. Transcript
of Dr. Hiebert’s talk with VDB’s critique/ comments (in
red)
The Social Construction
of Reality is a core concept in sociology, one that unnerves Christians
probably more than any other. What does it mean? I am a
Christian and the Social Construction of Reality [SCR] doesn't "unnerve"
me. Rather, I get philosophically curious when a thesis such as SCR is
connected to and presented with some unnoticed but controversial philosophical
assumptions.
The SCR refers to the
process whereby people continuously create, through their actions and
interactions, a shared [social] reality that is
experienced as objectively factual and subjectively meaningful. [It’s important to add “social” in front of “reality,” to
ensure that we're thinking about socially-constructed reality, not all of
reality.]
In other words, the
social world is not simply given, it is not natural, it is not revealed, it is
not even fully determined. It's made,
and made up, by people. It is
transmitted by people. What we have not
learned from our own senses, our own intuition, our own reason, we have learned
directly from other human beings. ü So 95% of what we know we have simply
accepted from what other people have told us. Yes, much
of what we know we have accepted from others (though I don't know the exact
percentage). Nevertheless, I think it’s important to keep in mind that much of
what we know isn’t merely or “simply” accepted. Much of what we have learned
from others is thought about carefully and can be checked or tested for its
truth. E.g., my parents taught me Ottawa is in Ontario and I've been able to go
to Ontario and visit Ottawa. E.g., my middle school teacher taught me that
water freezes at 0 degrees Centigrade and I've been able to set my freezer
accordingly. I have accepted many other bits of knowledge from teachers and
authors whom I've determined to be credible sources of information. So this
knowledge is not all merely “made up"; it's often backed up by checkable arguments
and data which show it’s true/ probably true. Even what our own senses
and intuition and reason tell us is highly shaped by what other people have
told us, for example, what counts as reason. What our
senses, intuition, and reason tell us is sometimes
shaped by what others have told us. But not always. It’s good to keep in
mind that to know that this shaping (to some extent) occurs requires that we
have some unshaped knowledge to discern that the shaping occurs. (To know that
we're mistaken requires knowing—accurate knowing—that sometimes/ often we're
not mistaken.) Yes, even what counts as reason may be shaped by what others have
told us. But what others have told us may be true and can be checked. For
example, consider the deductively valid argument form modus ponens (if R then W, R, therefore W; if it rains then the
streets are wet, it is raining, therefore the streets are wet). We can be told
that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true too. Yet, we
can also check this to discern—know—whether it’s true. It turns out that we can
see (via rational insight/ intuition)
that if it's true that “if R then W” (if it's raining then the streets are wet)
and if it's true that “R” (it's raining) then it's also true that “W” (the
streets are wet). There are many logically valid forms and other forms of
reason/ argument that we can learn—and discern—to be ways of thinking that show
us actual (true) relationships between ideas and between propositions that
describe the world accurately.
The social world could
therefore be otherwise, it could be altered. Yes, sure.
Nevertheless, via the careful use of our senses, intuition, and reason, we can
alter the social world for better or for worse. Significantly, when the
altering goes in a truth-denying direction we can return it to a
truth-affirming direction. How? Via promoting a culture of careful, critical
thinking that is truth-conducive. Our social world can reflect what is real and
good, and we can work to ensure this by using reason carefully. The social
reality in which humans live is not inevitable, it is not natural. It can be scary to ponder the possibility
that our [social] reality isn't real [better: it's scary if our social reality doesn't take into
account and accurately reflect what is real in the world], but it also
can be liberating [i.e., if our social world is not reflective
of what's actually true/ really good, it's liberating that we can make it
reflective of what’s actually true/ really good: e.g., emancipation of slaves, promotion
of women’s rights, truth-telling in courts of justice, etc.]. We can,
literally, change the [social] world. It can be
deconstructed and reconstructed, as it has been continuously throughout
history. Social reformers such as William Wilberforce,
Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, etc. reconstruct the social world by having it
reflect truths about real human worth/ dignity, whereas the likes of Stalin,
Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. reconstruct the social world by having it reflect
falsehoods about real human worth/ dignity.
Aside:
We can know the external world
(albeit fallibly and non-exhaustively), contrary to what some skeptics tell us.
For a critique of skepticism concerning our knowledge of the external world,
see my Reasonable
skepticism about radical skepticism, Christian Research Journal, Vol. 31, No.
5 (Sept/ Oct 2008): 30-38. See too my Apologia column Skepticism
concerning colours? The Carillon, December 16, 2010.
The sociological question
is not What is real? Right, this is a philosophical
question (metaphysics). Nor even How do we know what is real? Right, this is a philosophical question (epistemology).
The sociological question is How does anything come to be [socially] accepted as real? Right, there are
social influences at work. But it should be noted—and this is important—that we
can discern whether those social influences are correct in persuading us to
socially accept X as real or not. Enter the doing of philosophy: critical
thinking about metaphysics and epistemology (and ethics). Whichever social way
one’s beliefs are gotten or accepted (sociology), they can be tested for truth
by careful examination and comparing those beliefs with what we know about
reality (philosophy, etc.). My society might teach me that black people (or
Jews or unborn children) are not human beings, but a careful examination of evidence
shows they are in fact human beings.
Note:
To dismiss a belief as being false because of its origins is to commit the
Genetic Fallacy. For further understanding of the Genetic Fallacy, see my
Apologia column The
Genetic Fallacy, The Carillon, April 7, 2011.
And there are three
phases to the process.
Notice
that the SCR proponent is setting out these phases as if they are true or
accurately reflect what's real. Notice, too, that in setting out these phases
to the process as if they are true or accurately reflective of the real, the
SCR proponent shows that he/she assumes we can know social reality apparently
independently of social influence or we can know social reality because our
social influence is to some extent truth-conducive: i.e., we have socially
constructed tools which enable us to discern what's true—e.g., tools such as
science, disciplines of careful truth-seeking thinking (logic)—and which allow
us to communicate our findings accurately. In other words, the assumption here
(made by the SCR proponent) is that reason and evidence are legitimate as a way
to discern/ know the world accurately plus communicate this knowledge. This is
an important assumption (and, it seems to me, a true assumption). We should
keep this in mind in case we are tempted to think that all we know is socially
influenced in such a way that knowledge of truth is lost. Significantly, this also allows us to carefully examine/ challenge the
truth of the SCR view by using careful truth-seeking reasoning.
Three
phases to the process:
1.
Externalization
= the
process whereby individuals, by their own human activity, create their social
worlds [they put what is inside of them out there into social space]
physical environment = nature - given to humans
social environment = culture - created by humans*
material culture = tools and
technologies e.g., axes, microchips
non-material culture = abstract
order e.g., beliefs, values*, norms, etc.
*
The philosophical question remains whether this creation/ construction
accurately reflects the real. A distinction is needed between real value (i.e., value that's
objectively embedded/ given in the actual fabric of reality and not created by
humans) and valuing (i.e., human/
social invention of value or subjective appreciation of value, which may or may
not correspond to the actual moral fabric of the world external to the human
mind). As we'll see later, the SCR view assumes
there is no real value independent of human construction, which is to take an
anti-realist position without arguing for that position. It’s important to note
that moral realists (such as me and others) think this assumption is false.
Whether one agrees with moral realists or not, it should be noticed that the
SCR view makes an assumption with which others—reasonable thinkers—disagree. Not
noticing this assumption may be misleading to those persons not thinking
critically (and is unfair to moral realists).
Rivers are nature. Roads
are material culture. [Slide: Rivers can be enculturated.] But humans can even
turn nature into material culture by the meanings we attach to nature, by the
uses we make of nature. For example, we can turn rivers into playgrounds, into
transportation routes, into disposal dumps, into political boundaries, into
sources of hydro power, into sacred spaces, etc. ü
So our total environment
consists of nature and culture, and it can be broken down into the following
facts:
Note:
The notion of "nature" used here (see below) assumes a material/ physical nature that's denuded of a moral
dimension/ reality that's part of its fabric. This assumption may be true or it
may be false. The SCR view assumes
it's true. Whether one agrees or disagrees, it's important to realize that this
assumption is playing a huge role in the
SCR presentation. I think the assumption
is false, as do other thinkers, i.e., moral realists. (Interestingly, the
respected sociologist Christian Smith in his book What Is a Person? seems to think it's false, too. More on this
later.) The audience—especially the
student audience—should be alerted to the role of these important assumptions
in the SCR's view.
Note:
To claim that "our total environment consists of nature and culture, and
it can be broken down into the following facts" presumes a
meta-perspective, i.e., a view that somehow stands above (penetrates/ sees
through) the influences of culture and is able to discern truth. Is this a case of having one's philosophical/
epistemological cake and eating it too? If the SCR proponent can do it, so can SCR
critics. How to arbitrate? Answer: Careful, truth-seeking reasoning.
See
my numbered notes (below) which make reference to the following chart.
Three
phases of the process:
Our
total environment consists of:
! ß nature à
! ß
------------------------- culture --------------------------- à
!
Natural Technological Institutional Normative
facts1 facts facts facts1
e.g.
mountains hammers money freedom3
muskrats highways marriage2 fulfillment
Constitute increasing levels of
dependency
abstraction
meaningfulness4
imposed
order5
1.
This chart assumes there is no moral
fabric/ reality to nature. SCR proponents are setting out a moral anti-realist
assumption as if it is true. (Is this a vestige of an Enlightenment/ modernist/
positivist assumption?)
2.
If the Christian God exists, then marriage would not be a mere institutional
fact. It would be a fact of reality, originally in God's mind, more or less
accurately reflected in culture(s).
3.
Metaphysical libertarian freedom (i.e., the view that humans are free agents/ have
free will), if true, is a fact/ reality about human nature, not a mere
normative fact disconnected from nature. If this notion of freedom is what the
SCR proponent has in mind here, the SCR proponent assumes this metaphysical view away.
4.
Actual meaningfulness depends on the real. We can invent meaning, of course.
But whether our inventions correspond with the meaningfulness or lack thereof in
the real world depends on the real world, not us.
5.
Insofar as the imposed (constructed) order reflects the real accurately, it's
true. Again, the SCR view assumes that
there is no real moral order in the fabric of nature.
Note that these facts constitute
increasing levels of dependency. Some facts are dependent on humans and others
are not dependent on humans. Mountains are not dependent on humans at all.
Mountains would exist even if humans did not exist. But hammers would not exist
if humans did not. Hammers are entirely dependent. Not entirely. Their substance (wood, metal)
is independent of humans.
They consist of
increasing levels of abstraction. Some facts are less physical and more
abstract. A hammer has more physicality than money. ü Some forms of money don't have any
physicality at all, it's just debt, just in theory. Money can correspond to
many things but a hammer is always only just a hammer. Normative facts have
absolutely no physicality whatsoever. This is true only if there is no moral fabric that is part
and parcel (supervenes on/ is an inherent property of) the physical universe. The
SCR view again assumes this
particular moral view—an anti-realist view—which I and other philosophers think
is false or at least controversial. On a moral realist view, some physical
facts and values are one. (Theologically,
the moral realist view seems to fit with the biblical God saying that the
creation is good and very good when humans are on the scene.)
Consider
the passage below, from the book What
is a person? (U of Chicago Press, 2010, pp. 442-444) written by highly-respected
U Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith. Smith's work (what he calls “critical
realist personalism”) supports the moral realist view that human beings truly
have objective moral value (a.k.a. human dignity) and this is part of their physical
reality (i.e., fact and value are one) and we know this—so it's not a mere social
construction.
What is it that most powerfully justifies moral commitments
to things such as human rights, freedom of speech, the abolition of slavery,
religious liberty, universal education, due process, racial nondiscrimination,
the prohibition of torture and genocide, outrage against rape, the freedom of
conscience, protections against starvation, and care for refugees? Not a
utilitarian calculation. Not a social contract. Not the interests of the
wealthy and powerful. Not the findings of naturalistic, positivistic,
empiricist social science. What justifies these moral commitments is the
recognition of the natural dignity of persons, which is ontologically real,
analytically irreducible, and phenomenologically apparent. In naming the real
about humans in this way we continue to pull back together fact and value,
the is and the ought….
In all of this, we must acknowledge that not all people or
cultures or philosophies have recognized or understood the fact of human
dignity or often treated ordinary people with dignity. Quite the contrary.
History is replete with failures to understand, affirm, and respect human
dignity. Treating humans as possessing the dignity that is rightfully theirs by
virtue of the ontology of personhood may be the exception, not the rule in
human history…. How can we affirm real, objective, universal human dignity in
the face of such massive misrecognition and violation of it? Does this not
suggest that the idea of human dignity is actually a recent cultural invention
of dubious ontology and relative value? No, I think not. Nothing whatsoever in
a realist theory requires that people recognize and understand something in
order for it truly to exist. Bacteria and germs existed and wreaked havoc on
human bodies for most of history without anyone realizing they were real—it was
not until the nineteenth century that the germ theory of disease became widely
known and accepted. The objectively real moral fact that slavery is a
categorical evil was likewise not widely appreciated throughout most of human
history, yet in the United States people's common erroneous moral understanding
of slavery until the nineteenth century did not mean that slavery was not evil.
It was evil—whether or not anyone realized it. Human dignity
does not become real 'for us' simply because we start believing in it, any more
than our heliocentric solar system became real when people started believing in
it. It always was true. What needed to happen was simply for people to conform
their hitherto mistaken minds to what was already true about the real. This was
the case with Copernican astronomy. This is the case with human dignity. …
[T]here are certain 'institutional facts' that are real social things and made
so precisely by people believing in them, through 'social construction'—things
like money, representative government, and sports. But human dignity is not an
institutional fact. Dignity is, in Searle's terms, a 'brute fact' of
ontological reality that is a characteristic and ineliminable property of
emergent personhood. Dignity is rooted in the nature of things personal [i.e.,
physical human beings which ground/ constitute the capacities of personal], not
in ideas or discourse. So the fact that not all people or cultures or
philosophies have recognized or understood or respected human dignity does not
touch the question of its existence.
This nevertheless compels us to recognize the historically
conditioned nature of humanity's awareness of its own dignity. The recognition
of human dignity has not been a historical constant. Various people, cultures,
and philosophies have at different times throughout history explicitly
articulated the reality of personal dignity. But the clear understanding of the
inalienable, universal nature of human personal dignity that emerged in the
twentieth century—especially in the wake of Nazi Germany and World War II—and
that is now expressed in many national constitutions, the Charter of the United
Nations, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was the outcome of long
historical developments shaped by a variety of different religious, ethical,
philosophical, and cultural traditions unfolding over time. Like most of human
knowledge about people and the world, knowledge of human dignity has also been
historically dynamic and progressive. People today can say more about dignity
that really is true than they used to be able to say—just like we can say more
now about physics, medicine, ocean life, the brain, the moral status of child
labor, and the origins of the cosmos than we could centuries ago.
When
it comes to human beings, then, moral reality and physical reality are not
separate—they are ontologically/ factually one. SCR assumes this is not true.
There's also an
increasing level of meaningfulness. As things become more dependent on us for
their existence, they become more meaningful to us. Freedom is more meaningful
to us than a hammer, more meaningful to us than money. Distinction is needed
between meaningful per se and
meaningful for us. Meaning may be
embedded in the nature of the universe (which is so, if Christianity is true).
And finally there is an
imposed order. As things become more dependent, abstract, and meaningful, we
impose more order on them. Marriage is more ordered than hammers are. We impose order even where there is none,
then create an entire meaning system around that order. Note: If Christianity is true, then the order of marriage is real, i.e., originally
an idea in God's Mind, and our constructions are true insofar as they
accurately reflect that idea. For
example, skin colour is a continuum. We impose the order of race, and create
racism. Note that because meaning is functionally dependent, abstract, and
ordered, it is contingent and precarious, it can be changed, because it's not
attached to anything, it's a whim of history. Note: The
key is to discern whether our constructed meaning systems accurately reflect
the real (the meaning of the real). To hold, as the SCR proponent apparently
does, that meaning is “not attached to anything” and “a whim of history” is to
embrace a relativity of meaning as dependent upon human whim/ subjectivity. It
seems to me (and others), however, that meaning—true meaning—is attached to the
real, which makes our understanding of the meaning true (or false, if our
understanding is completely off).
Perhaps
these comments from a couple of highly regarded Christian philosophers will be
helpful (or at least show that not all thinkers agree with SCR's view of
meaning):
John
Warwick Montgomery: “Facts are not made of wax, capable of infinite molding
from the pressure of interpretive worldviews.... Facts ultimately arbitrate
interpretations [meanings], not the reverse....”
William Lane Craig: “Texts have limits to the meanings which can be seen in them. No one employs postmodern hermeneutics in reading the instructions on a medicine bottle.”
William Lane Craig: “Texts have limits to the meanings which can be seen in them. No one employs postmodern hermeneutics in reading the instructions on a medicine bottle.”
Aside:
Yes, human skin colour is a continuum. But is the notion of race a wholly
imposed order, a whim, and not attached to anything? There is a continuum
between the edge of a forest and a field. Are then the notions of forest and
field wholly imposed orders, whims, and not attached to anything? Is my status
as a white Caucasian a wholly imposed order, and is my colleague Morgan Mulenga's
status as Black a wholly imposed order—both wholly whimsical, not attached to
anything? Or, like a forest and a field, are there actual characteristics that
allow us to distinguish conceptually and accurately between the distinctive
realities of our existence, even though there are ambiguous areas due to fuzzy
conceptual borders?
Why are people willing to
kill or die for meanings, such as religion? Why? Because it does not come to us
as contingent or precarious or unstable. No, it's not
because of it not coming to us as contingent, precarious, or unstable; it
depends on the meaning content. Some religions have meaning contents that say
we should kill, say, infidels. Others say we should love our enemies. Plus
there are abuses of otherwise good teachings to satisfy the interests of the
abusers. It is presented to us as
a hard reality. I don't think it's not the presentation
as hard reality that's the primary problem, though it's a problem when false
religions/ false interpretations are in question. The primary problem has to do
with the alleged truth content of the hard reality and the manipulation of that
content for reasons of power-mongering, hate, etc.
Through the process of
objectivation precarious meaning must be made to appear stable, unquestionable,
taken for granted. Externalizations, that which we humans externalize, are made
into objective reality that has consequences for us because it acts back on us,
it coerces its creators.
Note
(again): In the analysis continued below, the SCR proponent continues to
presume a meta-perspective, i.e., a view that somehow stands above (penetrates/
sees through) the influences of culture and is able to discern truth.
Objectivation is…
Three
phases of the process:
1.
Externalization
2.
Objectivation
= the
process whereby individuals apprehend everyday life as an ordered, prearranged
reality that imposes itself upon, but is seemingly independent of human beings
How's that possible?
Well, that's a result of four things.
Three
phases of the process:
Four
ways of objectivation:
a)
institutionalization
- occurs when meaningful behaviours become
routinized and habitual
b)
historicity
- as generations come and go, the
institutional world "thickens" and "hardens"
c)
legitimation
- meaning is given a cognitive and moral
[either/or] basis that will explain and justify it
And the most powerful
form of legitimation, one of many kinds, but probably the most powerful form,
is religion. To say that God says this legitimates it stronger
than any other legitimation that we have. ü
Three
phases of the process:
Religiona as one kind of
legitimation:
i)
religion places the source of meaning beyond the human realm [as a given
eternal truth to be discovered, not just an optional belief that was created]
ii)
religion defines deviance as evil, not just alternative [it allows us to
threaten deviants with eternal damnation]
iii)
religion enables people to feel an ultimate sense of righteousnessb [it dissolves all our
doubts about the correctness of our behaviours and our feelingsc]
iv)
religion integrates all of life [by making sense of everythingd]
a.
Not all religions are equal regarding their evidence. The issue is whether the
transcendent meaning is justified in terms of evidence. SCR assumes that all
“religion” doesn't make contact with our world and so a religion's truth
content isn't discernible in terms of the careful use of reason and evidence.
This doesn't hold for Christianity which has evidence for Jesus' life, death,
and resurrection as a public ground for discerning its truth.
b.
Religions differ on this. Christianity says we don't have righteousness.
c.
Not in my (and no doubt others’) experience.
d.
In my experience of Christianity, I haven't made sense of everything. In view
of the preponderance of evidence pointing to the truth of Christianity, I'm
willing to acknowledge its truth even though I don't have all the answers. This
seems to be true of many other thoughtful Christians I know. In other words,
point iv seems off when it comes to Christian faith.
Fourthly, the fourth form
of objectivation is language. Meaning becomes embedded in language.
If
so, and if this embeddedness is a detriment to knowledge of truth, then does
this analysis (the SCR proponent's analysis), which uses language, suffer from
this embeddedness too? To the extent such embeddedness occurs and is
problematic, to that extent this analysis is problematic and thus is weakened
and should not be taken seriously. In my view, however, language when used
carefully can be truth-conducive (i.e., can communicate knowledge of truths, albeit
fallibly and non-exhaustively). This allows for arbitrating conflicting views
by careful appeals to evidence and reasoning.
Note
(again): In the analysis continued below, the SCR proponent continues to
presume a meta-perspective, i.e., a view that somehow stands above (penetrates/
sees through) the influences of culture and is able to discern truth. If the
SCR proponent can do this, so can the rest of us. The question now is: Are the
SCR proponent's arguments and assumptions reasonable to hold? I think they
suffer from some unnoticed but serious philosophical problems (which can be
discerned via the careful use of reason).
Three
phases of the process:
Four
ways of objectivation:
a)
institutionalization
- occurs when meaningful behaviours become
routinized and habitual
b)
historicity
- as generations come and go, the
institutional world "thickens" and "hardens"
c)
legitimation
- meaning is given a cognitive and moral
[either/or] basis that will explain and justify it
d)
language
- meaning becomes embedded in language
Language exists outside
each of us, therefore it's an objective social entity.
Three
phases of the process:
1.
Externalization
2.
Objectivation
3.
Internalization
= the process whereby individuals learn the
legitimations of the institutional order
Third phase:
internalization—the process whereby individuals learn the legitimations of the
institutional order. We carry culture around in our heads. We let culture
define who we are. And so reality is socially constructed. Here the word
“reality” is ambiguous (i.e., has more than one distinct meaning): (1) social,
(2) physical, (3) moral, (4) spiritual, (5) abstract.
Here's a summary:
Three
phases of the process:
Summary:
"Society is a human product (externalization); society is an objective reality
(objectivation); and (humans are) a social product (internalization)." Note: humans are also a product of their essential nature.
Reification
= is
the apprehension of the products of human activity as if they were something
other than human products—such as facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or
manifestation of divine will. Reification implies that (humans are) capable of
forgetting (their) own authorship of the human world, and further that the
dialectic between (humans) the producers and (their) products is lost to
consciousness." This sociological analysis is such
a product, too. The SCR view seems not to notice the anti-realist assumptions
it brings into this analysis/ sociological product.
Berger and Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality, p.
69 and 89
In other words, the
humanly made world is explained in terms that deny its human production. This applies to this analysis, too.
Three types of realities
based on its reality's verifiability, objective vs subjective, and its
dependency on the human mind, independent or dependent.
Types
of realities:
Relation
to human mind
Independent Dependent
Objective Natural realities Social realities
Verifiability
Subjective Other realities/"God" Personal realities
Significantly,
the above chart assumes that the
reality of God is only subjectively verifiable/ checkable, i.e., not objectively
verifiable as the stuff of the physical world is verifiable/ checkable. But why can't we verify/ check the existence
of God by examining God's effects via evidence and good reasoning therefrom (as
we do with unseen physical stuff such as magnetic forces, atomic particles,
tectonic plates)? What about the kalam cosmological argument, the contingency
argument, design arguments, moral argument, etc.? Also, why can't we verify/
check the historical reality of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (as
we do with other past events that we haven't seen)? SCR apparently takes some sort of fideistic
view that evidence and reason cannot be used to discern God via nature and
God's revelation in Christ via history. But this is a controversial view and is
not a view held by all Christian believers. It's important for viewers—especially
students—to realize that SCR is assuming this view and presenting it as if it's
the view that Christians hold when
it's not.
a) natural realities are
not dependent on human mental activities [independent and objective, all the
physical facts of the universe exists in reality independent of human activity,
and they enable us to form some knowledge of reality beyond our social
constructions. We learn that we cannot fly, at least not without the machines
that enable us to fly] If God exists, then God is like
a “natural” reality in the sense of being not dependent on us. Also, God would
not be merely subjectively verifiable (see my comments immediately above and immediately
below).
b) personal realities are
beliefs held by persons that are real only to those who hold them [are
dependent and subjective; beliefs that are held by persons that are real to
those who hold them but that have not been socially institutionalized. In other
words, they are mentally dependent, because their existence depends on human
cognitions, but they're also subjective, because they only exist in the minds
of those who hold them, such as someone's belief that they can actually fly.
c) social realities are
beliefs that are shared and have been institutionalized [are dependent and
objective, beliefs that are shared and have been institutionalized via
externalization, objectivation, and internalization. All of culture,
non-material culture, material culture, are social realities.
d) other realities cannot
be known, can only be postulated [independent of the human mind and subjective,
cannot be known; they can be postulated. But as soon as they are postulated
they immediately become mind dependent and social. So, concepts of the
supernatural or the super personal or the super social, concepts of God – all
human knowledge is conceptually mediated and influenced by socio-cultural
factors. Some “postulations” are better than others,
depending on the evidence and the quality of reasoning from that evidence, a
quality of reasoning that can be more or less mind dependent in getting at and
reflecting the real (we use critical thinking to cut through excessive bias/
intrusive subjectivity). Also, we can infer
the existence of X on the basis of evidences for X. We do this by making an
inference to the best explanation. Also, to know/ judge that conceptual
mediation and influence by socio-cultural factors have a deleterious effect on
our knowledge requires some knowledge that isn't so mediated and influenced,
and this allows us to check on the extent of the influence of bias/ intrusive
subjectivity in the mediation. Also, if
(as some contemporary philosophers of religion hold) our knowledge of God is
“properly basic" then an objective God can be known. This means that,
contrary to the SCR view, the project of knowing/ discerning knowledge of God
is not precluded or thwarted by socio-cultural factors at the get go. We
enculturate even rivers. We turn rivers into culture. But three dimensions of
reality are entirely socially constructed: technological, institutional, and
normative facts. Regarding the ground of normative
facts, see my comments above on moral realism plus quote from Christian Smith
(a respected sociologist who sets out a realist view of moral knowledge) In
other words, normative facts are not
“entirely socially constructed.” Humans construct roads, not rivers. But
we construct the meanings of rivers, even if not the rivers themselves.
Conclusions:
1.
Practical embodied activity in the material world is part of human knowing and
being [some human existence cannot be reduced to cognition or to language or to
socially constructed knowledge. The need to eat, the need to breathe, the need
to avoid defying gravity is knowledge that we derive directly from nature.
People do not live only in a world of ideas or concepts or meanings. As Milan
Kundera said, "I think therefore I am is the statement of intellectual who
underrates toothaches."
2.
Humans do not socially construct all reality, but primarily their
beliefs about reality. Significantly, the beliefs about
reality can be evaluated for truth by carefully investigating reality.
[Beliefs are not substitutes for the things that beliefs are about, such as
what a toothache means.]
3. It
comes down to the physical nature given by God compared to the social culture
constructed by humans.
[So,
perhaps the best conclusion is to say]
4. The
best conclusion is "the social construction of social reality" [the technological, the institutional, the
normative]
5.
Francis Bacon's notion of God's "two books" remains helpful:
God's
world = general revelation is given directly to humans by God
God's
word = special revelation is given indirectly
to humans by God [but] through other humans, i.e., [and to that extent] is
socially constructed. [And that's why some trust God's world more than God's
word, because they trust the messages in divinely constructed physical nature
more than the messages in humanly constructed texts.]
Re: 5. There is a third option that occurs between God's
world (general revelation) and God's word (special revelation): the extra special
revelation of God in history. Enter the Incarnation of God in the space-time world
via Jesus of Nazareth and reported to us via historical evidence—this coupled
with the historical evidence for Jesus' bodily resurrection which serves as a
sign (evidence) for thinking Jesus is God. Yes, this historical knowledge comes
to us via human observers, but this simply means we must assess the evidence
given to us by those observers as we assess any other historical evidence for
its truth. (For more on this, see my paper “It's not interpretation all the way down.” See link in suggested resources
below.)
I've given only a brief description
of the social construction of reality, not an evaluation or critique of it. For
that you should take Social Science and Christianity, pardon the plug. For those not taking Dr.
Hiebert's course Social Science and Christianity, it is important to notice
that the above brief description of SCR makes the controversial assumptions
I’ve noted.
Final
question:
Is God
a mind-independent, objective fact or
a mind-dependent, social construction?
My
beliefs about God are clearly social constructions.
My
faith is that the reality of God lies beyond those constructions.
Because
of the emphasis on “or,” the final question sets out a false
dichotomy. There is a third option: reasonable faith, i.e., a faith based on
evidence and careful reasoning therefrom, evidence and reasoning that is not
wholly thwarted by social influences and that is truth-conducive. This is the
option that many thoughtful Christians hold and it should not be missed/
dismissed. Recall that the SCR view assumes a fideist view concerning the
relationship between faith and reason, i.e., that evidence and reason cannot be
used to discern God via nature or God's revelation in Christ via history, and beliefs
about God are mere inventions/ social constructions that aren't conducive to
truth because God is only subjectively verifiable. The third option—reasonable
faith—is especially important because it helps truth seekers to arbitrate
between competing claims concerning religious truth by looking for evidence and
good reasons. (Note: This is not to say I think we have absolute, God-like,
coercively compelling knowledge; it's to say that we can make a reasonable
judgment which allows us to direct our faith in the direction to which evidence
and good reasoning points.)
4. VDB's final
comments
In sum, I have three
major criticisms of the SCR view as presented in Dr. Dennis Hiebert's talk
“What does ‘The Social Construction of Reality’ mean?”
1. An assumed meta-perspective
SCR assumes a
meta-perspective, i.e., a view that somehow stands above the social influences
of culture and is able to penetrate/ see through those influences to discern
truth—in this case the alleged truth about SCR. If SCR proponents can take this
perspective, so can critics.
SCR seems to assume that
the truth of the SCR thesis is based on evidence and good reasoning. This
implies that appeals to evidence and reasoning are legitimate
tools—truth-conducive tools—of investigation. This means it's possible for
critics to determine, also using evidence and reasoning, whether some social
constructions are better at accessing truth than others—and this includes the
social construction of SCR. Note: Such arbitration is not whimsical or
arbitrary: it rests on which case is better in its use of evidence and
reasoning therefrom (and “better” means taking into account more of known
reality, having fewer unnoticed faulty assumptions, fewer fallacies, more good
arguments, etc.).
Yes, there are social
influences at work. Nevertheless, we can discern whether those social
influences are correct in persuading us to socially accept X as real or not.
(To know that social influences deceive us requires that we also have
particular instances of knowledge in which we are not deceived, which gives us
an epistemological toe-hold in reality.) Enter the doing of philosophy:
critical thinking about metaphysics (what is real) and epistemology (how we
know). Whatever social way one’s beliefs are gotten or accepted (the domain of
sociology), they can be tested for truth by careful examination vis-à-vis what
we know about reality (the domain of philosophy, etc.).
2. Anti-realist
assumption regarding moral value
As I have argued above, the
SCR analysis makes the assumption that there is no real moral fabric which is
part and parcel—supervenes on/ is an inherent property of—the physical
universe. SCR assumes a particular
moral view: anti-realism. SCR assumes there is no real value independent of
human construction. SCR takes an anti-realist position.
It is important to note
that moral realists argue that the SCR’s moral anti-realist assumption is
false. Whether one agrees with moral realists or not, it should be noticed that
SCR makes an assumption with which highly respected philosophers—and a highly
respected sociologist—disagree. Yet SCR seems to pass off this assumption as
philosophically settled and true. This may be misleading to the audience,
especially students.
(Aside: It's important to
note, too, that if Christianity is true, then moral realism would be true,
because God deems the creation good and, when humans are on the scene, very
good. This allows moral realism to count as evidence which confirms the
existence of the biblical God. But such evidence is precluded by the SCR's anti-realist
assumption.)
3. Fideism
SCR assumes that the
reality of God is only subjectively verifiable/ checkable, i.e., not verifiable
objectively as the stuff of the physical world is verifiable/ checkable. But we
can verify/ check the objective existence of God by examining God's effects via
evidence and good reasoning therefrom, as we do with unseen physical stuff such
as magnetic forces, atomic particles, tectonic plates. (We check/ verify
indirectly, using evidence and reason.) Enter the kalam cosmological argument,
the contingency argument, design arguments, moral arguments, etc. Also, we can
verify/ check the historical reality of the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus, as we do with other objective past events that we haven't seen. In the
chart “Types of Realities” SCR presents an epistemological view that knowledge
of God is only subjectively accessible, i.e., via wholly personal knowledge,
not part of the domain of, or accessible via, evidence and reason. This is to present a view on the relationship
between faith and reason which is fideistic.
Fideism holds that evidence and reason cannot be used to discern God and God's
revelation in Christ. But this is a controversial view (and I think mistaken
view) and is not held by all Christian believers. It's unfair to the
audience—especially students—for SCR to assume this view
and present it as if it's the only legitimate view that Christians hold.
“Is God a
mind-independent, objective fact or
a mind-dependent, social construction?” (Emphasis on “or” in original.) This closing
question presents a false dichotomy. There is a third option: reasonable faith,
i.e., a faith based on evidence and careful reasoning therefrom—evidence and
reasoning that is not wholly thwarted by social influences and that is
truth-conducive. To non-fideistic thinkers, Christianity is significantly unlike
other religions. Why? Because there are good reasons and evidences for the God
who grounds our faith—and these are not precluded by the social construction of
reality. This allows us to discern the truth of the Christian God in contrast
to the false claims of competing religions such as, say, Islam, which denies
that Jesus is God, that Jesus died on the cross, and that Jesus resurrected
physically. This discernment allows us to place our faith in Him who is the
Truth.
4. Conclusion
I have argued that the
SCR view as presented by Dr. Dennis Hiebert assumes some deeply important
philosophical positions that are controversial and should be made clear to his
audience (especially those who will not be taking his course). SCR assumes a
meta-perspective, moral anti-realism, and fideism. I trust that the controversial
nature of these assumptions have become clear in my critique/ comments. Viewers—especially students—should be aware
of these assumptions so they do not accept them uncritically.
5. Suggested
resources
Some suggested resources on the non-fideistic, evidence-based case for
the Christian God:
Some preliminary thoughts on a non-fideistic case concerning the
resurrection of Jesus:- Paul Copan, Loving Wisdom (Chalice Press 2007).
- C. Stephen Evans, Why Christian Faith Still Makes Sense (Baker Academic 2015).
- William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed. (Crossway 2008).
- Anthony Flew, There is a God (HarperOne 2007).
- Hendrik van der Breggen, A cumulative case argument for Christian faith (Provf Talk 2014).
- Hendrik van der Breggen, Does God exist? Apologia, The Carillon, March 12, 2009.
- J. Warner Wallace, Cold-Case Christianity (Cook 2013).
- Hendrik van der Breggen, It's not interpretation all the way down: A defense of simple seeing, Classic Journal of Global Theology, Vol. 13, No. 2 (September 2016).
- Paul Chamberlain, Can We Be Good Without God? (IVP 1996).
- William Lane Craig, On Guard (Cook 2010), chapter 6 “Can we be good without God?”
- John Rist, Real Ethics: Reconsidering the Foundations of Morality (Cambridge University Press 2001).
- R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge: Overcoming the Fact-Value Dichotomy (IVP Academic 2014).
- Hendrik van der Breggen, Miracle Reports, Moral Philosophy, and Contemporary Science (PhD diss., University of Waterloo, 2004), chapter 2 “Moral Philosophy.”
- Hendrik van der Breggen, Assessing moral relativism, Apologia, The Carillon, January 16, 2010
- Hendrik van der Breggen, Assessing moral relativism, continued, Apologia, The Carillon, January 29, 2010
- Hendrik van der Breggen, Is moral realism odd? Apologia, The Carillon, November 27, 2014.
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