Social+Constructionism+(Banks)

A social construction is something that is largely made up of, or contingent upon, social action or meaning. Ian Hacking, in his book //[|The Social Construction of What]//opens with a list of book titles announcing the social construction of a variety of objects/subjects/epistemic entities. There is one for almost every letter -only J is missing- and covers everything from the provocative to the mundane, and the provocatively mundane. C is represented by the "child viewer of television" for Q we have Pickerings "Quarks," R stands for "reality" and S is for "serial homicide." While Hacking is quick to note that the idea that something can be "socially constructed" is liberating for the social theorist, we must be wary of falling into an ontological rabbit hole in which the objects lose their referent and what it means to be "socially constructed" becomes a catch-all for the somewhat uncritical, clumsy and uninteresting epistemic claim that "//it could have been otherwise.//"

Hacking describes this new trend of social constructivism- (he is writing in the late 90s) as a refutation of inevitability. He dissects the basic arguments of social constructionists into four statements in the first chapter and references them throughout. In almost all respects, authors working in the social construction of X mode contend that-

//"0) In the present state of affairs, X is taken for granted, X appears to be inevitable (P. 12)."// //"1) X need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. X, or X as it is at present, is not determined by the nature of things; it is not inevitable.// //Very often they go further, and urge that:// //2) X is quite bad as it is.// //3) We wold be much better off if X were done away with, or at least radically transformed.(P. 6) "//

This system has been used to great effect. For example Simone de Beauvoir was one of the first to use this argument where X=Gender in her book //[|The Second Sex]//.

Using the example of women refugees, Hacking notes that "ideas" do not occur in a vacuum, but are in (what he calls) a Matrix of material and social forces. The idea is formed in, and is constantly interacting with, the material and social forces that give the idea meaning. We must be careful to note that when one is talking about the "social construction of women refugees" we are talking about a classification that women have imposed upon them and then have to act out, in order to successfully (and pragmatically) flee the social conditions of her homeland.

What Hacking is concerned about is a "cashing in" of a certain kind of trendy topic. About the federal reserve he writes-

//"Since the Federal Reserve is so obviously the upshot of contingent arrangements, a book titled The Social Construction of the Federal Reserve would likely be silly; we would suspect someone was trying to cash in on the cachet of 'social construction.' But we can imagine a startling work, The Social Construction of the Economy (P 13)."//  Depending on the author's commitment to statements (1)-(3), Hacking puts them on a grading scale. The least critical is a Historical account, followed by the ironic reaction in which we see that X could have been different, but will more than likely be as it always has been (Think- the Onion's article on 9/11 anniversary coverage). Reformist and unmasking modes reveal to the reader the "true form" of a given X, and demonstrate how it is harmful to subsets of society or all of society. Rebellious or revolutionary modes want to smash the current social construction of X and often give a prescription for a new conceptualization of the topic.

As a metaphor, we see that "construction" is not wholly satisfying. Since Hacking points out that the answer to the title of his book is the //idea of X// within the material/social matrix. First, authors often confuse, jump between, or ignore the distinction of construction-as-process and construction-as-product. We can talk about two different processes of construction that end up at the same finished product, or we can talk about two parallel tracks of construction and constructed. Here Hacking poses the question: is "social" redundant when talking about "social construction?" After all, what else would an institution be "constructed" out of, if not something social? He applies this concept to the "science wars" and comes to the following conclusions- “The science wars, as I see them, combine irreverent metaphysics and the rage against reason, on one side, and scientific metaphysics, and an Enlightenment faith in reason, on the other.”

Hacking agrees that "science is a social activity, to be understood in its contexts. But only after a distinction (P.66)”: Constructivists must separate the action "doing science" with the end product "an assemblage of truths." In essence, "Constructionism provides a voice for the rage against reason (P. 67)." Making a distinction between process and product deletes many of the purchase points of people that wish to institute intelligent design into schools or throw out climate change science. The (first of three) sticking points becomes- We can talk about the contingency of scientific discovery (as Pickering does) but who is to say a "non-quarky science" is anything different once translated? "Hence, translation begs the question of equivalence (P.75)." As far as the actually existence of these other contingent realities, scientists say "put up or shut up." A second "sticking point" is the case of nominalism. The naming of things (Quarks for instance) gives them permanence and real-ness in the world. While social constructions point to this naming as an act of //construction,// the physicist sees it as a product of sound truth-making. The third sticking point is "explanations of stability." To put it another way, the presumptions scientists currently work with, have a certain robustness against what could be described as Khunian paradigm shifts. While realists may see the internal "logical must" of mathematical proofs, social constructivists point to the external contingencies that brought the thinker to that point.

The construction metaphor, again, becomes unsatisfying when we realize that some of the beams and nails and such that are part of the "construction" that we as social scientists are unmasking or ironically describing, are themselves, moving and reacting to each other and external stimuli in the matrix. The reactive or reflexive parts of our constructions Hacking calls "Interactive Kinds." These are classifications (ideas) that describe conscious beings. Interactions within the matrix shift and change once that classification is implemented. Think about diagnosing children as ADHD. Hacking admits that his is a "fuzzy but not useless (P. 105)" distinction. Indifferent kinds, on the other hand, do not change based on their classification. We may be tempted to call these "natural kinds" but there is too much philosophical baggage attached to that term so we call them "indifferent kinds."

While Hacking is not a "contingentist" about the content of science (the indifferent kinds) he is, "inclined to contingentism about the question themselves, about the very form of science (P 165)." That is, the interactive kinds that are engaged within the matrix of actively constructing the social history of scientific discovery. "The very form of science (P. 165)."

//"The content of our new knowledge is much influenced by the choice of where to deploy the best minds of our generation (P. 166)."//

The history of science and discovery is a full of contingency and moments where it "could have been otherwise." But what must be held constant is the content of those discoveries (the indifferent constructed artifacts) and the tendency that the person capable of amassing enough resources will do the discovering. The contingency of non-quarky science is essentially a tautology because an alien science that did not develop a theory on quarks would still be translated to us in terms of quarks. The names themselves, the labels can change (up, down, charm etc.) but the concept of quark will still be the same "indifferent kind." The interactive kinds that do the work of science are completely contingent on world events and our historical interpretation of those events. We can re-insert Rosalin Franklin into the story of DNA's discovery, we can talk about the ethnocentricity of our whig history of science, but the facts remain the same, no matter who found them. Again, the answer to "The Social Construction of What?" Is the idea, the classifications, of given kinds and entities.