The Social Construction of What? PDF Download

Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Social Construction of What? PDF full book. Access full book title The Social Construction of What? by Ian Hacking. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.

The Social Construction of What?

The Social Construction of What? PDF Author: Ian Hacking
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674254279
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
Lost in the raging debate over the validity of social construction is the question of what, precisely, is being constructed. Facts, gender, quarks, reality? Is it a person? An object? An idea? A theory? Each entails a different notion of social construction, Ian Hacking reminds us. His book explores an array of examples to reveal the deep issues underlying contentious accounts of reality. Especially troublesome in this dispute is the status of the natural sciences, and this is where Hacking finds some of his most telling cases, from the conflict between biological and social approaches to mental illness to vying accounts of current research in sedimentary geology. He looks at the issue of child abuse—very much a reality, though the idea of child abuse is a social product. He also cautiously examines the ways in which advanced research on new weapons influences not the content but the form of science. In conclusion, Hacking comments on the “culture wars” in anthropology, in particular a spat between leading ethnographers over Hawaii and Captain Cook. Written with generosity and gentle wit by one of our most distinguished philosophers of science, this wise book brings a much needed measure of clarity to current arguments about the nature of knowledge.

The Social Construction of What?

The Social Construction of What? PDF Author: Ian Hacking
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674254279
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
Lost in the raging debate over the validity of social construction is the question of what, precisely, is being constructed. Facts, gender, quarks, reality? Is it a person? An object? An idea? A theory? Each entails a different notion of social construction, Ian Hacking reminds us. His book explores an array of examples to reveal the deep issues underlying contentious accounts of reality. Especially troublesome in this dispute is the status of the natural sciences, and this is where Hacking finds some of his most telling cases, from the conflict between biological and social approaches to mental illness to vying accounts of current research in sedimentary geology. He looks at the issue of child abuse—very much a reality, though the idea of child abuse is a social product. He also cautiously examines the ways in which advanced research on new weapons influences not the content but the form of science. In conclusion, Hacking comments on the “culture wars” in anthropology, in particular a spat between leading ethnographers over Hawaii and Captain Cook. Written with generosity and gentle wit by one of our most distinguished philosophers of science, this wise book brings a much needed measure of clarity to current arguments about the nature of knowledge.

The Social Construction of Reality

The Social Construction of Reality PDF Author: Peter L. Berger
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453215468
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.

Social Construction and Social Work Practice

Social Construction and Social Work Practice PDF Author: Stanley L. Witkin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231530307
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
Social construction addresses the cultural factors and social dynamics that give rise to and maintain values and beliefs. Drawing on postmodern philosophies and critical, social, and literary theories, social construction has become an important and influential framework for practice and research within social work and related fields. Embracing inclusivity and multiplicity, social construction provides a framework for knowledge and practice that is particularly congruent with social work values and aims. In this accessible collection, Stanley L Witkin showcases the innovative ways in which social construction may be understood and expressed in practice. He calls on experienced practitioner-scholars to share their personal accounts of interpreting and applying social constructionist ideas in different settings (such as child welfare agencies, schools, and the courts) and with diverse clientele (such as "resistant" adolescents, disadvantaged families, indigenous populations, teachers, children in protective custody, refugee youth, and adult perpetrators of sexual crimes against children). Eschewing the prescriptive stance of most theoretical frameworks, social construction can seem challenging for students and practitioners. This book responds with rich, illustrative descriptions of how social constructionist thinking has inspired practice approaches, illuminating the diversity and creative potential of practices that draw on social constructionist ideas. Writing in a direct, accessible style, contributors translate complex concepts into the language of daily encounter and care, and through a committed transnational focus they demonstrate the global reach and utility of their work. Chapters are provocative and thoughtful, reveal great suffering and courage, share inspiring stories of strength and renewal, and acknowledge the challenges of an approach that complicates evidence-based evaluations and requirements.

Mad Travelers

Mad Travelers PDF Author: Ian Hacking
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674009547
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
Reflections on the Reality of transient mental illnessThis text uses the case of Albert Dadas, the first diagnosed "mad traveller", to weigh the legitimacy of cultural versus physical symptoms in the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders. The author argues that psychological symptoms find niches where transient illnesses flourish.

The Oxford Handbook of the Self

The Oxford Handbook of the Self PDF Author: Shaun Gallagher
Publisher: OUP UK
ISBN: 0199548013
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 759

Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of the Self explores a fascinating diversity of questions about our understanding of self from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, ethics, psychology, neuroscience, psychopathology, narrative, and postmodern theories.

The Social Construction of Management

The Social Construction of Management PDF Author: Nancy Harding
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134202628
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
A critical and empirical study that explores the constitution of managerial identities in the age of mass education in management and challenges the way we think about organizations and their management.

The Social Construction of Nature

The Social Construction of Nature PDF Author: Klaus Eder
Publisher: SAGE Publications Limited
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
This is a unique and agenda-setting interpretation of nature and ecology that will become the essential reference in any debate on environmental politics and sociology.

The Construction of Social Reality

The Construction of Social Reality PDF Author: John R. Searle
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439108366
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
This short treatise looks at how we construct a social reality from our sense impressions; at how, for example, we construct a ‘five-pound note’ with all that implies in terms of value and social meaning, from the printed piece of paper we see and touch. In The Construction of Social Reality, eminent philosopher John Searle examines the structure of social reality (or those portions of the world that are facts only by human agreement, such as money, marriage, property, and government), and contrasts it to a brute reality that is independent of human agreement. Searle shows that brute reality provides the indisputable foundation for all social reality, and that social reality, while very real, is maintained by nothing more than custom and habit.

The Social Construction of Virtue

The Social Construction of Virtue PDF Author: George W. Noblit
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 143841479X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
It's time to face an inevitable conclusion: School reform does not reform schools. That's because reform movements conceive of schools as being about transmitting knowledge. Yet, schools are not primarily about knowledge. They are about the construction of meaning and morality in the lives of students and communities. In this book, the authors argue that to break this recycling of reform efforts, we must understand how schools construct moral life. The focus is on two elementary schools: Rougemont, an historically African American school that was closed during school desegregation in the 1970s, and Cedar Grove, an historically white school to which the former Rougemont students were sent. Described are the histories of these schools, the communities in which they are located, and some of the people who influenced and were influenced by the schools. From those contexts the authors then make explicit the "virtues" that these communities and schools constructed and valued, and describe how those virtues came to influence lives. The oral histories of the two schools and their communities provide the basis of a novel critique of the value conflict that has characterized educational reform in this country. The social construction of virtue offers an alternative perspective on the moral purpose of schooling in America.

The Social Construction of Technological Systems, anniversary edition

The Social Construction of Technological Systems, anniversary edition PDF Author: Wiebe E. Bijker
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262517604
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 471

Book Description
An anniversary edition of an influential book that introduced a groundbreaking approach to the study of science, technology, and society. This pioneering book, first published in 1987, launched the new field of social studies of technology. It introduced a method of inquiry—social construction of technology, or SCOT—that became a key part of the wider discipline of science and technology studies. The book helped the MIT Press shape its STS list and inspired the Inside Technology series. The thirteen essays in the book tell stories about such varied technologies as thirteenth-century galleys, eighteenth-century cooking stoves, and twentieth-century missile systems. Taken together, they affirm the fruitfulness of an approach to the study of technology that gives equal weight to technical, social, economic, and political questions, and they demonstrate the illuminating effects of the integration of empirics and theory. The approaches in this volume—collectively called SCOT (after the volume's title) have since broadened their scope, and twenty-five years after the publication of this book, it is difficult to think of a technology that has not been studied from a SCOT perspective and impossible to think of a technology that cannot be studied that way.