What is Social Construction? | Attic Philosophy

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Күн бұрын

What is social construction? What does it mean to say that some entity or phenomenon is socially constructed? In this video, I talk through some examples of socially constructed entities, and discuss whether everything is socially constructed.
00:00 - Intro
01:11 - Metaphysics of social construction
01:55 - A rough definition
02:36 - Examples of social construction
02:58 - Money
06:15 - Disabled parking spaces
07:47 - Language
08:55 - Gender and disability
11:31 - What about the biology?
12:41 - Is everything socially constructed?
14:17 - Realism or anti-realism?
14:55 - Coming next … metaphysics!
More Reading Suggestions:
Ásta, 2018. Categories We Live By, New York: Oxford University Press.
Barnes, E., 2016. The Minority Body: a theory of disability, New York: Oxford University Press.
Robin Dembroff, ‘Real Talk on the Metaphysics of Gender’ in Takaoka and Manne (eds.) Gendered Oppression and its Intersections, an issue of Philosophical Topics 46 (2): 21-50. 2018.
Brian Epstein, 2015, The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences, New York: Oxford University Press.
Griffith, Aaron M., forthcoming. “Social Construction and Grounding,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
Haslanger, S., 1995. “Ontology and Social Construction,” Philosophical Topics, 23(2): 95-125.
Haslanger, S., 2012. Resisting reality : social construction and social critique, New York: Oxford University Press.
Mills, C., 1998. Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Thomasson, A., 2003. “Realism and Human Kinds,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 67(3): 580-609.
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If there’s a topic you’d like to see covered, leave me a comment below.
Links:
My academic philosophy page: markjago.net
My book What Truth Is: bit.ly/JagoTruth
Most of my publications are available freely here: philpapers.org/s/Mark%20Jago
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Twitter: / philosophyattic
#philosophy #metaphysics #disability

Пікірлер: 25

@Mark73 10 ай бұрын

One big social construct that should be talked about are government and laws. A group of people (whether imposing their will by force or selected by the populace) get together and decide what everyone is and is not allowed to do.

@AtticPhilosophy 10 ай бұрын

That’s basically the subject matter of political philosophy - it definitely gets talked about!

@cjordahl 2 жыл бұрын

I find social construction to be a useful concept and mindset. I wish people were more easily able to identify that socially constructed concepts aren't objectively "true", that they can vary over time and place, etc. I suppose people naturally differ in their ability to recognize socially constructed concepts and/or in the amount of importance they put on them. I wonder how that overlays with the Big Five personality traits, or autism spectrum, etc. (Learned of your channel via Computerphile by the way 😉 )

@AtticPhilosophy 2 жыл бұрын

Glad you found this from Computerphile! Nice thing about philosophy is it goes all the way from Computerphile-related stuff to this kind of topic (& back again!)

@nunisthathigh4825 Жыл бұрын

Psychiatry itself is a social construction, there is no chemical imbalance, 90 percent of psychiatric claims are bullshit, many claims of psychiatric illness contradict the very nature of human reality, etc, psychiatry and mental illness is damn close to pure illusion. Everything is a social construction when push comes to shove, reality, fantasy, obscenity, morality, language, free will and etc to etc. The world is actually a zombie videogame of NPCs.

@MatthewMartinDean 2 жыл бұрын

Does it take two to make a social construction? If one person has an idiosyncratic belief about disability and quietly keeps it to himself, where does that fit into social construction?

@AtticPhilosophy 2 жыл бұрын

I guess it takes a society. A small isolated group could form a society & socially construct with just a few people involved. But within a larger society, individuals and small groups typically find it harder to build social constructs. One reason is: social constructs often need legal/official backing (like disabled parking spaces), and there, individuals or small groups don't get to fix the laws or regulations. In other cases, ideas need large-scale adoption for a genuine social construction: one person's views on gender aren't enough, taken in insolation; but if there's sufficient communal uptake, they may play a huge role. Fashion works a bit like that: it's only fashionable if enough fashionable people say it's fashionable - although this can sometimes be a small number of influencers. (That sounds circular, but true to how it works in practise.)

@larkascending 10 ай бұрын

People often use "social construction" to deny or obfuscate material reality, especially around sex and divergent evolution/group population genetics (race for short). They exclusively deconstruct and navel-gaze around words like White to say that people of European descent have no meaningful genetic similarities with each other (even in smaller ethnic clusters) or differences from other groups. They then use this "social construction" argument to argue for infinite levels of replacement immigration, a boundless definition of "refugee" and their supposed rights, casting White characters/historical figures as black, and a lot of other destructive, arguably genocidal policies. They do the same thing with sex and argue in favour of abominable practises like mutilation surgeries, men in women's sports/prisons/private spaces, lifelong drug dependence, and puberty blockers. You can argue certain aspects of both the language and even physical traits of races/ethnicities (group population clusters) and sexes have been guided by conscious social decisions. They've been shaped by cultural taboos, borders, eugenic & dysgenic practises, etc. But people don't argue this in a nuanced way. They'll basically argue race and sex are exclusively social constructs or that their physical meaning is inconsequential, particularly to society, language, and communication. They'll say the racial and sexual difference between, let's say, Nicole Kidman and Idris Elba are just arbitrary, optical illusions that have no greater meaning. The term "gender" has been so abused recently, by very ill, abusive, insane people that it's become useless gobbledygook at describing anything. I just use the term sex and dismiss all the bullshit around the term "gender", it's just psychobabble.

@AtticPhilosophy 10 ай бұрын

I’m a big Vaughan Williams fan! But what you’ve got here is a bad-tempered rant, not an argument.

@larkascending 10 ай бұрын

@@AtticPhilosophy My comment is clearly an *argument* against the (over-)usage of the term "social construct" to dismiss material reality and advocate for harmful policies. Your reply is not substantive at all. And your video doesn't address how the term is actually used. The most common usage of the term "social construct" is to deconstruct our observations of the material reality of racial and sexual differences. It is not commonly used to refer to money or disability parking spaces. Those are examples you used, to the exclusion of the primary ways this term is actually used in the real world for real, impactful purposes.

@AtticPhilosophy 10 ай бұрын

@@larkascendingI went for less controversial examples of social construction - money is a stock example in social philosophy - precisely to avoid the comments being hijacked by gender-critical views. Perhaps you think there's no such thing as money; or you think that social construction cannot apply to features of people. Both views are very weird. Otherwise, there's no reason to think that people have social as well as physical, chemical, and biological features. The question then is, which ones matter most in which contexts.

@larkascending 10 ай бұрын

@@AtticPhilosophy Because the term is so self-explanatory, I don't really see the utility of it beyond vapid pretention or "deconstructive"/destructive aims, like obfuscating sex and other biological matters. It can be used to imply things like being heavily overweight isn't unhealthy or unattractive, abolishing the age of consent, or overly nihilist, relativist takes like losing limbs or eyesight aren't disabilities. Your sex informs most experiences and is relevant in most contexts, unless you're maybe a total solipsist or can't empathise with the opposite sex at all. The amount of people who successfully deceive people into thinking they are the opposite sex is very rare. Your argument just dances around the real issues in its generality. The social meanings or perceptions of an individual are informed by the physical characteristics, far more than whatever delusion they might have about how they want to be perceived. "Social constructivists" seem to think they can be or we should aspire to completely separate them, especially on the subjects of sex and race.

@Splashstar216 11 ай бұрын

I mean, disabilities happen in wild animals too, so it's not a social construct. 😮

@AtticPhilosophy 11 ай бұрын

The physical/biological change happens, sure, but whether or not its a disability depends in part on how it’s treated, on the availability of technology, and so on. Eg we don’t typically think of short-sightedness (of the kind that would have lead to very low survival rates in earlier humans) as a disability in our society, as it’s easily correctable with glasses on contacts. A society with similarly easily available technology for hearing or speech wouldn’t view some of our current disabilities as disabilities for them.

@leonmills3104 Жыл бұрын

Everything is socially constructed

@AtticPhilosophy Жыл бұрын

Not everything! There was stuff before there were societies or humans around.

@leonmills3104 Жыл бұрын

@@AtticPhilosophy yes I agree there were stuff before humans or even organisms with minds existed this is compatible with everything being socially constructed since I take time itself to be socially constructed our best theories have time in it this projects time into the past from the present and the future just as we construct constellations and stars in to the far distant space from here on earth we construct things into the far distance past and future including time itself so everything is socially constructed

@drednaught608 Жыл бұрын

I would think it is better refined if we say that all knowledge is based off subjectivity / experience since we only know things by experiencing them. Social constructs would be a large part of subjective experience, but not all of it, because you can construct something by yourself without necessarily needing a social interaction. The things that bind us together to where we can form these shared constructs would be intersubjective. (otherwise known as objectivity) Objectivity is the underlying consistency between different people's experiences and perspectives (objectivity not necessarily being physical) but is made manifest through everyone's personal subjectivity. The reason we can even communicate at all and share ideas and constructs is because of that binding. All this to say that subjectivity is a fundamental aspect of reality and reality is personal, but it is personal in a way that holds everyone together.

@leonmills3104 Жыл бұрын

@@drednaught608 I wouldn't call intersubjectivity objectivity, yes there is intersubjectivity. I would say that all knowledge is subjective and I would argue that our conceptual schemes is what organizes our experiences,I would say that we communicate when or conceptual schemes or frameworks overlap in someways that'show we also have agreement yes this means that subjectivity is fundamental to reality because reality is subjective

@Splashstar216 11 ай бұрын

Basic physical needs for food, water, shelter, and sleep, are not socially constructed. These needs are essential for survival and are common to all humans.

@nunisthathigh4825 Жыл бұрын

You need a video clip to explain what social construction is? It's explained in the very name! Social construction. As in society constructed it. This isn't freaking heart surgery to understand! Smeh. I'm beginning to wonder if the idea that society itself is anything other than intellectually disabled is a social construction.

@Wealthybaby Жыл бұрын

Stfu. You’re literally watching a video about something you act like you know, how dumb is that