Social Constructivism as Paradigm?: The Legacy of The Social Construction of Reality 1138606359, 9781138606357

Table of contents :
Contents
List of figures and tables
Foreword
List of contributors
Introduction: the reality of social constructivism: Introductory remarks • Michaela Pfadenhauer
Part I: The theory of The Social Construction of Reality and its reception
1 Why are Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann Austrians? • Manfred Prisching
2 The theoretical claims of The Social Construction of Reality • Martin Endress
3 The cultural dimension of social constructions: on the meaning of “doings” and the meaning of “dones” • Michaela Pfadenhauer
4 The reality of material objectivations: on dwelling as a mode of internalization • Silke Steets
5 Social constructions through socialization: the perspective of a constructivist socialization research • Matthias Grundmann
6 Objectification and verbalization: social constructivism and the problem of language • Jens Loenhoff
7 Some reflections on reception and influence of Berger and Luckmann’s book on Social Construction of Reality in the Spanish-speaking world • César A. Cisneros Puebla
Part II: The variety of constructivisms
8 Variations of constructivism • Thomas S. Eberle
9 The social construction of technology: where it came from and where it might be heading • Trevor Pinch
10 The concept of alternation and the sociology of scientific knowledge • Harry Collins
11 From pragmatism to interactive constructivism • Kersten Reich
12 A utogenesis and autopoiesis: on the emergence of social reality in social and radical constructivism • Ilja Srubar
13 Knowledge as a form of the life-course: the general constructivism of social systems theory • Achim Brosziewski
14 Oblivion of power? The Social Construction of Reality and the (counter-) critique of Pierre Bourdieu • Jochen Dreher
15 Habitualization and habitus: on the relation between social constructivism and the theory of practice • Gregor Bongaerts
16 The Social Construction of Reality: traces and transformation • Kenneth J. Gergen
Part III: Recent developments of social constructivism
17 From the social to the communicative construction of reality • Hubert Knoblauch
18 From understanding to impact: communicative power • Jo Reichertz
19 The discursive construction of realities • Reiner Keller
Conclusion: The Social Construction of Reality as a paradigm? • Hubert Knoblauch
Index

Citation preview

Social Constructivism as Paradigm?

Social constructivism is one of the most prominent theoretical approaches in the social sciences. This volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of its first formulation in Peter Berger and Luckmann’s classic foundational text, The Social Construction of Reality. Addressing the work’s contribution to establishing social constructivism as a paradigm and discussing its potential for current questions in social theory, the contributing authors indicate the various cultural understandings and theoretical formulations that exist of social construction, its different fields of research and the promising new directions for future research that it presents in its most recent developments. A study of the importance of a work that established a paradigm in the international sociology of knowledge, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in social theory, the history of the social sciences and the significance of social constructivism. Michaela Pfadenhauer is a Professor of Sociology at the University of V ­ ienna, Austria. She is the author of Invitation to the New Sociology of Knowledge and the coeditor of Epistemic and Learning Cultures. Hubert Knoblauch is a Professor of Sociology at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. He is the author of Powerpoint, Communication, and the Knowledge Society, the coauthor of Videography: Introduction to Interpretive Videoanalysis of Social Situations and the coeditor of Culture, Communication, and Creativity: Reframing the Relations of Media, Knowledge, and Innovation in Society.

Knowledge, Communication and Society Series Editors Bernt Schnettler, Universität Bayreuth, Germany Hubert Knoblauch, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany Michaela Pfadenhauer, University of Vienna, Austria Alejandro Baer, University of Minnesota, USA

Knowledge, Communication, and Society: Contributions to the New Sociology of Knowledge seeks to revive the academic collaboration and debates between European and Anglo-Saxon currents of thought in the social sciences that characterised the middle of the last century, and provide a forum for the development of a new sociology of knowledge. A space for transatlantic discussion, it includes original works and translations of central works by contemporary European social scientists and is committed to an empirically grounded programme of developing social theory. Titles in this series Social Constructivism as Paradigm? The Legacy of The Social Construction of Reality Edited by Michaela Pfadenhauer and Hubert Knoblauch

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/sociology/series/KCS

Social Constructivism as Paradigm? The Legacy of The Social Construction of Reality Edited by Michaela Pfadenhauer and Hubert Knoblauch

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Michaela Pfadenhauer and Hubert Knoblauch; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Michaela Pfadenhauer and Hubert Knoblauch to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Pfadenhauer, Michaela, 1968– editor. | Knoblauch, Hubert, editor. Title: Social constructivism as paradigm?: the legacy of the social construction of reality / edited by Michaela Pfadenhauer and Hubert Knoblauch. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. | Series: Knowledge, communication and society | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018032472 (print) | LCCN 2018034844 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429467714 (ebk) | ISBN 9780429885464 (Web PDF) | ISBN 9780429885457 (epub) | ISBN 9780429885440 (Mobi/Kindle) | ISBN 9781138606357 (hbk) Subjects: LCSH: Social constructionism. | Constructive realism. Classification: LCC HM1093 (ebook) | LCC HM1093 .S635 2019 (print) | DDC 302—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032472 ISBN: 978-1-138-60635-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-46771-4 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents

List of figures and tables Foreword List of contributors

viii ix x

Introduction: the reality of social constructivism: Introductory remarks 1 M ichaela Pfadenhauer

Part I

The theory of The Social Construction of Reality and its reception 19 1 Why are Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann Austrians? 21 M anfred Prisching

2 The theoretical claims of The Social Construction of Reality 45 M artin E ndress

3 The cultural dimension of social constructions: on the meaning of “doings” and the meaning of “dones” 65 M ichaela Pfadenhauer

4 The reality of material objectivations: on dwelling as a mode of internalization 75 Silke S teets

5 Social constructions through socialization: the perspective of a constructivist socialization research 91 M atthias G rundmann

vi Contents 6 Objectification and verbalization: social constructivism and the problem of language 105 J ens L oenhoff

7 Some reflections on reception and influence of Berger and Luckmann’s book on Social Construction of Reality in the Spanish-speaking world 118 C é sar A . C isneros Puebla

Part II

The variety of constructivisms

129

8 Variations of constructivism 131 T homas S . E berle

9 The social construction of technology: where it came from and where it might be heading 152 T revor Pinch

10 The concept of alternation and the sociology of scientific knowledge 165 H arry C ollins

11 From pragmatism to interactive constructivism 183 K ersten R eich

12 Autogenesis and autopoiesis: on the emergence of social reality in social and radical constructivism 207 I lja S rubar

13 Knowledge as a form of the life-course: the general constructivism of social systems theory 216 Achim Brosz iewski

14 Oblivion of power? The Social Construction of Reality and the (counter-) critique of Pierre Bourdieu 235 Jochen Dreher

15 Habitualization and habitus: on the relation between social constructivism and the theory of practice 251 G regor B ongaerts

Contents  vii 16 The Social Construction of Reality: traces and transformation 259 K enneth J. Gergen

Part III

Recent developments of social constructivism

273

17 From the social to the communicative construction of reality 275 H ubert K noblauch

18 From understanding to impact: communicative power 292 Jo R eichert z

19 The discursive construction of realities 310 R einer K eller

Conclusion: The Social Construction of Reality as a paradigm? 325 H ubert K noblauch

Index

339

Figures and tables

Figures 1.1  Aspects of the philosophical context of Vienna 1.2  Aspects of economic and other “spheres of knowledge” in Vienna 1.3  Aspects of the American context 4.1  Series-built house of the Sietö IV-1928 type on Mittelring, Dessau-Törten (Source: Reichsforschungsgesellschaft für Wirtschaftlichkeit im Bau-und Wohnungswesen e. V. (Ed.), Bericht über die Versuchssiedlung in Dessau. Sonderheft Nr. 7, Berlin 1929. p. 114. Photo: unknown, 1928) 4.2  Housing estate houses of the Sietö II type, exterior view with steel windows (center) and plastic box-type windows (right) (© Nils Emde, 2003) 4.3  “It’s our little paradise” – Hans and Anna’s living room (© Nils Emde, 2003) 8.1 The structure of social construction 10.1 Extract from a 1995 letter from Peter Saulson 10.2 Extract from my 1995 reply 10.3 The Fractal Model 11.1 Interaction in Mead 11.2 Imaginative interaction in interactive constructivism 13.1 The complex called “the observer” 13.2 A memento of constructivism 17.1 Triadic model of communicative action C.1  Ngram (Google): ratio between the word “classified” and the words in the English language corpus

25 30 34

78 79 82 133 171 171 178 193 195 222 222 287 333

Tables 10.1 Relationships between forms of life 179

Foreword

The contributions to this book are based on papers presented at the “Social Constructivism as Paradigm? 50 Years “Social Construction of Reality” Conference held at the University of Vienna from April 28–30, 2016. The conference convened on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of one of the most influential books in the international discourse of the social sciences and the humanities. It gave rise to a movement that rather post hoc has been called either “social constructivism” or “social constructionism.” The conference gathered a broad variety of prominent scholars. We are very grateful that they contributed to this book in such a way that allowed these diverse contributions to be integrated into a coherent argument on the paradigmatic character of the “Social Construction of Reality” indicated by its title. The book had an additional impact indicated by its subtitle: “A T ­ reatise in the Sociology of Knowledge.” In fact, it initiated what came to be called “The New Sociology of Knowledge” which has been blooming in the ­German-speaking countries and in Europe in the decades since. For this reason, it is no coincidence that this book on the “Social Construction as a Paradigm” is the prelude to our new book series “Knowledge, Communication and Society.” We are grateful to Neil Jordan for his support in preparing this first book and its pending sequel. We are particularly indebted to Hanna Jurjevec who has invested an immense amount of meticulous work into this volume and the aforementioned conference. We also express our gratitude to Valeria Zenz, who, with the help of Raphaela Casata, made sure that the volume is available in a uniform style, and to the reviewers, who made very valuable comments. Berlin & Vienna, January 2018 Hubert Knoblauch & Michaela Pfadenhauer

Contributors

Gregor Bongaerts, Professor of General Sociology and Sociological Theory at the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany. Achim Brosziewski,  Professor of Sociology at the Thurgau University of Teacher Education in Switzerland. César A. Cisneros Puebla,  Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous ­Metropolitan University-Iztapalapa in Mexico. Harry Collins,  Distinguished Research Professor at the School of Social Sciences at the Cardiff University in Wales. Jochen Dreher, Doctor in Sociology and CEO of the Social Science Archive Konstanz at the University of Konstanz in Germany. Thomas S. Eberle,  Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Martin Endress, Professor of General Sociology at the Trier University in Germany. Kenneth J. Gergen, Senior Research Professor at the Department of Psychology at the Swarthmore College in the United States. Matthias Grundmann,  Professor of Sociology, with a focus in socialization, education and social relationships, at the University of Münster in Germany. Reiner Keller, Professor of Sociology at the Augsburg University in Germany. Hubert Knoblauch, Professor of Sociology at the Technical University Berlin in Germany. Jens Loenhoff,  Professor of Communication Sciences at the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany. Michaela Pfadenhauer, Professor of Sociology at the University of Vienna in Austria.

Contributors  xi Trevor Pinch,  Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Cornell University in the United States. Manfred Prisching,  Professor of Sociology at the University of Graz in Austria. Kersten Reich,  Professor for International Teaching and Education Research at the University of Cologne in Germany. Jo Reichertz, Professor Emeritus, Senior Fellow and Member of the Board of Directors at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen in Germany. Ilja Srubar,  Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. Silke Steets,  Heisenberg Fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the Leipzig University in Germany.

Introduction The reality of social constructivism Introductory remarks Michaela Pfadenhauer

Is there such a thing as social constructivism? Social constructivism, in the sense that the editors of the present volume understand it, is inextricably linked with Peter L. Berger and Thomas ­Luckmann’s book The Social Construction of Reality (1967 [1966]), which was first published just over 50 years ago. That work is, in turn, inextricably linked with the sociology of knowledge. And, as elaborated below, these connecting lines extend back to Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. In Anglo-Saxon countries, however, social constructivism(s) may have sources other than Berger and Luckmann’s seminal work. This is the case, for example, with the social construction of technology and related developments in science and technology studies that Knorr-Cetina (1989) subsumed under the label “empirical constructivism” (cf. both Collins and Pinch in this volume). Conversely, there are approaches that have taken Berger and Luckmann (1967 [1966]) as their starting point but have neither been formed within sociology (much less in the sociology of knowledge), nor can they be described as social constructivism. This is the case with the confusingly similar-sounding social constructionism in social psychology (cf. Gergen in this volume). The situation that the present volume addresses is rendered even more confusing because, until the end of their lives, the authors of The Social Construction of Reality steadfastly rejected the labeling of their approach as “social constructivism.” In the cases of both Berger and Luckmann, this has to do with the fact that they had a pronounced horror of ideologization and a distaste for the notion of founding schools of scientific thought. However, they also rejected the term social constructivism on substantive grounds. In their view, the modifier in social constructivism did not protect their approach from being classified as a subdiscipline of constructivism.1 For them, constructivism was, on the one hand, synonymous with a mindset of postmodern arbitrariness; on the other hand, they associated it with a particular type of constructivism that even its founders understood as radical (cf. Eberle in this volume). In German-language sociology, this “radical constructivism,” which has its origins in cognitive science and biology, was

2  Michaela Pfadenhauer elaborated into a so-called systems theory by Niklas Luhmann (cf. both Brosziewski and Srubar in this volume). Berger’s and Luckmann’s self-distancing from constructivism was due also to the fact that they did not regard systems theory, which was developed and quickly rose to prominence in the 1970s, as an inadequate version of constructivism against which their own approach should be brought into position (and consistently elaborated) as a more qualified theory. As Luhmann’s systems theory also had a starting point in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, this option would not have been completely far-fetched, although Berger and Luckmann (1967 [1966]: 13) explicitly bracketed epistemological questions out of their treatise. The authors’ terminological ­decision in favor of “construction” in The Social Construction of Reality was intended to mark the difference between “construction” and “constitution” – that is, (however understood) mental processes. Hence, social constructivism is decidedly a counter-concept to all subjectivistic constructivisms (cf. Knoblauch & Schnettler 2009). We, the editors of the present volume, share Berger and Luckmann’s view that there are maximal differences between social and radical (or methodological) constructivism. However, unlike Berger and Luckmann, we do not conclude from this that the label “social constructivism” should be avoided. This is by no means due only to the fact that epistemological constructivisms emerged at a later date. In our view, Berger and Luckmann presented an approach that was groundbreaking for sociological theory and that is correctly labeled “social constructivist” in the sense that (a) it emphasizes the constructed nature not only of social reality but also of reality per se (i.e., also what is regarded as natural); (b) it understands construction as a never-ending process; (c) the authors conceive of this ongoing construction process as sociohistorical – that is, not as solitary but rather as interactive, in other words, carried out by entities with action problems (cf. Pfadenhauer in this volume). This implies (d) a rejection of any claim to totality in the sense that reality is exclusively a construction, and (e) a refusal to abandon the truth claim of science (on the latter, cf. Reichertz 2017). Hence, the question embodied in the title The Social Construction of What? (Hacking 1999) arises especially when this foundation of social constructivism is largely ignored. This is not to deny that the thesis that reality is a construction is “interpretatively flexible” and so widespread that it has almost degenerated into a truism.2 However, the high degree of diffusion of this formula in many disciplines and beyond academia points to its paradigmatic power (cf. Knoblauch’s Conclusion in this volume). Taking as a starting point the characterization of social constructivism proposed in points (a)–(e) above, the proximity and distance of this approach from other approaches that explicitly refer to social construction (e.g., the social construction of technology and social constructionism) can be determined. On the other hand, approaches that are designated differently but are substantively similar, at least in part, can be examined to determine the extent

Reality of social constructivism  3 of their affinity with the social constructivism that has its origins in Berger and Luckmann (1966/1967). This is the case with interactive constructivism (cf. Reich in this volume) and practice theory (cf. both Bongaerts and ­Dreher in this volume).3 This search for (elective) affinity is anticipated in the question that forms the title of the present volume: social constructivism as a paradigm?

Where does social constructivism have its roots? For an adequate understanding of social constructivism in the sense that it is used here, it is necessary to take into consideration its roots, which extend back to the time when sociology – and especially the sociology that was to become so momentous as the sociology of knowledge – was beginning to take shape. As Rosenmayr (1965) noted, the academic discipline “­sociology of knowledge” had its origins in a scholarly dialogue between sociologists from three European universities: Vienna, Paris and Cologne. In 1909, the Viennese philosopher Wilhelm Jerusalem published an essay entitled Soziologie des Erkennens (Sociology of Cognition).4 This essay prompted Emile Durkheim, the Paris-based founder of French sociology, to introduce a new column entitled Les conditions sociologiques de la connaissance in the journal Année sociologique, of which he was founder and editor. The first contribution to this column was Durkheim’s critique of Jerusalem’s article, which in turn inspired Max Scheler in Cologne to develop the sociology of knowledge into a discipline. To this end, Scheler edited an anthology entitled Versuche zu einer Soziologie des Wissens, to which Wilhelm Jerusalem contributed a chapter. Like this classical sociology of knowledge, the origins of contemporary sociology of knowledge are also to be found in Vienna (cf. Pfadenhauer 2013; cf. also Prisching in this volume). This is not meant primarily in the biographical sense, although Peter L. Berger was born in Vienna in 1929 and spent the first years of his childhood there, and Thomas Luckmann, who was born in 1927 in Jesenice, in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, obtained his Matura (university entrance qualification) in Vienna as a mature student after World War II. Above all, however, until his emigration in 1932, Vienna-born Alfred Schütz worked there as a “banker by day and a philosopher by night” (Edmund Husserl) in an intellectual climate that was particularly stimulating for the emerging social sciences. In the period of upheaval after World War I and the collapse of the ­Austro-Hungarian Empire, the ideas of Austrofascism and National Socialism fell on fertile ground in Vienna: In the 1920s and 1930s, the University of Vienna facilitated the institutionalization of antidemocratic, anti-Semitic, and totalitarian ideas and policies. Like many other disciplines, empirically oriented national economy, and thus also the social sciences, were successively marginalized (cf. Ehs 2010: 229). Therefore, the innovative potential of the social sciences did not emerge from the university but rather from the

4  Michaela Pfadenhauer “extramural exile” of Vienna’s independent research institutions and private seminars, such as those founded by economist and social philosopher Ludwig von Mises and the legal philosopher Hans Kelsen (ibid.). Alfred Schütz was an active participant in both the Kelsen and the Mises seminars as well as in the “Mind Circle” (Geist-Kreis), an informal seminar founded by Friedrich Hayek and Herbert Furth in the early 1920s. Thus, for Schütz, the so-called Austrian School of Economics was the most important intellectual benchmark in the social sciences. It was Ludwig von Mises who drew Schütz’s attention to Max Weber’s oeuvre. In 1918, Weber had spent the spring term as a lecturer at the University of Vienna. In the course of his stay, he proved to be “the sensation of the university” (Theodor Heuss). The lecture hall in the main building where his lectures took place was filled to overflowing, and even after relocation to the biggest hall, the atmosphere was said to have been like Grand Central Station. Contrary to his plans, Weber did not spend his time in Vienna finishing his almost completed sociological opus Economy and Society. Rather, he engaged in intensive studies in the sociology of religion, focusing especially on Confucianism and Taoism in China – topics to which both Berger and Luckmann also devoted particular attention throughout their academic lives. Schütz’s orientation toward Weber’s oeuvre can be seen as the starting point for his major early work Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt (1932; translated as The Phenomenology of the Social World), which provided a methodological foundation for the social sciences by reconciling Weber’s inductive and Mergen’s and von Mises’ deductive approaches. Like many of his consociates, Alfred Schütz was forced to emigrate. His journey into exile ended in New York, as did Berger’s. Berger and ­Luckmann met as students at the New School for Social Research in New York, where Schütz taught sociology and philosophy, and where they were introduced to the classical sociology of knowledge. Schütz’s thinking had a strong influence on the thesis of The Social Construction of Reality, which Berger and Luckmann sketched out as early as 1963 in a coauthored article on the sociology of religion, the field in which they had both done empirical research. Although the concept for the book was developed jointly with Hansfried Kellner, Stanley Pullberg and Maurice Natanson, it was finally written by Berger and Luckmann and published in 1966. Both authors continued to work on the subject of the book for several years, focusing on the sociology of religion. Luckmann published Invisible Religion in 1967, which became a classic not only in the sociology of religion but also in religious studies and the theory of religion. In 1967, Berger, too, wrote a landmark work in the sociology of religion, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, in which he also adopted a social constructivist viewpoint. However, these two books differ profoundly in their notion of religion, as Berger (1974) noted in an article entitled Some Second Thoughts on Substantive Versus Functional Definitions of Religion, in which he contrasted his own substantive definition (postulating that religion

Reality of social constructivism  5 has peculiar and universal features) with the functional definition espoused, for example, by Luckmann. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the authors did not jointly publish again until after they retired (Berger & Luckmann 1995) – and then without mentioning The Social Construction of Reality.5 While Berger continued his work in the sociology of religion and elaborated various aspects of the theory of modern society, Luckmann turned to the basic theoretical foundations of The Social Construction of Reality. On the one hand, he continued working on the phenomenological foundation alluded to in the first chapter of The Social Construction of Reality. The most obvious result of this was his work on Schütz’s unfinished manuscript of his projected book The Structures of the Life-World. Schütz had passed away in 1959, and Luckmann took on the task of completing and editing his former teacher’s magnum opus. The first volume was published first in English translation in 1973 (the original German-language version was not published until 1975); the second volume was published first in the German original in 1984 and then in English translation in 1989. In The Social Construction of Reality, language was considered to be the most essential kind of objectivation. It is therefore unsurprising that Luckmann turned his attention to the sociology of language, and later to empirical studies on language in use – that is, communication. With reference to research in ethnomethodology, linguistics and anthropology, he gradually became involved in the newly developing “interpretive turn” and “qualitative methods.” Due to this empirical research, particularly in what came to be known as the “Konstanz School,” Luckmann and his fellow researchers started to use the word “construction” once again, this time in the context of “communicative construction” (Knoblauch 1995, 2013; Bergmann & Luckmann 1999). Despite their lingering interest in various topics mentioned in The Social Construction of Reality, neither author worked any further on the subject of the book for decades. In fact, even by the time the reception of The Social Construction of Reality started to take off, both Berger and Luckmann seemed to have lost interest in it. They did not even attempt to lay claim to the concept as used by others. One of the reasons for this detachment can be seen in the context of the book’s reception. Its reference to “dialectics” entered into the political discourse of the 1960s student movement, so that Berger (2011: 92) complained that it “was taken as a license for an orgy of ideology and utopianism.” Neither Berger nor Luckmann elaborated on the theory itself, and they turned to the book retrospectively only on the occasion of its anniversaries. Luckmann hardly ever used the book in his seminars, and both Berger and Luckmann distanced themselves from its reception (cf., e.g., Berger 2011). However, The Social Construction of Reality (1966/1967) still enjoys wide recognition. It forms part of many introductions to – and overviews and systematic presentations of – sociology, the social sciences and other disciplines (for its reception and impact in Spanish-speaking countries, cf. Cisneros Puebla in this volume). In fact, it has been referred to as one of

6  Michaela Pfadenhauer the most popular sociological works, along with classics such as Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) and Max Weber’s The ­Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905). Like Weber’s seminal work, the book received a wide reception, not only in Anglo-Saxon ­countries but also w ­ orldwide, thanks also to the fact that it was translated into many languages.

“Social constructivism as a paradigm?” Why did we ask? The paradigm concept is as controversial as it is ubiquitous – at least in the social sciences. This is due not so much to its inflationary use but to its ambiguity. Thomas P. Kuhn, for whom the emergence of a dominant paradigm was the key to the scientific progress of a discipline, was criticized by ­Masterman (Masterman 1970, quoted in Morgan 2007: 50) for the fact that he used the word paradigm in more than 20 different ways in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Morgan (2007: 50ff.) identified four basic versions of the paradigm concept in that work: paradigms as worldviews, paradigms as epistemological stances, paradigms as shared beliefs in a research field and paradigms as model examples of how research is done in a particular field. What is even more problematic is the fact that Kuhn further cemented an understanding of the nature of “normal science” that was based on that prevailing in the natural sciences, where “normal science” allowed neither for multiple paradigms nor for theories that diverge from the dominant paradigm. Hence, from Kuhn’s perspective, a paradigm shift is a rare occurrence with a revolutionary impact. Walker (2010) warned of “the perils of paradigm mentalities” and equated “Kuhnian paradigms” with scientific stagnation and the preservation of the status quo. He argued that scientists with a “paradigm mentality” tended to make theories and positions into belief systems instead of regarding them – with Popper – as tentative and endeavoring to contradict and refute them. The paradigm concept underlying the question embodied in the title of the present volume is not Kuhnian: It does not have connotations of consensus and the preservation of the status quo, nor does it imply the espousal of Kuhn’s (1962/1970) arguments, which are questionable, even for the natural sciences. Our aim as editors is not to build a cozy nest in which people can make themselves at home but rather to identify affinities between specific theoretical developments in the social sciences that have hitherto been overlooked or, at least, not explained. This calls for a critical examination of categorizations in which possibly artificial trenches have been dug (e.g., Knorr-Cetina 1989). And finally, note must be taken of the paradigmatic consequences of the further development of concepts – for example, the aforementioned development of social constructivism into communicative constructivism. Current developments such as these show that the social constructivism that has its roots in Berger and Luckmann’s groundbreaking work is by no

Reality of social constructivism  7 means trapped, or immobilized, in a paradigm. Rather, it is extremely mobile, as evidenced by the fact that it has been (re)formulated in different ways, not only in the German-speaking area (cf. the contributions of Keller, Knoblauch and Reichertz in this volume; cf. also Couldry & Hepp 2017). As Andrew Abbott argued in Chaos of Disciplines (Abbott 2001, quoted in Adloff & Büttner 2013), sociology is not characterized by stagnation but rather by progression. However, in his view, “sociology is progressive, but not cumulative” (ibid. 231, quoted in Adloff & Büttner, 2013). Hence, social scientific innovations do not, as Kuhn presumed, come about because new knowledge is simply piled on top of an existing stock of knowledge that has been recognized as valid. Rather, in sociology, paradigms are continually being formulated and reformulated in the course of theoretical and methodological disputes between rival camps. Metaphorically speaking, because of sociology’s “interstitial character – that is, because sociology is situated between the natural sciences and the humanities” (ibid. 257, quoted in ­Adloff & Büttner 2013) – it swings back and forth between extremes. Following Abbott’s “fractal logic,” scientific progress comes about when dichotomies are broken up and novel combinations are formed: “Interesting social science can always be produced by trying a combination hitherto unknown” (ibid. 29, quoted in Adloff & Büttner 2013). Hence, one can say that The Social Construction of Reality constituted, and still constitutes, a paradigm (cf., once again, Knoblauch’s Conclusion in this volume). For, by rejecting structural functionalism, which was the dominant theory in the United States at the time, and by synthesizing two strands of theory hitherto considered irreconcilable (i.e., the Weberian and the Durkheimian approaches), Berger und Luckmann (1966/1967) opened up a fundamentally new perspective, whose impact extended far beyond the boundaries of sociology. Therefore, the question posed by the present volume is compelling precisely because the diffusion of Berger and ­Luckmann’s new perspective often occurred without reference to the source and without recognizing the specificities of social constructivism. Most of the contributions in this volume answer the question “Social constructivism as a paradigm?” in the affirmative. According to Antony (2016), many of the authors came to the conclusion that social constructivism should indeed be regarded as a paradigm (albeit not necessarily in the Kuhnian sense) or at least as an independent “thought collective” (in Ludwik Fleck’s sense of the term).

Contributions in this volume The contributions in this volume document the symposium of the same name hosted in Vienna by the editors in April 2016 to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Social Construction of Reality. Thomas Luckmann could not make the journey to Vienna due to ill health; he died shortly afterward, on May 10, 2016. Peter L. Berger, who passed away in June 2017, was able to attend, and he followed the debate with great interest.

8  Michaela Pfadenhauer During his stay, he delivered the Patocka Memorial Lecture, in which he presented his deliberations on a “paradigm for religion in a pluralist age,” set forth in his last book Many Altars of Modernity (2014).

The theory of The Social Construction of Reality and its reception Manfred Prisching explores the origins of Berger and Luckmann’s theories in the intellectual climate of interwar Vienna and the original impetuses for the interpretive paradigm (via the intermediation of Alfred Schütz). In doing so, Prisching does not restrict the intellectual history to the well-known Weber-Husserl-Bergson-Schütz-Berger-Luckmann tradition. Rather, he provides a more extensive intellectual map: a landscape of theoretical discussions, distant or related paradigms, common questions and divergent answers. He argues that Alfred Schütz’s oeuvre should be seen as an answer to the dominant questions discussed intensively in the interwar period in Vienna, which had become a bastion of logical empiricism and a stronghold in the fight against metaphysics. Schütz, who participated intensively in several circles (but not the Vienna Circle), played an important role in the development of the interpretive paradigm. By integrating Schütz’s ideas into The Social Construction of Reality, Berger and Luckmann extended the tradition and implemented a transatlantic synthesis. Martin Endress emphasizes the integrative perspective of social constructivism, which rests on a threefold paradigm that links the socially channeled processes of communicating, interpreting and legitimating, and acting. Endress identifies communicative constructivism, the sociology of valuation and evaluation, and practice theory as continuations of the paradigm that deepen specific parts of the comprehensive idea underlying Berger and Luckmann’s classic work. However, from his point of view, none of these three continuations have come anywhere near replacing that book’s comprehensive theoretical framework: Whereas communicative constructivists put emphasis on the “reality-generating potency” of conversation, one of the most central notions of The Social Construction of Reality, sociologists of valuation and evaluation focus on the moral dimension of communication, in line with Luckmann’s understanding of moral communication as an evaluative performance. And finally, theorists of practice question the meaningfulness of action and the processes of institutionalization and objectivation that have been linked to social constructivism from the very beginning. With an empirical focus on catastrophes, Endress endeavors to show that, compared to Berger and Luckmann’s comprehensive project, current studies on communicative construction, evaluation processes and practices are too narrow to replace the sociological perspective of The Social Construction of Reality. This would require an integrative analytical perspective on social phenomena.

Reality of social constructivism  9 Michaela Pfadenhauer rejects the post-constructivist contention that The Social Construction of Reality is anthropocentric. With reference to her research interests (animal and artificial companions, which are marginal social phenomena in Western cultures), she argues that social constructions of reality do not presuppose human actors but rather the ability to act. For an understanding of social constructivism in this sense, the difference between acting (doing) and action (done) and between “Sinn” (subjective meaning) and “Bedeutung” (objective meaning) is relevant. The latter difference is leveled out in the English word “meaning,” for reality is a social construction in the sense that what appears to us to be unquestionably given and valid emerges from subjectively meaningful acting, which, over time, acquires an objective meaning that has become detached from the original subjective meaning. This objective meaning eventually gains general acceptance; that is, it becomes culture. The relevance of animals and machines for the social construction of reality is therefore determined not only by their ability to act but also by their “cultural ability,” that is, the extent to which they are involved in bringing forth socially objectivated (and believed) facts. Silke Steets demonstrates the fruitfulness of a sociology of knowledge perspective on architecture and the world of objects. She argues that looking at built space with reference to Berger and Luckmann helps to understand buildings as “material objectivations” that mediate processes of externalization and internalization in a specific way. She postulates that dwelling as a mode of internalization is always a dual process: It involves the development of body techniques, on the one hand, and the consideration of ­values and cultural meanings, on the other. These can be adopted or rejected. Empirical studies show that dwelling is based on an interaction between internalization and externalization. This interaction is a major cause of the permanent change unfolding in the built environment and, more generally, of change in society. The “inviting form” (Herzberger) seems to support these processes, whereas the functionalist form tends (at least in theory) to impede it. Matthias Grundmann argues that The Social Construction of Reality offers a complex analysis of the reciprocal and simultaneously independent processes of intra- and interindividual coordination and cooperation as well as the expressive exploration of collective life experiences and perceptions as identified in empirical socialization research. He combines this claim with a co-constructive approach in the tradition of the structural genetic approach and research on development in context. While outlining the relevance of the social constructivist paradigm for socialization research, he expands on the idea that social construction is simultaneously a product and a producer of socialization. He aims to demonstrate that a social constructivist perspective on socialization presupposes interactions between individuals that aim at mutual activities and commonalities. He illustrates these arguments with reference to the situation of “social birth” and to the effect of communication and the development of agency. He enriches his considerations with

10  Michaela Pfadenhauer a short outlook on the paradigmatic status of social constructivism and the additional value of its use in different research areas. Jens Loenhoff suggests that all interpretation of speech and verbalization of practice should be conceived of as a form of linguistic action and, thus, as representing an independent source of social differentiation. ­Linguistic knowledge is a highly significant part of the stock of social knowledge. ­Loenhoff argues that language has either been reduced to a neutral medium or is considered only in its function as an instrument for attaining power and distinction. Nowadays, the communicative turn within the sociology of knowledge has relegated the reconstruction of linguistic knowledge to an inferior rank. In The Social Construction of Reality (1966/1967), Berger and Luckmann embarked on the sociological situating of language. In line with Alfred Schütz, they understood language as a “social-historical a priori,” as the most important objectivation of subjective experience, on the one hand, and as a sediment of knowledge, on the other. They made it clear that language was not a phenomenon of consciousness but rather a social institution. The symmetry between subjective and objective reality depends to a large extent on language. Speech and understanding are underpinned and guided by implicit linguistic knowledge and by explications and linguistic objectivations that have emerged from communication. César A. Cisneros Puebla discusses both the context of publication and the interest generated by the appearance and reprints of Berger and ­Luckmann’s book in the Spanish-speaking countries. Printed and reprinted in Argentina, the reception of the book in Spanish-speaking countries is highlighted to reflect the tradition of Schützian sociology of commonsense knowledge and its influence on the debates around constructivism in several approaches and disciplines related to qualitative inquiry. The Spanish-­ language version of The Social Construction of Reality has a special place in any Spanish-speaking social scientist’s personal library, but its relevance in shaping the essential core of methodological and epistemological reflections in social sciences in general is still in the making. In addition, the author calls attention to thinking about the historical circumstances and the geopolitics of the situated knowledge built by the influence of Berger and ­ Luckmann’s book on the Spanish-speaking countries.

The variety of constructivisms Thomas S. Eberle demonstrates variations of constructivism, starting with the epistemological, methodological and theoretical assumptions of Berger and Luckmann’s new sociology of knowledge and comparing it with cognitive or radical constructivism, empirical constructivism in ethnomethodology and science studies, social constructionism in social psychology and communicative constructivism in sociology. He argues that, as “social constructivism” has several meanings and connotations, it creates confusion to allocate the label to just one of them.

Reality of social constructivism  11 Trevor Pinch asserts that there was a radical impulse that informed all the work carried out under the “constructivist” mantle, and that this radical impulse perhaps matters more than the specific labels used. The social construction of technology emerged directly from the earlier sociology of scientific knowledge. As part of the sociology of technology approach, it seeks to understand how technology (like sound, Pinch’s current field of research) is socially constructed or shaped. Berger and Luckmann (1966/167) supported a “constructivist” view on science and technology. Although Pinch does not follow Berger and Luckmann’s argumentation in detail, he acknowledges that it paved the way for the social construction of technology. Pinch especially highlights the inherent methodological foundation that The Social Construction of Reality provides for science and technology studies in the mundane practices of humans. Harry Collins discusses the concept of alternation. He explains that he learned of it from Peter Berger’s book Invitation to Sociology (1963). The idea of alternation also fits in with Wittgenstein’s notion of “forms of life” – ­alternation is switching between forms of life. There are many related concepts such as Schütz’s “taken-for-granted reality,” Durkheim’s “social collectivity,” Fleck’s “thought collective” and Kuhn’s “paradigms.” These concepts allow us to see individuals as constituted by the forms of life in which they participate. Forms of life can be big or small and are embedded within each other after the fashion of a fractal. They can also overlap in multidimensional ways. Collins argues that forms of life are sometimes incommensurable and sometimes not, with Kuhn’s notion of “incommensurability” being a better way of thinking about these relationships than Berger’s “logical incompatibility.” Using the example of his many case studies and different ways of handling them, Collins shows that social analyses of science based on forms of life can be of many different types. Crucially, where forms of life in science are incommensurable, their investigation, at least in Western societies, takes place within a higher-level shared culture with academic culture encouraging cooperation. Kersten Reich gives a short introduction to the program of interactive constructivism, which was founded at the University of Cologne in the 1990s and has been continuously developed since then. This introduction is linked to a discussion about the importance of pragmatism as a source of a socially oriented constructivism as offered by Berger and Luckmann. Reich reconsiders Dewey’s concepts of experience and communication from the perspective of Berger and Luckmann’s social constructivism, thereby demonstrating how pragmatism and social constructivism might mutually enrich each other. Ilja Srubar compares Berger and Luckmann’s social constructivism with Luhmann’s radical constructivism. He argues that both approaches conceive of the social construction of reality as a process of self-production of society. What is more interesting is the fact that they are both built on the same philosophical foundation, namely Husserl’s theory of consciousness,

12  Michaela Pfadenhauer and that, despite their common ground, they reach quite contradictory results, although they share a number of common assumptions. Srubar concludes that Luhmann’s autopoietic separation of social and psychic systems becomes paradoxical, while Berger and Luckmann’s conception seems to offer a suggestion how to approach the problem of the autogenesis of social reality without causing the paradoxes that burden Luhmann’s theory. Achim Brosziewski introduces the concept of the life-course and discusses two basic facts of individuality: the operational closure of consciousness and its impossible last thought. In order to clarify the notions of observation and construction, he sketches the general constructivism of systems theory. He claims that the duality of observing and constructing is meant to replace the subject-object duality as an epistemological super-code for cognition and knowledge. However, it is not meant to deny reality, nor is it a license for a postmodern “anything goes.” Aiming to situate the life-course within the whole set of communication media, he focuses on two of their general characteristics: coding as a special type of observation and negation as the main source of reflection in the case of communication and of learning in the case of the individual consciousness. He concludes by discussing how the proposed approach conceives of the triad of knowledge, learning and (self-) education. Jochen Dreher argues that it makes sense to deal with Bourdieu’s critical reflections concerning an alleged “oblivion of power” in Berger and ­Luckmann’s major work. Therefore, he specifically highlights the particular potential for an analysis of power offered by Berger and Luckmann’s social constructivism. Dreher aims to demonstrate that the theoretical outline developed in The Social Construction of Reality presents a suitable conceptual framework for establishing a theory of power. After discussing Bourdieu’s critique, he applies Berger and Luckmann’s theoretical framework to a discussion of the concept of power, and he complements these reflections with the concept of relevance introduced by Alfred Schütz and Thomas Luckmann for the analysis of subjective power constitution. The concept of relevance basically serves as a regulating principle for the construction of reality because it structures and organizes the interrelationship of objective knowledge and the subjective experience of the individual actor. Therefore, it perfectly facilitates an explanation of the processuality of power constitution, which cannot be achieved with the concept of habitus. Gregor Bongaerts postulates that the similarities and complementarities of Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality and Bourdieu’s theory of practice are apparent only at the surface of these approaches. He argues that the theory of practice is incompatible with social constructivism due to the different theoretical architectures and theoretical attitudes of the two approaches: The theoretical core of social constructivism is the tradition of phenomenology reflecting the structure of a lifeworld within a regional ontology. As proto-sociology, it represents a philosophy of ­consciousness-driven theory. By contrast, theory of practice is a

Reality of social constructivism  13 problem-driven approach. From Bongaerts’ point of view, there is no way to overcome the differences between a theory that is based on an ahistorical, regional ontology of actors and a theory that is problem-driven and historical at the core of its concepts. Nevertheless, Bongaerts identifies certain similarities: Both theories combine subjectivism and objectivism, ending up with a concept of nonconsciousness. However, following Bongaerts, social constructivism offers a subjectivistic explanation of objectivism, whereas theory of practice sees socialized actors as incapable of acting against specific dispositions. Moreover, theory of practice tries to make intelligible the way habitus works in the social world, whereas social constructivism aims to explain how habitus is produced. Despite these differences, Bongaerts sees potential for cross-fertilization. With regard to social constructivism, theory of practice shows that tacit knowledge plays a key role in reproducing social order. In turn, theory of practice can learn to understand what influence social actors have in order to typify situational and objectified knowledge. Kenneth J. Gergen provides a reflection on the intellectual context in which The Social Construction of Reality emerged as well as the subsequent transformation taking place in assumptions and practices. As he proposes, while the Berger and Luckmann thesis provided a major catalyst to the emerging dialogues, subsequent developments in critical theory, literary and rhetorical theory and the history of science added vital dimensions to understanding. The earlier emphasis on social phenomenology was largely eclipsed by a concern with the linguistic construction of reality; discussions of social structure and individual experience were largely replaced by a focus on the social or dialogic construction of reality. In Gergen’s view, these dialogues are having profound effects on the social sciences. They liberate the professions from the debilitating grip of logical empiricism, they add a concern with the social and political effects of inquiry, they invite a pluralist inclusiveness in forms and functions of inquiry and they encourage innovation in both theory and research methods. As Gergen surmises, the shift to a constructionist consciousness replaces the traditional emphasis on achieving Truth through science with a reflective pragmatism. What does social science inquiry contribute to society and the world, and for whom is this a contribution or not? In this context, Gergen argues that one reason for the continuing significance of Berger and Luckmann’s thesis is the metamorphosis of constructionist ideas from a theory of knowledge to a field of shared practices.

Recent developments of social constructivism Hubert Knoblauch addresses the formation of a new approach that has come to be called “communicative constructivism.” Because the theory of social construction is the central starting point of this approach, he first provides a summary of its major theses. As the sketch of the reception of

14  Michaela Pfadenhauer The Social Construction of Reality in the second part of his contribution shows, the book shaped the concept of social construction internationally and became the point of reference for some subsequent academic movements, which he briefly discusses. As Berger and Luckmann discontinued their work on the theory of social construction after only a few years, these movements also contributed to its theoretical refinement, linking it to theories that emerged later, such as the post-structuralist theories of discourse, practice and subjectivity. In order to be able to follow these innovations, Knoblauch outlines the variety of notions of “constructivisms” linked to these theories. However, due to its dissemination, the concept of social construction lost its distinctness. In particular, authors who knew the book more from hearsay than from reading it (which seems to be common, even among some renowned researchers) contributed to serious misunderstandings of “social constructivism” and deviations from what Berger and ­Luckmann had written. This confusion led logically to a number of misleading criticisms of “social constructivism.” There are also a number of serious criticisms of Berger and Luckmann’s approach, such as the problems of a subjectivistic justification of social theory. Taking up this criticism, Knoblauch develops the theory of “social construction” further, into a relational theory that does not bracket out the subject but rather treats processes of consciousness as part of a relational process. This process can by no means be reduced to language but includes objectification and physical activity. Social action must therefore always be seen as communicative action. In order to account for these basic modifications, Knoblauch prefers to talk of “communicative” rather than “social” construction. He concludes by stressing that the reformulation “communicative constructivism” is intended to avoid confusion with the multiple use of “social construction,” and that it facilitates the analysis of the dramatic changes in contemporary society. Jo Reichertz explains that communicative constructivism supplements Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge with theory-of-power considerations. He argues that communicative constructivism is extended constructivism in terms of the situativity and path dependence of mutual communicative acting and, thus, in terms of the systematic observance of social practices and artifacts. Communicative construction deals with the problem that not everybody who is involved in social communication has the same power to realize, or even to legitimize and institutionalize, their expectations and demands. A significant difference between social and communicative constructivism is that language can no longer be seen as the main factor for objectivities and internalization; rather, it is communicative acting that produces objectivities and internalization. Communicative constructivism of reality generates not only the world we deal with but also the identities of people who are communicating with one another. The power of communicative acting is predicated on the powerful implementation of specific forms of socialization, which, following Berger and Luckmann,

Reality of social constructivism  15 are aimed at the creation of reliability or institutionalization. Reichertz argues that the source of communicative power is the relationship between the communication partners. Hence, communication between two or more people always constructs not only a social relationship – and, in turn, the identity of the communication partners – but also social reality. Reiner Keller argues for a sociology of knowledge-based approach to the discursive construction of realities. He uses the event of the 50th anniversary of The Social Construction of Reality in order to show how it can be considered an example of discursive construction in itself, despite some (earlier) objections toward the concept of “discourse” in the sociology of knowledge tradition. Keller therefore gives evidence of the use of “discourse” in pragmatist and social-phenomenological thinking in sociology. He argues that referring to universes or orders of discourse in a “beyond linguistics” sense can be traced far back in the history of the social sciences, to John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Robert E. Park and Alfred Schütz. Michel Foucault’s ideas about discourse are closer to this tradition than it seemed at first glance. As Keller states, “discourse” or “discursive construction” covers a more reduced subject than the basic ideas of The Social Construction of Reality. Moreover, he strongly opposes the arguments made by some colleagues in discourse theory research that “everything is discourse,” or that there is nothing outside of discourse. Instead, he considers discourse to be particular processes or forms of knowledge-making and unmaking, of objectifying and de-objectifying realities. The sociology of knowledge approach to discourse that he argues for covers a particular field of communicative construction and social constructivism. “Communicative construction,” according to Keller’s usage, is a more general term covering quite disparate communicative events. Discursive construction is what this book is performing here and now, and it is what enabled Berger and Luckmann’s work (1966/1967) to travel from the 1960s into the present.

Conclusion Hubert Knoblauch sketches the notion of paradigm as it has been suggested by Kuhn. He does so in order to support the thesis that it also contributed to the constitution of social constructivism as a paradigm (and as different from constructivism). He turns to the content of The Social Construction of Reality in order to demonstrate its paradigmatic character, arguing that by stressing the social character of the construction, the authors introduced a specific new idea that demands that we sharply distinguish social constructivism from what came to be known in the sciences and humanities as constructivism. Furthermore, he sketches one part of the paradigm’s social basis, which is constituted by an academic movement relating explicitly to the book. He argues that social constructivism has been adapted also in a formulaic way that has transcended the boundaries of academic discourses and institutions and influences public discourse to this day. He makes clear

16  Michaela Pfadenhauer that the paradigmatic character of theoretical approaches should not be reduced to the field or system of science. In fact, one of the major contributions of The Social Construction of Reality has been that it considered knowledge as something that is not restricted to the “higher forms” but rather is an essential part of any social action. In this vein, social constructivism may be assumed to constitute a paradigm not only of academic thinking but also of the current episteme or worldview.

Notes 1 As works such as Pörksen’s Schlüsselwerke des Konstruktivismus (2015) confirm, this fear cannot simply be dismissed. 2 In a discussion paper entitled The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts (1984), Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker developed the concept of “interpretative flexibility” to demonstrate the different meanings attributed to the bicycle in the early stages of its development. 3 This applies also to neo-institutionalism. 4 According to Knoll et al. (1981), this was the first-ever sign of life of Viennese sociology. 5 For a more extensive overview on both authors, see Schnettler (2006) and ­Pfadenhauer and Berger (2013).

References Adloff, F. & Büttner, S.M. (2013): Die Vielfalt soziologischen Erklärens und die (Un-) vermeidbarkeit des Eklektizismus. Zeitschrift für theoretische Soziologie, 2, pp. 253–268. Antony, A. (2016): I’m not a social constructivist. Am I a social constructivist?  – Metaperspektiven auf ein Theorie- und Forschungsprogramm. Soziopolis. Available through: https://soziopolis.de/vernetzen/veranstaltungsberichte/­artikel/ im-not-a-social-constructivist-am-i-a-social-constructivist-­m etaperspektivenauf-ein-theorie/ [Accessed July 7, 2016]. Berger, P.L. (1967): The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of ­Religion. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Berger, P.L. (1974): Some Second Thoughts on Substantive versus Functional ­Definitions of Religion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 13(2), pp. 125–133. Berger, P.L. (2011): Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World without Becoming a Bore. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. Berger, P.L. (2014): Many Altars of Modernity: Toward a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralist Age. Berlin: de Gruyter. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1963): Sociology of Religion and Sociology of Knowledge. Sociology and Social Research, 47, pp. 61–73. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1967) [1966]: The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1995): Modernity, Pluralism and the Crisis of Meaning: The Orientation of Modern Man. Gütersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung. Bergmann, J. & Luckmann, T. (Eds.) (1999): Kommunikative Konstruktion von Moral (Vol.1): Struktur und Dynamik der Formen moralischer Kommunikation. Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag.

Reality of social constructivism  17 Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 17–50. Couldry, N. & Hepp, A. (2017): The Mediated Construction of Reality. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ehs, T. (2010): Die Ursprünge österreichischer Politikwissenschaft – Ein Blick z­ urück im Bologna-Jahr 2010. ÖZP – Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, 39(2), pp. 223–241. Hacking, I. (1999): The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Knoblauch, H. (1995): Kommunikationskultur: Die kommunikative Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Knoblauch, H. (2013): Communicative Constructivism and Mediatization. Communication Theory, 23(2), pp. 297–315. Knoblauch, H. & Schnettler, B. (2009): Konstruktivismus. In: Buber, R. & H ­ olzmüller, H. (Eds.) Qualitative Marktforschung. Wiesbaden: Gabler, pp. 127–136. Knoll, R. et al. (1981): Der österreichische Beitrag zur Soziologie von der ­Jahrhundertwende bis 1938. In: Lepsius, R. (Ed.) Soziologie in Deutschland und Österreich 1918–1945. Materialen zur Entwicklung, Emigration und Wirkungsgeschichte. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Special Issue 23, pp. 59–101. Knorr-Cetina, K. (1989): Spielarten des Konstruktivismus. Soziale Welt, 40(1/2), pp. 86–96. Kuhn, T.S. (1970) [1962]: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Luckmann, T. (1967): Invisible Religion. New York: MacMillan. Merton, R.K. (1973): Paradigm for the Sociology of Knowledge. In: Merton, R.K. (Ed.) The Sociology of Science. Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Chicago/ London: University of Chicago Press, pp. 7–40. Morgan, D.L. (2007): Paradigms Lost and Pragmatism Regained: Methodological Implications of Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1, pp. 48–76. Pinch, T.J. & Bijker, W.E. (1984): The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other. Social Studies of Science, 14(3), pp. 399–441. Pfadenhauer, M. (2013): The New Sociology of Knowledge. The Life and Work of Peter L. Berger. With Selected Essays by Peter L. Berger (Miriam Geoghegan, Trans.) New Brunswick, NJ/London: Transaction Publisher. Pörksen, B. (2015): Schlüsselwerke des Konstruktivismus. Eine Einführung. In: Pörksen, B. (Ed.) Schlüsselwerke des Konstruktivismus. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 3–18. Reichertz, J. (2017): Was ist neu am Kommunikativen Konstruktivismus? Oder: Braucht es neue Formen der Datenerhebung und Auswertung? In: Reichertz, J. & Tuma, R. (Eds.) Der Kommunikative Konstruktivismus bei der Arbeit. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 32–76. Rosenmayr, L. (1965): Vorgeschichte und Entwicklung der Soziologie in Osterreich bis 1933. Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, 26, 1/3, pp. 268–282. Scheler, M. (1924): Versuche zu einer Soziologie des Wissens. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. Schütz, Alfred (2004): Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt: Eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie. [Werkausgabe Vol. II] Konstanz: UVK.

18  Michaela Pfadenhauer Schütz, A. & Luckmann, T. (1989) [1984]: The Structures of the Life-World II. ­Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Schnettler, B. (2006): Thomas Luckmann. Konstanz: UVK. Walker, T.C. (2010): The Perils of Paradigm Mentalities: Revisiting Kuhn, Lakatos, and Popper. Perspectives on Politics, 8(2), pp. 433–451.

Part I

The theory of The Social Construction of Reality and its reception

1 Why are Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann Austrians? Manfred Prisching

Preliminary remarks I concede that this is a strange title. Berger and Luckmann are obviously Austrians, if one considers the location of their birth,1 or they may be at least considered quasi-Austrians. Beyond the triviality of the birth certificates, Peter Berger puts Michaela Pfadenhauer in mind of a typical Austrian “coffee shop intellectual” (Kaffeehausintellektueller) who has a certain affinity to luxurious urbanism: Whereas Thomas Luckmann represents, in her words, the Austrian contrary type, with his affinity to nature and enthusiasm for fishing, Berger represents the “Austrian-Slovenian Alpine eremite” (Pfadenhauer 2010: 16). In another context, Luckmann has speculated about Berger’s and his own common Kakanian roots, and in his autobiography, Berger remembers various speculations, together with Luckmann, about what the content of their advisory opinion would have been had they been asked which political measures they deemed necessary in order to maintain the Habsburg Empire in 1910. Therefore, both seem to show at least mental traces of Austro-Kakanian origin and affinities to historic Austria. But, as one might suppose, this is not the mainstay of my considerations. Let us turn to the intellectual background. Sharing the basic assumption that social constructivism is, in fact, a paradigm, I will try to explore the origins of both Berger’s and Luckmann’s theories in the intellectual climate of interwar Vienna (via the intermediation of Alfred Schütz). I will not constrain the intellectual history to the well-known Weber-Husserl-­BergsonSchütz-Berger-Luckmann story. Rather, I will try to give a short survey of a more extended intellectual map: a landscape of theoretical discussions, distant or close paradigms, common questions and divergent answers.2 My central point will be the Austrian part of the story. The work developed by Alfred Schütz (1899–1959) is an answer to the dominant questions discussed intensively in Vienna in the interwar period, the last phase of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Schütz (in Husserl’s words, a banking executive by day and a phenomenologist by night) was present during all of these exceptional discussions, circles and meetings. Berger and Luckmann further developed Schützian work: They elaborated his ideas, added considerations

22  Manfred Prisching originating from American pragmatism, and they provided a more sophisticated version of the process of institutionalization. Above all, they made Schütz understandable. The first important step was the continuation and propagation of Schütz’s ideas by Berger and Luckmann, made very much more readable by Berger’s relaxed formulations. This was the book The Social Construction of Reality, published in 1966 (English) and 1969 (German). Its subtitle refers to the “sociology of knowledge,” but not in the special sense of a sociological analysis of science, scientific research or scientific thinking; it means “knowledge” as the central feature of human existence. Therefore, the analysis of knowledge is understood as the foundation of general sociology. The second step was the Schütz-Luckmann book Strukturen der Lebenswelt, drafted by ­Luckmann after Schütz’s death in 1959 using a wealth of materials, texts and notes that Schütz left behind when he died. Without these books (and their impact), one might assume that Schütz would have become one of the respectable figures in the history of ideas, a case for specialists, but not the inspirational source that he is seen as today.

Propositions about interwar Vienna This paper will focus on the original impetuses that have led to the development of the interpretive paradigm. I want to mention some of the clusters of theoretical thinking that have shaped Viennese intellectual life in interwar Vienna. I will try to emphasize the common questions, as well as diverse answers, produced by the participants in very short sketches, so that it is necessarily more “name dropping” than comprehensive content analysis. Approaching modernity The turn of the 19th century to the 20th saw the shift from “First” to “­Second Modernity.”3 It was a decisive change in many areas of life: demographic change, the rise of scientific and technical achievements for economic progress and personal improvement, industrialization and secularization, urbanization and democratization, and new political movements, among others (Osterhammel 2011). These developments generated a new attitude toward life, even a new relationship to the world. “Human beings” were defined in a new way, not without conflicts; Darwinism had shattered human singularity; secularization demolished the “cosmion” of values; gender issues began to be debated; class conflicts were situated between revolution and reform. Everything was in turmoil. New music, new painting, new ­architecture – artists drafted their programs for “true art.” These changes brought about intense feelings of insecurity: decreasing commitments and values, problems about individuality and community, and desires for belonging as well as for autonomy. The universalism of modern life collided with the urge to stay connected with one’s roots.

Why are Berger and Luckmann Austrians?  23 Cosmopolitanism came into conflict with more intense feelings of nationalism; the idea of equality was restricted to national equals. But above all, insecurity was often offset by joining radical movements such as S ­ ocialistMarxist parties or racist (anti-Semitic) movements. At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe was still the paragon of the world. Modernization meant Europeanization, and everybody aspired to European wealth. But, at the same time, the dark side of modernity was debated, and World War I created a break in self-confidence. After the war, four emperors were gone and empires demolished, the political liberalism of the old order was weakened, and new radical movements promised to reestablish old certainties and strong leadership. It was a condition of “anomie” (in a Durkheimian sense), increasingly the anomic description would meet not only the thinking and the sentiments of the people but also the working of political and economic processes. In spite of their achievements, scholars were irritated about the basis of their knowledge. Old convictions were erased; new perceptions reframed the world; ideological aims were mixed with factual statements. How could reliable ground be found? There were philosophers who tried to find reliable truth in eternal, spiritual spheres, but this theory seemed to belong to the “old” world. In 1911, Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) wrote about f­ ounding philosophy as a “strict science” (Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft) (­Husserl 1911). In doing so, he placed himself in the tradition of Descartes, Kant and German idealism; he criticized naturalism as well as historicism. According to his arguments, philosophy must not be reduced to psychological impressions, nor must it be dissolved into incomparable (historical) cases or into simple moral/ideological Weltanschauungen. The basis must be empirical, the immediate perception with the senses: “going to the things.” The desire to struggle against impenetrability and irrationality connects Husserl with the Viennese logical empiricists, but empiricism could be understood in different versions. Radical positivists, whose methodological message is a good fit with the characteristics of the natural sciences, seemed to fail the peculiarities of the humanities (Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften), and there were numerous theorists who tried to find a plausible middle way between these extremes. The assumption that certain features of (meta-)theories, as they have been developed in the final phase of the Empire and in the time between the wars in Austria, were influenced by the immediate experience of the multiethnic, multilingual and multireligious environment may be justified. This may be the case with the philosophy of language (from Fritz Mauthner to Ludwig Wittgenstein), with psychology and psychoanalysis (from Sigmund Freud to Alfred Adler) or with the sociology of knowledge (from Wilhelm J­ erusalem to Karl Mannheim) (Acham 2014). Edmund Husserl was a philosopher who, being confronted with a turbulent, nonconsensual world, wanted to go “back to the things,” in immediate perception, in a process of stripping all prejudgments and all foreknowledge. Alfred Schütz tried to apply his

24  Manfred Prisching philosophical-anthropological (phenomenological) ideas to social science approaches, thereby creating a kind of (at least) proto-sociological theory. At the same time, Schütz offered a counter-model to other Viennese proposals of how reliable knowledge could be acquired. One of the best-known articles published by Schütz deals with “multiple realities.” Multiple realities were – in several dimensions – the everyday experience of people living in Vienna at that time. Peter L. Berger points to the connection of epistemological views and everyday experiences when he writes an article about “multiple realities” and therein deals with the relation of Alfred Schütz and Robert Musil (Berger 1970). The Viennese Circles The background of the philosophical and sociological problems that Schütz tried to solve is the discussion at the end of the 19th century and at the turn of the 20th: nomothetic and idiographic knowledge, theory and history (historicism), Verstehen und Erklären, empirism and idealism, Historical School (Schmoller) versus Marginal Utility School (Menger) and then the efforts by Werner Sombart (1863–1941) and Max Weber (1864–1920) to create a synthesis of history and theory.4 The central question was as follows: How can one produce reliable (scientific) knowledge? In the world of ideas, in a “pure sphere” separated from the impurities of real life? Or in the world of positivistic empirical observation and measurement – “logical empiricism,” in the sense of the Viennese Circle? The more sophisticated answers can be summarized as “in between.” But how might one configure that “intermediate” approach?5 The map in Figure 1.1 gives an impression of the Viennese context. The lively philosophical discussion in Vienna started with physicists ­Ernst Mach (1838–1916) and Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906). (Mach, as a renowned physicist, was appointed to the philosophical chair in Vienna).6 First of all, mathematicians and philosophers dominated the ­methodological discussion.7 Economists and jurists also participated in the discourse, while social scientists were the “rare species” in the endeavor. Subsequently, with people like Moritz Schlick (1882–1936), Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970), Otto Neurath (1882–1945), Friedrich Waismann (1896–1959), Herbert Feigl (1902–1988) and other scholars, Vienna became a bulwark of empirical positivism and a stronghold in the fight against metaphysics and other “­quasi-scientific nonsense” (and the dominant view of most participants in the discussion was that there was a lot of nonsense on the way in the scientific world). They were convinced that the “deepest” philosophical ­problems were not problems at all. After 1929, the circle started a “public phase” documented by the manifesto Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung (Scientific World View) (documented in Damböck 2013). At the same time, after the generation of Friedrich von Wieser (1851–1926) and Böhm-Bawerk (1851–1914), the next generation of Austrian economists started scientific work, with the dominant figure being

Why are Berger and Luckmann Austrians?  25

Figure 1.1  A  spects of the philosophical context of Vienna.

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) (who taught Alfred Schütz, as well as being a paternal friend and an intensive partner in discussions). There were several Viennese Circles, and they did not represent a closed school or common program. Rather, it was a couple of overlapping communities fostering ongoing discussions, with divergent solutions to their problems.8 While they had no common program, they did have common problems, the most central being the universal question: How is knowledge (general knowledge, everyday knowledge) possible? And how can reliable (true) knowledge be produced? There were some sub-questions: (1) How is the acquisition of fundamental knowledge about the world possible? How can we perceive something? How can we understand other individuals (intersubjectivity)? How can we – Ego and Alter – develop a “common

26  Manfred Prisching understanding”? (2) What is the relation of everyday knowledge and scientific knowledge? Can secure knowledge be acquired, and what is truth? How can science be “cleaned” from the supremacy of pseudo-problems? In Schütz’s terminology, since the subjective meaning an action has for a person is unique and individual, how can it be grasped scientifically, and how can it be embedded into a body of objective knowledge? (3) What is the relationship to other spheres of knowledge? Are art, religion, dreams, and ideologies a special kind of “knowledge” or something else? For the ­Viennese hardliners, these spheres had no place in the sciences (or in reasonable thinking at all). These are, then and now, also central questions for social constructivism, and at that time, a couple of answers were developed. The shadow of Wittgenstein There is a certain trajectory in the discussion about knowledge. In the 1920s, the most widespread Viennese idea was that one had to develop a procedure for designating pure, scientific knowledge. One especially had to construct a “scientific language,” a language in which no other sentences can be formulated than sensible sentences. The idea was significantly triggered by ­Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1889–1951) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which was influenced by Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) and published in 1921, known as Wittgenstein I (Wittgenstein 2001 [1921]).9 The participants of the circle read and discussed it line by line. In the early 1930s, when Alfred Schütz was finishing his book, the idea shifted to the opposite direction and can be summarized as follows: We will never have certain knowledge, we need to deal with the “lifeworld,” with “ordinary language,” and our knowledge will ever stay fragile. The turn was accompanied by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, which was not published before 1953 (Wittgenstein II), but Wittgenstein’s analyses of common language, of everyday lifeworld, of language games and so on paved the way (Wittgenstein 1971 [1953]).10 Ordinary language philosophy continued with the complete dissolution of the idea of a unity of knowledge – there are different language games, and they can only be evaluated within their own scope of application or range of validity. “Real,” meaning “radical,” social constructivists sympathize with this view, which has paved the way toward postmodern and radical relativism. Radical constructivism, the wild and bolshie brother of “modest social constructivism” represented by Berger and Luckmann also started with some Austrian scholars in interwar Vienna. Ernst von Glasersfeld (1917–2010), a sort of Lebenskünstler, was impressed by studying ­Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, but in the opposite way: It was a completely deterring message for him. Heinz von Foerster (born in Vienna, 1911–2002), biophysicist and later founder of cybernetics, had a so-called uncle (Nennonkel) in the family: Ludwig Wittgenstein! When Foerster was a student, his uncle put him in contact with Schlick and Carnap. Throughout his life, he maintained contacts with John von Neumann

Why are Berger and Luckmann Austrians?  27 (born in Budapest, 1903–1957), Norbert Wiener (1894–1964), Gregory B ­ ateson (1904–1980), Ivan Illich (born in V ­ ienna, 1926–2002) and with some scholars who achieved increasing relevance in sociology: H ­ umberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Paul Watzlawick (born in Villach, ­Carinthia, 1921–2007), one of the famous exponents of modern (communicative) constructivism, connected the radical construction of reality to psychotherapy and communication theory. He is famous for the words: “One cannot not communicate” (Watzlawick et al. 1969: 53).11 On several occasions, Luckmann has expressed his displeasure at being connected or confounded with “real” constructivism (e.g., in an interview in Pawlowski and Schmitz in 2003). Actually, social constructivism is an ambivalent term for the paradigm because Berger-Luckmann social constructivists acknowledge that there is a kind of “real” reality outside, independent of the human mind, and the problem is its biased perception by different people. In contrast, “radical constructivists” tend to deny any independent reality. The shadow of Wittgenstein designates fundamental views of how everyday men, as well as scientists, have to manage their knowledge but does not offer solutions for practical “doing science” (the implications of the philosophical model for sociological research). My next sections deal with diverse (and sometimes contrasting) solutions to the dominant knowledge problem.

The knowledge problem In post–World War I Vienna, we find several groups reflecting about how to gain reliable general knowledge and how to proceed with valid scientific research. They came up with radically different proposals, empirical and theoretical solutions, concrete and abstract models, and logical and pragmatic perspectives. But they had a common focus of interest and a common starting point for their deliberations: knowledge (Helling 2014: 34). The Carnap solution: logical positivism Rudolf Carnap is a largely ignored figure in the development of interpretive sociology. He had attended seminars conducted by Edmund Husserl (born in Moravia, in the Austrian Empire, 1859–1938); one of his teachers was Franz Brentano (1838–1917, professor in Vienna). In his first book, published in 1928, Carnap defined a formal version of phenomenological knowledge. The idea was that we have to start with basic psychological experiences about ourselves (Elementarerlebnisse), and then a “process of constitution” begins when we try to understand the outside physical world (he calls it Konstitutionsverfahren) and the subjective mental conditions of other individuals or social circumstances. Therefore, the starting point is very similar to Alfred Schütz’s problem. Schütz revered Max Weber’s writings but found Weber’s presupposition of concepts of “acting” and “understanding” unsatisfactory.

28  Manfred Prisching How can we start with, but also transcend, the individual stream of consciousness? How can we grasp the thinking of others? And what is the stepby-step process in which the “constitution” of personal, common and social or collective knowledge is implemented? Or, as an abbreviation: How is the “lifeworld” – and beyond the lifeworld, “society” at large – ­constituted? ­Rudolf Carnap pursued a different strategy, as he writes in his intellectual biography. In the beginning, he regarded a phenomenalistic language as the best for a philosophical analysis of knowledge. I believed that the task of philosophy consists in reducing all knowledge to a basis of certainty. Since the most certain knowledge is that of the immediately given, whereas knowledge of material things is derivative and less certain, it seemed that the philosopher must employ a language which uses sense-data as a basis. In the Vienna discussions my attitude changed gradually toward a preference for the physicalist language. (Carnap 1963: 50) Where social constructivists applied “softer” strategies, Otto Neurath, Hans Hahn and Rudolf Carnap summarized their creed in the Programmschrift of the Vienna Circle in 1929. The scientific world conception is empiricist and positivistic: knowledge only from experience. The method is logical analysis. There are statements that can be reduced to empirical statements as well as other statements (like metaphysical or theological statements) that are devoid of meaning. There is no way to gain new “contents” by mere thinking. Analytical philosophy demanded the construction of an ideal language separated from traditional, ambiguous and diffuse language (“ordinary language”), a precise language free from ambiguity and clear in its structure, like symbolic logic.12 It was a conception that would not bear much fruit as time went on. If we look at the context, the common strands of thinking about problems are astonishing. Rudolf Carnap’s 1928 book bore the title Der logische ­Aufbau der Welt (The Logical Construction of the World). One year later, a less well-known book appeared, written by the Russian-German sociologist David Koigen: Der Aufbau der sozialen Welt im Zeitalter der Wissenschaft (The Construction of the Social World in the Age of Science). Three years later, in 1932, Alfred Schütz published his famous book Der sinnhafte ­Aufbau der sozialen Welt (The Meaningful Construction of the Social World, later ­published in English under the title The Phenomenology of the Social World). We can add the Berger-Luckmann book, with the title Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit (The Social Construction of Reality, 1966). It is rare that we find such a lucid demonstration of obvious connections in the titles alone. The “cluster” of these studies seems to show that there was something in the air: a common problem (Koigen 1929; Schütz 1981 [1932]; Carnap 1998 [1928]; Berger & Luckmann 2007 [1966]).

Why are Berger and Luckmann Austrians?  29 The Popper solution: falsificationism and conventionalism Karl Popper, who was at the periphery of the Viennese Circle, made a drastic cut to ideas that tried to find methodologically “clean” ways of advancing to “pure truth.” According to him, there is no reliable way to generate secure knowledge, and there never will be. Deduction is not fruitful for generating new knowledge, and all considerations about induction (how can single experiences and observations lead to “true” general hypotheses?) must be unreasonable – because induction as a logical procedure is, and remains, impossible. There is no solid way to verify general sentences. Even after having observed a thousand cases, the next observation may produce a different result; we can never be sure. Popper’s dramatic turn was that it does not matter how we advance toward a general sentence, toward a hypothesis; we might even “dream” ideas or propositions or invoke revelations. Scientific work will start afterward with attempts to falsify general sentences and find credible counterexamples (Popper 2002 [1934]). At least in the scientific sphere, there are no “constitution problems,” in Carnap’s sense, at all. Popper’s procedure stands opposite to the efforts of social constructivists to analyze the process of the “construction” of knowledge: step-by-step ­k nowledge-building experiences, collecting, typifying and systematizing knowledge and solidifying assertions. However, social constructivists would agree with Popper’s claim that one will never have “pure” or “reliable knowledge,” only preliminary, provisional knowledge. Popper connected the fight against these illusions with his plea for a liberal-democratic system, for an “open society.” Dogmatism (and the illusion of “true knowledge”) leads to totalitarianism (Popper 1970 [1945]). As we know today, Popper’s falsificationism does not solve the problems of knowledge. Falsifying sentences are also preliminary statements in that they are as unreliable as verifying statements. They are theory laden – a­ ctually, they are also almost conventional (similar to a plausible process of induction). After following all of Popper’s work, where do we arrive at the end? We find ourselves with Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994), another Austrian philosopher ­ eyerabend, and an exponent of “philosophical anarchism.” According to F “anything goes” (Feyerabend 2013 [1986]), there is no “scientific” methodology at all – a destructive message for philosophers of science.13 The Mises solution: apriorism as the starting point Economists had a strong foothold in interwar Vienna (economic and other spheres of knowledge are illustrated in Figure 1.2). Ludwig von Mises was dominant and one of Schütz’s formative figures. In his 1932 book, Schütz devotes a chapter to the (critical) discussion of Mises’ theory. Some years younger than Mises, Friedrich von Hayek (1899–1992) would become the next dominant figure in the Austrian economics movement, even being awarded the economics Nobel Prize in 1974.

30  Manfred Prisching

Figure 1.2  Aspects of economic and other “spheres of knowledge” in Vienna.

Mises’ solution to the problem of how to “constitute” theoretical knowledge was again quite different. Reliable knowledge, he said, will never be found empirically, neither in the Carnap nor in the Popper model. Secure knowledge can only be aprioristic: knowledge that is useful in the physical world, but that can be derived from general (obvious) principles (of human thinking and acting). The core of the Mises model is rational action theory, and theory is merely used as an explication of what instrumental rationality means.14 But it is not the primitive homo economicus model, with perfect information, well-known preferences, without the passage of time and so on. In his most famous book, Human Action, published under the title Nationalökonomie in 1940, Mises summarized his view of individual

Why are Berger and Luckmann Austrians?  31 acting in a way that is compatible with interpretive theory: “The task of the sciences of human action is the comprehension of the meaning and relevance of human action” (Mises 1949: 51). Mises called his theoretical approach praxeology just to avoid confusion with exchange theory or market theory.15 Mises’ apriorism is compatible with interpretive, evolutionary and pragmatist arguments. How these strands come together is obvious in the following citation: The concepts of natural selection and evolution make it possible to develop a hypothesis about the emergence of the logical structure of the human mind and the a priori. Animals are driven by impulses and instincts. Natural selection eliminated those specimens and species which developed instincts that were a liability in the struggle for survival. Only those endowed with impulses serviceable to their preservation survived and could propagate their species. We are not prevented from assuming that, in the long way that led from the nonhuman ancestors of man to the emergence of the species Homo sapiens, some groups of advanced anthropoids experimented, as it were, with categorial concepts different from those of Homo sapiens and tried to use them for the guidance of their conduct. But as such pseudo categories were not adjusted to the conditions of reality, behavior directed by a quasi-reasoning based upon them was bound to fail and to spell disaster to those committed to it. Only those groups could survive whose members acted in accordance with the right categories, i.e., with those that were in conformity with reality and therefore – to use the concept of pragmatism – worked. (Mises 1962: 14f) In the Handbook on Contemporary Austrian Economics, which offers a current survey of the Austrian branch of economic thinking, Chapter 3 is devoted to the beliefs and thoughts of individuals, with the author referring primarily to Alfred Schütz. He “has attempted to clarify exactly what we mean when we describe praxeology, the science of human action, as a science of meaning” (Boettke 2010: 32). Interpreting the decisions of people is more than observation and more than introspection; one has to consider the experiences of the individual and the social stock of knowledge (Boettke 2010: 34). Social constructivists would agree. The Hayek solution: the evolution of orders Friedrich von Hayek, building on the work of Ludwig von Mises, encountered the challenges of knowledge when he took part in the discussion about collectivist economic planning. Socialists, confronted with the reproach that a planned economic system could not work efficiently, pointed to the similarities between planning theory and general equilibrium theory.  There

32  Manfred Prisching would be no difference between the systems if socialist managers rationally responded to signals of supply and demand. Hayek challenged the argument in a series of studies in which he developed the importance of peculiar features of knowledge. In this view, knowledge is not simply information that can be conveyed and transmitted. Social knowledge is local, personal, implicit knowledge; it is complicated, changing, and fluctuating (Hayek 1973). It is impossible to collect millions of pieces of information that cannot be standardized. It is only the model of spontaneous selforganization (such as the market) that can handle this kind of information, not a central organization responsible for planning the whole ­e conomy (Hayek 1976 [1945]). It is an interesting argument; more complexity does not need more planning but instead demands less planning. The controversy is the initial point for Hayek’s later elaboration on the function of knowledge and the development of appropriate institutions in society, especially his distinction between “grown order” and “made order” (Hayek 1960, 1982). In his 1952 book about the Counterrevolution of Science (Hayek 1979 [1952]), he criticizes the persistent effort of modern science to get down to “objective facts,” to cease studying what men think and to consider concepts and descriptions as being true images of the real world. According to him, human knowledge is limited, diffuse and inconsistent, and thus one should not expect too much from human capacities. Hayek has argued that the tendency to privilege quantitative over qualitative approaches in the social sciences “… is probably responsible for the worst aberrations and absurdities produced by scientism in the social sciences” (1979 [1952]: 89). The appropriate approach (in most cases), according to the Handbook on Contemporary Austrian Economics, will be (and some will find it astonishing that this proposal is voiced from economics) ethnography, thick descriptions and the reconstruction of meaning by considering the context, motivations, emotions and expressions of the actors observed. This is not the recipe of familiar mainstream economics. The Schütz solution: Husserl transformed The Husserl-Schütz solution and its aftermath is well known, so I can be brief: It starts with the Aristotelian attempt to base (empirical and theoretical) knowledge on everyday experiences – to make distinctions in diversity, typify objects, sort exemplary perceptions and constitute a body of knowledge. In Schütz’s proto-sociological framework, the starting points are particular perceptions, experiences about oneself, about one’s body and one’s feelings. The accumulation and structuring of this kind of knowledge is related to reality by experiences: practical usefulness and the success of actions. Then Fremdverstehen, the relation to other people, comes into play. We assume “similarity,” we insinuate “likeness” – at least enough for practical reasons. Step by step, a body of knowledge is established that allows

Why are Berger and Luckmann Austrians?  33 to understand the world and to act in it. Additional experiences are hooked to the existing framework, but the previous knowledge contaminates the perspective toward new knowledge and its interpretation. However, knowledge remains insecure. We will never achieve secure ground with final security; knowledge is dynamic, floating, changing, and liquid. Parts of knowledge cannot be formulated; they are tacit, implicit and below the level of consciousness. Knowledge is acquired and developed in perceptions, but it is inseparable from decisions, actions, interactions, routines and practices. There is no strict separation of everyday and scientific knowledge; at best there is a gradual difference. Practical experiences are the only ways to assess the reliability of knowledge. Schütz had to emigrate, like practically all his discussion partners. For Vienna, it was a bloodletting that would prove to be effective toward the end of the 20th century (Kniefacz et al. 2015). Teaching in New York, Schütz worked systematically through American sociology, with the tradition of American pragmatism becoming most important for him. The most relevant thinker for Schütz was George Herbert Mead (1863–1931). The idea of the “Social Self”; the distinction between “I” and “Me”; the “Present Self” and the “Remembered Self”; the “Generalized Other” – these were essential concepts for Schütz, who had to strengthen his own concept of the socialization process (Wagner 1983: Chapter 5). A tentative exchange of ideas with Talcott Parsons (1902–1979) seemed promising at first but was not ultimately successful (Wagner 1983: 75ff.). Schütz added some ideas to his work without really changing his paradigm. Some aspects of the American context are illustrated in Figure 1.3. After 1947, he started collecting material for a new book, but it took some time, and Schütz died in 1959. Having visited Schütz’s lectures and having become familiar with his intellectual “cosmos,” two young scholars entered the scene. They had the idea of writing a book. It was to comprise a concise presentation of Schütz’s theory, enriched by some elements of philosophical anthropology (in the tradition of Max Scheler and Helmuth Plessner), by George Herbert Mead’s ideas about socialization and interaction and by an analysis of institutionalization and legitimation. The Social Construction of Reality became an unbelievable bestseller; the American Sociological Association considers it one of the ten most important books in sociology. Also available was the material that had been prepared by Alfred Schütz before his death, a legacy that waited for elaboration. Schütz’s widow asked one of the two gifted students who were familiar with the thinking of her late husband – Thomas Luckmann – to complete the work, arrange existing texts, explain cues and complete missing parts. The book, Strukturen der Lebenswelt, was published in 1975 as a jointly authored book by Alfred Schütz and Thomas Luckmann (in English The Structures of the Life-World, 1973) (Schütz & Luckmann 2003 [1975–1979]). It is also considered one of the classics in sociology.

34  Manfred Prisching

Figure 1.3  Aspects of the American context.

Conclusions Spheres of knowledge The Viennese Circles have other offspring with different ways of handling the knowledge problem. One example is Oskar Morgenstern (1902–1977),16 who, together with John von Neumann (1903–1957), developed game theory.17 The model of rational decision-making is applied to problems of social conflicts, so that strategies and counterstrategies have to be taken

Why are Berger and Luckmann Austrians?  35 into consideration. Later scholars were Harsanyi, Nash and Selten. Early systems theory started in Vienna: Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) developed a general systems theory in order to find and formalize common regularities in physical, biological and social systems (Bertalanffy 1990 [1949], 2003 [1949]). Eugen Ehrlich (1862–1922) had analyzed legal reality and thereby founded the sociology of law (Ehrlich 1913), and he even demanded that chairs for “living law” were established in all Faculties of Law; Hans Kelsen (1881–1973), sometimes called the “jurist of the century,” was an important figure for Alfred Schütz. Kelsen developed his positivistic theory of law (Kelsen 1934) and tried to defend liberal democracy against the increasingly threatening Zeitgeist. While these theoretical strands are not situated in the immediate area of interpretive sociology, other scientific attempts come nearer to the approach. Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis, but he also published diagnoses of his time that showed features of his surroundings (Freud 1917 [1904], 1993, 1994). Norbert Elias, who worked for some years as the assistant of Karl Mannheim, elaborated the societal implications of Freud’s model, offering a design for the connection of psychogenesis and sociogenesis, and outlined his vision of the grand process of civilization (Elias 1978/79). The famous study about unemployed laborers in Marienthal compiled by Paul Lazarsfeld, Marie Jahoda and Hans Zeisel (Jahoda et al. 1990 [1975]) stands in close proximity to later developments in interpretive sociology. It is an “ethnographic” study,18 thereby using an approach that would become popular with Harold Garfinkel (a student of Schütz) (1917–2011), but is much closer to the Schütz tradition with the movement to the “ethnography of everyday life” (Honer 1999). There are many others, but they pursued different research programs. Scientific knowledge was the predominant problem of the Viennese scientists; most of them were atheists and unconcerned with religion. But if one wants to get close to the “phenomena,” one comes upon different provinces of meaning. In his paper about “multiple realities,” Schütz acknowledges that everything starts in the everyday world, in paramount reality, in the natural attitude, but that there are other “worlds”: All these worlds – the world of dreams, of imageries and phantasms, especially the world of art, the world of religious experience, the world of scientific contemplation, the play world of the child, and the world of the insane – are finite provinces of meaning. This means that (a) all of them have a peculiar cognitive style (although not that of the world of working with the natural attitude); (b) all experiences within each of these worlds are, with respect to this cognitive style, consistent in themselves and compatible with one another (although not compatible with the meaning of everyday life); (c) each of these finite provinces of meaning may receive a specific accent of reality (although not the reality accent of the world of working). (Schütz 1945: 553)

36  Manfred Prisching Religion is one of the special provinces, and in Vienna it was a very confrontational topic. But if we try to emphasize scientific knowledge (based on everyday knowledge), one tends to look in the other direction: What is “religious knowledge” all about? is it the “opposite” of scientific knowledge? Therefore, it is not extraordinary that both Berger and Luckmann have written a lot about religion. Luckmann takes “religion” as a general human phenomenon of knowledge, broadening the scope of what religious experiences could mean (Luckmann 1963, 1991), while Berger stays closer to the traditional understanding of denominations, but broadens the societal view to comprehensive trends of secularization and desecularization of the Western world (Berger 1967, 1999, 2006, 2015). Berger’s diagnosis of modern society acknowledges the pluralistic and individualistic situation –no religious tradition can exist without being questioned; therefore there is a “heretic imperative.” Being a member of a religious community simply means that one has decided to join; it is no longer a matter of course. Considering the relevance of the economic sphere in the Viennese discussions, one need not be surprised that Berger has written (in an affirmative way) about the features of capitalism: The Capitalist Revolution, in 1986 (Berger 1992). But Berger has also contributed to a critical analysis of tendencies in the modern world, of the rising uneasiness of people in a technical and bureaucratic structure; the first comprehensive picture of late modern society is his Homeless Mind, 1973 (Berger et al. 1975). (By the way, Freud wrote a book, Unbehagen in der Kultur [Civilization and Its Discontents], and Berger et al. joined him with the book Das Unbehagen in der Modernität [The Homeless Mind. Modernization and Consciousness].) Berger is also concerned about consequences of pluralism, namely the erosion of community (Berger 1997). Together with Luckmann, he has written about Modernität, Pluralismus und Sinnkrise (Modernity, Pluralism and the Crisis of Meaning) (Berger & Luckmann 1995). The problem of knowledge is central to diagnoses of our time (Osrecki 2011; Bogner 2012), and even more in the case of “late modern societies” that are disembedded, uncertain and pluralistic (Soeffner & Boldt 2014) and that have a huge repertory of narratives about man and world at their disposition, none of which seems to fit and calm the soul. However, it does not seem unjustified to maintain that the essential problem of knowledge discussed in Vienna, and the idea of (possibly untranslatable) “provinces of knowledge” and “multiple realities,” evokes the analysis of religion and pluralism; that the predominant position of economic theory in Austria may have had its long-distance effects when dealing with problems of capitalism; and that some further topics, connected with the specific situation of an Empire transforming itself into a modern country with considerable woes, may have increased the sensitivity for the disturbances of the modern world.

Why are Berger and Luckmann Austrians?  37 Present theoretical developments I cannot go into further details of my theoretical landscape. Three final remarks may be added, however. First, there is certainly a paradigm of social constructivism, in a loose way. It grew out of the scientific discussions in interbellum Vienna, and Alfred Schütz is the central figure within it. His emigration to the United States resulted in the addition of sociological insights from the American tradition with decisive long-term effects, especially after Berger and Luckmann were brought into play. Second, there are some theoretical clusters in the neighborhood, working with the same or with similar basic assumptions, at least with the same vision, and some of them have also roots in interwar Vienna. As a neglected example, there are several fields of Austrian economics working with similar basic assumptions. The Hayekian knowledge problem, a sort of “sociology of ignorance,” should be of special interest. Interpretive rational theory has not been fathomed so far. Third, the Schütz-Berger-Luckmann model (with some additives) was not only successful globally – it also came back to Europe with Thomas ­Luckmann’s return to the University of Konstanz. At present, there seem to be increasing niches, streams or clusters that are elaborating one or other aspect of the paradigm, especially in the German-speaking world. Nevertheless, it is a huge theoretical territory that includes phenomenological sociology or hermeneutical sociology of knowledge (Hitzler et al. 1999), ethnography of everyday life (Hitzler 2015; Honer 2000), neopragmatism (Renn 2006; Joas 1992, 2006), communicative hermeneutics (Reichertz 2010; Knoblauch 2016), sociology of symbolism (Soeffner 2010) and the sociology of practices (Schmidt 2012). There is an open border to other fields that are today called cultural sociology or cultural studies (including many “turns” in the field that are, in many cases, mere focus-setting moves) (Bachmann-Medick 2007 [2006]; Moebius 2012). Generally, the pivotal role of Berger and Luckmann in evolving the tradition and implementing a transatlantic synthesis is obvious. Much of it, however, began in interwar Vienna, and therefore, I repeat the bold assertion in my title: Yes, Luckmann and Berger are Austrians.

Notes 1 Thomas Luckmann was born in Jesenice (Assling) in 1927, a small valley in the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia but actually an area which was a genuine part of the Habsburg Empire. Luckmann supposed that the “old Austria” has shaped the basic mentality of generations beyond its existence. Luckmann died in 2016. Peter L. Berger was born in 1929 in Triest and educated in Vienna; shortly after World War II, the family emigrated to the United States, where Berger studied sociology and philosophy. 2 There is a Schütz-Berger-Luckmann tradition that has become the foundation for a lively theoretical and empirical movement, a still promising strand of theoretical thinking. The familiar tale is that Schützian thinking has started with

38  Manfred Prisching Max Weber’s theory of action, and that Schütz has based his proto-­sociological canvas on Husserl’s writings, with some sprinklings of Lebensphilosophie, represented by Bergson. In more intensive presentations, one is also reminded of the influence of Ludwig von Mises and the support of Felix Kaufmann, but this is generally the whole story. But interwar Vienna was an extraordinary academic surrounding, and Alfred Schütz was one of the most diligent participants in the intensive multidisciplinary discussions. Felix Kaufmann (1895–1949), for instance, was a close friend of Alfred Schütz, and they spent long and regular hours reading Husserl together. In his first book, Logik und Rechtswissenschaft (1922), Kaufmann tried to work on Hans Kelsen’s theory of law by substituting the neo-Kantian assumptions with a phenomenological approach (Kaufmann 1922). According to Schütz, Kaufmann was especially interested in the idea of a mathesis universalis (an idea of Leibniz to which Husserl [2012] sometimes comes back, but which was also fascinating for Thomas Luckmann [2007]). What emerges from the published texts of Schütz and Kaufmann is a lifelong ‘division of labor’ between the two scholars: Schütz, writing about methodology, frequently quotes Kaufmann; Kaufmann, in turn, relies on Schütz’s analyses of the structure of social action and the different perceptions of the social world. (Helling 2014: 19). 3 I use a similar chronology to the sequence proposed by Richard Münch. Starting from the 18th century, the process of industrialization is called “First Modernity”: the epoch of iron and steel, production and chimneys. After World War I (or, alternatively, after World War II) one may enter “Second Modernity.” This period brought about wealth, comprehensive social security and the w ­ elfare state. After 2000, one may describe present societies as “Third Modernity”: the digital age. 4 The discussion had been triggered significantly by the powerful rise of the natural sciences in the 19th century. Many scholars asked: How could the successful strategy be transferred to generating universal or historical social laws? 5 Uta Gerhardt has good arguments that Max Weber’s “ideal type” was not only the solution for a special problem of typification, but a real breakthrough to a new methodology, and she shows the connection with the further thinking of Alfred Schütz (Gerhardt 2001). 6 Actually, there was a precursor, a discussion circle, consisting of the philosopher and social reformer Otto Neurath (1882–1945), the mathematicians Hans Hahn (1879–1934) and Richard von Mises (1883–1953), and the physicist Philipp Frank (1884–1966). 7 Many of our protagonists have written about basic perspectives such as the logic of mathematics. There is an absolutist view of mathematical knowledge (including formalism, logicism, intuitionism and platonism), and in this view, mathematics is a body of absolute and certain knowledge. The second view is mathematics as a corrigible, fallible and changing social product. Criticism against absolutist mathematical knowledge says (1) that mathematics is based on an axiomatic framework that cannot be proven, because one runs into an infinite regress; and (2) the sentences cannot even be proven within the axiomatic framework, because of Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem. Therefore, the most prominent conception of mathematical knowledge nowadays seems to be social constructivism. Mathematics is based on linguistic rules of use and forms of life (Wittgenstein). Mathematical concepts, results and theories are socially negotiated (Lakatos). The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in describing and managing the real world depends on the following procedure: There is a real world, and theories about it must fit in in order to be successful. We make experiences in our personal environment, we typify

Why are Berger and Luckmann Austrians?  39 and generalize these experiences, we formulate them in language, we negotiate with others about experiences, typifications and meanings, we revise our conceptions and theories by applying them to reality and assessing the success, and we improve the “fit” of theories into the real world. Thus, also mathematics has to improve its “fit” by applying it to fields beyond mathematics. 8 Otto Neurath, the lateral thinker of the Viennese “cluster,” was a thinker outside the box: a member of the Schlick circle, enthusiastic for social reform. He was aware of permanent changes, fluctuations, dynamics of the world; therefore, he considered philosophical attempts to find something secure or absolute (a reliable basis for watching, thinking and talking) “nonsense,” and his objection and protest was provoked when the philosophers tried to construct possibilities of “absolute knowledge.” He was the most radical anti-metaphysician among the Viennese. According to him, there is the empirical world, and it is full of multifariousness in space and time; there is no God, there is no Heidegger’s “being,” and Kant’s “categorical imperative” is absurd; there is no “soul” and no “Volksgeist” (Nemeth 1981). 9 Peter Berger received the Wittgenstein Award from the Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft in 2000. 10 Ludwig Wittgenstein‘s turn from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to his Philosophical Investigations is one of the fascinating stories in the history of science. Wittgenstein I paved the way to logical positivism. In the Viennese Circles, the book was discussed thoroughly. Wittgenstein II was quite the opposite: He proposed to build on the practical use of language; the idea of Familienähnlichkeiten of groups of words, the model of “language games” and so on (Wittgenstein 1971 [1953], 2001 [1921]). 11 Again, there is a connection between the Berger-Luckmann tradition and the named scholar: Peter Berger received the Paul Watzlawick Ehrenring award in Vienna as the first recipient in 2008. 12 The Manifesto was the common ground whereas a strong group of members pursued further political (socialist and social reformist) goals. The purification of the language should be the first step toward the comprehensive improvement of state and society. In this sense, the members were children of their time. But the idea that reality is structured by the language is part of modern conceptions; furthermore, the strange idea that reality can be changed by changing language leads us even into the postmodern age. 13 It was a couple of reactions to the Popperian proposals that blazed the trail to further research, partly by recourse to earlier theories. Thomas Kuhn provided analyses of historical “paradigms” in the history of science, thereby demonstrating that science is not a linear development of improvement and progress, and theories are not superseded only by rational decisions (Fleck 1993 [1935]; Kuhn 1973). Karin Knorr-Cetina looked at “real” behavior in laboratories and found that even in the natural sciences, the interpretation of results is more the type of a bargaining process than pure rational decision-making (1984). Other scholars tried to construct new procedures combining induction and deduction: Glaser and Strauss developing grounded theory (1967), or Jo R ­ eichertz pursuing further a Charles Peirce model, namely abduction (Peirce 1991; ­Reichertz 2003). 14 In his book about Theory and History, Ludwig von Mises has a chapter about “thymology”: “Thymology is on the one hand an offshoot of introspection and on the other a precipitate of historical experience. It is what everybody learns from intercourse with his fellows. It is what a man knows about the way in which people

40  Manfred Prisching value different conditions, about their wishes and desires and their plans to realize these wishes and desires. It is the knowledge of the social environment in which man lives and acts or, with historians, of a foreign milieu about which he has learned by studying special sources.” (1957: 266) Alfred Schütz would agree 15 It is not always the self-understanding of interpretive sociologists that rational action theory is adjacent to their own paradigm; generally, however, they keep in sight the whimsical models of microeconomics textbooks. Actually, the Austrian theory is not far away if we read relevant remarks by Husserl or Schütz and if we refer to elaborated interpretive models, such as those provided by Hartmut Esser (1999) [1993] and Austrian economists. Understanding (Verstehen) is connected to the insinuation that a certain level of rationality determines the acting of the person. If I observe a man chopping wood, I understand what he does. But I understand it because I assume that the man is a rational person who needs the wood in smaller pieces. I could also assume that the man is in a condition of rage against the wood, or I could assume that he is executing religious rituals, or whatever. But if I have no other (irritating) indicators, I assume his rational behavior: using the axe for chopping wood. 16 Oskar Morgenstern grew up in Vienna; from 1928 to 1938, he was a professor of economics at the Vienna University. In 1938, he visited Princeton University when Hitler occupied Austria, and he decided to stay there. John von Neumann was born in Budapest and attended schools there. 17 After some precursors, John von Neumann published a 1928 paper that was the beginning of modern game theory (von Neumann 1928). The groundbreaking book was Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944 (von Neumann & Morgenstern 1947 [1944]). In the 1950s, the RAND cooperation developed models of nuclear strategy, and John Nash published the framework for a wider variety of games. In the 1960s, Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi delivered their contributions. 18 Marienthal is an example of ethnographic empiricism: everyday ethnography, the analysis of small life worlds. Later on, Paul Lazarsfeld was a cofounder of general empirical sociology in the United States, but this is conventional quantitative survey research. However, in Vienna, the study about unemployed people in a small village not far from Vienna that had been hit very hard in the world economic crisis was a kind of ethnographic lifeworld approach. The group of researchers lived in the village for some time; they observed people cooking, reading newspapers, interacting with children, participating in meetings, walking slowly across the main square and so on. The study does not deal with methodological or abstract questions. It has simply been done – but it may be characterized as part of the hermeneutical-phenomenological movement.

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44  Manfred Prisching Watzlawick, Paul et al. (1969): Menschliche Kommunikation. Formen, Störungen, Paradoxien. Bern: Hans Huber. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1971) [1953]: Philosophische Untersuchungen. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Wittgenstein, L. (Ed.) (2001) [1921]: Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung: Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.

2 The theoretical claims of The Social Construction of Reality1 Martin Endress

Introduction This contribution celebrates a book that over time has become a classic in sociology, The Social Construction of Reality. What should one first consider when reflecting on a classic? The first obligation of a celebrator is to seriously embrace the methodological position of the work he or she aims to celebrate. S/he thus should refrain from falling below the level of reflexivity on which Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann have themselves insisted. The celebrator of The Social Construction, therefore, has to be aware of the constitutive, processual character of reality and knowledge – even when referring to the book. In other words, it would be naive to ignore the fact that 50 years have passed since the publication of The Social Construction of Reality. The world of today is not the same as it was in the early 1960s, nor was the world of that era truly what people thought it was. Time has passed, and this is also true for a classic. We nowadays face different issues and challenges; we have to keep ourselves informed of empirical findings coming from diverse fields of knowledge, of our understanding of knowledge, of the social stratification of knowledge and so on. As far as disciplinary constellations are concerned, as sociologists we are confronted with the constant emergence of heterogeneous theoretical discussions, of new trends and concepts and of stylistic preferences. Sociology has greatly changed and evolved since the 1960s. To better understand this context in which The Social Construction was written, but also to do justice to its authors, one must be aware of the social and intellectual constellation essential to Berger and Luckmann. Only in so doing will we be able to shed light on the theoretical claim of The Social Construction of Reality. The Social Construction documents a process of self-reflection, to a certain extent. As a document that embodies self-understanding, it was written 20 years after its authors migrated to the United States, a country where phenomenology held a marginal position in the academic field from the 1940s to the 1960s. The same could be said about the position of verstehende Soziologie in general, and about the sociology of knowledge in particular (cf. Wolff 1967). Although the contributions of Pitirim Sorokin, Thelma Lavine,

46  Martin Endress Howard Becker, Robert King Merton, Werner Stark, Arthur Child or Kurt H. Wolff cannot be overlooked, not to mention a few case studies published by Alfred Schütz (cf. Endreß 2006), the sociology of knowledge remained at the time a marginal field of research. Moreover, by the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s, no one was really talking about the systematic intuitions of Schütz’s foundation of sociology (even Garfinkel and Goffman, deeply influenced by Schütz’s thoughts, never mentioned them). Therefore, preceding the English translation of Schütz’s first book, Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt (Schütz 1932) in 1967 (Schütz 1967), and accompanying the publication of the first three volumes of his Collected Papers (1962–1966), Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality in 1966 first demonstrated how to systematically do justice to Schütz’s idea of how to do sociology. After all these years, the theoretical claims of The Social Construction, in line with Schütz’s leading theoretical insights, are long overdue for an integrative project for sociological theory. Berger and Luckmann’s study begins with a critical examination of their forerunners. From the type of sociology of knowledge Berger and ­Luckmann intend to present in The Social Construction, they “exclude […] the epistemological and methodological problems that bothered both its major originators” (pp. 14, 200 n.56)2, that is, Max Scheler and Karl Mannheim. They also refrain from giving “a historical survey of the development of this discipline” (ibid.),3 and they do not want to address the “problems an empirical sociology of knowledge” faces (p. 200 n.55). Focusing on both analytical interests, the empirical and the methodological, the sociology of knowledge of Berger and Luckmann remains, as they say, “part of the empirical discipline of sociology,” even though they also claim that their “purpose […] is, of course, a theoretical one” (p. 14), and that their “enterprise is one of sociological theory” (ibid.). The outcome is then twofold: As for the empirical interest in question, “the sociology of knowledge must concern itself with everything that passes for ‘knowledge’ in society” (pp. 14f., cf. p. 3); as far as theoretical claims are concerned, it is the authors’ conviction that “the full theoretical significance of the sociology of knowledge has been obscured” by their predecessors (p. 13). The authors clarify this last somewhat vague remark in the opening passages of the books’ introduction in order to demonstrate the general vision and approach of the sociology of knowledge. It reads as follows: a ‘sociology of knowledge’ will have to deal not only with the empirical variety of ‘knowledge’ in human societies [i.e., historicity], but also with the social processes [i.e., sociality] by which any body of ‘knowledge’ comes to be socially established as ‘reality’ [i.e., reflexivity]. (p. 3) This opening statement – which will be of relevance for the second point of my argumentation – focuses on three aspects of constitutive importance for

Theoretical claims  47 the sociological perspective introduced by Berger and Luckmann. These aspects are, first, the historicity of societal constellations; second, the genuine sociality of human’s life worlds; and third, the reflexivity of the sociological project that concentrates on the processes of establishing “reality” by legitimizing or delegitimizing what people view as real. I hold this passage to be one of the most important sentences of The Social Construction, for it pinpoints the core analytical aspects of its general sociological perspective. Narrowing down its extensive argument, The Social Construction aims to overcome two shortcomings of the tradition of the sociology of knowledge: On the one hand, its restriction to “epistemological questions on the theoretical level,” and on the other hand, its primary focus “on questions of intellectual history on the empirical level” (p. 13). We can say that The Social Construction’s primary objective is to increase the analytical configuration of the sociology of knowledge, not only by addressing an empirical research strategy or a specialized subfield of sociological analysis but by developing a general perspective for sociological research. The far-reaching “purpose” was “to engage in ‘systematic theoretical reasoning’” in order to “move the sociology of knowledge from the periphery to the very center of sociological theory” (p. 18). Alfred Schütz is the inaugurator of the systematic fresh start of The Social Construction offers (cf. p. 16). He serves as the starting point of the rebirth of the sociology of knowledge. The “shoulders of this giant” are also accompanied, first, by “anthropological assumptions” provided by Karl Marx, Helmuth Plessner and Arnold Gehlen; second, by a “view of the nature of social reality” provided by Émile Durkheim, including major revisions regarding “a dialectical perspective derived from Marx and an emphasis on the constitution of social reality through subjective meanings derived from Weber,” and third, by “social-psychological presuppositions […] influenced by George Herbert Mead” (p. 17). These are the analytical tools that Berger and Luckmann use as “theoretical formation” (p. 17) in developing their “integrative intention” (p. 17). As the authors state in the preface of their book, they insist on “the pay-off” of their “enterprise for sociological theory” (ibid.) by providing some remarks on their theoretical significance at the end of the introduction (pp. 13–18). My aim here, however, is not to tell some old and well-known stories. In order to shed some light on the social and intellectual constellation from which the authors came from when writing The Social Construction, I will simply make four small points. First, I will refer to the year of 1959 as a turning point in the history of the sociology of knowledge. I intend to clarify the theoretical claims of Berger and Luckmann’s classic book by contrasting The Social Construction’s perspective with the two immediate preceding contributions in the field, namely, that of Kurt H. Wolff and Talcott Parsons. I will, second, offer some thoughts on the innovative conceptual and analytical power of The Social Construction. I draw here on its somewhat prophetical argument and underline the integrative power of their classic for sociology by comparing its theoretical frame with current studies on

48  Martin Endress communicative construction, evaluation processes and social practices – studies that I regard as too narrow in comparison to the comprehensive sociological perspective of The Social Construction of Reality. Following these clarifications, I will, third, discuss the construction of catastrophes as an empirical case in order to demonstrate the full analytical potential of The Social Construction’s perspective. In a final section, I aim, fourth, to shed light on the concepts of dialectic and totality as regulative ideas, allowing the development of a sociological perspective that is truly integrative and reflexive.

Constellations: in the year 1959 In this section, let me depict the very unique social and intellectual constellation at the origin of The Social Construction, a constellation that has surprisingly never before been addressed. I refer to the year of 1959 as a turning point in the history of the sociology of knowledge. It is intimately, although in different ways, related to three authors – Alfred Schütz, Kurt H. Wolff and Talcott Parsons. This is, without a doubt, a salient year in the development of Berger and Luckmann’s program. Above all, 1959 is the year of a missed opportunity. Shortly before his death, Alfred Schütz was invited to present his ideas on the sociology of knowledge in an ISA (International Sociology Association) symposium in 1959. He declined the invitation in early February due to his physical conditions. He died on May 20, 1959, and was thus not able to write the paper he had announced under the title A Program for the Sociology of Knowledge (Schütz & Gurwitsch 1985: 451, 459f.; Grathoff 1989: 302, 309). In the same year, Llewellyn Gross edited a volume: Symposium on Sociological Theory (Gross 1959) – a volume of about 640 pages that became an  influential book for theoretical sociological thinking. Kurt H. Wolff (1912–2003) contributed to one of the two essays dedicated to the Sociology of Knowledge. Interestingly, Wolff’s paper is entitled The Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory (1959). Berger and Luckmann never directly responded to Wolff’s paper, although their statement at the end of The Social Construction’s introduction can be read as an echo to Wolff’s contribution. Berger and Luckmann write: “Our purpose, indeed, is to engage in ‘systematic theoretical reasoning.’ It will already be evident that our redefinition of its nature and scope would move the sociology of knowledge from the periphery to the very center of sociological theory” (p. 18). The final chapter of their seminal book is entitled Conclusion: The Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory (p. 185) – the same title of Wolff’s paper published seven years earlier.4 One can say that, according to Berger and Luckmann – while under the impression that Kurt H. Wolff’s contribution objectively pushed the sociology of knowledge to the periphery of the field of sociology – it was necessary to attempt anew to give the sociology of knowledge an adequate disciplinary status. Their ambition is nothing less  than placing it at “the

Theoretical claims  49 very center of sociological theory” (p. 18) – it is needless to say that Berger and Luckmann did not quote Wolff here. Arguing for a “sociology of radical commitment” (cf. Backhaus & Psathas 2007), Wolff wrote a “personal paper” (Wolff 1959a: 567) devoted to his “existential turn” and his conception of “surrender,” displaying while so doing his “loyalty” to Karl Mannheim (cf. Kettler & Meja 2007). He argued in 1959 that the sociology of knowledge is two things: One, particularly in ­A merica, is dead. The other is not yet – it is a heap of fragments and shoots waiting to be given form and life. Dead is the excitement attendant on the appearance of Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia [(1985)] […] Not yet alive are two potentialities of the sociology of knowledge. The first is the codification of the great mass of relevant research into a more viable sociology of intellectual life. The other […] is the injection of more self-­ conscious humanness and historicity […] into contemporary sociology. (Wolff 1959a: 591f.) Wolff devoted his work to what he called a “more self-conscious humanness and historicity.” Berger and Luckmann – sharing a “humanistic perspective” with Wolff and introducing the idea of “a humanistic sociology” (p. 189) – identified another potential of the sociology of knowledge by using the inescapable historicity of human life as a guide line for a theoretical project and underlining social life’s processuality. Not mentioning Wolff’s contribution may have come from personal reasons on behalf of Berger and Luckmann; reasons which are not of concern here. Seven years later, Berger and Luckmann published their book in which they provided general theoretical reflections on the sociology of knowledge; something Wolff’s paper, written in a personalized style, did not achieve. Wolff’s paper does not deliver on its promises, thus allowing Berger and Luckmann to deliver their own programmatic perspectives upon the sociology of knowledge. In 1959, besides the death of one of their teachers, Alfred Schütz and Kurt Wolff’s contribution to the field, Talcott Parsons also published his Approach to the Sociology of Knowledge. According to Wolff, Parsons (1959) argues that the sociology of knowledge has been chiefly concerned with the relation ‘between institutionalized value systems and empirical conceptions of societies and their subsystems,’ but that it should also address itself to ‘the relations between the cultural motivations of individuals and religious grounds of meaning’. (Wolff (Ed.) 1959b; see also Wolff 1967: 16) It is not necessary to go into detail here on Wolff’s judgment, but quoting Berger and Luckmann’s following statement regarding Parsons’ position is

50  Martin Endress sufficient to sustain the argument that Parsons limited his contribution to a critique of Mannheim, and that he did not go “in any decisive way beyond the sociology of knowledge as formulated by Mannheim” (p. 11): “We must consider the standard versions of functionalist explanations in the social sciences a theoretical legerdemain” (p. 186), that is, a deception, a swindle. Moreover, Berger and Luckmann are convinced “that a purely structural sociology is endemically in danger of reifying social phenomena” (ibid.). The counter-position taken in The Social Construction against Parsons is most clearly demonstrated by the integration of George Herbert Mead’s thought in Berger and Luckmann’s theoretical framework (pp. 48f., 186). For most parts, due to the contributions of Anselm Strauss (1964), Hansfried Kellner (1969) and, to a certain extent, Maurice Natanson (1973), Meads’ fundamental proposition of the dialectic between social structure and psychological reality is part of The Social Construction. To sum up, the year of 1959 represents a turning point in the history of the sociology of knowledge for three reasons. First, Schütz declined the invitation to participate in the 1959 ISA symposium on the sociology of knowledge. He died later that year and thus never ended up writing a potentially programmatic work on the sociology of knowledge. The theoretical profile of his idea of a sociology of knowledge appeared to be lost as there seemed to be no successors.5 Second, Kurt H. Wolff published a contribution to the sociology of knowledge, dedicating it to his teacher Karl Mannheim, by concentrating on the latter’s methodological questions and positions. Therefore, his paper, an attempt to offering programmatic basis for a sociology of knowledge, did not live up to its promises. Finally, Talcott Parsons, while close to Werner Stark, introduced a point of view on the sociology of knowledge approach that would be part of his earlier threefold system – analytical conception, placing his research agenda into the realm of macro-sociological thinking and establishing the frame of his structural-functional theory. This social and intellectual constellation is remarkable. It marks a turning point for sociology in general, and for the history of the sociology of knowledge in particular. Berger and Luckmann primarily distance themselves from the two aforementioned approaches: from the sociology of knowledge as developed by Karl Mannheim and represented in Kurt H. Wolff’s contribution, on the one hand, and from a structural-functional accounting of the sociology of knowledge as elaborated by Talcott Parsons, on the other hand. These two approaches, both published in 1959, mark the two most important critical attempts for Berger and Luckmann’s understanding of the discipline’s perspective. Having this constellation in mind, one may say that Berger and Luckmann have written a book that their teacher, Alfred Schütz, was not able to write prior to his death, that same year in 1959. This book attempts, through the scope of a sociology of knowledge, to elaborate for the first time an integrative perspective for sociological theory and empirical research altogether.

Theoretical claims  51

Formative aspects of The Social Construction The aim of the current section of this contribution is to underline the forceful and innovative conceptual and analytical aspect that The Social Construction’s “theoretical formation” (p. 17) implies.6 The integrative perspective that Berger and Luckmann offer has been little acknowledged in contemporary sociological theories (cf. Endreß 2008). I argue that this integrative perspective rests on a threefold paradigm interconnecting the “socially channeled” (p. 181) processes of communicating, interpreting and legitimating, and acting.7 These threefold social processes are created within sociality and bring up their concrete sociohistorical forms. Berger and Luckmann call this “the social channeling of activity,” which, according to them, forms “the essence of institutionalization, which is the foundation for the social construction of reality” (pp. 181f.). This “systematic theory for the sociology of knowledge” Berger and Luckmann “attempt to develop” (p. 185) – which contains “some general implications for sociological theory and the sociological enterprise at large” – remains unfinished.8 With respect to this threefold theoretical profile, we are currently faced with fairly distinct and mutually limited research areas. These partial and limited receptions and continuations of Berger and Luckmann’s original integrative perspective can mainly be identified in three currently vivid research areas, highly influenced by The Social Construction’s perspective: communicative constructivism, the sociology of valuation and evaluation and practice theory. Despite this influence, they theoretically, as well as empirically, limit themselves to only ­c ertain aspects of Berger and Luckmann’s comprehensive theoretical project. On communicating: communicative construction In line with The Social Construction’s exposition that “language […] is the most important sign system of human society” (pp. 36f.), and that “an understanding of language is thus essential for any understanding of the reality of everyday life” (p. 37), Luckmann extensively contributed to the sociology of language from the early 1970s (cf. 1975). While his empirical research focus on “communicative genres” (1986), Luckmann, along with Hubert Knoblauch, introduces the term “communicative construction” (Luckmann 1995b: 207; see also Knoblauch 1995), signalizing both the central research object of his theoretical and empirical studies after The Social Construction, and the dominant empirical research interest of the so-called new sociology of knowledge (Luckmann 1995b). Understanding communications “as a corporal process of objectivations in time” (Knoblauch 2013: 40), several studies pursued this line of research. Let me just recall here the major collaborative work Jörg Bergmann and Luckmann published under the title Die kommunikative Konstruktion von Moral (Bergmann & Luckmann 1999), Regine Herbrik’s study on the communicative

52  Martin Endress construction of  imaginary worlds (2011), Gabriela ­Christmann’s study on the communicative construction of spaces (2016) and, most recently, Hubert Knoblauch’s contribution (2017).9 Finally, in order to avoid any misunderstandings, these analyses also examine the social construction of institutional aspects by investigating communicative genres or communicative forms. Thus, they are by no means restricted to so-called ­m icro-sociological concerns. On the contrary, he argues that this approach sheds light on the societal order as a “communicative culture” (Knoblauch 1995, 2013: 40) as well as on modern societies as “communication societies” (Knoblauch 2017).10 Nonetheless, with regard to the question at hand, the communicative construction approach pursues one of The Social Construction’s most central notions: the “reality-generating potency” of conversation (pp. 154f.). While accentuating that “the most important vehicle of reality-maintenance is conversation” (p. 152), Berger and Luckmann did not restrict their approach to the analysis of the distribution and legitimation of knowledge, nor did they deny the generative potential of communication. Right from the beginning, they focused on social processes with respect to human’s corporeality, processes of identity formation, knowledge politics and power structures and processes of objectivation. All of these are referred to as preand post-communicative conditions and consequences of communicative social acts. Current priorities in empirical research that focus in detail on physical and bodily aspects of human acting could very well be included in The Social Construction’s conceptual frame, as well as analyses of artefacts and situations of acting. When it comes to communicative constructivism, I have several concerns in characterizing this approach as a programmatic development of The Social Construction’s project. A differentiation (or fragmentation) of the complex Social Construction’s project into distinct fields of communicative constructivism and social constructivism tends to oversee Berger and Luckmann’s intuition: the elaboration of an integrative understanding of social processes based on corporeal and communicative social actions in multiple constellations. The communicative construction approach, in my view, should be seen as a useful partial empirical continuation of The Social Construction’s overall sociological perspective. Moreover, it continues the general line of argument developed by Berger and Luckmann. Thereby, it does not seem necessary to characterize the communicative constructivist perspective as a new and distinct theoretical approach or paradigm within sociology.11 On interpreting and legitimating: sociology of valuation and evaluation Drawing on Berger and Luckmann’s perspective of the social construction of social reality, several empirical studies take up the interconnection between

Theoretical claims  53 communicative acts and the implicit moral dimension of evaluating practices. This stance is decisive in the works of Thomas Luckmann.12 Pursuing Alfred Schütz’s inquiries on social action, as well as Durkheim’s intuition on the relationship between communicative and evaluative acts and their moral basis, Luckmann understands moral communication as an evaluative performance, transporting value judgments pertaining to an acting individual or a group of actors, and choosing between different actions (Bergmann & Luckmann 1999). In line with Schütz’s contribution on relevance (1970), The Social Construction’s thesis that “knowledge of everyday life is structured in terms of relevance” (p. 45) and that “legitimation,” which “has a cognitive as well as a normative element” (p. 93), serves “as a ‘second-order’ objectivation of meaning” (p. 92). The interpretive process, as Berger and Luckmann developed after The Social Construction, has to be understood as one that judges and valuates. The problem of asserting value and of analytically reconstructing the processes of assigning meaning in everyday life are discussed intensively in studies that are differently influenced by The Social Construction (­Lamont 2012). Focusing on the ways in which the actors define, categorize, measure, compare, valuate and evaluate situations, actions or institutions (Cefai et al. 2015: 2), some contributions to the sociology of valuation and evaluation (as developed along the works of, e.g., Robert Wuthnow, Joseph Gusfield, Charles Tilly or Anne Swidler) are deeply forged by Berger and Luckmann’s sociological perspective. These perspectives on valuation and evaluation are presented in empirical studies on gender and gender construction (­Gildemeister & Wetterer 1992; Hirschauer 1993; Lindemann 1993), in studies on the social function of comparison in evaluative practices (Heintz 1993) and in contributions on the ways of grading in school (Kalthoff 1997). Let us not forget Jörg Bergmann (1987), who takes up gossip as a form of moral communication and highlights its particular “social organization.” He not only identifies a specific “grammar” of gossip, he also focuses on the ways the “moral identity” of a third party is constantly judged, evaluated and put to test. Nonetheless, as far as cognitive, normative and implicit or explicit forms of valuating or evaluating are concerned, these approaches are already part of The Social Construction’s sociological perspective. The importance of this strand of research for Berger and Luckmann is easily perceptible in their classic: “The history of legitimating theories is always part of the history of the society as a whole” (p. 128). Since legitimation processes are the result of certain relevancies part of a frame of relevance and articulating relevancies means judging and valuating, any form or process of legitimating social orders have to be seen as a type of valuating or evaluating. Thus, the analysis of processes of valuating and evaluating is, without a doubt, part of the social process of constructing social reality: The authors are interested in relationally legitimating actions and nonactions, institutionalizations, power structures and so on.

54  Martin Endress On acting: sociology of practice Stating that “the social world […] does not […] acquire an ontological status apart from the human activity that produced it” (pp. 60f.), Berger and Luckmann point in a direction, shortly taken up by the so-called theory of practices. The ontological status that sociology is concerned with is that “social reality always originates in meaningful human actions” (p. 197 n.27). ­Bearing in mind the authors’ dialectic approach and reference to Marx (6), we can summarize Berger and Luckmann’s argument as follows: “Activity that expresses subjective meaning” (p. 18) and “the social channeling of activity” (p. 181) are both indispensable, interwoven and inseparable moments of the social process of The Social Construction of Reality. The practice idiom has increasingly become popular with time. Theoretical approaches of the concept, as well as empirical analysis of diverse practices, have become an integral part of social and cultural sciences. There is a growing community of practice-oriented scholars seeking to establish “practice” as a new basic concept in sociological theory (cf. Turner 1994; see also Schatzki 1996; Schmidt 2012). Nevertheless, there are many issues regarding the practice approach. Among these are the previously noted problems pertaining to the meaningfulness of action, and the processes of institutionalization and objectivation, which are crucial for understanding and explaining social reality. They have, however, received less attention in practice-oriented theories. Berger and Luckmann’s project of a new sociology of knowledge was, from the very beginning, concerned with these questions. To conclude on the aforementioned remarks, it is these three fields of research that pursue, to various extents of depth, important and specific aspects of The Social Construction’s integrative project. I do not deny their vitality nor their highly prolific impact on contemporary empirical research in sociology. Indeed, they highlight important theoretical aspects of The Social Construction of Reality.13 In this chapter, however, I am rather concerned with Berger and Luckmann’s original theoretical claims. Against the background of their initial and original “enterprise,” The Social Construction has both failed and succeeded in preceding the fields of the sociology of practice and the sociology of evaluation and studies on the communicative (or discursive) construction of reality. Thus, besides the fruitfulness of detailed empirical research claiming inspirations from analytical strategies and approach developed in Berger and Luckmann’s classic, one should always keep in mind that The Social Construction’s general framework was to integrate these three research strategies in a comprehensive sociological perspective. Even though studies on the communicative construction, on processes of valuation and evaluation, as well as practice studies, went deeper in examining these social processes, they do not fully connect these three aspects under a general sociological perspective. Thus, none of these current fields of research seem to be able to replace the general sociological perspective that The Social Construction offers.

Theoretical claims  55 So far, for the purpose of this chapter, we still require, first, a genuine integrative theoretical perspective in the line of Berger and Luckmann’s classic; we need, second, to be reminded of the social construction perspective on social reality in order to do justice to their conception of a truly reflexive sociology.

Construction and catastrophes I would like to finally examine this point in respect to our current decade, often referred to in idioms of “crises,” “catastrophes” and “disasters,” a diagnosis dramatizing Berger and Luckmann’s general propositions that “All social reality is precarious” and that “All societies are constructions in the face of chaos” (p. 103). In so doing, the full strength of the social construction perspective on social reality will be comprehensible. Nowadays, “crises” or “catastrophes” – as terms describing phenomena of a more or less radical breakdown of the routine grounds of communicating, interpreting (esp.: legitimating), and acting are good examples to remind sociologists of how relevant the social construction perspective truly is. “The constant possibility of anomic terror,” Berger and Luckmann write, “is actualized whenever the legitimations that obscure the precariousness are threatened or collapse” (p. 103). This also documents the practical-political impact of this perspective. Diagnoses of “crisis” and “catastrophes” are currently omnipresent. They are far and wide. With respect to their omnipresence, extensiveness, immediacy and effective power, these diagnoses can serve as good examples for the problem at hand. Furthermore, even though The Social Construction’s sociological perspective involves processes of construction, as well as deconstruction, the obvious and irreducible negativity of processes described as catastrophic are a particular challenge for this perspective. So, what does it actually mean to judge and valuate an event, process or effect as “catastrophic”?14 In order to answer this question, I will again refer to the threefold paradigm that I have outlined above as the core of Berger and Luckmann’s sociological project as developed in The Social Construction. When talking about catastrophes, we communicate a relational view on “what” happened “when,” to “whom” and “where” (i.e., with respect to the temporal, social and spatial relevance of the phenomenon). The relations taken into consideration are imbedded in social contexts (­structures, constellations), natural environments, diverse temporal levels, and several degrees of affectedness of so-called civilizational products, sources and heritage. For example, it is not the tsunami itself that “is” “catastrophic” but the tidal wave, because it is the tidal wave that occurs in a given context, with certain perceivable effects, in a specific area of the world and so on. To be more precise, talking about a tsunami as being catastrophic is a complex and multilayered phenomenon and, therefore, a complex analytical task for sociological understanding. Thus, to communicate that a tsunami is “catastrophic,” one must understand certain preconditions, which are, among others, communicating that the tsunami is a natural phenomenon

56  Martin Endress with various constituents (such as its waves) involving specific causes and consequences.   Communicating in this way, we (i.e., everyday actors, experts, scientists and politicians) interpret and legitimate events, processes and effects in the light of certain criteria or scales. We are valuing and judging something as being catastrophic by constructing expectations with respect to what we think of as “normal,” “extraordinary” or “infrequent.” Thus, this valuing and judging reflects settled or sedimented criteria and expectations. These expectations are result of the context dependency and, therefore, reflect the temporality of our reasoning. Thus, the more modern societies focus on what is considered as contemporary problems, the more they build longer chains of expectations with respect to these problems. And because modern societies tend to build longer chains of action, they further fail to engage with problems that might only in the long run cause events thought of as catastrophic. Thus, the temporal structure of judging and evaluating has an immediate influence on human’s activity. Finally, we reach the point of activities. The activities of people, social units or societies come from, or materialize, as realms of tolerance they individually or socially have conventionalized or institutionalized with respect to processes defined as challenges. Norbert Elias is important here because he introduces a type of figuration sociology that examines the emergence of social configurations as unintended “yet structured” (Elias 1977: 127) consequences of longer chains of action. Having these longer chains of action in mind, the question arises of to what extent events viewed as “natural catastrophe” (p. 156) are themselves the product of foregoing human activities and interventions. With regard to the example of the 2011 tsunami in ­Japan,  the  human-driven ­character of this “catastrophe” clearly comes to mind when taking into account the decision of building a nuclear power plant on the seashore. Focusing on the longue durée of sociohistorical processes and on the dynamics of unintended consequences of action, what one might call “normal failure” typically comes from the fragility of everyday life and could mostly be prevented in everyday life. Consequently, failure on a more complex and disastrous level is more and more likely to take place. Thus, the longer interventions of “normal failure” are postponed, the more likely adaptations of smaller degrees will remain unrealized (which could have helped to get along with situations of “normal failure,” i.e., to let these happen in order to learn through them). In so doing, a circularity between missed interventions and unrealized adaptations will be established and result in farther extraordinary failures viewed as disasters and catastrophes. Therefore, the high level of established rigid long-term expectations in modern societies seems to hinder these societies from an adequate sensibility of the temporal character of social reality and from the continuous need for interventions, thus creating more events thought of as “catastrophic.”

Theoretical claims  57 To sum up, I think that we not only need to be in “permanent reflectiveness” regarding social reality being socially constructed, as Schelsky (1965) said, we also need, as demonstrated by the example in this section, to fully temporalize our understanding of social reality on the level of communication, interpretation and action, in order to fully understand what the social construction perspective is all about. In failing to do so, the fundamental social dialectic is not taken into account.

Dialectic and totality: on Marx, Mannheim and Mauss The far-reaching “integration” of sociological theories, according to Berger and Luckmann, “requires a systematic accounting of the dialectical relation between the structural realities and the human enterprise of constructing reality – in history” (p. 186). Therefore, Karl Marx is one of the most important references in The Social Construction. We know that Berger and Luckmann are critical of the left-wing interpretations that their book provoked in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and that they tried to distance their approach from that of Marx – we can add that they did the same with the terms “construction” or “privatization” after the success of their book. References to Marx are, however, present throughout the book. While stating that “what concerned Marx was that human thought is founded in human activity […] and in the social relations brought about by this activity” (p. 6) and that “a dialectical perspective” (p. 17) is required, Berger and Luckmann welcomed three central methodological assumptions of Marx’s thinking in their approach to the sociology of knowledge and its theoretical perspective. While Scheler “was critical of the Marxist tradition,” Mannheim, Berger and Luckmann, on the contrary, adopted a moderate position by systematically using a Marxian style of thinking. Characterizing their “general theoretical approach,” they wrote: “The important point for a theoretical sociology of knowledge is the dialectic between knowledge and its social base” (p. 200 n.56). Long after the late 1960s, I think that we are today further allowed to talk about Marx’s influences (and not doctrinarian ­Marxists’s) than we were in those days. In the Conclusion of The Social Construction, Berger and Luckmann again critically referred to Marx’s style of thought as a “doctrinaire introduction of Marxian ideas” (p. 187), in order to call for an analytical valid use of the innovative potential of Marx’s thought. They state: “What is needed, however, is to bring to bear a dialectical perspective upon the theoretical orientation of the social sciences” (ibid.), that is, “a specification of the dialectical processes in a conceptual framework that is congruent with the great traditions of sociological thought” (ibid.).15 This dialectic perspective is significant in some of the most important passages of The Social Construction. Berger and Luckmann state that the “relationship between man, the producer and the social world, his [her]

58  Martin Endress product, is and remains a dialectical one” (pp. 61, 87, 89, 186). They identify “a continuing dialectical process” in the “fundamental relationship” of its “three dialectical moments,” that is, externalization, objectivation and internalization (p. 61). A process they call the “fundamental social dialectic” (p. 61), the “fundamental dialectic of society” (p. 66), “the essential dialectic of society” (p. 78), or simply the “societal dialectic” (p. 129). With respect to the social construction of “society as objective reality,” they point to the “dialectic between ‘ideas’ and their sustaining social processes” (p. 128). In general, Berger and Luckmann argue for a sociological perspective that analyzes the continual transformation of sociality as a “dialectic between individual and society” (pp. 174, 186, 187)16 as well as a “dialectic between nature and the socially constructed world” (pp. 181, 182, 183). This dialectic analytical frame is apparent throughout The Social Construction with respect to several social processes:17 the structural ambivalence between externalization and objectivation (p. 61), between institutionalization and deinstitutionalization, between reification and de-reification (p. 91), between legitimation and delegitimation (alternation) (pp. 159f.) and between identification and disidentification (p. 172), just to name a few. Moreover, habitualization, conventionalization and routinization are processes of both problem-solving and problem-generating in the social world. Bearing this in mind, one can conclude that it is the essential sociality of human activity, on the one hand, and “the social channeling of [this] activity,” on the other hand (p. 181), that both constitute the fundamental social dialectic Berger and Luckmann tried to implement into sociology in the late 1960s by offering a new theoretical and conceptual starting point. Thus, due to the overall temporality of the social world, it is all about historicity, sociality and reflexivity. The three aspects of communicating, interpreting (esp.: legitimating), and acting, therefore – equal in rank – need to remain as part of an integral sociological perspective to remain in line with The Social Construction’s overall intuition. Besides the integration of Durkheim and Weber (pp. 18, 185), who are regularly mentioned, it is the importance of Berger and Luckmann’s concluding in reference to Mauss and his concept of the “total social fact” to which I would finally like to draw attention in order to expose their integrative project (pp. 186f.).18 To quote Berger and Luckmann again here: “We are convinced that only an understanding of what Marcel Mauss called the ‘total social fact’ will protect the sociologist against the distortive reifications of both sociologism and psychologism” (p. 187). Now, I am aware of the multiple discussions regarding the notion of “total social fact.” The “­potlatch” is Mauss’ most prominent example to demonstrate his understanding of a total social fact as a theoretical concept. Thus, the “total social fact” is a concept used for grasping “a perpetual state of becoming” (Mauss 2006: 142). As well as the Gift it “is ‘total’ in the sense of forming an unexpected chain of ‘… and … and … and …’” (Kasuga 2009: 7f.). I would like to call upon the idea of a “total social fact” as a regulative idea for theorizing as well as a valid concept for empirical research. This concept

Theoretical claims  59 reminds sociologists to pay attention to, first, the degree of relevance that a social phenomenon has, in order to understand the “social logic” of a given social unity; second, to the interwoven, the interconnected, the in-between character (i.e., the complex responsivity of social reality); and third, to the relational character of social reality (as Mannheim already did; cf. Endreß 2011). It is this threefold regulative idea of relevance, responsivity and relationality that forms the reflexivity of the social construction perspective – a truly reflexive sociology (cf. Endreß 2008).

Conclusion Berger and Luckmann’s integrative perspective to sociology rests on a threefold paradigm interconnecting the processes of communicating, interpreting and legitimating, and acting. As I demonstrated, the accentuation of these processes forms the center of The Social Construction’s implicit theoretical project. In comparison to this comprehensive project, current studies on communicative construction, evaluation processes and practices are too narrow to replace the sociological perspective of The Social Construction of Reality. While they are indeed deepening specific parts of the comprehensive idea of The Social Construction, they remain far from replacing its general claim. This would require an integrative – in contrast to a specific focus – analytical perspective on social phenomena, as the example on catastrophes tried to show. Fifty years after the publication of The Social Construction, have we been understanding it as a paradigm of sociology, or a perspective with which researchers conduct sociological research? Whichever it may be, The Social Construction focuses on how one should be “doing sociology,” or conducting sociological research. Thus, contrasting Berger and Luckmann’s seminal study on The Social Construction of Reality with, for example, Leopold Rosenmayr’s reflections on The Future of the Sociology of Knowledge published in the same year 1966 (in a Festschrift for Réne König), the immense, innovative and far-reaching “theoretical formation” of the sociology of knowledge introduced by Berger and Luckmann is obvious. The Social Construction introduces a fundamental sociological perspective. Miles away from pure philology and from a mere continuation of older sociological projects, The Social Construction succeeded in opening new paths for sociological theorization and empirical social research. And it is in that same year of 1966 that Tiryakian wrote about “the mutual unawareness of Émile Durkheim and Max Weber,” highlighting it as “a problem for the sociology of knowledge” (1966): a problem Berger and Luckmann solved in a somehow parallel action in that same year. What else can be said about the book is this: It is the prophetical modernity of The Social Construction that constitutes its status of a grand classic. Long before Gianni Vattimo and Michael Walzer reminded philosophers that their discourse appears as “weak thinking” and “thick arguments,” it is Berger and Luckmann’s merit, as I argued in the opening paragraph, to

60  Martin Endress have reoriented sociology by reintroducing historicity, sociality and reflexivity to the discipline’s self-understanding.

Notes 1 I am indebted to Stefan Nicolae, Benjamin Rampp, Andreas Zerver and Dave Poitras for their comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. 2 All subsequent numbers, unless otherwise stated, refer to the pagination of Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1966). 3 They state, “Our purpose is not exegetical” (p. 17). 4 A contribution that served Kurt H. Wolff as a junction, leading him to elaborate what he later called the existential sociology of “surrender-and-catch” (cf. ­Backhaus & Psathas 2007). 5 Schütz’s marginalized position in the field and the division of the American sociological scene (i.e., Chicago here, New York there) are each vividly demonstrated in a 1959 book entitled Sociology Today – Problems and Prospects, edited by Robert King Merton “under the auspices of the ASA” (Merton et al. 1959). In this volume, there are no chapters devoted to the sociology of knowledge, and there are no references to Schütz. 6 There are several reasons, in my view, why Berger and Luckmann never did continue, widen or reengage in their theoretical discussions on The Social Construction. One of them might be Luckmann’s relocation to Germany in 1965, which changed his intellectual cosmos at least to a certain extent. Another reason could be the remarkable reception of The Social Construction, not so much in the field of qualitative research and in interactionist studies but in the political context of the late 1960s, as Berger and Luckmann pointed out in recent interviews. Because of their reserve, The Social Construction’s analytical as well as theoretical influence is more or less the result of an indeed peculiar subcutaneous reception. 7 Taking the processes of communicating and acting into account separately, I ­argue that communication and acting cannot substitute each other. Humans communicate with bodily movements by nature. Bodily movements are ­expressions – be they intentional or not. Therefore, they may be referred to as communications. In contrast, we refer to acting when we consider that bodily movements and other expressions are intentionally enacted or performed, an intention that can be either reflective or pre-reflective. Knoblauch is not clear with regard to this point. He argues, on the one hand, against system theoretical approaches: “dass Kommunikation ein Handeln ist” (2017: 176). But, on the other hand, he states: “Das Soziale besteht nicht schon aus Kommunikation, vielmehr besteht der Grundprozess in einem kommunikativen Handeln […] Und die Gesellschaft wird […] im Handeln konstruiert” (2017: 177). Using kommunikatives Handeln as the basic concept does not solve the underlying problem of the relationship between acts of communication and acting. 8 Some of what the authors call the “direct applicability” of “the sociology of language, the theory of social action and institutions, and the sociology of religion” (p. 185) they investigated after publishing The Social Construction (cf. Luckmann 1975, 1991, 1992, 1995a as well as Berger 1967, 1969, 1973, 1977, 1983; for Luckmann cf. Endreß 2016). Nevertheless, a number of pivotal areas remain insufficiently examined up to this day. 9 The volume on Kommunikativer Konstruktivismus edited by Keller, Knoblauch and Reichertz (2013) includes a comparative study on the communicative and discursive construction of reality as well (cf. Keller 2013). 10 It still seems to be an open question whether technological processes, as well as processes of mediatization and eventization, are not only changing the

Theoretical claims  61

11

12

13 14 15

16

17 18

“structure of communicative acting” but also changing the “structure of the lifeworld, ” that is, the temporal, social and spatial structures of human’s life itself, as Knoblauch suggests (2013: 42f.). This comment refers to the “modifications” Knoblauch (2017: 69ff.) states to be indispensable for renewing The Social Construction’s sociological perspective. To him, these are, first, a relational understanding of the social (pp. 69f., 110ff.); second, a “consideration of materiality” (pp. 71f., 155ff., 301ff.) focusing on “things, technologies, media, and materialities”; and third, introducing “communicative acting” as both, the “basic of the social” and the “driving force of society as a whole” (pp. 72f., 75ff., 189ff.). See Luckmann (2000: 121): “Gewiss, Akte des Bewertens sind nicht notwendig moralische Urteile […] Werte sind nicht unbedingt moralisch […] Dennoch: Moralische Urteile sind Bewertungen.” (“Valuations are not necessarily moral judgements. […] Values are not necessarily moral. […] Nevertheless: Moral judgements are valuations.”). Moreover, I am aware of the fact that these fields of research continue to describe themselves as remaining in the state of a “project” (cf. Hillebrandt 2009: 370; Knoblauch 2013: 42; Cefai et al. 2015: 9). The following remarks owe much to Martin Voss’ studies on the sociology of catastrophe (cf. Voss 2006). This is in line with Marx’s plea for an analysis of endogenous results or effects of social processes, of the relational understanding of social phenomena and valuations, and of the complex interwovenness, the interconnectedness of social reality – that is, for a dialectical perspective (cf. Henning 2005: 194, 197, 204). They, therefore, differentiate for systematic reasons the processes of “objectivation” (p. 197 n.28) and the – typically pejorative connotated – processes of “reification” (p. 201 n.59) in order to analyze nonideologically the question of how it is possible that subjective meanings become embodied in the thing-like facticities of the institutional order. Nowadays, this is typically viewed as one aspects of the so-called micro-macro problem in sociology. Berger and Luckmann fail to give more details and clarify what they mean by dialectic or by describing their own approach as a dialectical perspective. Berger and Luckmann here refer to Mauss’ term “total social fact” (cf. p. 187). This term was popularized by Mauss in his classic The Gift: These phenomena are at once legal, economic, religious, aesthetic, morphological and so on. They are legal in that they concern individual and collective rights, organized and diffuse morality; they may be entirely obligatory, or subject simply to praise or disapproval. They are at once political and domestic, being of interest both to classes and to clans and families. They are religious; they concern true religion, animism, magic and diffuse religious mentality. They are economic for the notions of value, utility, interest, luxury, wealth, acquisition, accumulation, consumption and liberal and sumptuous expenditure are all present …. (Mauss 1954: 76f.)

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62  Martin Endress Berger, P.L. & Berger, B. (1983): The War over the Family: Capturing the Middle Ground. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday. Berger, P.L. et al. (1973): The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness. New York: Random House. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1966): The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday. Berger, P.L. & Neuhaus, R.J. (1977): To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy. Washington, DC: AEI. Bergmann, J. (1987): Klatsch: Zur Sozialform der diskreten Indiskretion. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Bergmann, J. & Luckmann, T. (Eds.): (1999): Die kommunikative Konstruktion von Moral. (Vol. II) Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Cefai, D. et al. (Eds.) (2015): Introduction. Human Studies, 38(1), pp. 1–12. Christmann, G.B. (Ed.) (2016): Zur kommunikativen Konstruktion von Räumen: Theoretische Konzepte und empirische Analysen. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Elias, N. (1977): Zur Grundlegung einer Theorie sozialer Prozesse. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 6(2), pp. 127–149. Endreß, M. (2006): Das wissenssoziologische Profil der Lebensweltanalyse und ­Elementare wissenssoziologische Typologien. In: Schnettler, B. (Ed.) Alfred Schütz: Klassiker der Wissenssoziologie (Vol. III). Konstanz: UVK, pp. 199–125. Endreß, M. (2008): Reflexive Wissenssoziologie als Sozialtheorie und Gesellschaftsanalyse. Zur phänomenologisch fundierten Analytik von Vergesellschaftungsprozessen. In: Raab, J. et al. (Eds.) Phänomenologie und Soziologie: Theoretische Positionen, aktuelle Problemfelder und empirische Umsetzungen. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 85–95. Endreß, M. (2011): Methodological Relationism. In: Schantz, R. & Seidel, M. (Eds.) The Problem of Relativism in the Sociology of (Scientific) Knowledge. Frankfurt/ Paris/Lancaster/New Brunswick: Ontos Press, pp. 157–181. Endreß, M. (2016): Thomas Luckmann (October 14, 1927 – May 10, 2016). Human Studies, 39(4), pp. 487–491. Gildemeister, R. & Wetterer, A. (1992): Wie Geschlechter gemacht werden. Die soziale Konstruktion der Zweigeschlechtlichkeit und ihre Reifizierung in der Frauenforschung. In: Knapp, G.-A. & Wetterer, A. (Eds.) Traditionen Brüche: Entwicklungen feministischer Theorie. Freiburg i.Br: Kore Verlag, pp. 201–254. Grathoff, R. (Ed.) (1989): Philosophers in Exile: The Correspondence of Alfred Schutz and Aron Gurwitsch, 1939–1959. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Gross, L. (Ed.) (1959): Symposium on Sociological Theory. Evanston, IL: Row, ­Peterson and Co. Heintz, B. (1993): Wissenschaft im Kontext: Neuere Entwicklungstendenzen der Wissenschaftssoziologie. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 45(3), pp. 528–552. Henning, C. (2005): Marx in der (deutschen) Soziologie. In: Henning, C. (Ed.) Philosophie nach Marx: 100 Jahre Marxrezeption und die normative Sozialphilosophie der Gegenwart in der Kritik. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 190–250. Herbrik, R. (2011): Die kommunikative Konstruktion imaginärer Welten. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Hillebrandt, F. (2009): Praxistheorie. In: Kneer, G. & Schroer, M. (Eds.) Handbuch Soziologische Theorien. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 369–394.

Theoretical claims  63 Hirschauer, S. (1993): Die soziale Konstruktion der Transsexualität. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Kalthoff, H. (1997): Wohlerzogenheit: eine Ethnographie deutscher Internatsschulen. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus. Kasuga, N. (2009): Total Social Fact: Structuring, Partially Connecting, and Reassembling. Unpublished paper presented in Cerisy-la-Salle, June 2009. Keller, R. (2013): Kommunikative Konstruktion und diskursive Konstruktion. In: Keller, R. et al. (Eds.) Kommunikativer Konstruktivismus: Theoretische und empirische Arbeiten zu einem neuen wissenssoziologischen Ansatz. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 69–94. Keller, R. et al. (Eds.) (2013): Kommunikativer Konstruktivismus: Theoretische und empirische Arbeiten zu einem neuen wissenssoziologischen Ansatz. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Kellner, H. (1969): Vorwort und Einleitung. In: Mead, G.H. (Ed.) Philosophie der Sozialität: Aufsätze zur Erkenntnisanthropologie. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, pp. 7–35. Kettler, D. & Meja, V. (2007): Karl Mannheim in America: The Loyalty of Kurt H. Wolff. In: Backhaus, G. & Psathas, G. (Eds.) The Sociology of Radical Commitment: Kurt H. Wolff ’s Existential Turn. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Knoblauch, H. (1995): Kommunikationskultur: Die kommunikative Konstruktion kultureller Kontexte. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Knoblauch, H. (2013): Grundbegriffe und Aufgaben des kommunikativen Konstruktivismus. In: Keller, R. et al. (Eds.) Kommunikativer Konstruktivismus: Theoretische und empirische Arbeiten zu einem neuen wissenssoziologischen Ansatz. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 25–47. Knoblauch, H. (2017): Die kommunikative Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Lamont, M. (2012): Toward a Comparative Sociology of Valuation and Evaluation. Annual Review of Sociology, 38, pp. 201–221. Lindemann, G. (1993): Das paradoxe Geschlecht: Transsexualität im Spannungsfeld von Körper, Leib und Gefühl. Frankfurt a.M: Fischer. Luckmann, T. (1975): Sociology of Language. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. Luckmann, T. (1986): Grundformen der gesellschaftlichen Vermittlung des Wissens: Kommunikative Gattungen. In: Dreher, J. (Ed.) Lebenswelt, Identität und Gesellschaft: Schriften zur Wissens- und Protosoziologie. Konstanz: UVK, pp. 272–293. Luckmann, T. (1991): Unsichtbare Religion. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Luckmann, T. (1992): Theorie sozialen Handelns. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Luckmann, T. (1995a): Der kommunikative Aufbau der sozialen Welt und die ­Sozialwissenschaften. In: Knoblauch, H. et al. (Eds.) Wissen und Gesellschaft: Ausgewählte Aufsätze 1981–2002. Konstanz: UVK, pp. 157–182. Luckmann, T. (1995b): Das kommunikative Paradigma der ‚neuen’ Wissenssoziologie. In: Knoblauch, H. et al. (Eds.) Wissen und Gesellschaft: Ausgewählte Aufsätze 1981–2002. Konstanz: UVK, pp. 201–209. Luckmann, T. (2000): Die intersubjektive Konstitution der Moral. In: Endreß, M. & Roughley, N. (Eds.) Anthropologie und Moral: Philosophische und soziologische Perspektiven. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, pp. 115–138. Mannheim, K. (1985) [1936]: Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. San Diego/New York/London: Harvest Book.

64  Martin Endress Mauss, M. (1954) [1925]: The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic ­Societies. London: Cohen and West. Mauss, M. (2006): Techniques, Technology, and Civilisation. New York, NY: ­Durham Press. Merton, R.K. et al. (Eds.) (1959): Sociology Today: Problems and Prospects. New York: Basic Books. Natanson, M. (1973) [1956]: The Social Dynamics of George H. Mead. The Hague: Nijhoff. Parsons, T. (1959): An Approach to the Sociology of Knowledge. In: Wolff, K.-H. (Ed.) The Sociology of Knowledge: Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of Sociology (Vol. IV). Louvain: ISA, pp. 25–49. Rosenmayr, L. (1966): Max Scheler, Karl Mannheim und die Zukunft der Wissenssoziologie. In: Silbermann, A. (Ed.) Militanter Humanismus: Von den Aufgaben der modernen Soziologie. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, pp. 200–232. Schatzki, T.R. (1996): Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schelsky, H. (1965) [1957]: Ist die Dauerreflexion institutionalisierbar? Zum Thema einer modernen Religionssoziologie. In: Schelsky, H. (Ed.) Auf der Suche nach Wirklichkeit: Gesammelte Aufsätze. Düsseldorf: Diederichs, pp. 250–275. Schmidt, R. (2012): Soziologie der Praktiken: Konzeptionelle Studien und empirischen Analysen. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Schütz, A. (1932): Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt: Eine Einleitung in die ­verstehende Soziologie. Vienna: Springer VS. Schütz, A. (1962–66): Collected Papers I-III. The Hague: Nijhoff. Schütz, A. (1967) [1932]: The Phenomenology of the Social World. (Georg Walsh & Frederick Lehnert, Trans.) Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Schütz, A. (1970) [1947–51]: Reflections on the Problem of Relevance. (Edited, ­annotated and introduced by Richard M. Zaner) New Haven/London: Yale ­University Press. Schütz, A. & Gurwitsch, A. (1985): Briefwechsel 1939–1959. (Richard Grathoff, ­Editor) Munich: Fink. Strauss, A. (1964): Introduction. In: Strauss, A. (Ed.) The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. vii–xxv. Turner, S.P. (1994): The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge and Presuppositions. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tiryakian, E.A. (1966): A Problem for the Sociology of Knowledge. The Mutual Unawreness of Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. Archives Européennes de ­Sociologie, 7(2), pp. 330–336. Voss, M. (2006): Symbolische Formen: Grundlagen und Elemente einer Soziologie der Katastrophe. Bielefeld: transcript. Wolff, K.H. (1959a): The Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory. In: Gross, L. (Ed.) Symposium on Sociological Theory. Evanston, IL: Pow, Peterson and Co., pp. 567–602. Wolff, K.H. (Ed.) (1959b): The Sociology of Knowledge: Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of Sociology (Vol. IV). Louvain: ISA. Wolff, K.H. (1967): The Sociology of Knowledge in the United States of America: A Trend Report and Bibliography. The Hague-Paris: Mouton & Co.

3 The cultural dimension of social constructions On the meaning of “doings” and the meaning of “dones” Michaela Pfadenhauer Social construction and action In The Social Construction of Reality, Berger and Luckmann (1967 [1966]: 79) postulated that “society is a human product.” Post-constructivists have queried whether this is by necessity the case. This prompted us1 to ask how anthropocentric the perspective that underlies Berger and Luckmann’s seminal work actually is. This question arose particularly in the context of our current research interests – namely, the drawing of lines of demarcation between the social and the non-social (Luckmann 2007: 143), taking animal and artificial companions as an example. In what follows, we use these demarcations to illustrate in concrete terms the cultural dimension of social constructions. Our premise is that social constructions presuppose the operations of actors. By actors, we mean subjects who are capable of action, who define situations, who make plans and decisions and who try to “catch up with” their projected experiences. Or, to put it more succinctly, actors are subjects who act on the basis of their definitions of the situation. Hence, action should not be confused with behavior. Every entity behaves – constantly. But by no means does every entity act. And even an entity that is capable of acting does not by any means act all the time. Hence, whenever an entity that is capable of acting is not acting, it should not be referred to as an “­actor.” ­Conversely, whenever an entity has an action problem, it is, indeed, an actor. Social constructions of reality presuppose the ability to act, because society is more than, and not the same thing as, mere coexistence. The latter does not give rise to societies but only to populations. Although, empirically, every society presupposes a population, by no means does every population constitute a society. By society, we understand the general form of coexistence and co-action on the part of actors – that is, of entities with action problems. We regard society as a form of coexistence that solves many – but not all – action problems and that – almost inevitably – constantly produces new action problems with every solution it comes up with. Accordingly, social constructions of reality imply complex processes of perceiving and

66  Michaela Pfadenhauer solving action problems, in which existing action problems are continuously actualized, new action problems are produced, existing solutions are preserved and new solutions are tested (cf. Luckmann 1988).

Social construction and culture When it comes to determining the cultural aspects of social constructions, it is a question of reconstructing, in the most general sense, (a) the way in which realities arise and persist, (b) the extent to which they are regarded as “objective,” (c) the way in which individuals interpretatively appropriate socially objectivated reality and (d) the way in which they carve their subjective reality out of this objectivated reality, thereby participating in the construction of objectivated reality (cf. Hitzler 2003). Put simply, subjectively meaningful activity ultimately brings forth socially objectivated facts. However, these socially objectivated facts are not the inventions of isolated individuals; rather, they result from complex, intersubjective, historical, generational processes.2 Socially objectivated facts legitimize or delegitimize the meaning of subjective action. When we speak of “cultural aspects of social constructions,” we mean that the taken-for-grantedness of reality is the result of an interplay between action-guiding knowledge and meaning-creating belief. However, the term “culture” does not play a role in The Social Construction of Reality. From Berger and Luckmann’s theoretical perspective, this is perfectly consistent because it makes no sense to separate any cultural “sphere” from general social praxis. For social praxis is inevitably knowledge-based praxis or, more precisely, praxis that interprets signs and symbols. Moreover, social praxis is fundamentally communicative and is thus, in particular, linguistic practice. This also means that actors do not have to deal with “naked facts” but rather with meanings, which they usually borrow from others rather than creating them themselves. Accordingly, culture should be understood as a genuinely social phenomenon, and society should be understood as a genuinely cultural phenomenon. It was not until 2001 that Luckmann explained this view in more detail, namely in an essay entitled Sinn in Sozialstruktur (Meaning in Social Structure; reprinted 2007). In that work, he used the term Sinn (subjective meaning) to refer to the context within which the individual subjectively grasps his experience or action, and the term Bedeutungen (objective meanings) to refer to the definition of the subjective meaning of experiences and actions in a language or other semiotic system so that it is not limited to the immediate experience or action of the individual but rather communicated to and grasped by others, thereby entering their collective memory (cf. Luckmann 2007: 142f.). In accordance with this explanation, we pointedly conceive of the cultural aspects of social constructions as a “dialectic” (in the sense of a continuously reciprocal relation) between subjectively meaningful action (the meaning of

The cultural dimension  67 “doings”) and socially crystallized meanings (the meaning of “dones”). In nominalist-Weberian diction, we therefore propose the following working definition of “culture” for our further deliberations: Culture means a more or less systematized stock of knowledge about what is what and about who, under what circumstances, and for what reasons, should do, or refrain from doing, what, in what way, where (and why) in order to act appropriately.

Social constructions and the (non-)social In what follows, we use the demarcations between the social and the non-­ social (the latter in the sense of technology and nature) to illustrate the ­cultural dimension of social constructions. Like culture, the concept of technology does not play any systematic role in The Social Construction of Reality. When Berger and Luckmann (1967) use the example of hunting to elucidate “institutionalization,” and when they mention prayer as one of several “techniques of reality-maintenance” (and “universe-maintenance”) (p. 155), they have cultural techniques in mind. The authors refer to technology only once in the book – and they do so merely to qualify their assertion that social order is not biologically given in man’s natural environment. However, they acknowledge that particular features of that environment “may be factors in determining certain features of a social order (for example, its economic or technological arrangements)” (p. 70). The concept of nature is not elaborated in detail in The Social Construction of Reality either. According to Berger and Luckmann (1967), it confronts people as a “given reality” (p. 59); people must “learn about nature” (p. 60); nature manifests itself “in the hard facts of human biology” (p. 181); and the limits of the socially constructed world “are set by nature” (p. 183). The authors argue that social order “cannot be derived from the ‘laws of nature’”; rather, it is the product and consequence of human activity, and “it exists only and insofar as human activity continues to produce it” (p. 52). Although the “dialectic” between nature and society is frequently addressed in the book, the authors do not elaborate further on the fact that what is deemed to be nature is part of the social definition of reality. Following both Berger and Luckmann (1967) and Goffman (1974),3 we understand as “social” the things that human beings intersubjectively construct through their actions. Or, to put it in a less anthropocentrically predetermined way, we consider the intended and unintended effects of the operations of entities with action problems (i.e., actors) to be “socially constructed realities.” On the other hand, we classify as “natural” those events that are regarded as happening without human ­i ntervention – or without the intervention of an entity capable of action.

68  Michaela Pfadenhauer Accordingly, we propose a second working definition of culture for our further deliberations: Culture means an interpretative framework that serves to distinguish the products of action from things that merely happen. In both working definitions, we use the term “culture” merely as a placeholder for socially believed meanings of what is really given. These meanings result from interpretations of action and the products of action. Understood in this way, culture is the valid definition of reality in a particular society – or, to put it more precisely, culture is the definition of reality that has been enforced as valid. This definition of reality is questioned especially by (a) widespread dissenting views in the society in question; (b) confrontations with other concepts of reality of other societies, however these confrontations may arise; and (c) man-made catastrophes or existentially significant events that merely happen and that cannot be explained within the framework of the currently valid definition of reality. Berger and Luckmann (1967) recommend that the construction of the definitions of reality be reconstructed primarily by theoretically and empirically focusing on those phenomena that irritate these definitions – in other words, one should “take special note of the social circumstances that favor dereification” (p. 91).4 In what follows, we abide by this recommendation, which is explicitly aimed at borderline situations, by endeavoring to outline the “dialectic” between the meaning of “doings” and the meaning of “dones.” When doing so, we selectively draw on our own research interests, which intersect in the phenomenon of “companions.” By companions we mean nonhuman beings with which humans interact or which appear to communicate with humans. We study these companions, taking social robots (artificial companions; cf. Pfadenhauer & Dukat 2015; Pfadenhauer 2015) and dogs (animal companions; cf. Burzan & Hitzler 2016; Hitzler 2016) as an example.

Social constructions and boundaries of the social world Unsurprisingly, robots are not an issue in Berger and Luckmann’s Social Construction of Reality (1967). Dogs crop up only twice in the text, and then only incidentally: first, as biting dogs in connection with the various layers of experience involved in being bitten (p. 21); second – and that is the more interesting mention for the problem addressed here – dogs are cited along with horses as examples of the fact that, in contrast to nonhuman beings, man “has no environment structured by his own instinctual organization” (p. 47). This dominant interpretative concept, that animals have their own species-specific environments whereas humans are characterized by “world-openness” (p. 47), has been problematized in current discourse. And, by now, this problematization extends also to the companionship of

The cultural dimension  69 social robots. According to Gesa Lindemann (2002, 2009), the question of companionship touches what Luckmann (1970 – reprinted 1983) calls the “boundaries of the social world” when these boundaries are drawn from the perspective of the specifically modern prerequisite of the social, namely, living human beings. Lindemann identifies four conspicuous boundaries (what she calls the “anthropological square”), postulating that, in the modern age, we draw a diachronic boundary between life and not-yet-life, on the one hand, and life and no-longer-life, on the other, and that we draw a synchronic boundary between human beings and machines, on the one hand, and between human beings and animals, on the other. In the first-mentioned “synchronic” border area, between man and machine, the explanation that social psychologist Sherry Turkle provides for the fact that humans engage in a relationship-like way with robots is that “nurturance is the ‘killer app,’” and “digital fancy” is bred mainly in the demand for care: “Demands translate into care and care into the feeling of caring” (2011: 32). Most of the established devices on the market (e.g., AIBO, Pleo, PARO) can be assigned to what roboticists call the “caretaker paradigm,” according to which humans “take care of” robots, thereby learning social behavior. Devices suitable for this purpose make high demands on the outer – usually zoomorphic – appearance but low demands on sensors, actuators and mechanics (cf. Becker et al. 2013). The purpose of devices of this type is to stimulate pro-social behaviors by encouraging the user to take care of the robot. In the case of persons with autism, these prosocial behaviors have not yet been developed, whereas in the case of persons with dementia they are gradually disappearing. The second paradigm is known as the “companion paradigm.” Here, it is a question of supporting individual behaviors by means of personalization – that is, the generation and storage of biographical and other data about the user. This calls for high-tech devices that can operate safely in a comparatively unstructured environment. For the companion paradigm (in the narrow sense) provides for robots that “accompany” humans according to their respective needs and relevances, which means that the robot must be mobile, sensitive and personalized. The ground is now prepared for the question of whether robots can have rights – not only legal but also moral rights. As Campagna (2012) notes, we accord an entity rights such as these if – and especially because – it has certain characteristics that we consider to be of such great moral relevance that we regard them as being worthy of protection, and we allow them to be violated only under very strict conditions – if at all. It is still unclear what characteristics these might be and whether robots have, or can have, characteristics that are deemed to be morally relevant. However, empirical analysis suggests that social robots’ algorithmically generated “ability to learn,” combined with personalization (i.e., the generation and storage of biographical and other data about the user), conveys the impression of uniqueness and, thus, irreplaceability.

70  Michaela Pfadenhauer In the second-mentioned “synchronic” border area, between man and animals, we find Jean-Paul Sartre’s fragmentary late work Notebooks for an Ethics (1992: 318f.), which furnishes a genuinely modern reason why, or in what sense, some people love their dogs – namely, because they can convince themselves that their dogs love them just the way they are, or the way they want to be perceived (cf. Hitzler 2015 and 2016). For, as Sartre (loc. cit.) argues, “man is reassured if he can surround himself with a chorus of restrained freedoms who are constrained to reflect him to himself like ­Leibniz’s monads reflect God.” In other words, following Sartre, the animal lover projects the ability to love into his dog in the same way as God gives a (Christian) person freedom so that he will decide to love him. Translated into everyday wisdom, this means that it is definitely better to be treated as a human being by a dog than to be treated as a dog by a human being. However, this “better” (tacitly) presupposes the assumption that the dog, or at least my dog, has characteristics on the basis of which he can act (and thus treat me well in some way or another). And it also (tacitly) presupposes that people have characteristics on the basis of which their action is of relevance to me even when I do not like it. In short, Sartre writes the companionship of the dog as an apparently timeless morality story: People love their dogs to the extent that their dogs’ behavior allows them to believe that their dogs love them unconditionally (i.e., adore them). The point of relevance to the question of canine companionship is that it is assumed in a more or less explicit and substantiated way that dogs have cognitive and/or emotional intentions that are similar to those of humans. Contemporary dog lovers, at least, will hardly find plausible the argument that – in contrast to humans – dogs live in “closed worlds.” However, even when viewed from a neutral perspective, the following statement by Berger and Luckmann, which has explicit recourse to contemporary ethology, appears somewhat antiquated: Despite an area of individual learning and accumulation, the individual dog or the individual horse has a largely fixed relationship to its environment, which it shares with all other members of its respective species. […] In this sense, all non-human animals, as species and as individuals, live in closed worlds whose structures are predetermined by the biological equipment of the several animal species. (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 47) The latest research findings in the area of biological ethology confirm in part the theory that there is a fundamental difference between humans and dogs (cf. Coppinger & Feinstein 2015). On the other hand, in animal ethics, which has recently been anchored in the widely discussed field of anthrozoology (or human–animal studies/HAS), and which is devoted to the question of the way humans deal with nonhumans, protagonists have prominently adopted diametrically opposed positions that range from the call for

The cultural dimension  71 imaginative empathy with animals, through the call for parliamentary representation of animals by human advocates, to the call for the recognition of animals as holders of human and civil rights.

Meaning of dones and meaning of doings Viewed from the perspective of such postmodern theoretical positions, which we encounter in the fields of roboethics and anthrozoology, the (hitherto) dominant stock of knowledge and meaning (meaning of “dones”) among the relevant stocks of knowledge and meaning that exist in modern societies appears to be an orthodox establishment of norms that has been debunked as such by the heterodox revised definition of the relationship between human actors and nonhuman “actors,” or “actants.” Such “new” views are in vogue in the social sciences at the moment anyway. They are all the rage in worldview fashion because they point to other concepts of reality (other meanings of “dones”) – namely, on the one hand, animistic and totemistic elements of the dominant worldviews of archaic and traditional societies, which are without alternatives there and with which we are familiar in modern society. On the other hand, they point to other ways of dealing with technological innovations in other contemporary societies (e.g., Japan). Above all, however, especially for nonintellectuals, these theoretical views have “striking” correspondences in the everyday, doxa-based praxis of people who have quite intensive and enduring dealings with robots and/ or dogs – that is, in the meaning of “doings.” For when one engages with these machines and these animals, their appearance massively opposes their exclusion from the modern social world. ­ rojection” – This relates not only to what Luckmann (1983) calls “universal p that is, human beings’ innate capacity (in a way that is credible, at least for themselves and until such time as pragmatic doubt sets in) to attribute in principle to everything the quality of being a socio-morally relevant Other. More importantly, the fact that an entity is pragmatically apprehended on the basis of perceived characteristics as an Other (alter ego) – as opposed to just another object – appears to “color” one’s lived experience. From Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist perspective (see his account of the “look” in Being and Nothingness, 1956: 252–302), the Other – through the confident look that he directs upon me – colors above all my self-experience, or my experience of self. This is the very function that a robot or a dog that is experienced as an Other with its own initiative, and, indeed, with a mind of its own, appears to have for some people. However, even those who do not attribute to a robot the status of a ­socio-morally relevant Other may accord it the status of an actor (persona), at least in certain situations, because its performance-related efficiency is superior to that of a human being. This is even more so the case as the current focus of robotics is on an “aliveness” that promotes human–robot interaction. Compared to something that has “grown organically,” this

72  Michaela Pfadenhauer aliveness is something “made” on the level of the morphological/predictable (­Lindemann 2008: 702). In view of robots’ surrogate qualities, not only are their rights discussed in roboethics but also their obligations. The question of responsibility is linked to that of sanctionability. A view expressed in the debate on sanctions for robots is that, although robots should not be subjected to suffering, the “death penalty” of destruction may be imposed on them (see Campagna 2012). Even those who do not accord their dogs the status of a socio-morally r­ elative Other do not usually regard them only as organic machines but rather as living beings with a central sensory system – that is, with self-driven variable behavior, in the sense of Jakob von Uexküll’s dictum (2010 [1934]: 76): “When a dog runs, the animal moves its legs. When a sea urchin runs, its legs move the animal.” Hence, the dog does not react in a “decentralized,” mechanical way but rather in an integrated, organic way. In other words, even though the dog is “actually” under control, its behavior is controllable only to a certain extent. Nonetheless, explicit behavioral demands are made of dogs, and, in societies such as ours, somebody (primarily the dog owner) is liable for the dog. For although, legally speaking, a dog is an “object,” it is, as a rule, not simply an object among objects – even from a legal point of view. Irritatingly, this implies that, although one may not torture a dog, in extreme cases one may be obliged by official decree to kill it or have it killed.

Current culture in question The cultural question that is asked of the dominant modern definition of reality in the case of robots and dogs is thus whether this worldview, although not fundamentally wrong, is by now obsolete and should therefore be abandoned. Epistemologically, we (no longer) see any sufficient justification for the still undiminished anthropocentric perspective adopted in The Social Construction of Reality. For subjectively meaningful actions (the meaning of doings) presuppose merely the presence of actors in the sense of entities capable of action. Consequently, socially objectivated facts (the meaning of dones) do not necessarily have to be produced through action by human beings but rather merely by any actor. Pragmatically, in the absence of convincing, or even compelling, epistemological alternatives, we propose that, in case of doubt, one should indeed have recourse for the time being to the third pragmatic reason for limiting universal projection, which Luckmann (1983) explained in On the Boundaries of the Social World – namely the absence of the subjective certainty of reciprocal communication. Thus, the problem of medium transcendence – that is, the insurmountable inaccessibility of the consciousness of the Other – is bracketed. However, in the case of cultural aspects per se, and also robots and dogs, the wealth of impressions in typical communication between humans compared to communication between humans and nonhuman entities is still a pragmatic reason for adhering to

The cultural dimension  73 Berger and Luckmann’s proposal to conceive of society as a human matter, and of reality as a human-social construction – even though in understandings of the world other than that prevailing in modern societies very different types of actors are included. It is probably quite irrelevant for the question of whether we are culturally en route to a new dissolution of the boundaries of the social world beyond the human that – in old-European tradition – I think that neither dogs nor robots – that is, neither animals nor machines – are partners for humans in the same way as other humans are, but rather that they are, by human decision, surrogate partners who are declared to be companions. According to Thomas Luckmann’s prediction (1994: 212f.), society’s decision on this question will hardly be informed by reason, by epistemologically superior arguments or, in particular, by scientific insight. Rather, it will be informed, once again, by belief that has been made capable of consensus by corresponding social movements.

Notes 1 I use the “we” form here as an actual rather than an editorial “we” to acknowledge the fact that the core thesis of this chapter is the outcome of my long-­standing collaboration with Ronald Hitzler, whose interest in animal companionship predates mine. 2 According to Luckmann (2008: 3), this constructivism is a historical and social constructivism that is linked to the emergence and disappearance of institutions. 3 “Natural frameworks identify occurrences seen as undirected, unoriented, unanimated, unguided, ‘purely physical.’ Such unguided events are ones understood to be due totally, from start to finish, to ‘natural’ determinants. (…) Social frameworks, on the other hand, provide background understanding for events that incorporate the will, aim, and controlling effort of an intelligence, a live agency, the chief one being the human being. Such an agency is anything but implacable; it can be coaxed, flattered, affronted, and threatened. What it does can be described as ‘guided doings’” (Goffman 1974: 21f.). 4 “The historical and empirical application of the sociology of knowledge must take special note of the social circumstances that favor dereification – such as the overall collapse of institutional orders, the contact between previously segregated societies, and the important phenomenon of social marginality” (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 91f.).

References Becker, H. et al. (2013): Robotik in Betreuung und Gesundheitsversorgung. TA-Swiss 58. Zurich: vdf. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1967) [1966]: The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Burzan, N. & Hitzler, R. (Eds.) (2016): Auf den Hund gekommen: Interdisziplinäre Annäherung an ein Verhältnis. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Campagna, N. (2012): Roboterethik. Information Philosophie 5, pp. 58–60. Coppinger, R. & Feinstein, M. (2015): How Dogs Work. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

74  Michaela Pfadenhauer Goffman, E. (1974): Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hitzler, R. (2003): Weltverhältnisse. Über einige invariante und variable Aspekte von Kultur. In: Fischer, J. & Joas, H. (Eds.) Kunst, Macht und Institution. ­Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, pp. 364–372. Hitzler, R. (2015): Ist der Mensch ein Subjekt? Ist das Subjekt ein Mensch? Über Diskrepanzen zwischen Doxa und Episteme. In: Poferl, A. & Schröer, N. (Eds.) Wer oder was handelt? Zum Subjektverständnis der hermeneutischen Wissenssoziologie. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 121–142. Hitzler, R. (2016): Hunde als Korrelate des Erlebens. Einige phänomenologiebasierte Überlegungen. In Burzan, N. & Hitzler, R. (Eds.): Auf den Hund gekommen. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 251–264. Lindemann, G. (2002): Die Grenzen des Sozialen. Munich: Fink. Lindemann, G. (2008): Lebendiger Körper – Technik – Gesellschaft. In: Rehberg, K.-S. (Ed.) Die Natur der Gesellschaft. Proceedings of the 33rd Congress of the ­German Sociological Association (DGS) in Kassel. Frankfurt/New York: Campus, pp. 689–704. Lindemann, G. (2009): Das Soziale von seinen Grenzen her denken. Weilerswist: Velbrück. Luckmann, T. (1983): On the Boundaries of the Social World. In: Luckmann, T.: LifeWorld and Social Realities. London: Heinemann Educational Books, pp. 40–67. Luckmann, T. (1988): Technology, Culture and Social Change. In: Yak, K. (Ed.) Complexities of the Human Environment. A Cultural and Technological Perspective. Vienna: Europa Verlag, pp. 134–139. Luckmann, T. (1994): Natur – eine geschichtliche Gegebenheit? In: Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart (Ed.): Zum Naturbegriff der Gegenwart. (Vol. II) Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog Verlag, pp. 193–218. Luckmann, T. (2007): Sinn in Sozialstruktur. In: Luckmann, T. (Author) & Dreher, J. (Ed.) Lebenswelt, Identität und Gesellschaft. Konstanz: UVK, pp. 138–150. Luckmann, T. (2008): Konstitution, Konstruktion: Phänomenologie, Sozialwissenschaft. In: Raab, J. et al. (Eds.) Phänomenologie und Soziologie. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 33–40. Pfadenhauer, M. (2015): The Contemporary Appeal of Artificial Companions: AC Technologies as Vehicles to Cultural Worlds of Experience. The Information ­Society, 31(3), pp. 284–293. Pfadenhauer, M. & Dukat C. (2015): Robot Caregiver or Robot-Supported Caregiving? The Performative Deployment of the Social Robot PARO in Dementia Care. International Journal of Social Robotics, 7(3), pp. 393–406. Sartre, J.-P. (1956): Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology (Hazel E. Barnes, Trans.) New York: Philosophical Library. Sartre, J.-P. (1992): Notebooks for an Ethics (David Pellauer, Trans.) Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Turkle, S. (2011): Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other. New York: Basic Books. Uexküll, J. von (2010): A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning (Joseph D. O’Neil, Trans.) Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

4 The reality of material objectivations On dwelling as a mode of internalization Silke Steets In 1965, Theodor W. Adorno gave a lecture entitled “Functionalism Today” at the German Werkbund in Berlin in which he suggested that virtually “every consumer had probably felt all too painfully the impracticability of the mercilessly practical” (Adorno 1997: 8) that seems to be implied in modern architecture and functionalist urbanism. Adorno’s critique targets the design principles and aesthetic norms first developed within associations such as the German Werkbund and the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and then applied in postwar urbanism in many countries worldwide. What fills him “with a disturbing discontent” (ibid. 5) is, first, the fact that architecture in this functionalist understanding no longer produces an aesthetic richness, which – in Adorno’s eyes – human beings need in order to become truly humane. Instead, the built world in postwar ­Germany and elsewhere was dominated by the ideas of rationality, functionality and purposefulness, that is, by principles Adorno interpreted as a legitimation for what was then the mode of capitalist production of space (for a similar argument, cf. Lefèbvre 1991). As a result, this modernist ideology produces forms that claim to be universally functional – and in that sense perfect. Furthermore, Adorno argues that if the principles of functionalist design are thought through to their very end, fully rational solutions will emerge: For the problem of sitting, such a solution would be the perfect chair; for the problem of cooking, the perfect kitchen; for the problem of dwelling, the perfect house and so on. However – and this is Adorno’s second ­concern – human beings are not perfect. As human beings they are not just endowed with reason, but also with feelings and irrational needs, not to forget an imperfect body. Consequently, perfectly functional chairs, kitchens and houses hurt (in the true sense of this word) and exercise power over the human being through their function. For Adorno, the “future of Sachlichkeit could be a liberating one only if it shed its barbarous traits” (ibid. 8) and no longer inflicted “on man – whom it supposedly upheld as its only measure – the sadistic blows of sharp edges, bare calculated rooms, stairways, and the like” (ibid.). Taking this critical diagnosis as a starting point, I suggest dealing with the ideas and the material reality of functionalist architecture from a knowledgesociological perspective. In doing so, chairs, kitchens, houses and so on can be thought of as material objectivations. Objectivations – whether material or immaterial – are a major component of the “new sociology of knowledge”

76  Silke Steets formulated by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1967 [1966]). They use the term to refer to “products of human activity that are available both to their producers and to other men as elements of a common world” (ibid. 49). Thus, objectivations continuously “act back” upon their producers and may take many forms: from everyday routines (as relatively fixed behavioral patterns), to commonly recognized linguistic expressions (that we all need to use in order to make ourselves understood), all the way to institutions (that structure social life). What is more, Berger and Luckmann (ibid. 50) argue that the socially constructed reality is not just filled with objectivations; it is only real because of them. While they are mainly interested in immaterial objectivations, such as routines, institutions and symbolic universes, I suggest extending their arguments to the material world and formulating a sociology of knowledge-based ­analysis of material things and buildings (Steets 2015, 2016). In doing so, the “thing-likeness” of objectivations takes center stage – and, as a sideline, one reverses Émile Durkheim’s (1982) first and most basic rule of sociological thought according to which sociologist should consider social facts as things. In considering things as social facts, objects and buildings become conceivable as significant factors in the world-building process through which every society produces its own reality. This reality arises, according to Berger and Luckmann (1967: 78f.), out of a continuous dialectical process of “externalization,” “objectivation” and “internalization” of meaning. The three poles of this model operate mutually and continuously affect each other. In order to demonstrate the analytical fruitfulness of this perspective for an investigation of the built environment, I will start by presenting an example that can easily be connected to Adorno’s diagnosis of modernist architecture. This example is based on a case study I carried out in a team of four partners on dwelling in one of the most functionalist housing projects designed by the Bauhaus: the Dessau-Törten housing estate (cf. Heinecke et al. 2003). The purpose of the example is to show how processes of externalization and internalization interact in building and residing – and how these processes are related in the medium of material objectivations. Functionalist architecture seems to provide an extremely interesting example for such a reflection since it posits an especially close (Adorno would probably say “barbaric”) relationship between function, form and everyday use. However, the results of my analysis will show that Adorno, at least in the case of Dessau-Törten, was wrong to be concerned – which is connected with the fact that dwelling obviously involves more in the way of internalization than simply adopting rules on behaving objectified in the form of houses and pieces of furniture. Nonetheless, my analysis based on the sociology of knowledge leads to rejection of strict functionalism in architecture. But let us start by turning to the example: the Dessau-Törten housing estate and the way it was designed and built.

Designing the Dessau-Törten Housing Estate Dessau is a medium-sized, former industrial town, where the famous ­Bauhaus school moved after it had to leave Weimar in 1925. The Dessau-­Törten housing

Reality of material objectivations  77 estate was planned and built by the Bauhaus’s founder and then-director ­Walter Gropius as a project commissioned by the city of Dessau from 1926–1928. The housing estate consisted of a total of 314 single houses in three types, all of which were affordable for working-class people. The price for a house on the estate varied between 9,200 and 10,600 Reichsmark (RM), with RM1,000 having to be paid as a deposit and RM35 per month to cover interest and repayment of the loan. In his design strategy, Gropius oriented himself to his long before developed ideas on an industrial approach to building. In his programmatic essay “Wohnhaus-­Industrie [Residential housing industry]”, he writes: Human housing is a matter of mass demand. Just as today 90 percent of the population would not think of having their shoes made to measure, but buy ready made products, which as a result of refined methods of production satisfy most individual needs, in the future individual people will be able to order the housing that suits them off the shelf. (Gropius 1956a [1924]: 117) [emphasis in original] Gropius concluded from this that a restructuring of the building industry was necessary, with a move away from the production of individual houses by craftsmen to the industrial prefabrication of standardized building components. He dreamed of a “large scale modular system” (ibid. 121), that is, of a set of standardized individual elements precisely manufactured by machines and serving as the raw material for architectural designs. In other words: For Walter Gropius designing a house meant the well-thought-out combination of standardized and prefabricated individual modules. Yet he did not see the danger of a resulting homogenization of building. “The standardization of the modules,” he wrote, “assumes, however, the individual configurations which we all want, no limits, and the homogeneity of the individual elements and the same materials in different building modules will impose a sense of order and have a soothing effect on us” (ibid.) (Figure 4.1). In Dessau-Törten, he tried out this principle in practice for the first time: Because sand and gravel were available, Gropius decided to build in concrete and prefabricate hollow slag-concrete blocks and precast concrete joists at the construction site. In order to take full advantage of the potential of prefabrication, he organized the building site in accordance with Taylor’s production line methods and developed a corresponding construction system for the standardized houses, which he described in the following way: Fire resistant load-bearing walls made of hollow slag-concrete blocks measuring 22.5 × 25 × 50 cm, i.e. of a size that one man can put in place. Ceilings freely suspended from firewall to firewall made of precast concrete joists which are laid dry, beam to beam, without any paneling ­between them. The front walls are made of insulating non-load carrying panels made of slag-concrete blocks which are supported by reinforced cantilevered concrete beams with direct load transfer to the firewalls. (Gropius 1930: 154)

78  Silke Steets

Figure 4.1  S  eries-built house of the Sietö IV-1928 type on Mittelring, Dessau-Törten (Source: Reichsforschungsgesellschaft für Wirtschaftlichkeit im ­Bauund Wohnungswesen e. V. (Ed.), Bericht über die Versuchssiedlung in Dessau. Sonderheft Nr. 7, Berlin 1929.  p. 114.  Photo: unknown, 1928).

The result of these rationalized building and construction principles was a housing estate which in its form too represented a significant aesthetic affirmation of serial production. Gropius developed three types of houses with small variations in each case (Sietö I, Sietö II and Sietö IV) and also made targeted use of industrially produced components such as steel doors, glass elements, prismatic glass and steel windows. The latter were among the most controversial special features of the estate’s houses. First of all, ­Gropius installed the steel windows in the exterior walls at a sill height of 1.4m, which made it impossible for seated adults and children to see out (although admittedly it provided more light and storage space inside). Second, the elongated, often drafty and only single-glazed windows created tremendous cold bridges into the houses and thirdly – and most surprisingly – in 1926 the steel frame windows were about a third more expensive than wooden frames. Thus, neither functional nor financial arguments legitimize the steel windows in the houses. Andreas Schwarting (2011: 50) speculates (I think correctly) that “with their high level of manufacturing precision and their transoms of only about 25 mm [they were] an essential element of Gropius’s esthetic concept.”

Reality of material objectivations  79 Although the exteriors of the estate houses undoubtedly represented a radical break with traditional principles of form, their floor plans were based on “a proven pattern of garden city architecture” (ibid. 46). Between 74 (­Sietö I) and 57 (Sietö IV) square meters in size, the ground floor accommodation of a house consisted of a living room facing the street, a kitchen looking out on the garden, and a stall for chickens and rabbits and a waterless toilet attached to the rear. Upstairs there were three bedrooms. The garden of up to 400 sq. m provided a plot for growing vegetables for domestic use. Actually, the floor plan solutions worked out by Walter Gropius permitted very functional furnishing. In the two display homes, which could already be inspected a few weeks after the commencement of construction, Gropius, supported by the Bauhaus workshops, put furnishings on display designed for small living quarters. They were mainly based on designs by Marcel Breuer, the leader of the Bauhaus’s carpentry workshop, and were intended to influence the development of the new inhabitants’ taste. Their cost: RM1,350. Alternative furnishing put together by Dora Fieger, Walter Gropius’s private secretary, using normal commercially available furniture would have cost about RM2,000 (cf. ibid. 53). But not one family ordered the Bauhaus furniture. Instead, the residents brought their own furniture with them and above all their own ideas on how to live. Often, the color arrangements in the interior rooms, which the wall painting workshop of the Bauhaus had developed, were changed upon arrival, for not everybody was “satisfied with the often repeatedly changing color shades with no pattern of the painted walls within a single room” (Engelmann & Schädlich 1991: 57) (Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2  H  ousing estate houses of the Sietö II type, exterior view with steel windows (center) and plastic box-type windows (right) (© Nils Emde, 2003).

80  Silke Steets What can be concluded is that Gropius’s architecture was simultaneously artistic and technical. It was technical in the sense that it was based on the creation of industrially manufactured standard products (in his view only that was up to date), and it was artistic because the composition of the individual prefab elements was a creative act, which even Gropius did not justify on purely rational grounds. The example of the steel windows makes clear that aesthetic issues may well have played a more important role than Gropius’s writings, which were shaped by the idea of functionalism and rationalism in building, concede. This is clearly seen again in his reflections on “the sociological basis of minimal dwellings for the urban industrial population” (Gropius 1956b [1929]). In this essay, Gropius reviews social structural trends and the change in family forms and works out their consequences for architecture and planning. One conclusion he arrives at is that the experiences of working women involved in industrial production confront them with “the irrationality of their domestic detailing work” (ibid. 88), explaining why he felt a modern, emancipated woman needs a household correctly organized along industrial lines. He expressed another by writing that the problem of the minimum dwelling is that of establishing the elementary minimum of space, air, light, and heat required by man in order that he be able to fully develop his life functions without experiencing limitations due to his dwelling, i.e. a minimum modus vivendi in place of a modus non moriendi. (ibid. 90) [emphasis in original] But what does it actually mean to live in a house that follows this principle?

“You can rip out all the walls and absolutely nothing will happen”1 Daniela L. is 67 years old. She was born in one of the Törten houses and lived here with her parents and grandparents. It was her grandma who originally bought the little house: “Grandma was always keen on everything modern. Grandpa was away on a job, and Grandma simply bought the house herself. When he came back he wasn’t at all pleased. But it was too late, and Grandma was happy.” Today, the meetings of the local DIE LINKE party are held in Daniela’s living room once a month. Suddenly, the house contains 20 times the number of people who normally live here. “I’m the only one with enough chairs,” says Daniela. But of course she also has a large living room, which the people can all fit into. The chair store is in the space once used for keeping chickens and rabbits, which has since become a boiler room. And it is to her grandparents that Daniela owes the fact that she can fit all her fellow party members into her living room. It was they who combined the balcony (which was originally the flat roof above

Reality of material objectivations  81 the chickens and rabbits) with the adjacent room to form one big space. So, the living room migrated from the ground floor to the upper floor, and the bedroom from the upper to the ground floor. Which had another advantage for her, because she now has an east-facing bedroom, which is good because by evening the sun has moved away and it’s not so hot. What is remarkable is Daniela’s down-to-earth way of going about things. “I moved this wall because I wanted to have a hallway. We didn’t have one, but you do need something for coats and so on.” She has put up a coat rack and has a shoe cupboard and a place for storage. “The stairs,” she continues, had a banister, but now it’s over on the other side because that makes it easier to get around the corners. Before that we always had to unscrew the banister, if we wanted to carry furniture upstairs. And I moved the wall over while I was about it, to make a bit more room. Gropius had built an open stairwell the full height of the two storeys, with a continuous vertical-glazed strip consisting of prismatic glass blocks. ­Daniela reports: “We put in a sloping ceiling, too. You couldn’t get at the cobwebs before the ceiling was there. It’s so that you can clean better, and also for warmth.” Gradually, we realize that in this house, the arrangement of the rooms has been totally switched around. “Yes,” says Daniela, “for the supporting beams here and the ones in the ceiling above, you can rip out all the walls and absolutely nothing will happen.”

A bit cockeyed Hans and Anna S. are pensioners. Just a few years ago they moved together into Anna’s parents’ house, which was originally of the type called Sietö IV. The Sietö IV design is the smallest in Törten. Gropius divided all of the 57 sq. m (around 614 sq. ft) into five rooms, and very cleverly, too, by not having a stairwell. The split-level living space is arranged over two mezzanine floors and a cellar, linked by flights of six stairs. Nowadays, the house comprises 131 sq. m (around 1,400 sq. ft) including the cellar. What Gropius in the 1920s called a “minimum vivendi” has been repeatedly added to, improved upon here and there and in the process completely reorganized. “Everything here is a bit cockeyed, but we’re happy,” says Anna. “A bit cockeyed” applies particularly to the floors. “Mind how you go, there’s a step here and another one there,” she warns new visitors to the house before they even pass through the door. Every room more or less has its own floor level. It was the war that sparked off the rebuilding process in this house. In January 1945, it was one of 25 houses on the Törten estate to be hit by a bomb. Anna’s mother survived down in the cellar, but the living room was gone. Using bricks they had collected, they started to patch up the house little by little. “My mother felt the cold terribly in that house. The original

82  Silke Steets living room faced north, and so did the kitchen, which was next to it. And you know what those quick-set concrete beams that made up the ceiling were like. As fast as you heated the place, the heat escaped upwards.” That’s why my mother said, “We certainly won’t rebuild it like that!” So they constructed a new and much bigger living room in the place where, before the bomb landed, the animal shed and waterless toilet had stood. It was supplied with better floor and roof insulation and with a masonry stove. There is no doubt that insufficient insulation was a major problem in the experimental house. In winter, the condensation turned to ice on the single-glazed panes of the steel windows. The frames were drafty, the heating inadequate (Figure 4.3). In winter, to achieve at least some small improvement, some people would crochet woolen cozies for the steel handles of the modern interior doors. And yet: It was only after we had changed the house around that we realized how functional Gropius’s layout was. The family was bound to keep meeting in the center of the house. You came in from the street into this living room, the only door out of the living room led to the kitchen, and there was the staircase up to where the children’s rooms were. Usually there were one or two children, and they all had to pass through the living room, whether they wanted to get to their bedroom or the kitchen or to the street outside. You had to go through the center of the house, the living room. Nowadays we’ve got a bit more space here. My husband sits in this room at the back, and I’m in the kitchen over there. There’s less togetherness. When I want something from him I always have to call out, ‘Hans!’

Figure 4.3  “ It’s our little paradise” – Hans and Anna’s living room (© Nils Emde, 2003).

Reality of material objectivations  83 The “room at the back,” where Hans usually sits, is now the most attractive one in the house. In 1999, to extend the living room into the garden, the couple had a conservatory built on. Without any ideological superstructure, this has achieved what theorists of architecture see as characteristic of the designs of the modernists: a room bathed in light, where inside and outside fuse. “You think you’re sitting out in the garden. It’s our little paradise,” Anna says. What can we learn from these examples of dwelling in Dessau-Törten on the role of material objectivations in the world-building process of a certain society? In order to answer this question, I will now briefly sketch out my knowledge-sociological approach to architecture (cf. Steets 2015, 2016) and then – in my conclusion – connect this with Dessau-Törten and with ­Adorno’s view on functionalism.

Architecture as a social construction According to Berger and Luckmann (1967: 78), The Social Construction of Reality arises out of a continuous dialectic process of “externalization,” “objectivation” and “internalization” of meaning. Externalization means any form of human action that implies some sort of interpretation, or – in the words of Berger and Luckmann – some “externalization of subjective meanings” (ibid. 68). Regardless of whether we “speak,” “sit,” “move” or “build,” we permanently interfere with our social and physical environment and – in doing so – interpret and modify it. Through acts of externalization, we establish a culturally specific relationship with our bodies and the world surrounding us. Since we are not alone in this world but are born into a social and physical environment that already exists when we enter the stage, our interpretive interactions with this world depend on the social structural position we assume in it and the perspective on the world linked with this position (ibid. 151 and, for a similar argument, cf. Bourdieu 1984). As a result, processes of externalization lead to all sorts of material and immaterial manmade products, such as languages, institutions, symbolic universes as well as tools, technical artifacts – and buildings. With regard to objectivation, the willful peculiarities of architecture can be illuminated especially well as phenomena of material culture. Objectivation is the “transformation of man’s products into a world that not only derives from man, but that comes to confront him as a facticity outside of himself” (Berger 1990 [1967]: 8). This means that the world, as soon as it has been built, is something that presents itself as universal and compulsive; it is – as Émile Durkheim had put it – a “social fact” capable of resisting the desire of its creator. Berger (ibid. 9) illustrates this very nicely using a plow as an example: Man manufactures a tool and by that action enriches the totality of physical objects present in the world. Once produced, the tool has a being of its own that cannot be readily changed by those who employ

84  Silke Steets it. Indeed, the tool (say, an agricultural implement) may even enforce the logic of its being upon its users, sometimes in a way that may not be particularly agreeable to them. For instance, a plow, though obviously a human product, is an external object not only in the sense that its users may fall over it and hurt themselves as a result, just as they may by falling over a rock or a stump or any other natural object. More interestingly, the plow may compel its users to arrange their agricultural activity, and perhaps also other aspects of their lives, in a way that conforms to its own logic and that may have been neither intended nor foreseen by those who originally devised it. It is exactly this functionalist aspect that Adorno had emphasized in his reflections on modern architecture mentioned above. In my own words: As soon as material objectivations come into life they act back upon their ­users – and sometimes they hurt. While this is true for any kind of architecture, it might – according to Adorno – be especially true for buildings that consist of “sharp edges and bare calculated rooms” (Adorno 1997: 8). However, there is a third aspect that needs to be considered, the aspect of internalization. Internalization means more than simply understanding the socially constructed objectivations. It means “the reappropriation” by human beings of the objectively shared reality, “transforming it once again from structures of the objective world into structures of the subjective consciousness” (Berger 1990: 4) – and into the body, I would add. The incorporation of objective reality into the consciousness, as well as the body of a person, happens through socialization processes. Through these, individuals adopt a certain worldview, which is assigned to them. At the same time, they learn how to deal with material objects; that is, they acquire certain “body techniques” (cf. Mauss 1979 [1950]) and forms of movement that fit with them. Through successful socialization, the socially interpreted world becomes an individual’s own world and he or she can then skillfully and naturally move within it. To summarize the processes that lead to The Social Construction of Reality in the words of Berger (1990: 4): “It is through externalization that society is a human product. It is through objectivation that society becomes a reality sui generis. It is through internalization that man is a product of society.” This idea can be narrowed down to the analysis of architectural objectivations: In doing so, externalization is nothing else than designing, constructing and reworking buildings; these buildings, in turn, can be understood as material objectivations, which are internalized via various modes of appropriation (such as dwelling). The matters to be addressed in a knowledge-sociological theory of architecture are the commonalities and specific features of material and immaterial human activities, of architectural and other objectivations and their respective forms of appropriation. Let us now examine the latter.

Reality of material objectivations  85

Dwelling as a mode of internalization Empirically speaking, the internalization of a socially constructed reality, that is, a world full of material and immaterial objectivations, works very successfully in many cases. By growing up in a certain society we not only learn its language (and thereby the cognitive structures it consists of), but also the culturally specific treatment of objects and buildings. Sometimes, however, we may observe ruptures and irritations, such as in the case of the Dessau-Törten housing estate. In what follows I will show how the residents deal with the concepts of rationalization of dwelling objectivized in the buildings. The ideas involved in rationalization of dwelling were most convincing in connection with the organization of the household. It is true that the people interviewed did not describe how their cooking, washing and cleaning changed when they moved into a dwelling at the estate, but Gropius’s thesis that a modern woman needs a household that is correctly organized for everyday use seems to have convinced people – especially among the women themselves. For example, Klara A., another resident, still emphasizes, even today after more than 70 years’ residence in Dessau-Törten, that it was “a really big thing” to move in at that time: “I stand by Gropius. I don’t allow anything to be added to the building of those days!” In Daniela’s family too it was the grandma “who was always keen on everything modern” and bought the estate house on her own initiative while grandpa was away. This independent way of dealing with questions of accommodation is also reflected in the pragmatic hands-on way in which the granddaughter Daniela constantly reorganized her house over the years. Thus, it can be assumed that the women attached ideas of emancipation and progress with living in Dessau-Törten. This was not changed by the problems that accompanied the move into the houses. Learned physical activities such as “gazing out of the window” or “cleaning” were at least disrupted by the buildings. Interestingly, these disruptions did not always lead to adaptation of the physical activities to the new housing, that is, a practical bodily internalization of the built environment, but more frequently to structural modification of the houses. Andreas Schwarting (2011: 55) reports that already in the first years after moving in individual steel windows had been replaced by box-type windows with lower sills; however, most rebuilding of windows took place after 1932. The main reason was usually to improve temperature regulation of the house – the newly installed windows were smaller and usually had a wooden frame – although the fact that after the renovation it was again possible to look out of the window while sitting down was seen by many as an improvement to the quality of the accommodation. The difficulty of cleaning the windows also played an important role, as Anna S. emphasized; she found the original brightly lit state of the rooms beautiful, but in no way wished to see the

86  Silke Steets steel windows brought back, “for the windows that we have now are easier to clean than that ribbon up there.” Together with difficulty of cleaning, the poor insulation, which led to differing bodily techniques for “keeping warm,” was cited as the most important reason for the early renovation measures. However, it is striking that right up until today Dessau-Törten has been in a permanent state of renovation. For instance, Hanna K., also a resident for many years, reports on neighbors who have renovated their house “for the third time since the collapse of Communism, when the D-Mark arrived.” In Anna and Hans’s house, because of the many successive renovations and expansions, everything is “a bit cockeyed,” and Daniela seems to have made the reorganization of her house into an ongoing lifetime task. Why is this happening? Isn’t a house finally “finished” at one point or other? Do the modern housing-estate houses evoke permanent renovation and extension? Apparently, “yes,” and there are many reasons for this: First, the houses are all privately owned, and, within certain guidelines, everybody can do whatever they please with their own property. Second, the method of construction of the houses out of exterior load-bearing walls with precast concrete ceiling joists laid on them offers the maximum flexibility for repositioning interior walls. The third and most interesting reason, however, seems to me to be that the housing estate was built as a construction and residential technology “experiment.” As he said himself, Walter Gropius wanted to figure out whether it was possible to build houses – like cars – on an assembly-line basis, and how functional residential housing can be designed in such a way that it is also affordable for the lower classes. The residents of Dessau-Törten seem to have grasped that their houses were “experiments” from the very beginning and to have internalized that as an imagination, even if in a different way from what Gropius meant. When they moved in they began to test their houses for inhabitability: They reorganized the floor plans, enlarged rooms, moved spaces, improved the insulation, reduced the size of windows, added conservatories and modified façade to suit their own aesthetic taste. Thus, renovating and extending dwellings became a natural part of everyday life in Dessau-Törten, in keeping with the motto: “There’s always something to do!” As a result, the original unitary form of the housing estate was lost, but this example makes it possible to gain valuable insight into what dwelling means in the sense of internalization of the built environment. Dwelling obviously means creating your own place. It means more than merely “establishing the elementary minimum of space, air, light, and heat required by man in order that he be able to fully develop his life functions without experiencing limitations due to his dwelling” (Gropius 1956b [1929]: 90). The underlying mechanisms are as fundamental as they are simple, and we are all familiar with them from our own experience: We

Reality of material objectivations  87 move into a hotel room and start moving the chairs and the wastepaper basket, distributing the contents of the case we brought with us around the room, and put our toothbrush in the bathroom. In this way, the room becomes a little bit our hotel room. As a rule we do not occupy a new office without hanging some pictures and moving the desk. Only then does it feel like our office (cf. Mayerfeld Bell 1997). Thus, making a place your own means – and the example of Dessau-Törten shows this impressively – not only internalizing the body techniques and forms of interaction evoked by its arrangement and architectural form on a one-to-one basis; making a place your own is always related to forms of externalization. Formulated in simpler terms, every act of appropriation of the built environment implies changing it more or less extensively and more or less creatively by the people who are interacting with it. In this sense, architecture does not differ from language (upon which Berger and Luckmann have reflected intensively). Nonetheless, it is still astonishing to see how strongly the Gropius dwellings in the estate invited people to transform them because the functionalist design concept which shaped them only acknowledges – at least ­theoretically  – one correct form of use in terms of bodily practices. As mentioned at the beginning – Theodor W. Adorno even saw dehumanizing tendencies in architectural functionalism: A perfectly functioning house simply confronts human beings with their own imperfection, which is why “virtually every consumer had probably felt all too painfully the impracticability of the mercilessly practical” (Adorno 1997: 8). However, and most fortunately (as could be argued with reference to Adorno), very many aspects of the Dessau-Törten housing estate did not function perfectly at all, as we could see from the size of the rooms, the frozen steel handles on the windows in winter and, more generally, the heating system. By accident, I would argue, Dessau-Törten is perhaps not so much an example of the functional form, but of what Dutch architect Hermann Hertzberger (2005 [1991]) in his “Lessons for students in Architecture” called the “inviting form” (ibid. 174). Hertzberger writes: Extreme functionality in a design makes it rigid and inflexible, that is, it leaves the user of the designed object too little freedom to interpret its function as he pleases. It is as if it has been decided a priori what is to be expected of the user, what he may and what he may not do. The user is thus subservient to the form […]; he is only capable of using the object, of appropriating it temporarily in a way, if what he wants to do with it corresponds to what the form dictates. (ibid. 177) Instead, Hertzberger argues for a more “open” and “activating” form, which he sees simultaneously as a more “humane” one. Such a form should be in a

88  Silke Steets certain sense “unfinished.” One example of “inviting form” he refers to are raised sidewalks located in the city of Buenos Aires: There where the sidewalk is so high that you can sit on it or lean against it, in streets with a steep incline, for instance, such a place, if favorably situated (as on a corner), can become a place where people meet and linger. (ibid.) A corner that is simultaneously a sidewalk, something to lean on and a place to sit down could vitalize events in the public space as a result of its many possible uses. As could be seen in the practice of dwelling observed in Dessau-Törten, in a way the little houses designed by Walter Gropius against a background of a functionalist vision were “unfinished” too. They invited and still invite their users to restructure and improve them. In other words, living in Dessau-Törten as a mode of internalization permanently goes together with processes of externalization. It is not just a passive reappropriation of an objective reality, but a co-construction of it. Through this, residents develop a sense of being at home, and the house becomes their house. In the case of living in Dessau-Törten, it can also be seen that the active appropriation of the architecture linked to the continued modification of the houses in the estate led to varyingly intensive forms of bonding with it.2 This is seen in the adoption of certain concepts of progress and emancipation associated with dwelling in a building belonging to architectural modernity, as well as in the internalization of certain body techniques. When Anna and Hans always greet new visitors at the door with the words “Watch out. There is a doorstep here and one there too.” This warning is obviously only necessary for visitors. Anna and Hans, by contrast, know their house, deftly move around in it and consequently do not stumble over the height differences they themselves created between rooms.

Conclusion The goal of this paper was to demonstrate the fruitfulness of a sociology of knowledge perspective on architecture and the world of objects. Looking at built space with the help of Berger and Luckmann’s theses makes it possible to understand buildings as “material objectivations” which – because they are material and thus tangible – mediate processes of externalization and internalization in a special way. As material objectivations, buildings are doubly real: in their materiality (which their form implies) and in their function as symbols (which is also closely linked to their form). Dwelling as a mode of internalization is thus always a double process: It involves, on the one hand, the development of body techniques for dealing with stairs, walls, windows, doors and so on and, on the other, considering the values

Reality of material objectivations  89 and cultural meanings that certain buildings or building forms are associated with. These can be adopted or rejected. If they are adopted, a feeling of being at home develops; if they are rejected, an uneasy sense of being a stranger is felt. Empirical studies also show that dwelling is based on an interaction between internalization and externalization. This interaction is a major cause of the permanent change unfolding in the built environment and, more generally speaking, also of change in society. The inviting form, as Hermann Herzberger described it, seems to support these processes, while the functionalist form (at least in theory) tends to impede it.

Notes 1 The case studies and quotations are derived from the report Life with Walter, which I prepared in 2003 together with Nils Emde (photos), Katja Heinecke and Reinhard Krehl for the Bauhaus Style: Between International Style nd Lifestyle exhibition at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. In addition to the photographic documentation of interior and exterior spaces, we conducted five approximately one-hour interviews with residents of Dessau-Törten in which they talked about their “life with Walter” (Gropius). The names of the residents were changed. Where it is not indicated otherwise, the following citations are taken from the transcriptions of these interviews. 2 See the studies on the practices of dwelling carried out in the 1960s and 1970s at the Strasburg Institut de Sociologie Urbaine under the leadership of Henri Lefèbvre, which also emphasized these ideas. The best-known study was carried out by Philippe Boudon (1972), who investigated living in Pessac, a housing estate designed by Le Corbusier.

References Adorno, T.W. (1997): Functionalism Today. In: Leach, N. (Ed.) Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. London/New York: Routledge, pp. 5–18. Berger, P.L. (1990) [1967]: The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor Books. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1967) [1966]: The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Penguin Press. Boudon, P. (1972): Lived-in Architecture: Le Corbusier’s Pessac Revisited. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bourdieu, P. (1984): Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Durkheim, E. (1982): The Rules of Sociological Method. New York, NY: Free Press. Engelmann, C. & Schädlich, C. (1991): Die Bauhausbauten in Dessau. Berlin: Verlag für Bauwesen. Gropius, W. (1930): Bauhausbauten Dessau. München: A. Langen. Gropius, W. (1956a) [1924]: Wohnhaus-Industrie. In: Gropius, W. (Ed.) Architektur. Wege zu einer optischen Kultur. Frankfurt a.M: Fischer, pp. 116–122. Gropius, W. (1956b) [1929]: Die soziologischen Grundlagen der Minimalwohnung für die städtische Industriebevölkerung. In: Gropius, W. (Eds.) Architektur. Wege zu einer optischen Kultur. Frankfurt a.M: Fischer, pp. 84–93.

90  Silke Steets Heinecke, K. et al. (2003): Leben mit Walter. Kleines Glück im großen Plan. In: Bittner, R. (Ed.) Bauhausstil. Zwischen International Style und Lifestyle. Berlin: Jovis, pp. 142–157. Hertzberger, H. (2005) [1991]: Lessons for Students in Architecture. Rotterdam: nai010 Publishers. Lefèbvre, H. (1991): The Production of Space. Oxford/Cambridge: Blackwell. Mauss, M. (1979): Sociology and Psychology: Essays. London/Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Mayerfeld Bell, M. (1997): The Ghosts of Place. Theory and Society, 26(6), pp. 813–836. Schwarting, A. (2011): Zeitschichten. Die Siedlung als Palimpsest. In: Matz, R.  & Schwarting, A. (Eds.) Das Verschwinden der Revolution in der Renovierung oder Die Geschichte der Gropius-Siedlung Dessau-Törten. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, pp. 43–65. Steets, S. (2015): Der sinnhafte Aufbau der gebauten Welt: Eine Architektursoziologie. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Steets, S. (2016): Taking Berger and Luckmann to the Realm of Materiality: ­A rchitecture as a Social Construction. Cultural Sociology, 10(1), pp. 93–108.

5 Social constructions through socialization The perspective of a constructivist socialization research Matthias Grundmann Introduction The idea that human beings are producers of their social living environment is not new. But the term social constructivism is indeed a product of the spirit of the 1960s and the social movements beginning to highlight self-awareness and self-responsibility as a political act of emancipation. Especially the reflexivity of social creativity as an impulse of social change becomes an important political access. In this sociocultural and political climate, the question of what knowledge is and could be was obviously not sufficiently determinate by social theories in a structural functional ­tradition or Marxian provenience. Berger and Luckmann (1967) offer a special view of this by examining the importance of the social production of knowledge just at a time when knowledge becomes more and more ­i mportant as a cultural good. Written not as a theory but as an overview about what knowledge is in everyday life, their treatise opens the view on social processes that lead to an understanding of the linkages between knowledge-driven action and thinking about society. In this intellectual atmosphere, the question of how individuals are linked with their social life becomes more and more apparent in different research fields. In the social structural orientated socialization, knowledge was identified as one of the main reproducers of socially unequal living conditions and options as well as one possible operator that could overcome the restrictions of social origins for living opportunities through education (cf. Bronfenbrenner 1958; Kohn 1959, 1969; Bernstein 1961). Thus, the research focus changed to a dynamic understanding of the linkages between social structures and individual development. In the following, the research aims to explain how dynamic worlds change people and how people co-construct their personal life and their living environments (for an overview, see Moen et al. 1995). Moreover, at the same time the structural genetic approach focused on the question of co-construction from a more detailed perspective (cf. Younnis 1978) concerning intra- and interpersonal processes of cognitive and social cognitive reconstructions of living experiences (cf. Habermas 1973, 1976; Edelstein 1983). All these research studies draw out the complex

92  Matthias Grundmann dialectical linkages between individual and social living processes and between social reproduction and social ecological determination of individual development as presented in the treatise of Berger and Luckmann (1967). They offer a special approach to social construction as an interactive intraand interpersonal socialization process producing knowledge. This leads to the question of what social reality actually is, particularly for the subjects who create and conduct their life in relation to others and also the question of how intersubjectivity produces a common (and thus shared) social world. Thus, the treatise guided the scientific work addressing socialization processes and their manifestations in personal developments and in social relationships in different ways, especially concerning the importance of knowledge as a sociocultural product. In the following decades, socialization research developed a complex heuristic model that helped to understand and to identify the multifaceted linkages between opportunity structures, concrete cultural practices and personal competencies and performances (cf. Grundmann 2006, 2015 [1991]). This model allows a close look at interpersonal relationships, which provides us with information on the views and behaviors regarding individual participation in the given social context as well as regarding personal experiences of being recognized as a member of a social group or milieu. It is based on the assumption of a fundamental social constitution of interactivities and relationships between two or more social actors and therefore between actors and their social environments. Because socialization research aims at answering the question of how individual and social structures are interwoven, it has to reconstruct the meanings and the relevance that interactive individuals ascribe to their social experiences as well as to themselves. In the long run, it analyzes how these experiences and ascriptions affect the outcomes of their personal and social life. In the following, I will argue that the programmatic understanding of Social Construction of Berger and Luckmann offers a complex analysis of the reciprocal but also simultaneously independent processes of intra- and interindividual coordination and cooperation as well as the expressive exploration of collective life experiences and perceptions as figured out in empirical socialization research. Doing so it can be combined with the co-constructive approach in the tradition of the structural genetic approach and the research of development in context. When outlining the importance of the social constructivist paradigm for socialization research and how it contributes to decoding the primary socialization activities, I expand the idea that social construction is a product and, at the same time, producer of socialization. The aim of my consideration is to illustrate that a social constructivist understanding of socialization presupposes interactions between individuals that aim at social affiliation and reference – or generally speaking, at mutual activities and commonalities. I will illustrate these arguments referring to the situation of “social birth” and to the effect of communication and the development of agency. I will enrich my considerations

Social constructions through socialization  93 with a short outlook on the paradigmatic status of the approach of social constructivism and the additional value of its use in different research areas, such as studies that examine lives in context, peer research, and ethnography.

Co-construction as the “space between” For my argumentation, it is important to recognize that I use the term socialization in the broad continental European way (as used, for example, by Georg Simmel [1983]), that is, in the sense of “bringing together,” “linking human lives” and “connecting subjective and objective meanings.” This definition includes the pragmatic American one that defines socialization as “to render social” (Clausen 1968). While the American definition focuses on the social psychological question of how individuals participate in society and what kind of capacities they need to act themselves and interact with each other in a highly differentiated society, the European definition supposes a collaboration of two or more actors that first of all produce collectivities (and thus common social practices of living together). In this view, socialization refers to a latent process, evolving between interactivities of “organisms” and the term of interactivity denotes a central mode of socialization as a co-construction. If we define interactivity in the sense of Jean Piaget (1983) as a fundamental pro-social focusing on an individual being on the different elements and experiences in the world, as selective cognitive activities of subjects that intend to understand what is happening between them, the origin of knowledge is “constantly linked with action or operation, that is, transformations” and “neither arise[s] from objects nor from the subject, but from interactions – at first inextricable – between the subjects and those objects” (Piaget 1983: 104). Thus, it is not the subject but “the space between” the subjects that creates the human understanding of the world. The reciprocity as a fundamental originator of this social space is constituted by the synchrony of activities created within shared environments. This process produces social circumstances that impact both societal processes and the participating actors independently. These impacts are independent of the kind of agents, whether subjects, social facts or institutional and societal structures. Important for my considerations is the fact that specific activities always refer to each other, and that this connection defines the specific meaning of the world as a transformation of a single experience into a plural one – or the other way round (cf. Waldenfels 2015). In everyday life and due to ongoing and reciprocal interactions, subjects ascribe meanings to other actors; in doing so, they identify connecting activities. The aim of this process of mutual reference is cooperation and coordination and, generally speaking, development and cultivation as more complex forms of cooperation and coordination. In ­ rundmann 2006, 2015 [1991]), the author’s understanding of socialization (cf. G these interrelated activities are constitutive for all internalized and externalized

94  Matthias Grundmann manifestations of human activities that are connected to this process. They affect the executive common reality and the practices between the actors as well as their subjective reflections on all the spaces between them produced through practical and mental references. In the following, I would like to illustrate how this understanding of socialization has already formed an essential part of the treatise of Berger and Luckmann (1967). I will elaborate how their thoughts can guide empirical research on socialization. What I would like to show is that socialization research answers the question of how individual and social structures are interwoven. It reconstructs the meaning and the relevance that interactive individuals ascribe to their social experiences as well as to themselves.

The Social Construction of Reality as a heuristic model Socialization research refers to two central questions in social science. The first question focuses on the organization of society in terms of modernization and individualization. The second one asks how individuals participate in society and what kind of capacities they need to act themselves and interact with each other in a highly differentiated society (cf. Grundmann et al. 2011). Thus, the main aim of socialization research is to map the link between the living experiences of individuals and the effects that these experiences have on their personal and social life as well as on the modes of being together, the cultivation of social relationship and polity. Berger and Luckmann (1967) illustrate the complex dialectical relations between subjective and objective reality as a social creation of knowledge. Their focus is on a substantial understanding of knowledge as a fundamental human outcome – and a basic skill for living in general. Although they use the term socialization in the tradition of American pragmatism, that is, as a successful individual integration of subjective and objective reality into everyday life, they also take into account that the interactivity itself as a social act is presupposed through reciprocal relations focusing on the possibility of a fertile, procreative cohabitation. In their understanding, socialization produces atmospheres and more or less concrete meanings through interaction but only in the process of internalization in primary and secondary socialization as a general aspect of education. Instead, they refer to symbolic interaction as the main impulse of knowledge production. In all their arguments, Berger and Luckmann (1967) assume such an original social interaction that is constituted through a reciprocal contact between subjects or between agents. They emanate from co-presence and reciprocal body contact. They refer to anthropological conditions that lead to a simultaneous expression of experiences within and between individuals and their environment – between having and being a body as well as between intra- and interpersonal effects of this explosive and expressive space “between.” In their treatise they carve out the “betwixt” and its outcomes in multiple ways, for instance, regarding the production and realization of subjective and objective knowledge.

Social constructions through socialization  95 In their explanations on socialization, they describe the individual competence and personal development as competencies to participate in social relations and to simultaneously shape them. They refer to the general thesis of reciprocity formulated by Alfred Schütz (i.e., 1981) and the need to ascribe meanings as a mode of expression of selective activities to habitualize in accordance with biographical experiences (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 54). In their example of an original interaction of two persons from entirely different social worlds, they impressively illustrate that social construction as a process between these two persons who – independently of their social worlds – produces a continuous social relationship through practical and mental reference. They give several examples of this kind, which are important for the understanding of socialization processes and their development, for example regarding personality traits, educational outcomes or habitual practices of commonality and social relationships. They offer a research perspective that reviews the complex combination of circumstances and the dialectical interplay between the externalized, objectivized and at least institutionalized plural world and the internalized social reality of the single actor. In all their examples, it is not only the individual subject that has to be socialized. It is rather a plural subjectivity that creates interrelations and commonalities and a socio-emotional atmosphere and ideas about cooperation and relationship. Thus, socialization in Berger and Luckmann’s understanding is a continuation and stabilization of relations. The habitualization of social practices produced by these plural subjects is important for producing both socialization and social reality. The subject or agent is not only an actor but also a part of a relationship with its own meanings and structural logics. As a consequence, subjective and objective social constructions can be understood as temporary results of ongoing original interactions, as a pre-reflexive mode of being part of a living together – and as a collective “we” – which is the reflexive manifestation of this kind of identity (Grathoff 1995: 137). Interactions seem to become manifestations of the latent realization of the social world through common activities and common experiences as well as of the impacts that these common features have on the subjects and their corporative actions. Thus, socialization does not only affect the subject as an individual and his or her specific life outcomes, but also the way of living together with others. In this respect, the fact is important that the subjects are perceived as competent social actors who organize themselves through common activities; from this perspective, they can be perceived as free to achieve socially desirable functioning and goals and, in overcoming, they are able to negotiate restrictions typical for their living conditions (cf. Grundmann et al. 2011: 235). Nonetheless, the main topic of socialization research interest is the original interaction itself and also the question of how the interaction produces various outcomes of individual life and social life. This task comprises co-constructions and also the complex and consecutive interfaces that

96  Matthias Grundmann personal and social livings develop. Since an original interaction firstly is pre-reflexive and becomes successively relevant and structured through reflexive “interactions,” the main question is the following: What is generated through such interactivities, and what is the “new” that arises from it? An analysis of socialization processes must reconstruct these co-constructive developments and must also investigate what kind of meanings actors ascribe to these expressive practices in relation to their individual and collective life experiences?

Interactivity as an act of creation (or a social birth) As we can see, the betwixt is also a central figure in The Social Construction of Reality because of the central mode of reciprocity. It is constituted in intersubjective experiences and meanings as a reciprocal and exchangeable one. They are fundamentally given for individuals as subjects and as fellow men – in the sense of a common capacity to realize and to respond to a given perception or situation. The general idealization of a perception as an intersubjective experience is one central connector between actors – that is, in the sense of a fluid that combines all singular experiences to a plural experience. It links many individual lives to a plural living together. Moreover, it is the cognitive idealizations of reciprocity – specifically the mental coordination – as well as that which initiates both the ontogenesis and the pragmatic cooperation between the actors that initiate. Thus, the ontogenesis and mental coordination produce the genesis of social structures. In terms of socialization, this double and synchronic structuring impacts the intra- and the interindividual outcomes; it affects the individual’s inside as well as the individual’s outside. The inter- and intra-individual activities are independent because it is only through action that these relations originate. It follows that objective knowledge is always subordinate to certain structures of action. But those structures are the result of a construction and are not given in the objects, since they are dependent on action, nor in the subject, since the subject must learn how to coordinate his actions… (Piaget 1983: 104) Piaget exemplifies these arguments along the translations of actions by means of decentralization, identification and coordination in cognitive development. But it is also relevant for the structuring of social processes, as we can learn from Alfred Schütz (1981). Both emphasize that coordination is not only a simple product of experiences but also of continuous and active auto-regulations within and between individuals and the materialized discursive world of agents (cf. Grundmann 1997, 1999). I cannot deepen the structural genetic approach here in more detail. For my argumentation, it is important to consider that both socio-genetic and ontogenetic structures

Social constructions through socialization  97 are the result of independent and auto-regulative decentralization and coordination of activities. They are linked together due to the interrelations between subjects and objects (as parts of the “betwixt”) and thus can be understood as a becoming in the between of the internal and external world. Both subjects and objects, internal and external expressions are part of a created through common co-constructed and cooperative activities. They are embedded in concrete social practices that are co-products of shared living and social environments. In this respect, the act of creation means to realize social living within or as a part of a specific environment that comprises particular subjective and common experiences of the world, common requirements given through the interplay and linkages between intra- and interindividual actions and their coordinations and cooperations. Here the connectivity between Piaget and Berger and Luckmann (as well as to Alfred Schütz) is obvious. At the interface of body and environment, the transition between socio- and ontogenesis takes place.1 If this is true, socialization can be defined as the realization of mutual pre-reflexive living constellations. Materialities, recognitions, habitualizations and all other manifestations of original interactions are automatically affected by this process. But they are outcomes of the fundamental reciprocity that arises from the circumstance that the ontogenetic (e.g., socio-cognitive) and ­socio-genetic reflection (e.g., personal and social identity) co-construct. It follows a similar logic, namely regarding the generalization and equilibration of experiences, perceptions and perspectives through decentralization, identification and idealization (cf. Grundmann & Keller 1999). Both are centered in social interactions. From this point of view, socialization is the act of unifying actors who initiate social situations. The betwixt – that is, the space between these actors – affects socialization processes in two respects: on the one hand, the individual, through self-reflections of feelings and experiences (i.e., the individual’s body in its being and in its having) and the recognition of these feelings and experiences. On the other hand, the betwixt furthers creative impulses that produce common activities and social relationships as well as social practices and corporations are affected.

Ethnography of a social birth Several ethnographical studies on prenatal sociality (cf. Schadler 2013; Hirschauer et al. 2014) impressively illustrate how socialization can be defined as such a “social birth.” In the betwixt of the potential mother and the potential father, a “third” – potential newborn – originates. It comes into life and fulfills its own life as a singular individual through the continuous co-construction of practices in relation to the potential parents. In these studies, the process of pregnancy could be understood as a social construction not only of bodily but also of social relationships between partners, between parents and the newborn as well as between the body experiences during the pregnancy and the social ascriptions affecting these experiences

98  Matthias Grundmann and relationships. The “new third” is created in the multifaceted links between the actors, social practices and meanings. This process thus includes not only the actors but also numerous devices and knowledge. At the same time, socialization practices start even before the pregnancy is confirmed and are entangled with the material development of the embryo and later fetus. In the studies the continuous translation between mental and practical activities, between internal structuring and external explorations (and socially constructed objectivities and institutionalizations during this ­intraand intergenerational constructions of pregnancy) and even between the newborn and the parents are analyzed. They figured out how the involved actors reproduce these processes through the co-construction of meanings and the cooperative realization of their ideas of parenthood. This example illustrates the complex socializing process originated in the betwixt, which, in turn, is influenced through social circumstances given through interactions, intra- and interpersonal decentralizations and social figurations. Last but not least, the producer group (all actors that are part of the common pregnancy) refers to the fact of co-presence and co-construction. They act on the assumption of a potential possibility of mutual reference and argue that a singular actor is always a plural actor, too. The examples sensitize for the pre-social status of the original interaction and the following social construction as the socialization of a plural singularity: The mother, the father and the fetus are participants of the ongoing family formation processes, as well as of multiple social ascriptions (for example, in the case of the mother as the growing mother, the social mother, the distributed mother, the woman, the partner, the patient of a birth clinic and so on). The research illustrates a latent pre-social as well as a manifest social forming and figuring of family as an ongoing and dynamic process carrying out what could happen between the participating actors and the world in its mind or in relation to the social circumstances. It becomes apparent that the betwixt is not adequately defined by intersubjectivity as an expression of the “new” that develops. It is also born between nature and culture or human agents. From this point of view, the basic interaction between individuals and their living environments generates the intersubjective as well as the practical coordination of experiences and activities. It is the main impulse for all the processes that follow it: the intra- and interpersonal developments as well as intra- and intergenerational transmissions of social experiences.

Communication and agency: potentials for social constructions The relevance of the argument that socialization effects and is effected by the “between” becomes apparent during the reconstruction of the various influences that produce life experiences – socialization is a manifestation of both the “between” and the recognition of these life experiences as personal capabilities aiming at sharing the world with others. These products can be identified as the excess generated in the socialized interactivities. The

Social constructions through socialization  99 effects of socialization processes can be empirically reconstructed insofar as they are the result of the interplay between actors and their environment. Let me briefly illustrate this argument by using the example of communication experiences of pupils and its influence on the development of agency (cf. Grundmann & Steinhoff 2014). In order to understand thoroughly how varying social contexts affect individual developments and life chances, we have to look beyond general preconditions provided by social structures and decode even an unconscious, endogenous individual processing of opportunities and capabilities to meet the demands of one’s actual social environment. In general, social environments serve as sociocultural frames of interactions and therefore of individual perceptions of one’s own capabilities to explore, to recognize and to cope with social reality. However, social reality is subject to interactive co-constructions of meaning, which calls for those competencies that enable individuals to express and unlock diverse and common views during the course of their reciprocal communication. Assuming that developmental and life patterns are the result of a continuous socialization process in the course of which individuals obtain competencies, skills and interests, it is obviously necessary to look beyond biographical effects that arise from opportunity structures primarily measured on the macro level. For example, the development of self-efficacy emphasizes the fact that individual agency is subject to personal experience and the processing of concrete social interaction. The ability to constitutively take part in such interactions and the perception of one’s own efficacy in the course of it are inevitably related to the capacities of the individual to understand the notions of others and to put their own perspectives across. In this vein, the systematic links between the acquisition of communication skills, their application in a dialogic situation and the resulting experiences of individual efficacy in social practices have to be analyzed in detail. Comprising both the perception and interpretation of the notions of others’, as well as the capability to express one’s own views in a way comprehensible to others, communication competencies can be conceived of as key parameters in the establishment of reciprocal relationships. Therefore, from the arguments outlined thus far, communication experiences can be viewed as a constitutive principle in the socialization of human agency. In this regard, conversational language use is a demonstration of the establishment of sociality – but it is not the only one. So far, I have more or less explicitly addressed three interrelated domains that can be analytically distinguished when investigating the development of human agency. These are (1) cognitive competencies, (2) performative practices and (3) the mode of participation (cf. Grundmann & Dravenau 2010: 90–93). The first domain focuses predominantly on the intraindividual development of abilities, such as perspective taking and the understanding of complex arguments, as well as the capacity to contextualize one’s own perceptions and views in a reciprocal social situation. Perspective taking, for

100  Matthias Grundmann instance, is one principle that has been extensively investigated in developmental research and that has essential meaning for the capability of the individual to participate actively in the co-construction of social situations (cf. Grundmann & Keller 1999). It comprises the individual’s capacity to decode the concrete meaning others ascribe to objects (actors?) and arguments and to contrast such views with one’s own. We can assume the development of such cognitive competencies to be contingent on opportunities to experience objects (other actors?), interactions and relationships (cf. Edelstein & Schröder 2001). The second domain mentioned refers to the application of individual competencies to a social situation. Individual performance comprises actual conversational contributions on the occasion of, for instance, discussions in the family context, peer group activities or classroom discourse. In line with the conception of the interactive construction of social practices, the potential for such application of competencies is, of course, always subject to both the child’s (pupil’s?) actual capacities and the arrangements made by relevant counterparts such as parents, teachers or nurses. This leads to the third domain that is relevant to the analysis of agency development. It concerns the social recognition of individuals’ expressions. I refer to this interindividual domain of culturally valued characteristics, habits and capabilities as that of individual participation. It focuses on relationship characteristics such as the amount of reciprocity and a social group’s appreciation of certain kinds of individual contributions to communicative practice. These characteristics impress an individual’s social status in a given group or context and, subsequently, his or her self-perception. But it also tells much about the potentials of the actors to realize a good living. That implies opportunities and developmental processes (intra- and interpersonally) that enhance cognitive, social cognitive, personal and sociopolitical competencies as well as a culture of communication and cooperation directed at solidarity, continuity and flexibility. For example, political participation as an indicator of the freedom of voice in an egalitarian society requires democratic education that enables people to express their needs and to formulate their aims (cf. Grundmann et al. 2011: 235).

Summary: socialization as the social construction of reality The examples illustrate how socialization processes generate something new, an additional more. Concerning agency, it can be analyzed in view of their outcomes for individual living. What we empirically measure is not the between itself but the mental and practical outcomes of the processes created in this betwixt. These measurements are outcomes of an ongoing latent process of coordination and cooperation and all the expression and manifestations they have formed in social history. Because empirical research can always only reconstruct the effects of experiences of social interaction and their outcomes, to decode internalization and externalization processes

Social constructions through socialization  101 means to look at the outcomes. The internal ontogenetic processes can be shown, for example, in terms of the agential activities of perspective and role taking, shaping personal experiences such as self-efficacies as well as developing knowledge. Here we join the area of conflict between autonomy and relatedness (cf. Leu & Krappmann 1999) or other ambivalences in the between (cf. Lüscher 2016). The external socio-genetic processes can be described as an ongoing participation within interactions and social relations through which actors are formed but through which they also correspond and create and shape their common world. This implies research that addresses the reconstruction of the circumstances affecting experiences of interaction and its concrete inter- and intraindividual realization. It also focuses on processes of inter- and intragenerational production and reproduction of social meanings and circumstances. The given example highlights the personal development, but it also can be transmitted to processes of social cohesion and social bonding. Then, the focus falls on the common meanings that interaction experiences have for the lesser or stronger closeness of the relationships and therefore for common activities. There are many examples in research (for example, on social milieu, group cohesion, social integration in peer networks and collectivities processes of different kinds) substantiating the earlier interpretations. All of these examples highlight some of the complex dialectical interplay between subjective and objective reality described first by Berger and Luckmann and various other social (constructivist) theorists. Nevertheless, in the meantime, it becomes obvious that socialization as social construction has one origin but two independent synchronic outcomes. One effect is the internal subjective and one the external objective reality. The subjective (intraindividual) reality is mental – a mental picture or a cognitive operation. With reference to Jean Piaget’s work, the picture can be decoded ontogenetically by the complex logic of its cognitive and social cognitive structuring as well as through the analysis of its emotionally driven psychogenetic outcomes. The picture comprises the intersubjective coordination of ideas and perspectives as well as by its personal traits and recognitions – for example – of efficacy experiences or in social discourses. It also comprises the whole sky of ideas and ideologies that human beings are able to fantasize. The objective (interindividual) reality is practical – a real common activity in a shared environment and commonality. It arises from the doings during an action or a situation. The socialized interactivity materializes as a reflection of the co-constructive activity in the situational doings. If we have reconstructed these creation processes, the question becomes apparent how an individual renders the social as discussed in the social psychological tradition of the American socialization research. This kind of practical realization through coordination and cooperation is important for socialization processes due to the externalization and habitualization of common experiences and practical doings. It points to the pragmatic question of how individual living opportunities can be realized. The obvious practices of social living are relevant markers for producing a

102  Matthias Grundmann commonality in the form of institutionalized values and norms that are well established in social roles, status and symbols. If we analyze socialization processes as such a complex process through which an actor/agent is brought into being, and if we realize the exact way through which it materializes (in all of these its specific ontogenetic, ­socio-genetic or historic genetic development), we are able to focus on the linkages between the mental and the practical, the subjective and objective reality as well as intra- and interindividual activities in social life. These linkages can only be reconstructed because of the outcomes that are constituted in the between. Nevertheless, because socialization refers to the origin of social circumstances as the realization of the between and comprises the effects that this between has on social living, it rather takes into account the ongoing processes between this. The development of the actor that is “born” in this between – for example, a person, an idea or a social fact – can be reconstructed as an outcome of socialization as a realization process. Thus, for socialization research a detailed analysis of these processes is necessary. It is important to look closely at the “between” as the ongoing beginning of socialization. This analysis helps to answer the question of the impact of how the between impacts individual and collective forms of social living. To decode these impacts for the individual life, as well as for the qualities of social relations in terms of interconnectedness and an analysis of the linkages between, is central for socialization research. It focuses on the complex coordination and cooperation of the betwixt and its genesis. The treatise of Berger and Luckmann sensitizes for this necessary investigation into the interplay between actors that materializes in the concrete activities of the participants, environment and agents. Until today, this is a research desideratum to answer the question of how socialization is actually constituted during the process of the social, bodily, mental, sociocultural and discursive references and how this process impacts the sociogenesis of social relations.

Note 1 Today, these assumptions are well elaborated in different social theories (e.g., Searle 2010) or in social anthropology (e.g., Tomassello 2014, 2016). See also Waldenfels (2015).

References Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1967): The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Bernstein, B. (1961): Social Structure, Language and Learning. Educational Research, 3(3), pp. 163–176. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1958): Socialization and Social Class through Time and Space. In: Maccoby, E.E. et al. (Eds.) Readings in Social Psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, pp. 400–425.

Social constructions through socialization  103 Clausen, J.A. (1968): A Historical and Comparative View of Socialization Theory and Research. In: Clausen, J.A. (Ed.) Socialization and Society. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, pp. 18–72. Edelstein, W. (1983): Cultural Constraints on Development and the Vicissitudes of Progress. In: Kessel, F.S. & Siegel, A.W. (Eds.) The Child and Other Cultural Inventions. New York: Praeger, pp. 48–81. Edelstein, W. & Schröder, E. (2001): The Impact of Social Structure on Development: An Analysis of Individual Differences in Cognition. In: Tryphon, A. & Vonèche, J. (Eds.) Working with Piaget: Essays in Honour of Bärbel Inhelder. Hove: Psychology Press, pp. 85–101. Grathoff, R. (1995): Milieu und Lebenswelt. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Grundmann, M. (1997): Vergesellschaftung und Individuation. Sozialisationstheoretische Überlegungen im Anschluss an Alfred Schütz und Jean Piaget. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 23(1), pp. 83–115. Grundmann, M. (Ed.) (1999): Konstruktivistische Sozialisationsforschung: Lebensweltliche Erfahrungskontexte, individuelle Handlungskompetenzen und die Konstruktion sozialer Strukturen. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Grundmann, M. (2006): Sozialisation: Skizze einer allgemeinen Theorie. Konstanz: UVK. Grundmann, M. (2015) [1991]: Sozialisation als Modell der Beziehungspraxis. In: Hurrelmann, K. et al. (Eds.): Handbuch Sozialisationsforschung. Weinheim: Beltz, pp. 162–179. Grundmann, M. & Dravenau, D. (2010): Class, Agency and Capability. In: Otto, H.-U. & Ziegler, H. (Eds.) Education, Welfare and the Capability Approach: A European Perspective. Opladen & Farmington Hills, MI: Budrich, pp. 85–102. Grundmann, M. & Keller, M. (1999): Perspektivität, soziale Kognition und die (Re-) Konstruktion handlungsrelevanter Sinnstrukturen. In: Grundmann, M. (Ed.) Konstruktivistische Sozialisationsforschung. Lebensweltliche Erfahrungskontexte, individuelle Handlungskompetenzen und die Konstruktion sozialer Strukturen. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, pp. 118–148. Grundmann, M. et al. (2011): Social Class, Socialization and Capabilities in a Modern Welfare State: Results from the Iceland Longitudinal Study. In: Leßmann, O. et al. (Eds.) Closing the Capabilities Gap: Renegotiating Social Justice for the Young. Opladen & Farmington Hills, MI: Budrich, pp. 233–252. Grundmann, M. & Steinhoff, A. (2014): Communication Experiences: A Constitutive Principle in Pupils’ Socialization of Agency. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction (Uta Quasthoff & Vivien Heller, Editor) Special Issue, 3(2), pp. 177–183. Habermas, J. (1973): Stichworte zu einer Theorie der Sozialisation (1968). In: Habermas, J. (Ed.) Kultur und Kritik. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, pp. 118–194. Habermas, J. (1976): Zur Rekonstruktion des Historischen Materialismus. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Hirschauer, S. et al. (2014): Soziologie der Schwangerschaft: Explorationen pränataler Sozialität. Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius. Kohn, M.L. (1959): Social Class and Parental Values. American Journal of Sociology, 64(1), pp. 337–351. Kohn, M.L. (1969): Class and Conformity. Homewood, AL: The Dorsey Press. Leu, H.R. & Krappmann, L. (Ed.) (1999): Zwischen Autonomie und Verbundenheit: Bedingungen und Formen der Behauptung von Subjektivität. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.

104  Matthias Grundmann Lüscher, K. (2016): Sozialisation und Ambivalenzen. Bausteine eines Vademekums. Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation, 36(2), pp. 118–136. Moen, P. et al. (Eds.) (1995): Examining Lives in Context: Perspectives on the Ecology of Human Development. Washington, DC: APA, pp. 563–598. Piaget, J. (1983): Piaget’s Theory. In: Mussen, P.H. (Eds.) Handbook of Child Psychology. (Vol. I) New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 103–128. Schadler, C. (2013): Vater, Mutter, Kind werden: Eine posthumanistische Ethnographie der Schwangerschaft. Bielefeld: transcript. Schütz, A. (1981): Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Searle, J. (2010): Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. New York: Oxford University Press. Simmel, G. (1983): Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Tomasello, M. (2014): A Natural History of Human Thinking. Cambridge, MA: ­Harvard University Press. Tomasello, M. (2016): A Natural History of Human Morality. Cambridge, MA: ­Harvard University Press. Waldenfels, R. (2015): Sozialität und Alterität - Modi sozialer Erfahrung. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Younnis, J. (1978): Dialectical Theory and Piaget on Social Knowledge. Human Development, 21(4), pp. 234–247.

6 Objectification and verbalization Social constructivism and the problem of language Jens Loenhoff In contemporary sociology, language is rarely considered as a phenomenon to be accounted for in the generation of theory building. This is surprising insofar as language is not only the most refined form of structuring social relations but is also the most precise medium for individuating intentional conditions and articulating propositional outlooks. That we have to conceive of all speech as a form of action and that the wealth of combination possibilities, as well as the complexity of the treatment of linguistic signs, represent an independent source of social differentiation are already in fact a sociological commonplace. The repression of language by sociological discourse cannot, however, be traced back solely to the boom in recent times of the highly valued term “communication,” whose extraordinarily wide semantic variance and discursive efficacy apparently made a deeper understanding of linguistic means appear obsolete. It is, furthermore, not the least the inherent logic and the by no means easily determinable relation between language, action and meaning that resisted a simple incorporation into sociological theory. To be sure, prominent theorists such as Habermas (1984, 1987), Luhmann (1995, 2012), Bourdieu (1991) and Foucault (1973) have certainly paid attention to language. Yet, with the exception of H ­ abermas’s theory of communicative action, which regards the forms of communicative rationality as anchored in the structures of language, language has ­either been reduced to a neutral medium no longer worthy of analysis or only been considered in its function as an instrument for attaining power and distinction. If I am not mistaken, there are presently three strategies for unburdening language of its complexity, which I will mention here without going into detail: The unburdening of language from its internal logic occurs (1) with the claim that language’s efficacy is dependent upon social fields, institutional orders and their power structures. A sociology of language is then primarily a sociology of institutional speech, socio-structural language barriers and linguistic habitus. While Bourdieu’s critique of structuralism, speechact theory and formalist pragmatism strike neuralgic points, speaking is of course much more than, and qualitatively different from, a mere procurement of distinction. (2) The communicative turn in parts of current sociology

106  Jens Loenhoff of knowledge has relegated the reconstruction of linguistic knowledge to an inferior rank, even though it had only ever constituted an object of analysis in exceptional instances. The concept of communicative genres (­Luckmann 1985) fails to pinpoint the internal logic of linguistic representation, whereas precisely the discrepancy between highly structured adherence to rules of being able to speak and the respective unknowingness of speakers has yielded a splendid motif for a theoretical interest in language and provided the opportunity to demonstrate the “collateral benefit” that the sociology of knowledge universally claimed for all possible sociological objects. Contemporary sociology of knowledge, which predominantly understands itself as social phenomenology, does not have much to say about the knowledge of linguistic expression that will be discussed below. It shares this lack of interest in the inherent structures of linguistic means with the (3) third treatment of the topic of “language” by social systems theory (­Luhmann 1995), in which the specific semanticity of linguistic means of communication gets ignored in favor of a discourse semantics that is localized “above” the linguistic sign and is “supervenient,” as it were. Its notorious underestimation of language and its internal structures relies exclusively on the integrative power of themes. As a consequence, it ignores those procedures of communicative processing of meaning that cannot at all be described if the specificity of linguistically constituted meaning underlying such discourse semantics is not taken into account. These strategies of avoidance of course indicate the urgency of the question as to which side one best approaches the entanglement of language, communication and context in order to grasp language as a sociological object. Whether it is necessary to accept any of these premises as a point of departure in the first place is another question altogether. Coming from an entirely different angle than the focus on reason, mediality or power, Berger and Luckmann, in their book The Social Construction of Reality, embark on a sociological situating of language. Hardly any other sociological theory has so emphatically highlighted the reality-generating power of language and hence its fundamental social importance (Loenhoff 2011). As “[…] a system of typifying schemata of experience, which rests on idealizations and anonymizations of immediate subjective experience” (Schütz & Luckmann 1974: 233), they regard language as a “social-­h istorical a priori” (ibid.). The authors are thus rooted, on the one hand, in the tradition of Herder, of Humboldt and ultimately of the early Heidegger, who all emphasize the world-disclosing function of language. On the other hand, they understand language as an objectification of subjective experience and as sediments of social knowledge which unburden actants from having to construct types on their own. This perspective reveals a lineage from Hegel to Dilthey and Freyer whose Theory of Objective Mind (1998 [1923]) contains a refined theory of objectification to which Schütz (1932) had previously referred in his early works. In his neo-Hegelian theory of objectivation, Freyer takes up cultural-philosophical motifs from Dilthey (1989)

Objectification and verbalization  107 and gives Simmel’s epistemologically understood concept of the form (1918, 1980) an ontological significance in order to group the forms of objective spirit into five categories (“enclosed entity,” “tool,” “sign,” “social form” and “character”): Now, it is a fact that a new type of the forms of objective mind is crystallized out of this social life. All forms of objective mind arise developmentally out of the life of the human community, and, thus, they all have that social situation for their presupposition. […] This means that these forms are independent of the actions of their respective execution […]; they achieve an independent existence; the individual actions of realization find these forms and flow into them as into a prepared bed. (Freyer 1998: 65) Whereas the distinction between an “enclosed entity” (Gebilde) and a “tool” (Gerät) in Bühler’s (1990) reception of Freyer is interpreted in terms of language theory (Feldgerät), Berger and Luckmann’s concept of objectivation, which they understand as transcending individuals, remains on the one hand central but on the other hand insufficiently clarified with regard to Freyer’s theory. In an interview with the sociologists Ayaß and Meyer, decades after the publication of The Social Construction of Reality, Luckmann states: “Objectivation is everything that does not begin with a brief twinge of stomach ache and then immediately disappears. In other words, all that is social consists of different levels of objectivation” (Luckmann 2012: 34). With this position, Berger and Luckmann ultimately make clear that a pure phenomenology of language is an aporetical enterprise, because language is primarily not a phenomenon of consciousness but a social institution. In The Social Construction of Reality, signs and sign systems constitute an important class among theses objectivations, and language is the most important of them all. They counteract the impermanence of expressive acts and objectify the human subjectivity of corporally bound expressivity and its semantic content. By being detached from the indexicality of the “here and now,” meaning becomes available beyond interactive contexts and the actors who produce them. In all processes of socialization, language therefore fulfills a crucial function, since only with its acquisition do the objectivations and incorporated contexts of justification and interpretation embedded in it become obtainable. The symmetry between subjective and objective reality, or between a corresponding rather than a coinciding “external” and an “internal” reality, depends to a large extent on language. Language enables, as it were, translation in both directions. Here, the authors underscore the special significance of verbal interaction and dialogical communication for the production and assurance of a shared reality construction. Subjective realities that have never been discussed run the risk of being invalidated, since “[…] the conversational apparatus maintains reality by ‘talking through’ various elements of experience and allocating them a

108  Jens Loenhoff definite place in the real world” (Berger & Luckmann 1966: 173). This “[…] reality-generating potency of conversation is already given in the fact of linguistic objectification” (ibid.) and transforms diffuse contents of consciousness into coherent and ordered matters of fact. Language and speech make a world real in a doubled sense: They conceptualize and produce it. Alongside the dimensions of world-opening and the enabling of a collective memory as “[…] the objective repository of vast accumulations of meaning and experience, which it can then preserve in time and transmit to following generations” (Berger & Luckmann 1966: 52), another dimension of language has remained largely unanalyzed, namely its function in the context of the coordination of action as well as the specific semanticity of the linguistic resources that enable their social functions in the first place. The ambiguities for linguistics and the theory of meaning resulting from this omission are above all surprising, because hardly any theory has grounded its sociological object so consistently in social interaction and the face-to-face situation, and taken this as its analytic point of departure, as that of Berger and Luckmann. To be sure, the reciprocally perceptible forms of expression for Schütz and the gesture of pointing for Freyer become primary sources of the objectification of the means of communication – yet the analysis of them stops at the halfway mark. For the decisive step to the representational function “of its own accord,” which distinguishes the linguistic sign vis-à-vis non-linguistic deictic means and enables the explication and objectification of knowledge, remains just as unexplained as the relationship between speech and thought that is only mentioned in passing but must be explored through a precise semiotic analysis. In what follows, I am less concerned with critiquing details of a theory of language or with correcting the theory of communication in The Social Construction of Reality. Instead, I will address the question of how we can pay more sociological attention to language, and linguistic knowledge in particular, in light of some remarks by Berger and Luckmann. In their chapter on language, Berger and Luckmann point out that a sign system like language is part of a stock of social knowledge and, at the same time, the medium of objectification of this knowledge. Yet the authors do not add to their reference to the explicit and implicit knowledge, which one has to have at his or her disposal in order to participate in linguistic communication, a precise description of this linguistic knowledge, although it is precisely this knowledge that enables actants to partake of this stock of social knowledge. The problems of a functionalism that focuses exclusively on the instrumental function of linguistic structures for the coordination of action and thereby overlooks the objectivizing dimension of language were already clearly identified by Karl Bühler in his Theory of Language (1990 [1934]). Bühler therefore attempted to connect the constitutive level of the formal structure with the performative level of speech and its specific logic. In other words, the structuralist view of language as a sign system was to be thought alongside the practical function of language in processes of communication in order to thus

Objectification and verbalization  109 explain how language as a means of representation arises out of communication while structuring it at the same time. In this context, Bühler illustrated his two-field approach using the example of the gesture of pointing and demonstrated how the gestural-deictic operation of showing migrates into language and is captured symbolically by it as a demonstrative pronoun. That the syntactic function of the article can be derived from the same logic as the deictic gesture illustrates, moreover, the decoupling effects of grammaticization. The increase in performance from the deictic to the symbolic field is obvious: Whereas the referential function of showing quickly proves to be an insufficient instrument in complex and contingent contexts of communication, for example, in the absence of an object of reference, the means for distinguishing and identifying now lie in language itself and its combinational variety. Against the background of the insight into the coevolution of action and symbolic relation, it can be presumed that social actions can be analyzed in a way that is similar to the internal relations between symbols. Such an approach to the analysis of language rests on the strong premise that “[…] internal relationships among symbols always imply relationships among actions” (Habermas 1988: 118). The corresponding understanding of grammar as a system of rules that determines the connection of these internal relations with possible practices also suggests that broad sections of interpretive sociology could be seamlessly transferred into language analysis. Habermas has famously tried to use this assumption to short-circuit a theory of communicative reason with speech-act theory, albeit without placing much confidence in the ability of implicit linguistic knowledge to coordinate action in a way that is oriented toward common agreement. The reference to the grammatical structuredness of speech in the form of the propositionality of linguistic utterances is for him a sufficient premise of speech-act theory. Regardless of the question as to whether such an understanding of grammar is linguistically acceptable, the formal pragmatic fundaments feed on the assumption that the structural formats of the sentence would correspond to the functional formats of the speech act (exemplarily, the performative verb). Yet the taxonomy of illocutions derived methodologically from a universal pragmatics prior to the contextualizing activities of a listener proves to be both naïve for a sociology of communication and a notorious overestimation of the speech act that is far more indebted to a certain conception of reality than it is to an empirical theory of language use. From the conviction that speaking is a form of action, it is possible, with regard to communication and language theory, to deduce a reversal of the burden of proof in the constitution of the object of linguistics. And yet it is interesting that, in the diametrically opposed direction, for sociology the object “language” does not readily merge with a traditional action-theory description that insists on the rise of an order of speaking out of action because an emergent order of action arises out of speaking a specific language. The problems of a functionalism carried to the extreme, which believes that it has to reconstruct linguistic structures with an exclusive view to their

110  Jens Loenhoff instrumentality for the coordination of action, were already identified by Bühler in his theory of language. For this reason, he sought to mediate the constitutive level of structures with the regulative factors of the pragmatic context. The structuralist fixation on language as a sign system and the sematological doctrine of “enclosed entities” (Gebildelehre) was to be connected with the practical and functional orientation of language in order to thus elucidate the process of structural differentiation of these operations of orientation. Bühler explored this in the context of his two-field theory using the example of pointing. He explained how the gestural-deictic operation of pointing migrates into language and is captured symbolically therein as the demonstrative pronoun. That within the same logic the syntactic function of the article can be derived from the deictic gesture illustrates, moreover, the decoupling effect of grammaticalization. The increase in performance achieved by the move from the field of pointing to the field of naming is apparent here: Whereas the referential function of pointing proves insufficient in complex and contingent contexts of communication, in which, for instance, the reference object is absent, the means for making a distinction now lie in language itself and its combinational richness. Yet, in contrast to how a sociological approach to language would no doubt like to have it, linguistic means cannot at all be derived from their function in the coordination of action, as deictic expressions might at first seem to suggest. Let us recall those linguistic signs that do not designate something objective and that, through the loss of their primarily illustrative or referential function, have become internal, dependent devices of control that merely regulate the relations among the clauses of sentences (although, but, and; either – or, both – and). The construction of independent conditions of connection beyond situated speech and the relations of words to one another determined by inflection or by equivalently functioning suffixes in non-inflecting languages are formulated by their own means alongside the objective or referential relation. This linguistic fact had already motivated Arnold Gehlen to identify in language a system of productive unburdening insofar as the “self-expansion” (Selbstausbau) and the related “self-motivated activity” (Selbsttätigkeit) of language enable its retreat from instances of immediate contact to the world. Put in Gehlen’s lapidary terms: “Language reduces the internal and the external to one level, namely its own” (Gehlen 1988: 257). Its characteristic of decoupling subjective meaning and social form and thus bringing to bear the content of expressions independently of the intentions of speakers renders language as counterfactually stable and thus as a social fact par excellence. Entailed in this is the fact that it is the unintended side effects of speech that mobilize the independent evolution of linguistic means and the constitution of a linguistic order. A remarkable effect of this evolution is that the differentiations which become observable through linguistic signs are not necessarily accompanied by communicatively determinable functions. There are, for example, no functions of action that require the genitive (the dative would also be possible) or that made the

Objectification and verbalization  111 so-called “Siamese Twins” or binomials indispensable (i.e., such expressions as “to and fro,” “good faith” or more commonly in English, “more or less,” “quick and dirty,” “up and down,” “sooner or later”). The same is true for the syntactic features of such expressions, for instance, that are not interchangeable (we say “to and fro,” not “fro and to”; “more or less,” not “less or more,” “ebb and flow,” “not “flow and ebb”). These examples (Feilke 1996: 211) show that it is the morphological and grammatical forms discovered in their usage that become possibilities for linguistic action. For this reason, the connection between the linguistic structural format and the practical operational effect cannot be a relation of stable correspondence. How and as what the expressions are to be understood is not determined by grammar and lexicon, but motivated by a knowledge of idiomatic expression that, as a central element of linguistic knowledge, is clearly different from other inventories of knowledge about the world. What we are dealing with here is a highly differentiated type of linguistic order that cannot be explained in a functionalist or structuralist manner, and most certainly not by universal grammar (Feilke 1996: 312). The relationship between function of action and the inherent logic of linguistic forms can only be specified from case to case (ibid. 23), and this is because the resources of everyday speech are not invented but are only discovered in their usage. As in the context of other processes of evolution, here too the etiology and current pragmatic function do not have anything to do with one another. The assertion that situations are organized and structured by behavior imputed to communicative action is therefore only applicable as a highly abstract generalization. For not every symbolic expression structures this situation in the direction of concordant co-orientation and reflexive expectations, especially since the latter primarily depend on the formats of linguistic utterances. How, then, does one have to imagine the genesis of the linguistic knowledge that sociology meets whenever it in fact tries to engage with the obstinacy and internal logic of language? Speech and comprehension are in the context of interaction highly indexical and sub-propositional. There exists, therefore, a logical and genetic priority of the communicative constitution of meaning over the explicit or lexically fixed meanings of linguistic expressions. This is why implicit linguistic knowledge involves not only mastery of the syntactic possibilities for combining linguistic signs, but also an orderly coping with the indexicality of the situation. It is a question of practical knowledge, of which horizons of meaning the linguistic utterances are respectively embedded in and of which network of meanings one is communicating. The rise of such a knowledge of contextualization as the ability to assign conventional interpretive backgrounds to what has been said necessarily presupposes participation in communicative practices. A rich concept of linguistic knowledge that can only be defined with reference to the public and intersubjective praxis of the linguistic coordination of action and its conditions of fulfillment is thus clearly different to the concept of competency in transformational

112  Jens Loenhoff grammar. The knowledge about language being discussed here comprises above all the typification of linguistic expressions that, due to their potential for contextualization, function as primary sources of communicatively adaptable orientations and hence as the central organizational principle of linguistic know-how. These are not, first and foremost, words or sentences, but idiomatic expressions: One has a heavy cold but a serious rather than a heavy illness; a behavior can be highly reckless but not highly careful. “The binding force of such established syntagmatic structures are based on the intersubjective knowledge of semantic and pragmatic contexts of usage that is schematized in the construction of an expression for linguistic relations of selection in speech” (Feilke 1996: 219). “Meeting for coffee” means that persons meet, talk and can certainly at the same time drink tea or hot chocolate. But persons do not usually agree to meet to play tennis in order to then also play handball or soccer. Factive selection in speech is not supported here by an abstract competency for combination in the sense of Chomsky’s linguistics but by a pragmatically motivated knowledge of expression which, in turn, stands in relation to particular structures of relevance in the stock of knowledge and activates them. Idiomatic expressions, which can be reconstructed as an integral component of implicit linguistic knowledge, show us, in an exemplary way, that linguistic structures of order represent an independent knowledge insofar as they are neither intentionally nor functionally reducible. Put differently, linguistic common sense cannot be made explicit by specifying (constitutive) rules. For instance, you cannot specify a rule that would be broken if someone says “wash my teeth.” Idiomatically competent speakers can correct the expression and point out that it should be “brush my teeth.” Neither linguists nor everyday speakers can specify insightful reasons, because the semantic motivation of the expression has disappeared somewhere in the abyss of history and can no longer be reconstructed. We can formulate this in Wittgenstein’s words: “If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do’” (Wittgenstein 1989: § 217). We find ourselves at the root of the language game, and every attempt to explicate why we act the way we do leads to an infinite regress. Our knowledge that enables us to evaluate expressions is, even in the case of language, the knowledge of a typified order of preferences for the formulation and interpretation of utterances. Even […] the most grammaticalized procedures of expression building always only move in the company of the creative selectivity of this interpretation, because it is only the recurrence of the expression in communicative practices that brings about its semasiologically determinable characteristics in the form of its lexicalization or transfer into the stock of linguistic knowledge. (Feilke 1994: 181)

Objectification and verbalization  113 By bringing about expressions in this way, the interpretation of speech structures the linguistic knowledge that speakers have at their disposal whenever they act linguistically. This is a finding that cannot be formulated from a structuralist perspective. Speech and understanding are not only underpinned by the implicit linguistic knowledge of speakers but are just as much guided by explications and the linguistic objectifications that have emerged from communication. They are by no means the result of an official linguistics, but of rather the interpretation of language in speech, and hence are an integral component and form of enactment of pre-theoretical linguistic praxis. The specific self-development of language referred to earlier reveals itself mainly in practices of reassurance about the meaning and function of linguistic signs and expressions. And it is the recoding loops put into motion by such interpretation of language in the act of speaking that makes this interpretation grammatically productive. The decoupling introduced by processes of interpretation ultimately results in a decrease of their pragmatic specification out of which functional elements emerge within a grammatical combinatorics. I have already mentioned some examples of this. As procedures of indexicality reduction and de-indexicalization, grammaticalization and semanticization reorganize the semiotic relatability of linguistic units and thus enable a highly differentiated configuration of the practical space of reference between speakers, listeners and their respective reference objects (Knobloch 2009: 277). Semiotic polyvalencies, which with the same linguistic signs serve both the (de-ontic) logic of involvement and the (epistemic) logic of distancing, emerge between the performativity of linguistic action on the one hand and the constative values of propositions on the other. The interpretation of linguistic expressions moves between the indexical orders of the sympractical field on the one side and the propositional level of reference and predication on the other. On a very fundamental level, the interpretation of linguistic expressions takes place as metapragmatic operations, for instance when the explication of pragmatic distinctions gives rise to metapragmatic signs that are specialized in the re-representation of accompanying indexical and pragmatic values (Silverstein 1993; Knobloch 2009). Performative verbs that function as metapragmatic recodings of conventional intentions by speakers, or personal deictics (I, you) that refer to communicative roles, thus fulfill the function of a metapragmatic reassurance. Linguistic expressions then no longer function as an indication of the speaker’s intentions, but instead as conventionalized forms of their representation secured by refined language games. The resultant transformation of the semiotic status of these expressions becomes clear, first and foremost, from the perspective of childlike language acquisition, to the extent that elementary practices such as requesting, demanding and referring are understood prior to the acquisition of the corresponding verbs. Another dominant interpretive mode of speech happens in metasemantic operations that seek to explicate the meaning of linguistic utterances. They appear as

114  Jens Loenhoff forms of speech in which the expressions get thematized with regard to their semantic content (e.g., as definitions) and solidify into metalinguistic units that enter into the vocabulary as lexemes or headings used for the purpose of summarizing. The praxis of interpretation appears here as the search by communication partners for non-local meanings of signs that serve to build lexical constancy and coherency, enabling linguistic signs to stand out as independent means of communication. By making the referential structure of linguistic instruments more precise, interpretation functions as a technique of ordered indexicality reconstruction, because the linguistic signs are at least provisionally decoupled from their indexical embedding by their exclusion from the complex and situated event of communication. To be sure, the act of interpretation cannot fully suspend the situational boundedness of linguistic signs, but it can loosen them for a little while in the context of the incipient praxis of reassurance. Were there not yet in the execution of pre-reflexive speech a necessity for a metasemantic understanding of linguistic signs, which offsets individual utterances with the contexts of their use, then the linguistic e­ xpression develops as a carrier of a context-independent and clearly circumscribed meaning in the interpretation of this understanding stimulated by all possible communicational occasions. It is a well-known sociological argument that linguistic action, the interpretation of speech and the verbalization of practices are social activities and therefore participate in the process of social differentiation. Through the explication of linguistic practices, such differentiation becomes both dynamic and structured. On the one hand, explicit linguistic knowledge is itself a process of differentiation induced by the evolution of writing; on the other hand, the culturally and milieu-specific interpretations of speech which are supported by implicit knowledge function as generators of the so-called “fine distinctions” which are produced in and by communication. The same is true for linguistic expressions that embark on a successful semantic career as highly valued concepts in society and are used in certain contexts for mobilizing a readiness for power and acceptance. In, above all, the speech economy of complex and literal societies, in which specific differences only exist as linguistically marked, all morphosyntactical possibilities provided by the linguistic means of communication are exploited for an increase in semantic precision. The semantic reassurance that resides in these possibilities therefore constitutes the core area of a culturally specific “linguistic ideology” (Silverstein 1979), in the form of a view of language that is prescientific and in literal societies supported by writing and that corresponds to a specific repertoire of reflexive categories of interpretation. At the same time, the semantic order of a cultural life form recognizable therein functions as a semiotic a priori of an episteme in which research on social and linguistic theory is itself included. What many linguists and psycholinguists ascribe to a specifically human capacity for symbols is much more the result of socially organized reflexivity of speech and the recoding of linguistic routines. For speech – as paradoxical as this may seem – is not excluded from the verbalization of practices and the related

Objectification and verbalization  115 explication and creation of distance. The argument that the explication of implicit reasons and tacit presuppositions changes social practices, and that their conceptualization transforms established practices, seems particularly insightful. The complex retroactive effects of the contingent explications of expressions that are ready-at-hand on everyday activity also enter the picture, whether in the shape of objectifications of coordinated action through linguistic signs themselves, or in the form of the conceptualization of communicative practices, which, as explications, lastingly transform these practices (Loenhoff 2015, 2017). In other words, a shared linguistic knowledge entails a pragmatic validation of expressions that takes place as their retrospective coinage through the understanding of the listener and the way that his or her reaction is determined by it in the process. Yet, this understanding occurs by way of what is said, not what is meant (Wittgenstein 1989: § 504). It is therefore also a component of implicit linguistic knowledge that one knows that for linguistic action one does not necessarily need to know what one means him or herself, nor what the other means. Only in this way, namely, can shared linguistic knowledge unburden speakers from the risks of coordinated action, just as, vice versa, only for this reason an increased contingency of connections can result from the social differentiation of this knowledge. The orientation of actants, which is sufficiently concurrent for the coordination of action, is structured by a shared and socially differentiated linguistic knowledge. In the expressions available in linguistic knowledge, the past co-orientations of speakers and listeners are objectified in a way that relates intentions, social contexts and the retroactive effects of listening comprehension to one another, abstracts them for future action and fixes them in a binding manner. To this extent, linguistic knowledge is a highly significant part of the stock of social knowledge. The relationship of this specific, mostly implicit, knowledge of the appropriate verbal expression for (1) the management of concrete processes of communication and (2) the stock of social knowledge has only been understood partly and insufficiently by the sociology of communication. And yet the reconstruction of the career of linguistic objectifications, including the related effects of social order, would be a worthwhile task for a sociology that wishes to regain language as an object of analysis rather than relinquish it to a sociolinguistics that lacks the ability to establish the link to a theory of society. There is thus still much to be done if we rediscover language as that which it has always been: a social fact of the highest rank.

References Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1966): The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday. Bourdieu, P. (1991): Language and Symbolic Power. (Edited and introduced by John B. Thompson, Gino Raymond & Matthew Adamson, Trans.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

116  Jens Loenhoff Bühler, K. (1990): Theory of Language: The Representational Function of Language. (Donald F. Goodwin, Trans) Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: J. Benjamins. Dilthey, W. (1989): Introduction into the Human Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Feilke, H. (1994): Common-sense-Kompetenz: Überlegungen zu einer Theorie ‘sympathischen’ und ‘natürlichen’ Meinens und Verstehens. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Feilke, H. (1996): Sprache als soziale Gestalt: Ausdruck, Prägung und die Ordnung der sprachlichen Typik. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Foucault, M. (1973): The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books. Freyer, H. (1998) [1923]: Theory of Objective Mind: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Culture. (Steven Grosby, Trans.) Athens: Ohio University Press. Gehlen, A. (1988): Man, His Nature and Place in the World. (Clare McMillan & Karl Pillemer, Trans.; Karl-Siegbert Rehberg, Intro.) New York: Columbia University Press. Habermas, J. (1984): The Theory of Communicative Action. (Vol. I) (Thomas McCarth, Trans.) Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1987): The Theory of Communicative Action. (Vol. II) (Thomas McCarthy, Trans.) Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1988): On the Logic of Social Sciences. (Shierry Weber Nicolson & Jerry A. Stark, Trans.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Knobloch, C. (2009): Oberfläche: Metapragmatisch – zum Erwerb modalisierter Sprachzeichen. In: Linke, A. & Feilke, H. (Eds.) Oberfläche und Performanz. Untersuchungen zur Sprache als dynamische Gestalt. Tübingen: Niemeyer, pp. 255–284. Loenhoff, J. (2011): Die Objektivität des Sozialen. Über Peter Peter L. Bergers und Thomas Luckmanns. Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit. In: Pörksen, B. (Ed.) Schlüsselwerke des Konstruktivismus. Opladen: Springer VS, pp. 143–159. Loenhoff, J. (2015): Tacit Knowledge: Shared and Embodied. In: Adloff, F. et al. (Eds.) Revealing Tacit Knowledge: Embodiment and Explication. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 22–40. Loenhoff, J. (2017): Von der Auslegung des Sprechens zur vergessenen Soziologie der Sprache. Heideggers Hermeneutik der Faktizität und ihr Beitrag zur sprachund kommunikationstheoretischen Reflexion. In: Tasheva, G. & Weiß, J. (Eds.) Existenzialanalytik und Soziologie. Tübingen: Mohr. Luckmann, T. (1985): The Analysis of Communicative Genres. In: Nell, F.B. et al. (Eds.) Focus on Quality. Selected Proceedings of a Conference on Qualitative Research Methodology in the Social Sciences. Durban: Institute for Social and Economic Research, pp. 48–61. Luckmann, T. (2012): Alles Soziale besteht aus verschiedenen Niveaus der Objektivierung. Ein Gespräch mit Thomas Luckmann. In: Ayaß, R. & Meyer, C. (Eds.): Sozialität in Slow Motion: Theoretische und empirische Perspektiven. Festschrift für Jörg Bergmann. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 21–39. Luhmann, N. (1995): Social Systems. (John Bednarz, Jr. & Dirk Bäcker, Trans.) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2012): Theory of Society. (Rhodes Barrett, Trans.) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Schütz, A. (1932): Der Sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt: Eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie. Wien: Springer VS.

Objectification and verbalization  117 Schütz, A. & Luckmann, T. (1974): The Structures of the Life-World. (Richard M. Zaner & Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., Trans.) London: Heinemann. Silverstein, M. (1993): Metapragmatic Discourse and Metapragmatic Function. In: Lucy J. (Ed.) Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, pp. 33–58. Silverstein, M. (1979): Language Structure and Linguistic Ideology. In: Clyne, P.R. et al. (Eds.) The Elements: A Parasession on Linguistic Units and Levels. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 193–247.Simmel, G. (1918): Lebensanschauung: Vier Metaphysische Kapitel. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Simmel, G. (1980): On the Nature of Historical Understanding. In: Simmel, G. Essays on Interpretation in Social Sciences. (Guy Oakes, Trans.) Totowa: Roman & Littlefield, pp. 97–126. Wittgenstein, L. (1989) [1953]: Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.

7 Some reflections on reception and influence of Berger and Luckmann’s book on Social Construction of Reality in the Spanish-speaking world César A. Cisneros Puebla Everything about the seminal book The Social Construction of Reality, written by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966), is relevant in the context of recognizing it as one of the ten most influential books for sociologists in the 21st century. Based on the essential legacy of Alfred Schütz (1967), the sociology of knowledge outlined here created diverse understandings. Nobody doubts that this book has radically changed social scientists’ perspectives on knowledge production and everyday life. Even though the readings of such a book must be understood in the context of the paradigmatic turn into the interpretive social sciences, in general, it is remarkable to consider the evolution of different interpretations in a specific culture. In the postmodern view, each culture is a microcosmos and a specific world for the users of its native language. That is the case of the Spanish-speaking world, which will be briefly described in this chapter. I am proposing here to discuss both the context of publication and the relative importance generated by the appearance and subsequent reprints of Berger and Luckmann’s book in the Spanish-speaking countries. This humble exercise is written as a tribute to this momentous book and its impact on the social sciences.

Context: publisher and translation The Spanish version of The Social Construction of Reality appeared just two years after the original version, published in English. This event is very relevant because Spanish is the third most spoken language in the world after Mandarin and English. Amorrortu, an Argentinian publishing house founded in 1967, published the book in 1968. It was the first foreign translation, and this version has been reprinted 23 times. The fact that Berger and Luckmann’s book was one of the first sociological books published by this Argentinian company just one year after it was founded is still fascinating. Let me explain this now. First, I would like to describe the trajectories of some publishing houses in the Spanish-speaking world to help understand the importance of the

Reflections on reception and influence  119 first Spanish version of Berger and Luckmann’s book. In Mexico, there were two important publishing houses: Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE, named Fondo) was originally established in 1934 and Siglo XXI (21st Century Publishing) was founded in 1965. In Argentina, FCE Fondo created a branch named FCE Argentina in 1945. This publishing house, with branches in Chile (established in 1954), Peru (1961), Spain (1963), Venezuela (1974), ­Colombia (1975), the United States (1990), Brazil (1991), Guatemala and Central America (1995) and Ecuador (2015), is still the leading social sciences publisher. Another publishing house, Paidós, was also established in Argentina in 1945, at the same time as FCE. The publishing activities in Spain can be illustrated by remembering that Salvat and Espasa were both publishing houses founded in the second half of the 19th century. In such panorama, these publishers from Mexico, Argentina and Spain facilitated the import in the Spanish-speaking world of ideas produced in other latitudes. However, Berger and Luckmann’s book was not published by one of those mainstream publishing houses mentioned. This book and other books were released to compete with other books printed by FCE, Siglo XXI, ­Salvat, Espasa and Paidós, among other small publishing houses. Secondly, Argentina was governed by a dictatorship beginning in 1930. Despite such restrictive conditions, Argentinian intellectuals were surviving and discussing scientific ideas and new ways of reflecting about knowledge and societies. After the book’s release in 1968, in a society living under the “authoritarian-bureaucratic state” or Peronismo, the book was reprinted twice, in 1972 and 1974. During the “military dictatorship” (1976–1983), namely the Argentinian National Reorganization Process, the book was reprinted four times. It is important to note that by 1976, Siglo XXI closed the Argentinian branch after agents of the military dictatorship burned the books. During the Alfonsín “return to democracy” government (1983– 1989), the book was reprinted three times. Later, under Menem’s two terms as President (1989–1995 and 1995–1999), it was reprinted seven times. The following nine reprints took place in the 21st century. To date, the version has had 23 reprints. In sum, despite Argentinian dictatorship, the book was reprinted and distributed all across the Spanish-speaking countries. It is well known that Luckmann said that part of the success of The Social Construction of Reality was due to inattentive readings. But let me add: Can you imagine the success of the book in other countries where the spoken language is not English? Can you imagine the success of the book in other countries regardless of the quality of its translation? I would like to highlight these questions because I have been concerned about the quality of translations for some years as part of my role as the Spanish editor of the online journal Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, where I have become familiar with problems that are not just technical but are related to the misunderstandings created by words and/or phrases.

120  César A. Cisneros Puebla With such experience, my concerns about Spanish versions of any book have been increasing. Sometimes even a professional translator who has no connections at all with the content of the book or the article’s discipline can produce a translation that leads to terrible misunderstandings. Some years ago, for instance, I decided to contrast English and Spanish versions of two classical books during my classes. My students were reading the Spanish versions, and I was using the English versions of Anselm Strauss’ Mirrors and Masks: The Search for Identity, published in 1959 and translated to Spanish in 1977 by Miramar Publishing in Argentina (Strauss 1977), and George Herbert Mead’s Mind, Self and Society, published originally in 1934 and translated in 1968, also in Argentina, by Paidós (Mead 1968). As another example, please keep in mind that Strauss’ book was translated into Spanish 18 years after its English version and that Mead’s book came out in Spanish 34 years after its first English edition. Both were translated in Argentina. I have not carried out the same exercise with Berger and L ­ uckmann’s book because I have been on sabbatical, but I intend to do it soon. My project is to publish new editions of Strauss’ and Mead’s books, because what I have found is, sadly, very problematic: In some cases, the translations do not reflect the same meaning given by authors in their original publications. One example I can provide is that the word “unwilling” has been translated in the Spanish version using the word “unconscious,” and, as you can imagine, that changes the whole meaning of the sentence because of the predominance of the psychoanalytical sense of “unconscious.” For the cases of Strauss’ and Mead’s books, the translator’s lack of information of the symbolic interactionism perspective and/or conceptual legacies is noticeable. As a joke, some social scientists make fun of the fact that you can find a psychoanalyst anywhere in Argentina. Psychoanalysis is more popular in Argentina than even in Austria. In addition to the problems with Mead’s and Strauss’ translators and translations, unfortunately it is possible to find many other examples of weak Spanish translations. I am hopeful that my next projects could change the perspective of the Spanish-speaking academic culture that has been based on those questionable translations of books related to symbolic interactionism and the sociology of knowledge. There is not enough information about Silvia Zuleta, the person who prepared the Spanish translation of Berger and Luckmann’s book for ­A morrortu, but in doing some Internet research, it seems that she carried out no other translations, not even for the same publisher. Marcos ­Gimenez Zapiola, the person who did the language technical review, received his PhD in Sociology from Washington University in 1973, just five years after Berger and Luckmann’s Spanish version was released. Therefore, he was a PhD student when asked to review the translation quality conceptually and technically. Believe it or not, searching for him on the Internet, I found he specializes in animal welfare and currently consults on farms and other related issues related to it.

Reflections on reception and influence  121 From the 100 “Books of the Century” listed by the International Sociological Association (ISA), let me just highlight that the book by Glaser and Strauss (1967), The Discovery Grounded Theory, listed as number 50 by the ISA, has not been translated to Spanish. Garfinkel’s classical book Studies in Ethnomethodology, first published in 1967 and listed as number 36 by the ISA, was translated to Spanish in 2006, that is, 39 years after its first publication, by Hugo Antonio Pérez Hernáiz, a Venezuelan sociology professor with expertise in ethnomethodology. His translation has been celebrated by ­Spanish-speaking colleagues deeply familiar with Garfinkel’s complicated English style ­(Izquierdo 2007). Unfortunately, it is not possible to celebrate in similar ways the Spanish versions of Mirrors and Masks: The Search for Identity and Mind, Self and Society. I think it is also very important to prepare a critical and commented edition of Berger and Luckmann’s book, written by specialized researchers with deep knowledge of the subject. Such is the case, for instance, of the Spanish translation of Max Weber’s (2014) work, which was prepared by a renowned professor, Dr. José Medina Echavarría, and recently commented on by Dr. Francisco Gil Villegas. In the end, it is particularly interesting to consider that Spanish versions of any essential book often come out well after the original book has been released in English, German or other languages. As it has been shown, that was not the case with The Social Construction of Reality.

Perspectives: social constructionism and qualitative inquiry Thinking in a Latin American context, I have been exploring for some time the importance of the next timeline of qualitative inquiry for the ­Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. Undoubtedly, there are differences between Panama and Venezuela and between Chile and Mexico, but from my analytical perspective, the development of qualitative inquiry and the reception of Berger and Luckmann’s book in the region is understandable if we consider the following: 1 Origin of social sciences (first half of the 20th century): With some specific features of positivism in each country, social sciences began to have a presence in the educational institutions. This means that such disciplines began to be taught and discussed during that period without specific dominance but with a very strong presence of positivism. 2 Abstracted empiricism and Marxism (1960s and 1970s): Struggling against dictatorship in most of Central and South America, Latin American thinkers moved in exile during this period from one country to another, creating a very rich melting pot. In such a scenario, Latin American Marxism was an important contribution to the world. On the other hand, what Wright Mills (1959) called abstracted empiricism was broadly extended and practiced during those years by social scientists.

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It is this context in which the first six reprints of Berger and Luckmann’s book circulated. Theoretical pluralism (1980s): In this period, the discussion turned toward eclecticism and skepticism due to emerging democracies and some external influences in the epistemological and ontological realms. It is during this decade and the next that constructionism provided a good stage for debate and discussions mainly related to disenchantment with Marxism and other empirical methodologies. Dawn of qualitative inquiry: This phase of uncritical import (1990s) of theories, methods and approaches is linked to the generic titles of qualitative inquiry and qualitative research, with greater influence in countries such as Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Mexico. But here the role of Berger and Luckmann’s book is crucial because it constituted the epistemological basis for questioning alleged scientific objectivity. All this occurred within the well-known linguistic turn that invaded all social sciences, even in Latin America. Assimilation: The use and analysis of approaches such as grounded theory methodology, phenomenology, biographical studies, ethnography and case studies had no particular or relevant contributions of Latin American researchers. Desirable and possible scenarios of the 21st century: These include the reevaluation of some experiences associated with authors such as Orlando Fals Borda, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire, among others.

In the European sense, my colleagues Valles and Baer (2005) did not mention Berger and Luckmann’s book as influential at all for the development of qualitative social research in Spain. However, they described six different stages of such development that I would like to summarize. What is important to me here is to remember that some qualitative researchers from Madrid, Granada and/or Barcelona have shared with me their acknowledgment of the Mexican and Argentinian publishers because they produced Spanish versions of works by French philosophers and American sociological thinkers during the dictatorship of Franco, a period that was very cruel to intellectuality and freedom. Here are the six stages they proposed: 1 Remote roots in the social reform and the social novel. Late 19th century to 1924. This period was characterized by the creation of institutions like the Social Reform Commission as well as the relevance of some writers who created an intellectual atmosphere, providing ideas to understand Spanish society. 2 Roots in German philosophy and in the sociological philosophy of Ortega y Gasset. From 1913/17 to 1939. Ortega y Gasset studied at the universities of Leipzig, Nuremberg, Cologne, Berlin and Marburg and brought neo-Kantianism and phenomenology to Spanish society.

Reflections on reception and influence  123 3 Post–Spanish Civil War and exile. From 1940 to 1953/59. This period represents, as Valles and Baer say (2005: 22), a further step in the process of decline and interruption of social research. 4 Near sociological research roots. From 1953/59 to 1975. During the late Franco Regime, psychoanalysis, Marxism, semiotics and US sociology had a great reception. 5 Qualitative social research boom: Use and abuse. From 1974 to 1993. This period started with the general process of institutionalization of sociology and further reforms in the curriculum. 6 Qualitative social research specialization and systematization action. From 1994 to 2010. In this period, quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques of social research are broadly recognized in the university curricula as different subjects. Comparing this development in Spain with the analytical perspective proposed to understand the development of the social sciences in Latin America, it is possible to identify similarities and differences even in the Spanish-speaking world. And it also allows us to find relevant concepts in the forms of the social sciences’ development both in other countries of ­Europe with no Spanish legacy and in the Anglo-Saxon America. There is no globalized knowledge to understand any social, political, economic and human processes in the real world. Let me insist that it is important to highlight that Valles and Baer (2005) did not mention Berger and Luckmann’s book as influential at all for the development of qualitative social research in Spain. Undoubtedly, to produce a critical sociology of knowledge, there is a need for discussion about globalized knowledge in the sense of validity, reliability, transparency, applicability, replicability and originality when dealing with concepts and theories in social sciences and humanities. However, the particular and unique quality of Latin American researchers is the epistemological perspectives we embrace. Such epistemology is full of historical panoramas and political action on the issues researchers are dealing with. From the stance of the sociology of science, this uniqueness is due to the differences in the social contexts of each country where knowledge is produced. But is that quality unique to Latin America? Will there be similar epistemological perspectives in Asia and Africa? Hence, the geographical closeness of Mexico and the United States offers an interesting case. Gabriel Abend (2006) provides an interesting example from the Mexican social science that could inspire similar explorations in other countries to create an international debate about practices and uniqueness of doing science and creating knowledge. The most noticeable difference Abend discovered in his analysis, by comparing contributions in journals ­ exican scipublished in the period from 1995–2001, is related to the way M entists are testing theory or thinking about the dialogue between theory and

124  César A. Cisneros Puebla data. Abend’s sample of articles was drawn from the most cited and most prestigious journals in each country: in the United States, the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review; in Mexico, Estudios Sociológicos and Revista Mexicana de Sociología. Abend notes that social conditioning of the content of scientific knowledge results in ­Mexican and American sociologies as epistemologically, semantically and perceptually incommensurable because of the understanding of what theory is, the role of subjectivity and the ethical neutrality. In Abend’s analysis of the differences between Mexican and American approaches to doing sociological research, he notes that “an empirical sociology of epistemologies would constitute a step forward in the agenda of the sociology of knowledge, as it would further our understanding of the social conditioning of scientific knowledge” (ibid. p.  32). Abend’s analysis reinforces what I have been discussing (­Cisneros Puebla 2013), along with an Austrian colleague (Maerk 2009), about ­Mexican sociologists who are mostly just “copying” theories and concepts. Nowadays in Spanish-speaking countries, the Berger and Luckmann book is quoted in the context of any discussion regarding constructivism, regardless of the well-known criticism written by Hacking (1999) and/or the following varieties of conceptual debate: 1 Radical constructivism von Glaserfeld (1993) or Watzlawick (1995) is widely taught in the Universities.  García (1997a, 1997b, 2000), an ­Argentinian ­collaborator of Jan Piaget, has spread genetic constructivism well. 2 Radical and genetic constructivisms are well connected to educational research from such diverse disciplines as pedagogy, developmental and cultural psychology, philosophy, science, mathematics and so on. 3 Systemic constructivism, as Luhmann (1991) proposed, has also been well depicted and translated by Luhmann’s Mexican postdoctoral colleague, Javier Torres Nafarrete (Luhmann 1991, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006). In addition, Fernando Robles (2002) and Marcelo Arnold (2004) from Chile have created some influence based on their experience as PhD students in Munich and Bielefeld, respectively. Without a doubt, it is possible to identify that systematic constructivism is mostly present in sociological reflections, urban research, methodological issues, communicational inquiry, political science and so on. 4 Regarding social constructionism as practiced by Gergen (1999, 2001) and Shotter (1994, 2003) as an example, it is well positioned in social psychology, clinical psychology, discursive psychology, collaborative practices and narrative therapies. In Spain, Tomás Ibáñez (1994, 2003) has been very influential in creating some strong networks to spread the voice of social constructionism, originally proposed by Kenneth ­Gergen (1999), in the Spanish-speaking world. 5 Based on different perspectives, some Mexican authors are interested in Berger and Luckmann’s influence on the new institutionalism, or neo-­ institutionalism (Montaño Hirose 1994, 2004). Coming from Argentina,

Reflections on reception and influence  125 Retamozo’s contribution (2012) to constructivism is presented as a methodological approach instead of a paradigm to reflect on society as a whole. 6. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s (1985) contributions to political discourse analysis can also be viewed as originally shared among the Spanish-speaking communities, even though it is currently recognized worldwide as the Essex School or Post-Foundational Discourse Analysis. As Jørgensen and Phillips (2002) have shown, Laclau and Mouffe’s contributions must be discussed as an approach to social constructionist discourse analysis.

Final words From my view, it is unfortunate that Berger and Luckmann’s book is considered by many Latin American social researchers as relevant and notable because of the basics of the constructivist approach in general rather than because of the large tradition of Schützian sociology of commonsense knowledge. In Latin America, Berger and Luckmann’s book is even linked to the French school of Moscovici’s (1979) social representations, and this is noteworthy when scientific debates around subjectivity and social actions take place. Although the presence of the Durkheimian tradition in Moscovici’s approach is visible, a significant discussion about the German sociology of knowledge grounded in Schütz and Berger and Luckmann’s legacy is still pending in the Spanish-speaking world. The relationship between the authors of this important book, originally written in 1966, and the Spanish-speaking world has two historical moments: first, when Thomas Luckmann received a degree honoris causa in 2005 from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, initiated by Professor ­Federico Schuster; and second, when Peter Berger visited Ivan Illich’s Centro Intercultural de Documentación (Intercultural Center of Documentation) in ­Cuernavaca, Mexico, several times between 1969 and 1972. This recognition and the visits that occurred at different times show that it was possible to maintain an interesting dialogue, despite the time, between these two thinkers, their work and the culture of the Spanish-speaking world. At the end, collecting and sharing the stories of native Spanish-speaking researchers around the world of how they do what they do and why would enhance our awareness of the limits of our methods and approaches, the historical circumstances of our epistemologies and the geopolitics of our knowledge. Knowing more about ourselves through historical, geopolitical and epistemological views is our major current challenge and is also a matter of ethics, communicative action and responsibilities. But knowing about the influence that authors such as Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann have had in our thinking and practices is critical. As constructionists, we all recognize that meaning can only be derived from dialogue and from letting others’ perspectives mean something to us.

126  César A. Cisneros Puebla

References Abend, G. (2006): Styles of Sociological Thought: Sociologies, Epistemologies, and the Mexican and U.S. Quests for Truth. Sociological Theory, 24(1), pp. 1–41. Arnold, M. (2004): Recursos para la investigación sistémico constructivista. In: Osorio, F. (Ed.) Ensayos sobre socioautopoiésis y epistemología constructivista. Santiago: Ediciones Mad, pp. 16–25. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1966): The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Cisneros Puebla, C.A. (2013): The Journey Ends: An Epilogue. In: Mertens, D. et al. (Eds.) Indigenous Pathways into Social Research. Voices of a New Generation. ­Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, pp. 395–402. García, R. (1997a): Piaget y el problema del conocimiento. In: García, R. (Ed.) La epistemología genética y la ciencia contemporánea: homanaje a Jean Piaget en su centenario. Barcelona: Gedisa, pp. 25–44. García, R. (1997b): Análisis constructivista de los conceptos básicos de la ciencia. In: García, R. (Ed.) La epistemología genética y la ciencia contemporánea: ­homanaje a Jean Piaget en su centenario. Barcelona: Gedisa, pp. 45–68. García, R. (2000): El conocimiento en construcción: De las formulaciones de Jean Piaget a la teoría de sistemas complejos. Barcelona: Gedisa. Garfinkel, H. (1967): Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Gergen, K.J. (1999): An Invitation to Social Construction. London: Sage. Gergen, K.J. (2001): Construction in Contention: Toward Consequential Resolutions. Theory & Psychology, 11(3), pp. 419–432. Glaser, B.G. & Strauss, A.L. (1967): The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine Pub. Co. Glasersfeld, E. von (1993): Introducción al constructivismo radical. In: Watzlawick, P. et al. (Ed.) La realidad inventada. Barcelona: Gedisa, pp. 1–13. Hacking, I. (1999): The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ibáñez, T. (1994): Psicología social construccionista. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara. Ibáñez, T. (2003): La construcción social del socioconstruccionismo: retrospectiva y perspectivas. Política y Sociedad, 40(1), pp. 155–160. International Sociological Association (ISA): www.isa-sociology.org/en/about-isa/ history-of-isa/books-of-the-xx-century/. Izquierdo, M.J. (2007): Harold el patoso, el pavoroso. EMPIRIA: Revista de Metodología de Ciencias Sociales, 13, pp. 121–139. Jørgensen, M. & Phillips, J.L. (2002): Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method. London: Sage. Laclau, E. & Mouffe, C. (1985): Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Luhmann, N. (1991): Sistemas Sociales: Lineamientos para una Teoría General. Mexico: Alianza/Universidad Iberoamericana. Luhmann, N. (1999): Teoría de los Sistemas Sociales II (Artículos). Chile: Universidad Iberoamericana/Universidad de Los Lagos/Iteso. Luhmann, N. (2000): La Realidad de los Medios de Masas. Barcelona: Anthropos/ Universidad Iberoamericana/Iteso.

Reflections on reception and influence  127 Luhmann, N. (2002): El Derecho de la Sociedad. Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana-UNAM-IIJ. Luhmann, N. (2005): El Arte de la Sociedad. Mexico: Herder. Luhmann, N. (2006): La Sociedad de la Sociedad. Mexico: Herder. Maerk, J. (2009): Overcoming Cover-Science in Latin American Social Sciences and Humanities—An Intervention. In: Frick, M.-L. & Oberprantacher, A. (Eds.) Power and Justice in International Relations: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Global Challenges. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 185–192. Mead, G.H. (1968): Espíritu, Persona y Sociedad. Buenos Aires: Paidós. Montaño Hirose, L. (1994): Modernidad, postmodernismo y organización: Una reflexión acerca de la noción de estructura postburocrática. In: Montaño Hirose, L. (Ed.) Argumentos para un debate sobre la modernidad. Aspectos organizacionales y económicos. Mexico: UAM-I, pp. 67–91. Montaño Hirose, L. (2004): El estudio de las organizaciones en México, una perspectiva social. In: Montaño Hirose, L. (Ed.) Los estudios organizacionales en México: Cambio, poder, conocimiento e identidad. Mexico: UAM-I, Universidad de Occidente, Miguel Ángel Porrúa, pp. 9–39. Moscovici, S. (1979): El psicoanálisis, su imagen y su público. Buenos Aires: Huemul. Retamozo, M. (2012): Constructivismo: Epistemología y Metodología en las ­Ciencias Sociales. In: Garza, E. De la & Leyva, G. (Eds.) Tratado de metodología de las ­ciencias sociales: Perspectivas actuals. Mexico: UAM, FCE, pp. 325–350. Robles, F. (2002): Sistemas de Interacción, Doble Contingencia y Autpoiesis ­Indexical. Cinta de Moebio, 15(3), pp. 339–372. Schütz, A. (1967): The Phenomenology of the Social World. Chicago, IL: Northwestern University Press. Shotter, J. (1994): Conversational Realities: Constructing Life through Language. London: Sage. Shotter, J. (2003): “Real Presences”: Meaning as Living Movement in a Participatory World. Theory & Psychology, 13(4), pp. 435–468. Strauss, A. (1977): Espejos y Máscaras: la búsqueda de la identidad. Buenos Aires: Marymar Valles, M.S. & Baer, A. (2005): Qualitative Social Research in Spain: Past, ­Present, and Future. A Portrait. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, [e-journal] 6(3), available through: www.nbn-resolving.de/ urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0503183 [Accessed 9 November 2016]. Watzlawick, P. (1995): El sinsentido del sentido o el sentido del sinsentido. Herder: Barcelona. Weber, M. (2014): Economía y Sociedad: Nueva edición revisada, comentada y anotada. Mexico: FCE. Wright Mills, C. (1959): The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.

Part II

The variety of constructivisms

8 Variations of constructivism Thomas S. Eberle

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Berger and Luckmann’s book The ­Social Construction of Reality, one of the most cited sociological books of the 20th century, is an absolute must – and truly deserving such appreciation. Proclaiming “social constructivism” a paradigm, however, as done by the title of this anniversary publication – although tentatively and with a question mark – seems fairly courageous, and this is so for several reasons: First, the label “social constructivism” covers a multiplicity of different theoretical ­approaches and, therefore, has many different meanings and connotations – can it be re-specified to just one of them? Second, both Berger and L ­ uckmann distance themselves explicitly from constructivism; Luckmann said that they both were “very much annoyed” when “being labeled ‘social constructivists’” (Dreher & Vera 2016: 31). Is it apt, then, to call their approach “social constructivism”? Third, we have been witnessing a countermovement during the last decade in philosophy as well as in the social sciences – social constructivism has come under attack. How big is the chance to revive and consolidate it in spite of these criticisms? The goal of this chapter is to respond to these questions by shedding some light on the variations of constructivism (while keeping Berger and Luckmann’s approach center stage).

Berger and Luckmann’s Social Construction of Reality The title and its impact It was undoubtedly not the content of this book but its title that had the greatest impact. The Social Construction of Reality was not just a title for a theoretical approach – it was a thesis in itself: Reality is socially constructed. For decades, sociologists had been trained to adhere to a positivist conception of social sciences and an ontological belief in realism. To contend in this context that reality is not “the reality-out-there-as-it-objectively-is” but rather a social construction was revolutionary indeed. It appeared to imply a clear renunciation of positivism and realism, which were incorporated in the sociological establishment of the time. In this sense, the book has often been cited, also from colleagues who have never read it.

132  Thomas S. Eberle The title’s message is broad indeed: The claim is not only that social reality is socially constructed but all kinds of reality – not only society but also nature. This is a remarkable difference to the title chosen by Alfred Schütz (2004 [1932]) whose work was a major source of inspiration for both Berger and Luckmann. Schütz’s postulate was that the social world is meaningfully constructed, unlike nature. In German, the title of Schütz’s book was Der ­sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt (The Meaningful Structure of the Social World), and it was a direct antipode to Carnap’s (1928) Logischer Aufbau der Welt (The Logical Structure of the World).1 While Carnap as the main representative of “logical empiricism” argued that science consists of logical propositions which are empirically tested and verified, Schütz argued that this approach obscures the different subject matter of social and natural sciences. Logical empiricism, or positivism, proclaims that the social sciences proceed like natural sciences: They formulate logical propositions and test them empirically. Schütz, however, points to the fact that the social world is pre-­interpreted by the involved actors themselves. No natural object makes meaningful interpretations of its surroundings in a way that human beings do. The social sciences are therefore confronted with a hermeneutical task that the natural sciences can dismiss: They must comprehend the interpretations which actors attach to their actions. This implies that the social sciences require a different methodology than the natural sciences: In addition to the logical consistency of their propositions, they must capture the subjective sense (meaning) the actors attach to their actions and make sure that the second-order constructs of social scientists are “adequate” to the first-order constructs of the actors in everyday life. A methodology of the social sciences must therefore comprise two pillars: the logic of research and a theory of the constitution of the social world. With his phenomenological analysis of the lifeworld, Schütz strived for providing this second pillar (cf. Eberle & Srubar 2010). Why do Berger and Luckmann not proclaim “the social construction of social reality”? In fact, they present a sociological approach to social reality. Using the word “social” twice would, of course, render the phrase a little clumsy and sound much less elegant. But there is also a deeper, epistemological reason which Helmuth Plessner points out in his foreword to the German edition: Talking of “social reality” would already presuppose its existence. Berger and Luckmann’s conviction, however, is that the criteria of any kind of reality are social in character (Plessner 1970: IX). Naturally, in this broad sense, the phrase sounded much more radical and was attractive enough to make a career as an alternative perspective: Any kind of reality is socially constructed! Berger and Luckmann tie the term “reality” intimately to “knowledge.” “Reality” is defined very simply “as a quality appertaining to phenomena that we recognize as having a being independent of our own volition (we cannot ‘wish them away’)” and “knowledge” “as the certainty that phenomena are real and that they possess specific characteristics” (Berger & ­Luckmann 1967: 1). In contrast to the classic sociology of knowledge of Max

Variations of constructivism  133 Scheler and Karl Mannheim, they used “knowledge” in its broadest meaning, encompassing common sense as well as expert knowledge, and practical, embodied knowledge as well as theoretical, scientific knowledge. The task of this new sociology of knowledge is to analyze the social processes in which reality is constructed. The structure of the theoretical approach It appears that a majority of readers used the book as a source of inspiration and The Social Construction of Reality as a research maxim but considered Berger and Luckmann’s systematic theoretical approach less appealing or even overlooked it (see Figure 8.1). Section I contains the philosophical prolegomena, the foundations of a sociology of knowledge the authors found in Schütz’s phenomenological analysis of the reality of everyday life. The phenomenological method is purely descriptive and, as such, “empirical”

Society as subjective reality Society as objective reality Internalization of reality: Anthropological foundations Primary and secondary socialization Institutionalisation Internalization and social structure Legitimation Identity (symbolic universes) SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE PHENOMENOLOGICAL PROTOSOCIOLOGY The reality of everyday life Social interaction in everyday life Language and knowledge in everyday life

Figure 8.1  The structure of social construction.

134  Thomas S. Eberle but not “scientific” in the commonsense of this term. Section I is, therefore, “presociological” (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 20), and Luckmann later calls the phenomenological analyses of the lifeworld a “protosociology” (­Luckmann 1983). How rich and detailed and, above all, how systematic these analyses are became visible only later when Luckmann edited Schütz’s Structures of the Life-World posthumously in two volumes (Schütz  & ­Luckmann 1973, 1989). It therefore only became clear in retrospect how elaborated and sophisticated this phenomenological foundation of the new sociology of knowledge actually is. Berger and Luckmann’s sociological approach consists of two parts: society as objective reality (Section II) and society as subjective reality (Section III). Both perspectives are dialectically linked, which is well formulated in their famous phrase “Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality. Man is a social product” (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 61). Most sociologists acknowledge that sociology has to deal with both perspectives, although some put more emphasis on the objective, collective aspects and others more on the subjective, individual facets. While invoking Marx’s dialectics remains somewhat abstract in this context (with no “synthesis” in sight), the core concepts attempt to link the perspectives: externalization – objectivation – internalization. In an ontogenetic perspective, humans are born into a society that already exists, perceivable in its manifold objectivations, like action patterns, institutions, language, symbols and so on. By internalization of language and social knowledge, humans become socialized as increasingly competent members of society. The objectivations were produced at some time in history and are reproduced by actors in the present; they often persist and are passed on to the next generation. By linking the two perspectives on society, Berger and Luckmann attempt to reconcile Weber’s approach to study the subjective meaning (sense) of social action and Durkheim’s dictum to treat social facts as a reality of their own: “How is it possible that subjective meanings become objective facticities?” (ibid. 18). In section II, the authors accept the basic tenet of Arnold Gehlen’s and Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology that the social order is not genetically determined and, therefore, cannot be explained biologically. In contrast to animals, human beings are endowed with consciousness and are biologically open to the world; that is, they are flexible and can adapt to many different environments. Hence, social order is explained by the processes of institutionalization (routines, traditions, reciprocal roles) and legitimation, which implies the typical problems of a sociology of knowledge such as social organization, distribution of knowledge as well as processes of power. In section III, Berger and Luckmann investigate how (parts of) this objective reality is internalized by way of primary and secondary socialization and how it is maintained in continuous interaction and conversation with others and, furthermore, how identity emerges in interaction. Throughout the book, the two sociological perspectives

Variations of constructivism  135 are intimately linked, and the argumentation cannot be properly understood without the fundamental phenomenological lifeworld analyses (Section I). Strengths and weaknesses of Social Construction A significant strength of this book was, at the time, the creation of a new theoretical approach to sociology of knowledge, a new integration of sociological classics that deviated distinctly from Talcott Parsons’ theory of action and his well-established structural functionalism. First, they interpreted Max Weber in the vein of Schütz, who emphasized the meaning (sense) of social action and the problems of its interpretation (which Parsons overlooked). Second, they included not only the insights of philosophical anthropology but also George Herbert Mead’s social psychology (which Parsons disregarded). Third, they vehemently objected to detaching agency from human actors, for example, by locating it on the level of systems, as if “institutions” or “the society” as entities could act. Such procedures provide untenable reifications and are therefore “theoretical legerdemain” (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 186). Only actors can act, and hence Berger and Luckmann explicitly adopted Weber’s methodological individualism. This fits well with the phenomenological lifeworld analysis, which analyzes the constitution of sense (meaning) in the subjective consciousness of actors. However, whenever Schütz’s systematic lifeworld analyses and his elaboration of Weber’s approach are not taken into account, the mere postulates of methodological individualism and subjective interpretation run into severe misunderstandings. There are also some evident weaknesses of the approach. When using The Social Construction as a textbook with students, they detect all kinds of contradictions and inconsistent arguments. It is felt that the book was written by two authors, with Luckmann orienting more to philosophical scrutiny and to the tradition of Durkheim and Berger orienting more to substantial, and often humorous, sociological insights and to the tradition of Weber. While such different orientations can prove quite seminal in an intellectual collaboration, they can also create some discrepancies. More worrying is undoubtedly the fact that most theoretical key concepts such as “construction,” “reality,” “knowledge,” “objectivation” and “institution” are loosely defined and hence remain vague. This may serve as an advantage when aiming at integrating diverse theoretical strands into a new paradigm, but it also calls for a further elaboration and continuous refinement. When read nowadays, many of the illustrating examples in the book seem more than outdated, and the writing style is also somewhat obsolete. A more disturbing question, however, is indubitably whether the theoretical framework is sufficient in scope and the concepts appropriate to analyze the prevailing social issues of the 21st century, facing new media, digitization of ever more areas of society, and rapid social change?

136  Thomas S. Eberle Further elaboration of the approach Berger and Luckmann did not continue their collaboration and further refine their approach. Both mentioned geographical reasons for this, but also different sociological interests: Berger was satisfied with the theoretical framework they had constructed and applied it to a variety of substantive macro-­sociological issues such as modernization and third-world development. Luckmann was more interested in the philosophical, theoretical and methodological aspects and – besides editing and finalizing Schütz’s Structures of the Life-World – attended to the sociology of language and the study of communication. It is noteworthy, moreover, that in Social Construction, they had argued “that a sociology of knowledge without a sociology of religion is impossible (and vice versa)” (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 185), but when pursuing this individually, they arrived at quite diverse conceptions of religion – Berger favoring a substantive conception, Luckmann a functionalist one (Berger 1967; Luckmann 1967). This may also have hampered a further collaboration.2 In my essay “A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Knowledge” (Eberle 1992), I provided an assessment of Social Construction to celebrate its 25th anniversary. I interpreted the new approach in the context of Schütz’s phenomenological lifeworld analysis and called it a “paradigm” as it attempted to provide a synthesis of seemingly divergent classic theories (Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Mead), much as Parsons (1937) had done 30 years earlier. By “paradigm,” I did not insinuate a scientific revolution in the sense of Kuhn (1962); I used the term in the much vaguer sense as is common practice in the social sciences. However, I was convinced that this approach was epistemologically, methodologically and theoretically sufficiently sophisticated as to yield a sound basis for further theoretical elaboration as well as empirical sociological research. Since then, during the past 25 years, the impact of Social Construction has dramatically risen, above all in German sociology. Many of Luckmann’s former students at Konstanz became professors of sociology and have been teaching a phenomenologically based sociology of knowledge to new generations of students at many different universities across the German-speaking countries; hence, many further colleagues joined the movement. The new paradigm has been disseminated, and “sociology of knowledge” became quite a renowned section of the German Sociological Association. Based on its framework, many innovations have been made in regard to methodological approaches (such as social scientific hermeneutics and hermeneutic sociology of knowledge) as well as in regard to qualitative and interpretive research methods (such as phenomenology-based ethnography, discourse analysis or videography). Meanwhile, intellectual biographies have been written on the oeuvre of Luckmann (Schnettler 2006) as well as Berger (Pfadenhauer 2013), and many questions became clarified by in-depth interviews with the authors (Dreher & Göttlich 2016; Dreher & Vera 2016; Steets 2016a). Put together, the new paradigm has become much richer, more sophisticated and more consistent.

Variations of constructivism  137 The label social constructivism Why is this approach labeled social constructivism nowadays (as in the title of our book), although Berger and Luckmann vehemently insisted that they are no constructivists? And why is it not called social constructionism in line with the title of their book as well as with a common designation in the ­Anglo-Saxon countries and thereby marking a distinct terminological contrast to “radical constructivism”? In fact, it was above all the advent of “radical” and subjectivist versions of constructivism which prompted Luckmann to say, “whenever someone mentions ‘constructivism’ or even ‘social constructionism’, I run for cover these days” (Luckmann 1992: 4). And Berger wrote that much of the “constructivist” literature comes from an “ideological cauldron with which I have no affinity whatever” (Berger 1992: 2). To what they referred to becomes clearer below when we turn to other brands of constructivism. At this point, it seems necessary to shed some light on what Berger and Luckmann mean by “social construction.” Interestingly enough, Berger and Luckmann considered the title The Social Construction of Reality as self-evident: They gave no clear definition of what they mean by it. Furthermore, readers of translated versions of the book may well find that what is called “construction” or “constructed” in their language is expressed differently in the English original. But, all things considered, “social construction” obviously has different meanings. For one, the term “construction” has a static as well as a dynamic aspect. In its static aspect, it denotes a reality-as-it-objectively-exists; in its dynamic aspect, it means the process of reality construction. Then again, it makes a difference if we see a natural landscape with its mountains, rivers, meadows, cows, farmhouses and so on – a natural reality as perceived and interpreted by our cultural knowledge – or if we gaze at a society which is produced, through and through, by human actions. To understand what is going on in society (e.g., in a social setting), the sociologist has to, as Weber and Schütz each emphasized, grasp the meanings the actors themselves employ and are embedded in. Social constructions are, however, not the subjective business of singular individuals, they are interactionally accomplished and objectified. Routines are embodied and enacted, and social institutions and their legitimations are historically produced and in the here and now reproduced by the involved actors. To underline the difference between subjective perceptions and social constructions, Luckmann later insisted on the terminological difference between constitution and construction: The subjective constitution of meanings in acts of consciousness, such as typification, may not get confused with (communicative) social constructions of reality (cf. Eberle 1992: 497; Knoblauch 1995: 41). Accordingly, Luckmann distinguished sharply between phenomenology and sociology: Phenomenology is a philosophy, its method proceeds egologically, and it analyzes phenomena of subjective consciousness. Sociology is a science, its method proceeds cosmologically,

138  Thomas S. Eberle and it analyzes phenomena of the social world. The phenomenological lifeworld analysis delivers a protosociology and provides a “mathesis universalis,” a formal framework for any kind of social scientific endeavor. A “phenomenological sociology” is therefore a “misnomer” – either you do phenomenology, or you do sociology (Luckmann 1983; cf. Eberle 2010: 124). As mentioned, in The Social Construction, the phenomenological lifeworld analysis is therefore called “pre-sociological” and considered a “protosociology,” while sociology deals with empirical “social constructions.” In Berger and Luckmann’s book, however, the terminological difference between “constitution” and “construction” remains opaque, the talk of “social construction” prevails, while the term “constitution” is used only once in the aforementioned sense as “the constitution of social reality through subjective meanings” (1967: 17) (otherwise, the notion refers to the biological constitution of man). But the later clarifications by Luckmann make it evident that Social Construction is not a “subjectivist” approach, although subjective acts of consciousness, such as typification, are a prerequisite for social constructions and therefore represent an important pillar of the new sociology of knowledge. Berger and Luckmann insisted that they are no constructivists because the term “social construction” had become a shibboleth with meanings detached from their original theoretical context, and “constructivism” as a movement also emerged from quite other sources. Why is their approach now nevertheless called “social constructivism”? The reason is that Karin Knorr-Cetina (1989) labeled it this way in an article on “variations of constructivism” (Spielarten des Konstruktivismus) which had quite an impact in German sociology. Since then, Berger and Luckmann’s approach was usually circumscribed as “the phenomenologically founded newer sociology of knowledge,” which sounds rather clumsy. Two reasons may have fostered that the new term soon became generally accepted, even as self-designation by Luckmann’s students: One is that the term – which in German is just one word: Sozialkonstruktivismus – is fairly succinct, and the other is that this designation was confined exclusively to Berger and Luckmann’s approach, while other variants of constructivism were labeled differently (namely, “cognitive or epistemological constructivism” and “empirical constructivism”). When translated into English and transposed into an Anglo-Saxon sociological context, however, the term “social constructivism” loses its succinctness and easily gets confused with other approaches in the field that have little in common with Berger and Luckmann’s approach.

Radical, cognitive constructivism At the end of the 1980s, the label “constructivism” was above all associated with “radical or cognitive constructivism.” It was assimilated from different sources: experimental results from neurophysiology and neurobiology, cognitive psychology (Piaget) and philosophical conceptions. Crucial

Variations of constructivism  139 contributions were made by von Glasersfeld (1987) and the biologists ­Maturana and Varela (1987) as well as by Heinz von Foerster (1981) with his model of autopoietic systems. Radical, cognitive constructivism became a broad movement with manifold repercussions in different disciplines. In German sociology, it was prominently integrated by Niklas Luhmann into his systems theory where it caused a “theoretical turn,” a fundamental reformulation of crucial premises and concepts (Luhmann 1996). While phenomenology, the protosociological basis of Berger and Luckmann, remained fundamentally “realistic,” cognitive constructivism propagated that the human brain is operationally and semantically closed. This constructivism is radical insofar as reality cannot be “represented,” but only “constructed” by acts of cognition.3 Cognition and knowledge do not correspond with the world, and there is no reality beyond our knowledge. Radical constructivists, therefore, object to the quest for truth – “truth is the invention of a liar,” says von Foerster (von Foerster & Pörksen 2003). The crucial task is rather to study “how we invent ourselves,” as von Foerster and von Glasersfeld write in their Autobiography of Radical Constructivism (1999). Cognition cannot be separated from the “observer,” which became another central concept. While observing external objects, an organism always observes itself, and these observations always remain recursive. Nevertheless, empirical knowledge can be “tested” – if it works, it “fits” and is therefore “usable.” However, knowledge that fits is not “true” – the essential criterion of knowledge is not “truth,” but rather the question if it successfully works for orientation in life. Not surprisingly, this rejection of the notion of “truth” stirred fierce debates in philosophy (cf. e.g., Searle 1995). Compared to Berger and Luckmann’s approach, Knorr-Cetina (1989) states that radical, cognitive constructivism is basically epistemological and allows for applying this perspective on itself: It explains how constructions are made and how observers operate, including scientific observers – while Berger and Luckmann failed to do that. This is correct but neglects the background (or protosociology) of Schütz’s lifeworld analysis where the acts of observing and understanding are actually analyzed quite thoroughly (Schütz 2004 [1932]). A disturbing problem with cognitive constructivism, however, is that systems are conceived of as operationally closed and that constructions are regarded as produced inside the brain or individual consciousness. Cognitive constructivism is therefore also radical in a second sense that there is obviously no concern for social processes such as interaction and communication, institutionalization and legitimation, externalization and internalization, or socialization. Radical constructivism is a subjectivist variant of constructivism and, in this respect, quite the opposite of Berger and Luckmann’s program. Not surprisingly, cognitive constructivism disseminated much more in disciplines such as psychology and education, but not in sociology. Two authors contributed greatly to embedding radical constructivism into a theory of communication: Paul Watzlawick and Niklas Luhmann. Watzlawick had

140  Thomas S. Eberle become famous for his “five axioms” of a theory of interpersonal communication, which adopted many concepts from systems theory and therefore was called “systemic” (Watzlawick et al. 1967). Particularly famous became the distinction between the relationship level and the level of contents of a communication. Watzlawick had a special talent for popularizing such basic insights and presenting them with many pleasant, illustrative stories. In his book How Real is Real? (1977), he integrated constructivist thoughts with special reference to Berger and Luckmann’s Social Construction in the foreword (1977: xii). “Construction” in Watzlawick’s book is subjective as well as communicative construction, and subjective constructions are always seen in their social context. A famous and pervasively cited quote that substantiates the subjectivist construction of reality says: “The belief that one’s own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions” (1977: xiii). A special and unique twist is his distinction of first-order reality from a second-order reality (1977: 140–142), which is apt to satisfy natural scientists as well as some philosophers: The first-order reality of gold, for instance, is its physical properties, which are known and verifiable anytime. The second-order reality of gold is the meaning that humans attribute to gold, for example, its daily value at the stock exchange. A few years later, Watzlawick edited a book The Invented Reality. Contributions to Constructivism (1984) to which renowned authors of radical constructivism contributed (including himself). While Watzlawick helped to popularize radical constructivism, Luhmann sought to integrate it into an ambitious systems theory. He subscribed to basic premises, like the autopoiesis of closed systems, their constructive and recursive operations, the role of the observer and the importance of distinctions (as an antipode to typifications). An observer uses basic distinctions in his observation and thereby creates a blind spot. This is a basic insight that Luhmann also accepts for systems theory itself: He is therefore very careful about the basic distinctions with which he begins his theoretical construction as well as about which further distinctions he introduces to elaborate the theory. In correspondence to Luckmann’s distinction between the constitution of subjective meanings in consciousness and social constructions in communication, Luhmann separates the system of consciousness from the system of communication. And in agreement with Schütz, he regards communication as the social a priori of subjective consciousness. Sociology has to investigate the communication system, and as the distinctions of subjective systems are derived from social communication, any epistemology is considered to be sociological in origin. In contrast to Berger and ­Luckmann, Luhmann attempted to develop a complex, ambitious sociological theory with clear theoretical distinctions and a vast scope. He attempted to avoid classic metaphysical notions and assumptions and, therefore, joined Parsons’ decision to have systems act rather than individual actors. While Berger and Luckmann operate with individual actors and social interactants, Luhmann (1996) replaces social action by communication and insists

Variations of constructivism  141 that neither human individuals nor subjective consciousness can communicate, only “communication (the communication system)” can communicate. Of course, such a dissociation from commonsense ontological premises and tenets makes the theory fairly abstract and demanding. However, it is sociological in character and cannot be equated with radical constructivism.

Empirical constructivism When distinguishing three variants of constructivism, Knorr-Cetina (1989) arranged the argument in a way which made plausible that her brand of “empirical constructivism” is the most advanced. Her first caveat to Berger and Luckmann’s “social constructivism” is that the “construction” of facts is just ontologically asserted but not empirically demonstrated. Their analysis of the process of institutionalization remains very general and genealogical, without considering the concrete, local social context in which “facts,” such as race, status or gender, are constructed. A second caveat is that they do not epistemologically reflect the status of knowledge which is produced in scientific research: They cannot apply their theory to themselves.4 By contrast, cognitive, epistemological constructivism achieves this, but it lacks an empirical investigation of social processes. The very idea of closed systems and the reduction of “construction” to organisms, brains and individual consciousness prevents the perspective from analyzing social processes. For example, the scientific method is not just a method of discovery but also of empirical “proof” and “evidence”; acceptance and rejection or criticisms of empirical results in a scientific community are, however, social processes. As an alternative to the previous variants, Knorr-Cetina presents the “empirical program of constructivism” which she pursued and codeveloped. The main thrust is the empirical investigation of the “construction machinery” itself, that is, of participants’ construction processes. Reality has no essence beyond such constructions. Even stable features of reality must get reproduced continuously and require constructive work. “Work” is therefore an important notion in this context. More important is the shift of focus from the “What” and “Why” to the “How”: Not what reality is, but how it is constructed is the question to ask. This prevents the approach from arguing objectivistically. An adequate methodology implies that no definition of an object can be given beyond the semantics the participants use themselves and that the range of objects must be restricted to the construction mechanisms the participants apply. Such an analysis should refrain from sociological theory – sociological theory is considered as a property of society, not of science. Empirical constructivism operates in a way that is data guided, not theory guided. It cannot produce a general theory of action or of communication which disregard the specific details of the social setting in which actions and communications are enacted. The postulate of symmetry requires paying attention to all the elements of a setting and not reduce them to a particular one – as is done, for instance, when claiming that every

142  Thomas S. Eberle person has a biography; the question is rather if “biography” is used as an instrument of social self-construction in a given context. This approach is evidently much informed by ethnomethodology ­(Garfinkel 1967; Heritage 1984) and adopts many of its premises. Knorr-­Cetina concedes that ethnomethodology, anthropological theory (Geertz) and analyses of social practices (Bourdieu, Foucault) have informed this approach, but she insists that it has developed a special twist in the sociology of knowledge of the natural sciences. Here the postulate of symmetry disclosed new phenomena for analysis: the social construction of ‘ facts’ in natural sciences (Latour & Woolgar 1979; Knorr-Cetina 1981; Lynch 1985). Of course, the postulate of symmetry also includes a self-application: The investigation of such constructions produces results whose construction machinery can be empirically scrutinized, too. What is the criterion of success? Like cognitive constructivism, empirical constructivism refrains from the idea to approximate “truth”; as a criterion of knowledge, Knorr-Cetina (1989) rather suggests “world enlargement.” This is achieved when your research produces “successful choreographies” which you can dance. This criterion is very similar to Garfinkel’s formulation of an “adequate description”: It must work as an instruction that enables the reader to perform it (2002). This empirical program of constructivism is indeed a clear antipode to “social constructivism.” While Berger and Luckmann also attempted to found an empirical sociology of knowledge, they confined themselves to developing a pertinent theoretical framework and did not discuss methodological issues or explicate how to do empirical research. Later on, Luckmann and his research teams pursued empirical research and eventually contributed much to develop and elaborate qualitative and interpretive methods. Their research was always theoretically informed, not only by sociology of knowledge but also by anthropology, linguistics and other disciplines. By contrast, empirical constructivism operates with a minimum of theoretical assumptions and attempts to avoid any ontological or objectivist theoretical concept. It starts directly with empirical research, attending carefully to the details and specifics of a social setting, which a general theory of action or communication would, in their view, rather obscure than elucidate. Although such a research strategy may produce valuable choreographies, one fundamental challenge persists: How can the multiplicity of empirical studies generate accumulated knowledge without theory-building?

Social constructionism While in German sociology the designation “social constructivism” (­Sozialkonstruktivismus) clearly refers to Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge approach, its meaning has become much broader in the ­Anglo-Saxon countries where it covers any research investigating some aspect of social construction. There is also a movement with the label “social constructionism” that emerged in psychology and became quite strong.

Variations of constructivism  143 Interestingly enough, the creators of the term favored it because of its direct reference to Berger and Luckmann’s book: Although the term ‘constructivism’ is also used in referring to the same movement, it is frequently confused with the same term applied to ­Piagetian theory, to anti-Gibsonion perceptual theory, and to a significant movement in 20th century art. The term constructionism avoids both these pitfalls, and enables a significant linkage to be retained to Berger and Luckmann’s (1967) seminal volume, The Social Construction of Reality. (Gergen 1985: 3) The argument is plausible, and the slight change of name proved successful; therefore, this term became firmly established in the Anglo-Saxon countries. (In German, however, it has not spread because the literal translation into German sounds awkward.). Social constructionism emerged in psychology and brought a sociological perspective to psychological phenomena. Psychology operated with individualistic concepts; there were “persons” with a certain “character” whose properties could be “scientifically measured” by appropriate tests. Statistical procedures allowed for comparisons and revealed distributions. Psychological tests were also used for diagnosing mental illnesses, which then would be treated with therapy and medications. The basic idea that reality is socially constructed spurred some psychologists to rethink their discipline’s basic concepts and empirical methods. Much of the early constructionist publications consist of a critique of empiricist psychology: How does our perspective change when viewing a “person” as socially constructed? (Gergen & Davis 1985) When do we focus on the social processes and not on properties of individuals? When do we consider emotions such as pain not as individual feelings but as constructed in interaction? And, even more radically, when do we perceive scientific test results and theoretical discourses as constructed and negotiated in a discourse among psychologists? Social constructionism offered a different view to the established individualistic psychology: Everything is viewed as socially constructed in communities of practice, their discourses and narratives. This implies that established narratives exert power (as they are dominant), but that they can also be criticized and be replaced by alternative constructions. The category of mental illness, for instance, is part of a deficiency discourse with severe consequences: The narrative is not only used by medical and psychological practitioners but also adopted by the “patients” themselves. And it guides action, which often consists in some type of therapy and the prescription of certain drugs. In a sociological perspective, a complex of psychiatric institutions and the pharmaceutical industry collaborate to cure an e­ ver-increasing number of “mentally ill” persons. Suspicious of this practice, social constructionists suggest to alter the narrative – to avoid

144  Thomas S. Eberle diagnostic categories and deficiency discourses and reconstruct reality by transforming the narrative, for example, by building on the strengths and not on the deficits of a person. Since its inception, social constructionism evolved considerably and became a broad movement. Compared to the previous variants of “constructivism,” it is not interested in building a comprehensive theory as Berger and Luckmann attempted with their “sociology of knowledge.” And it disapproved of “radical, cognitive constructivism” which located construction inside the organism and not in social processes. Furthermore, it is neither practicing the same scrutiny in empirical investigation nor a similar abstinence from theoretical concepts as do “empirical constructivists.” Conceptually, social constructionism was obviously influenced by the radical perspective of ethnomethodology, which dismissed individualistic concepts such as “consciousness,” “intentions” and “subjective meanings” and focused exclusively on what is socially accountable. With their rebellious stance toward traditional psychology, social constructionists abhor “essentialist” statements about “individuals,” that is, substantial propositions about properties of persons. Therefore, they also wanted to overcome the “individualism” of Berger and Luckmann, which is manifested in both their phenomenological protosociology and their methodological individualism adopted from Weber. The Social Construction of Reality cannot be analyzed from the subjective viewpoint of an individual, but must rather be seen as a collaborative communicative construction of a community of practice. Individual action emerges from social negotiation, not from intentions in a subjective consciousness. Instead, social constructionism offered “relational alternatives to individualism” (Hosking et al. 1995) and developed a “relational theory” (Gergen 1994). This was probably the most significant theoretical contribution of social constructionism and has become its focal point. In contrast to the previous variants of “constructivism,” social constructionism was not primarily interested in theory-building nor in empirical scrutiny but rather in developing “new vistas” and alternative action. In the tradition of applied psychology, it was oriented to practice, and in the tradition of Marx and critical theory, it identified established reality constructions as ideological and in need of change. Abstaining from essentialist, objectivist propositions, social constructionists are generally open-minded – open to new theoretical ideas and concepts and open to perceive and interpret things differently. In respect to theory, this led to a complex amalgam of different ideas and theoretical concepts that seem somehow to fit together (see ­ ergen the introduction and overview by Vivian Burr 2003 or the reader by G and Gergen 2003). Social constructionism, asserts Burr (2003 [1995]:  1), underpins all of the newer, alternative approaches to the study of human beings as social animals, such as “critical psychology,” “discursive psychology,” “deconstruction” and “post-structuralism.” Not theory building, but the inspirational quality of theoretical ideas is crucial and their potential

Variations of constructivism  145 to open new vistas for action. Social constructionism is therefore primarily a reflective discourse of a community of practice to continuously challenge established reality constructions and develop new ways of constructing reality. The fields of study were soon extended from the “mentally ill” to other “oppressed” groups which were researched in gender or postcolonial studies, in order to replace or complement dominant discourses by “unheard voices” and new perspectives, and in organization development new ways of cooperation beyond the traditional hierarchy are being pondered in collaboration with the participants (cf. Cooperrider & Withney 2005). Hence, social constructionists do not believe in value-free research – they rather want to change the world for the better (see also Gergen in this volume).

Communicative constructivism The most recent and as yet the least known brand is “communicative constructivism,” which is currently spreading in German sociology. The label was coined by Hubert Knoblauch already in 1995 in his book Kommunikationskultur (Knoblauch 1995), in which he suggested a shift from the social construction of reality to the communicative construction of reality. Knoblauch was a longtime member of Luckmann’s research team for the empirical study of communication, for which they drew on Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, Harvey Sacks’s conversation analysis, John Gumperz’s ethnography of speaking, on linguistics and other sources, primarily in regard to their empirical procedures (such as sequential analysis or genre analysis) and some guiding concepts, but not in regard to their overall theoretical positions. Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge approach was considered by far the most appropriate theoretical framework to generate insights and interpret the findings. When Knoblauch (1995) presented his own empirical analyses of communication, he proposed to quit the common restriction of such studies to the microsociological level and extended the research to different cultural contexts: contexts of direct (face-to-face) communication, contexts of indirect (mediated) communication and societal contexts. For example, social movements, such as the nonsmoker movement in California, emerged as grassroots movement with much face-to-face communication; hence Knoblauch studied such interactions, for example, in a self-help group of smokers. But the movement also became organized using professional tools of social engineering in order to launch a campaign, and it soon succeeded in disseminating its message through the mass media. On the societal level, Knoblauch investigated the astounding success and impact of this movement on legislation as well as people’s behavior, and he identified the social carriers of the discourse, namely, the “knowledge class,” and their (specific) values. What exactly does a shift from the social to the communicative construction of reality imply? Does it mean that the “social” is reduced to “communication” only and that sociology should just study the communicative

146  Thomas S. Eberle processes in which reality is constructed? Actually, no. The idea of putting communication center stage of sociology has been proclaimed before: Habermas suggested it in his The Theory of Communicative Action (1984, 1987) as well, and Luhmann (1996) substituted “action” by “communication” as the core notion of his reformulated systems theory in 1984. But neither of these approaches was reductive; each developed a comprehensive theory of society. Knoblauch’s intention is rather to revive Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge and give it an update after 50 years. In his new book Die kommunikative Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit (Knoblauch 2017), which is in the process of being translated into English, he presents a revised account in the light of the empirical research that has been done based on Berger and Luckmann’s approach and the crucial theoretical debates surrounding it. Knoblauch argues that communication lies at the very heart of Social Construction and that social reality emerges from it – social reality with its material, institutionalized (power) structures and the symbolic universe legitimating them. Luckmann agrees that “communicative processes build the foundations of The Social Construction of Reality” and that “Berger and I always thought that The Social Construction of Reality was basically communicative” (Dreher & Göttlich 2016: 27, 47). Luckmann (2006) even adopts the phrase “the communicative construction of reality” as the title of an essay of his own, but he does not perceive the shift in terminology as a shift in substance (Dreher & Göttlich 2016: 47). Knoblauch’s (2017) Communicative Construction of Reality, however, presents an ambitious theoretical framework which reformulates the basic tenets of Berger and Luckmann’s approach, responds to criticisms and clarifies misunderstandings and elaborates the approach in some important aspects. As the phenomenological lifeworld analysis of Schütz was by many not recognized as a constituent part of the theoretical approach, Knoblauch systematically integrates some basic phenomenological insights. And he insists that a sociological theory cannot do without the concept of a transcendental, non-essentialist subject, neither on the side of the observer nor on the side of the observed actors, and that subjects are inevitably bound to a (lived) body. But he agrees with a number of criticisms and proposes some conceptual modifications (see also Knoblauch in this volume). The first is a shift from subjectivism to relationality: The starting point of analysis is not the individual actor, but the relationship between actors and their relation to relevant objectivations. This has a significant affinity to the relational theory of “social constructionism,” with one crucial difference: The subject is not denied, but just decentered. The second is a further elaboration of “objectivations”: They do not consist only in language, as Berger and Luckmann seemed to insinuate, but include all kinds of material things, technologies as well as media (Knoblauch therefore uses the term “objectification”).5 A third modification is the substitution of the notion “action” by “communicative action” as a direct consequence of the relational perspective. In this version, “communicative constructivism” is a call to revive

Variations of constructivism  147 Berger and Luckmann’s approach in an updated and refreshed form, which has also proved prolific for empirical research. Hence, it closes the circle of my short overview and connects to its beginning. In recent years, a number of prominent German sociologists who adhere to the interpretive paradigm and who have much contributed to the development of qualitative and interpretive research methods, have recently joined to push the concept “communicative constructivism” forward (Hepp 2013; Keller et al. 2013; Knoblauch 2017; Reichertz & Tuma 2017). All of them agree that reality is communicatively constructed, and they all relate to Berger and Luckmann’s approach in some way or another, but the basic concept of communication remains a little dazzling so far. Keller emphasizes “discourses,” Knoblauch “communicative action,” Reichertz “communicative power” and Hepp the “mediatization” of reality constructions. Nevertheless, there is currently a lively debate going on that invites others to tune in.

Conclusion This brief overview on variations of constructivism inevitably has its shortcomings. The more detailed the analysis gets, the more complex the picture and the more intricate a proper typology become. I have concentrated on basic epistemological, methodological and theoretical tenets, hence not including, for example, “the social construction of technological systems” (Wiebe et al. 1987) or “the social construction of social problems” (Miller & Holstein 1993) as separate types. Hacking (1999) examined a wide range of books and articles which carried “social construction” in their titles and concluded that they agree on at least two claims: X is taken for granted and seems inevitable; however, X need not be as it is, it is not inevitable. The critical versions usually add two more claims: X is quite bad as it is, and we would be much better off if we radically transform it. Beyond such fundamental tenets, many more illuminative commonalities and differences can be identified, some of which I have pointed out. Others were neglected: When looking at the “constructionist controversies” edited by Miller and Holstein (1993), for instance, we detect many fine grained debates solely in regard to the construction of social problems (which I had to skip here). To sum up, let me turn to the questions I posed in the introduction. I have clearly answered the question why Berger and Luckmann’s approach has become called “social constructivism” even as a self-designation by their adherents, although both authors insisted they have no affinity to constructivism whatsoever. Both authors referred, on the one hand, to “radical constructivism” which ignored social processes and hence was the exact opposite of their own approach, and, on the other hand, to “social constructionism” which was critical of established constructions and suggested to transform them in order to change the world for the better. Both Berger and Luckmann are known as rather conservative sociologists, and their focus on

148  Thomas S. Eberle the Hobbesian “problem of order” seduced them – as it previously seduced Parsons – to focus primarily on social processes which stabilize reality and to conceive of social change as rather a threat to the social order than as a chance for progress. Knorr-Cetina’s (1989) influential paper “Social Constructivism” (­S ozialkonstruktivismus) has become generally accepted in German sociology as exclusively designating Berger and Luckmann’s approach; hence, its semantic content is quite specified and not endangered to be confused with other variants of constructivism. As it replaced the rather clumsy “phenomenologically founded new sociology of knowledge” in an elegant and succinct way, it was also welcomed by Luckmann’s (former) students. In English and the Anglo-Saxon world; however, “social constructivism” has a much broader meaning and covers a great variety of approaches and endeavors. In addition, it is often meant as either including “social constructionism” or as being a synonym for it. The term “social constructionism” would actually be the more adequate label as it was coined with explicit reference to Berger and Luckmann’s approach, but it has been occupied for a long time already by an intellectual movement which considers Berger and Luckmann’s approach as outdated and inappropriate. I therefore have my sincere doubts if the designation “social constructivism” can be restricted to Berger and Luckmann’s approach anytime beyond the German-­speaking countries. Whether “communicative constructivism” as a label for the revised, updated version might start a new career and finally become more successful remains to be seen – this new label could soon turn into a shibboleth, too. How big, finally, is the chance to revive and consolidate “social constructivism” these days when “constructivisms” have increasingly come under attack? In philosophy, there is currently a strong trend away from “constructivism” and toward “realism.” And in sociology, we are witnessing an upsurge of “practice theories,” some of which vehemently criticize “social constructivism” for its ontological assumptions – for example, not accepting material things such as computers and machines as “actors” in their own right – as well as for its (alleged) disregard of the materiality of things. Is “social constructivism” entering its final days? Unlike Kuhn’s (1962) idea of revolutionary, scientific progress by new paradigms in the natural sciences, paradigms in the social sciences seem to come and go. They never vanish completely but become more and less dominant over time. There are also fads and fashions; the “new” is welcomed and the “old” repulsed. And after some time, “classic” ideas are rediscovered and often seen as “new” again. Which paradigm becomes more or less dominant, depends not only on its persuasiveness but is also the result of social processes in the relevant institutions of the academic world, such as critical debates, power struggles and negotiations. In regard to Berger and Luckmann’s approach, the label “social constructivism” has the unfortunate implication that many of its critics overlook the fact that both authors hold on to a realistic epistemology

Variations of constructivism  149 and ontology, also in regard to the material world. Paradoxically enough, the (self-) designation “social constructivism” may contribute to perpetuate these misapprehensions. Or might this book achieve a turnaround?

Notes 1 This does not become evident in the English translation of Schütz’s book, as the chosen title was quite different (The Phenomenology of the Social World). 2 They later wrote a further short text (Berger & Luckmann 1995), which was incomparable to the Social Construction in scope, relevance and impact. 3 Remember here Luckmann’s distinction between constitution and construction. 4 As already mentioned, this ignores Schütz’s elaborate phenomenological lifeworld analyses. 5 See also Steets’ (2016b) contribution to this aspect.

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Variations of constructivism  151 Lynch, M. (1985): Art and Artefact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Maturana, H.R. & Varela, F.J. (1987): The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications. Miller, G. & Holstein, J.A. (Eds.) (1993): Constructionist Controversies. Issues in Social Problems Theory. New York: de Gruyter. Parsons, T. (1937): The Structure of Social Action. New York: The Free Press. Pfadenhauer, M. (2013): The New Sociology of Knowledge. The Life and Work of ­Peter L. Berger. (Miriam Geoghegan, Trans.) New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publication. Plessner, H. (1970): Zur deutschen Ausgabe. In: Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (Eds.). Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit. Eine Theorie der Wissenssoziologie. (Monika Plessner, Trans.) Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer. Reichertz, J. & Tuma, R. (Eds.) (2017): Der kommunikative Konstruktivismus bei der Arbeit. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa. Schnettler, B. (2006): Thomas Luckmann. Konstanz: UVK. Schütz, A. (2004) [1932]: Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie. (Werkausgabe Vol. II) Konstanz: UVK. Schütz, A. & Luckmann, T. (1973): The Structures of the Life-World. (Vol. I) (­Richard Zaner & Tristam Engelhardt, Trans.) Evanston, IL.: Northwestern University Press. Schütz, A. & Luckmann, T. (1989): The Structures of the Life-World. (Vol. II) (­Richard Zaner & David Parent, Trans.) Evanston, IL.: Northwestern University Press. Searle, J.R. (1995): The Construction of Social Reality. New York: The Free Press. Steets, S. (2016a): Playing Chamber Music at a Rock Festival? The Social Construction of Reality in US Sociology. Human Studies, 39(1), 71–91. Steets, S. (2016b): Taking Berger and Luckmann to the Realm of Materiality: Architecture as a Social Construction. Cultural Sociology, 10(1), 93–108. Watzlawick, P. (1977): How Real is Real? Confusion, Disinformation, Communication. New York: Vintage Books. Watzlawick, P. (Ed.) (1984): The Invented Reality. How Do We Know What We Believe We Know? Contributions to Constructivism. New York/London: W.W. Norton. Watzlawick, P. et al. (1967): Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York: W.W. Norton.

9 The social construction of technology Where it came from and where it might be heading Trevor Pinch Introduction It is no secret that the approach to technology known as the social construction of technology (Pinch & Bijker 1984; Bijker et al. 1987; Bijker 1995) emerged directly from the earlier sociology of scientific knowledge. Social construction of technology was part of a new wave of approaches to the sociology of technology that sought to understand how technology was socially “constructed” or “shaped” (MacKenzie & Wajcman 1985; Bijker et al. 1987; Latour 1987). Many of the scholars who developed this new approach, such as Bruno Latour, John Law, Donald MacKenzie, Steve Woolgar and myself, were at the same time doing studies of science, and indeed some of us saw the enterprises as part of a broader study of “technoscience” ­(Latour 1987) or as a “unified approach” toward both science and technology (Pinch  & ­Bijker 1984). What is less clear is whether the sociology of scientific knowledge, in turn, emerged in any meaningful way from the earlier work on social construction by Berger and Luckmann (1967). There is no doubt that phenomenology, ethnomethodology, interpretative sociology and the later writings of Wittgenstein formed part of the intellectual milieu from which sociology of scientific knowledge emerged, but the specific language of social construction was not embraced by everyone. For example, Latour and Woolgar (1979) used the term Social Construction of Facts in the title of their famous lab study but later dropped the word “social” in subsequent editions of the book (Latour & Woolgar 1986). Knorr-Cetina (1981) talked about constructivism, but the influential Strong Program in the sociology of scientific knowledge formulated by David Bloor (1973, 1976) did not use the term construction or constructivism. Harry C ­ ollins’ Empirical Program of Relativism (1981) talked en passant about scientific facts being “socially constructed” but did not carry out the work under the banner of constructivism or social construction. The different forms of constructivism within the sociology of scientific knowledge and their debt to Berger and Luckmann have been extensively debated by Sismondo (1993) and Knorr-Cetina (1993) (see also Hacking 1999). Although tracing a direct intellectual heritage is tricky and terms

Social construction of technology  153 such as construction and constructivism are notoriously ambiguous, I think it is clear that there was a radical impulse that informed all the work carried out under the “constructivist” mantle, and it is perhaps this radical impulse that matters more than the specific labels used. For instance, Berger and Luckmann wrote, What remains sociologically essential is the recognition that all symbolic universes and all legitimations are human products; their existence has its base in the lives of concrete individuals, and has no empirical status apart from these lives. (1967: 146) There is little doubt that the early work in sociology of scientific knowledge, like Berger and Luckmann’s treatise itself, was opposed to various forms of realism, positivism and essentialism. The work on science in particular was developed counter to work in the philosophy of science that held that science was the paragon of the best knowledge available and was grounded in some combination of rationality, truth and correspondence with the real world. The language used to frame the early work in sociology of scientific knowledge reveals its radical intent. The sociologists wanted to make “strong” arguments and be shockingly “relativist.” We can ask what it was about the institutional context and the wider society within which sociology of scientific knowledge emerged, that produced this radicalism? Clearly the influence of the radical political strands from the 1960s and the counterculture played a role (particularly in the formation of feminist epistemology), as did the new interdisciplinary centers set up to study science that emerged in the United Kingdom and other E ­ uropean countries in the 1970s. It is surely no accident that two of the most radical programs in the United Kingdom came from these newly formed centers: the Edinburgh Science Studies Unit and the Bath Science Studies Centre. Philosophy (particularly the later work of Wittgenstein and Peter Winch) and anthropology (the work of Evans Pritchard on the Azande and the writings of Mary Douglas), blended with the phenomenological, interpretivist and ethnomethodological strands of sociology. Within the Edinburgh Science Studies Unit, history was also importantly part of the blend. This interdisciplinary mix was very different to the tradition of disciplinary purity found in North American sociology departments where the predominant approach toward studying science of Robert Merton prevailed and eschewed the study of the content of scientific knowledge. I would also like to point to two further factors that perhaps have been overlooked in the formation of this radical impulse: the object of study and the “form of life” of universities back then. Having research programs devoted to the study of solely one object – science – mattered because of the character of that object compared with, say, religion, the law or literary texts. Science is itself inherently a dynamic and sometimes radical body of

154  Trevor Pinch knowledge and practices. Engagement with such knowledge and practices – a requirement of the deep immersion and interpretivist methodologies of the day – meant engagement with a body of knowledge and practices that were, in essence, dynamic and fast-changing. It demanded that researchers acquire and engage with new languages, techniques and knowledge and thus meant that such scholars were no strangers to change. For scholars who studied contemporaneous science and technology, they could literally see new knowledge and practices emerging or disappearing during the course of one life cycle of a study – hence the early sociology of scientific knowledge slogan that we were studying “science in the making.” Seeing new knowledge emerge and change is more likely to encourage modes of thought and practice that are themselves dynamic, radical and transformative. The other factor I would like to point to is the form of life of universities back then. I mention this because the context in which most scholars work today is the bureaucratized neoliberal university where performance indicators and outcome measures, combined with the increasing isolation that digital devices have encouraged, lead to less collective moments where there is the freedom and encouragement to think “outside the box.” I refer to a kind of joyful, playful creativity that was part of the old form of life of universities. Of course, there is a danger here in being nostalgic. It is hard to capture this esprit de court, but one story I like to tell younger colleagues today helps drive the point home of how different university life was back then. In the United Kingdom and the Netherlands (where I worked at the time), it was not unusual to take off an afternoon or sometimes the whole day from work to engage in collective leisure and sport. In the Netherlands, in winter, if the sun was out and the ice was good, the whole research institute went skating together. At the University of Bath, I remember something similar, when we would all take a glorious summer afternoon off to go and play cricket. It is hard to conceive of this happening today. I think the material conditions of production of work are relevant, and somehow we need to capture the pre-Thatcher world of universities, where faculty felt much more able to have fun, take a risk and produce and frame ideas in radical ways. Thomas Luckmann and Peter Berger may or may not have been intentional radicals in regard to science. Certainly, by the time I met Luckmann in the early 1990s, he was a curmudgeon and had already marked the 25th anniversary of his treatise with Peter Berger by bemoaning the different meanings of social constructivism that were out there (Luckmann 1992; see also Eberle 1992). In conversations, I recall him explicitly rejecting the idea that science or technology could be socially constructed in the sense that different facts of the natural world could be socially constructed. I suspect the main role of the Berger and Luckmann book was as a resource that was not read closely but treated as a kind of programmatic statement in a context where scholars were looking for support for a “constructivist” take on science and technology. We all read the book, and in it we could find support for our project. What was most radical about sociology of scientific

Social construction of technology  155 knowledge and social construction of technology was the methodological sensibility it expressed. That the way to approach science and technology was not to focus on famous canonical cases of the success of science – the great men and their theories – but to ground the studies in the mundane practices of the humans who made up the scientific “lumpen proletariat.” The argument was that, in essence, the relevant activities to be studied were human activities and that ultimately it was the “lifeworld” of ordinary scientists and engineers that one would turn to study. It was not that we were applying Berger and Luckmann, it was more a shared sensibility in rejecting a priori and essentialized arguments and symbolic legitimations in favor of the concrete lives and practices of the men and women of science.

Emergence of social construction of technology The context within which the social construction of technology emerged was one where the predominant approaches in the sociology of technology placed the emphasis upon how technology impacted on society or social relationships. For example, there was much attention paid to the then newly emerging personal computing revolution and how this impacted work practices, unemployment, gender relationships and the like. What was missing, with one or two notable exceptions, was research that examined how social relations impacted on the design and content of technologies.1 In short, a form of technological determinist argument was prevalent against which the social construction of technology, the actor-network theory and the social shaping of technology approaches were pitted. The turn to social construction approaches was motivated by the desire to understand how society and culture could itself shape or construct technology. The route the argument took for Latour (1987), and in my own work (Pinch & Bijker 1984), was to build upon the arguments successfully mounted within sociology of scientific knowledge. If laboratory facts could be shown to be socially constructed, then so too could technological artifacts. If scientific facts were open to interpretation, or in the language of the day exhibited “interpretative flexibility,” then so too were technological artifacts. If closure and stabilization processes could be traced over time whereby scientific facts solidified, then so too could such processes lead to one dominant form of technological artifact. If this all took place within a wider culture that shaped the social construction of scientific facts, then technological artifacts too could be shaped by the wider society and culture in the longue durée. One obvious difference between science and technology is that science, on the whole, is carried out within specially circumscribed spaces of knowledge production, laboratories and field sites. And the main use put to scientific knowledge is by other scientists. In short, the meaning of a scientific fact is usually stabilized within a rather narrow group of experts at specialized sites. The knowledge produced from, say, a solar-neutrino telescope about

156  Trevor Pinch neutrino fluxes can be of use to fundamental particle physics, leading to the confirmation of neutrino oscillation (Pinch 1986). But if we take a piece of technology such as, say, the electronic music synthesizer first developed by Moog and Buchla in the late 1960s, and eventually mass produced today in an array of commercial instruments by companies such as Yamaha, Roland and Korg, one finds many more diverse users for such instruments (Pinch & Trocco 2002; Holmes 2012). Technology thus involves many more users. Indeed, in today’s mass consumption society, there are billions of users for widely dispersed artifacts such as mobile phones. In order to capture the more widely dispersed feature of technology, we used the term “social groups” to capture the wider constellation of people for whom technological artifacts took on meaning. The main social construction of technology concepts thus became “interpretive flexibility,” “closure” and “social groups,” as elaborated in Pinch and Bijker (1984). This has subsequently been enriched by Bijker’s notion of a “technological frame,” which is akin to Kuhn’s term paradigm and is a way of describing a common frame shared across social groups. As social construction of technology evolved, it became clear that the more prominent role played by users in technology was worthy of more attention (Oudshoorn & Pinch 2003). Users of technology could reappropriate technologies in creative ways and produce new moments of “interpretive flexibility” in the context of use. One change that has happened over time in the way social construction of technology has been used is that the corrective to focus upon how society constructs technology is less pressing. Today, it is common to use the language of mutual construction, mutual shaping, or the co-construction or coproduction of technology and society. The phrase the “social construction of technology,” rather like Berger and Luckmann’s phrase the “social construction of reality,” has become so ubiquitous that it is sometimes hard to see what all the fuss was about. Perhaps the more important underlying point is that all this new work in the sociology of technology that emerged in the 1980s, whether carried out under the rubric of social construction of technology, actor-network theory, coproduction, or today’s language of socio-materiality or a so-called turn to ontology, points to the need for sociology to engage more with the materiality of artifacts, technology, stuff or at its most basic: take account of nonhumans (Pinch 2008).

The Moog case study In order to put a bit more flesh upon these ideas, let me turn to my own study of the evolution of the electronic music synthesizer as an example of these social construction processes and how they are best studied. At the core of the social construction of technology approach is the intertwining of the social with the technical. But just how does the social get embedded within synthesizer technology? I argue that there were two radically different designs of analog modular synthesizer produced during the period from 1964–1970

Social construction of technology  157 within two different “technological frames” (Bijker 1995). On the East Coast was Robert Moog, with his pen protector, 1950s engineering values and his designs for patched modular voltage-controlled synthesizers with keyboards that could be played by a variety of musicians. Moog synthesizers were commercially produced in a rural upstate New York factory where he employed local workers, mainly women who were skilled at “stuffing” circuit boards. His designs were built to be robust, easy to use and to repair. On the West Coast was Don Buchla at the San Francisco Tape Center, located right in the middle of Haight Ashbury. Buchla was friends with the Grateful Dead and influenced by John Cage. Buchla too built voltage-­controlled patched modular synthesizers, but had a very different vision for the synthesizer. It was a vision that appealed to experimental musicians, artists and the avant-garde. Buchla (who saw himself as an artist and performed with his synthesizer) rejected standard keyboards, arguing that, with a new source of sound, why apply controllers and interfaces from conventional musical instruments, such as harpsichords, organs and pianos? He designed arrays of pads to interact with his instrument and also came up with an innovative way of doing musique concrète ­electronically – a device we today know as a sequencer. Buchla’s factory was more an art happening, and he employed philosophers, fellow artists and Zen Buddhists who had to learn to work in complete silence! Within the social construction of technology approach, we talk about these two radically different meanings as the “interpretative flexibility” of the synthesizer (Pinch & Bijker 1984). This moment of openness typically vanishes from the history of technology and closure around one dominant design occurs. It was the Moog keyboard-based synthesizer that was to become the dominant design. And it is here in the success of keyboards that one can start to see the influence of the wider society and culture. Musical culture is dominated by music organized around the 12 notes of the chromatic scale. Moog’s synthesizers with conventional keyboards found a ready audience within this wider musical culture, while experimental electronic musicians favored ­Buchla’s designs. Musical culture, of course, is reproduced and spread by the mass entertainment industry, and the 1968 success of Wendy Carlos’ record “Switched-On Bach” produced on a modular Moog synthesizer, further defined the synthesizer as a keyboard instrument. Standards play a significant role in this history as they have played in many technologies. In using keyboards, Moog built his modular system around a volt-per-octave standard, which meant that a one-volt change of input into, say, a voltage-controlled oscillator produced an octave change of pitch. Since Buchla rejected conventional keyboards, he could not define octaves, and the volt-per-octave standard had no meaning for him. His technological frame was artistic production, so why build a standard instrument at all? For him that device would be a “machine,” rather than an instrument. He compared himself to skilled artisans such as violin makers – each instrument was different. Moog’s standardization around keyboards and a

158  Trevor Pinch volt-per-octave is a key moment. Other synthesizer manufacturers from the period, such as ARP in Boston and EMS in London, all used a version of the volt-per-octave standard. As mentioned earlier, the move made by the social construction of technology approach compared to older approaches in the sociology of technology is to ask not only how technology impacts society but also how society and culture impact technology. How exactly does society and culture get embedded in technology? The social construction of the synthesizer is clearest at this moment of standardization. Musical culture does not have to be organized around octaves, but it is these that get embedded within the technology. The black-boxing of science and technology (Pinch 1986, Latour 1987) becomes, in effect, a powerful carrier of culture. Social struggles become frozen into hardware, a process that Gaston Bachelard calls phenomenotechnique (cf. Rheinberger 2005). In this case, an almost invisible culture is taken forward with the smaller Minimoog synthesizer developed in 1970, which has even more standardization as it is hardwired (rather than the flexibility of patch wires between different modules) and has a built-in keyboard. Indeed, the Minimoog (although still “analog” in terms of its sources of sounds) and with the aid of “sound charts” to stabilize certain sounds, becomes in effect the template for all later “digital” synthesizers. But history does not have to be this way, as Buchla reminds us. There is not only an aesthetics of technology at work here but also a politics of technology. Buchla, with his radical artistic stand, rejected the capitalist logic of mass production. Moog’s success further reinforced technology as the “enframing” devices described by Heidegger as opposed to the poiesis of artistic production enshrined in Buchla’s vision.2

Users Part of the story of the social construction of the synthesizer is the role played by users. Moog and Buchla, when they developed their first instruments, had no idea who the customers might be. Moog was part of the audio-­engineering culture and saw synthesizers as being akin to highend audio gear. Although he did eventually employ a New York salesman (Walter Sear) and two salesmen on the West Coast (Paul Beaver and Bernie Krause),3 he made no initial efforts to appeal to retail sales (and since the modular Moog cost the price of a small house, retail sales were unlikely anyway). Moog’s second-ever customer, Eric Siday, ordered a custom-built Moog for use in making advertisements (Siday was famous for making the Maxwell House coffee ad [Taylor 2012]). Moog learnt from his early customers how to improve the instrument. Most of his customers were based in New York City, and he would deliver the synthesizer personally (taking them down from his factory near Ithaca on a Greyhound bus), help set up the instrument in the studio and watch how it was used. Added technical refinements came from customers, such as the idea of portamento (gliding

Social construction of technology  159 between notes) on the keyboard suggested by composer Wendy Carlos. It was not that Moog had a Harvard Business School plan to learn from his users. It was just the way he liked to do things: All the people I did business with in the early days have remained collaborators and friends and customers throughout the years…They’ve been very valuable to me both as personal friendships and as guidance in refining synthesizer components. (Moog 1996, cited in Pinch & Trocco 2002) Moog also had an important new space, his factory studio, where he could study how users used his new instrument. He not only let local composers use this studio late at night (he used one Cornell composer David Borden to help idiot-proof the instrument by encouraging Borden to try anything – the deal being that if the instrument broke, he had to leave everything exactly as it was set up!), but customers visiting the factory to buy Moog gear were also given studio demos and instructions in the use of the instrument (the more gear customers bought, the more free instruction they received). This proved to be important because one of Moog’s engineers, Bill Hemsath, found that in repeatedly demoing the equipment, he had to set up the same modular patches, and eventually he embedded these specific patches into the design of the more portable Minimoog synthesizer. In other words, Hemsath could learn directly in this new space what users wanted. The factory studio provided a unique material and social space for users to impact the design. It enabled social constructions from users to be articulated and become manifest and embedded in new designs. The factory studio provided a direct link between production and consumption.

“Follow the instruments” I want to mention briefly the methodology used in the social construction of technology approach. Because technologies get their meaning from their use, it is crucial to not prejudge the sorts of spaces and places and users involved. In this case, following the early synthesizers takes us not only to the concert hall and recording studio but also to new places and spaces, such as the factory studio mentioned earlier; the advertising industry, where the synthesizer was used for coffee and beer ads (Taylor 2012); the radio studio, where it was used to make sound jingles); Hollywood sound stages and editing suites (the first movie to use all synthesizers for special effects was Star Wars in 1977); TV studios (“Miami Vice” in 1984 was one of first US TV shows to use synthesizers for mood music); retail music stores; and musical instrument trade shows.4 The uptake of the synthesizer in retail music stores is not the simplistic one of music stores suddenly stocking synthesizers when the new instrument comes off the production line. Successful instruments have to be affordable,

160  Trevor Pinch desirable and available at the right location. The selling and marketing of instruments turns out to be important. Crucial in the introduction of synthesizers into retail music stores in 1970 was one charismatic salesman, D ­ avid Van Koevering. Van Koevering had earlier acquired a Modular Moog as part of a novelty musical instrument show he produced and performed. He was seeking to introduce the Moog to new audiences. One of his business acquaintances was Taco Bell founder Glen Bell. Taco Bell was expanding into the Southwestern United States, and Van Koevering and Bell devised a schema to help sell tacos and promote the Moog. After Van Koevering performed at schools with his novelty instrument show, he would hand out free coupons to dine at the local Taco Bell where he would later play the Moog live. Part of the social construction of a new listening culture is to construct new sorts of sonic experiences in new sorts of spaces. Eventually, Van ­Koevering developed a successful space for this to occur, leasing a venue from Glen Bell on a man-made island off the coast of Florida that he named “The Island of Electronicus.” There he would play a mixture of taped and live Moog music and install some of the first Minimoog synthesizers. Having observed and listened to how young musicians took to the Minimoog (he encouraged them to come up on stage and play the new instrument), he decided to go the road and sell Minimoogs. In the process he developed a whole new way of demonstrating the instrument to skeptical music store owners who considered the instrument too expensive and complicated to sell (Pinch 2003). He found young keyboardists in clubs and loaned them a Minimoog for use in their shows before bringing them to the store to close the deal. Presence (with sales booths and clinics) at musical instrument trade became crucial, as did setting up a network of dealers that eventually became a global network. The success of the new instrument also depended on demonstrations of its potency for live and recorded music (the salesmen would ply store owners with copied Moog LPs). As touring rock bands started to use Minimoogs, sales increased. At some point, the sounds of the new instrument became ubiquitous, and its presence was accepted as just something you popped out to the store to buy or went online and purchased. Retail music stores started to stock the synths from other companies as well, and the synthesizer became one of the standard instruments for sale. The detailed sociotechnical and sonic practices of social construction tell us how, in effect, a new market was created, thickening our economic understanding of markets (Callon 1998).

Social construction of sound? Part of the stabilization of a new musical instrument involves the stabilization of sound – or more broadly, the social construction of sound. This process involves listeners learning to recognize distinctive sounds as well as the ability of technology to produce and reproduce these distinctive sounds.

Social construction of technology  161 In a relatively short period of time, from 1964 to today, we have gone from electronic sound and synthesizers being rare to becoming ubiquitous. Most TV shows today use synthesizer mood music, and every cell phone has a built-in synthesizer. How has this new soundscape been constructed? Moog described the first sounds of his synthesizer in the following way: … I still remember, the door was open, we didn’t have air conditioning or anything like that, it was late spring and people would walk by, you know, if they would hear something, they would stand there, they’d listen and they’d shake their heads. You know they’d listen again – what is this weird shit coming out of the basement? (Moog 1996, cited in Pinch & Trocco 2002) Part of the project in the social construction of sound is to trace how the “weird shit” described by Moog become stabilized, recognizable and reproducible sounds that form part of a familiar soundscape. This is a complicated process involving the phenomenology of sound (Ihde 1976; Pinch 2016). How sound is experienced is a crucial part of the story. Experiencing electronic music through dancing is very different from listening on headphones alone in a bedroom, through speakers in a recording studio or in a car stuck in traffic on the highway. Again, the role of the wider culture of sound reproduction and, in particular, the mass entertainment industry is crucial in understanding the role played by sonic technologies. One way to trace this stabilization of sound is through studio musicians who made early Moog recordings and who witnessed how, in the early days of the synthesizer, certain sounds became recognizable and in demand for reproduction. For instance, Bernie Krause, one of the main Moog session musicians of the day, recalls a limited repertoire of 20 or 30 sounds that we got, that were very easy to patch and do. Finally, it just got to the point where it was becoming so simple and ridiculous that we were able to replicate those sounds even on a minimoog. (Krause 1998, cited in Pinch & Trocco 2002) Some sounds failed to stabilize because they were hard to name and also the technology itself did not allow for the easy reproduction of sound with each patch requiring fine adjustment of numerous knobs and wires. For instance, an early session with the rock group the Doors using the Moog involved such a “lost sound.” Jim Morrison, the singer of the Doors, is instructing Paul Beaver, who was operating the Moog, to go back to a sound that he likes: “Which sound was that?” said Paul Beaver. “A couple back from where you are now,” Rothchild [the producer] said. “It reminded me of the Kabbalah,” said Jim. “Kether, the I AM, creating duality out of the

162  Trevor Pinch one. All crystalline…and pure. You know. That sound.” “Did I make a sound like that?” “Sure,” Jim said, “A couple back.” “Just go back to where you were,” … None of the sounds he was creating were pure and crystalline. And then we realized… he couldn’t get back. (Manzarek 1998, cited in Pinch & Trocco 2002) Such sounds were barely recognizable as discrete sounds, they had no regular names, and the technology did not allow for easy reproduction. Tracing how sounds stabilize is an important part of the social construction project that I am pursuing today as part of the new field of “sound studies” (Thompson 2002; Sterne 2003; Pinch & Bijsterveld 2004, 2012; Pinch 2016). How sounds elicit memories and emotions and the role of the senses in general means that issues first raised by The Social Construction of Reality are still as relevant today as they were 50 years ago. Even in the era of algorithms and “big data,” basic processes of The Social Construction of Reality are at the heart of the matter. I am currently working with specialists in artificial intelligence and “deep learning” in teaching computers to recognize musical instruments.5 At the core of our project are massive amounts of so-called “labeled data” that are used to train the computer. For our project, this ultimately means curating photographs of humans playing musical instruments with those instruments labeled by humans. The process of recognizing by sound and vision what counts as a musical instrument and its boundaries must first be carried out by humans. In essence, the computer and its software are a way of reifying or turning into a phenomenotechnique, the process of human learning and recognition. Reality is socially constructed with the aid of computers by a process of black-boxing human skills of recognition and categorization. Berger and Luckmann are as much needed now as ever!

Notes 1 Two notable exceptions were Langdon Winner (1980) and David Nobel (1979). 2 Heidegger, M. (1977): On the Question Concerning Technology. In: Krell, D.F. (Ed.) Basic Writings. New York: Harper Row, p. 187. 3 His salesmen were also musicians who performed on the Moog. 4 The Minimoog was the first synthesizer to be sold in retail music stores in 1970 and was the first synthesizer to be demonstrated at the biggest musical instrument trade show in the US, the National Association of Music Merchants. 5 For an account of this collaboration, see http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/ 2017/03/radical-collaboration-through-machine-learning.

References Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1967): The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday. Bijker, W.E. (1995): Of Bicycles, Bakelites and Bulbs: Towards a Theory of Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Social construction of technology  163 Bijker, W.E. et al. (Eds.) (1987): The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bijsterveld, K. & Schulp, M. (2004): Breaking Into a World of Perfection: Innovation in Today’s Classical Musical Instruments. Social Studies of Science, 34(5), pp. 649–674. Bloor, D. (1973): Wittgenstein and Manheim on the Sociology of Mathematics. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, (Part A), 4(2), pp. 173–191. Bloor, D. (1976): Knowledge and Social Imagery. London: Routledge. Callon, M. (1998): The Laws of the Markets. London: Blackwell. Collins, H.M. (1981): Stages in the Empirical Program in Relativism. Social Studies of Science, 11(1), pp. 3–10. Eberle, T.S. (1992): A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Knowledge: “The Social Construction of Reality” After Twenty-Five Years. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 18(2), pp. 493–502. Hacking, I. (1999): The Social Construction of What? Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press. Holmes, T. (2012): Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture. New York, NY: Routledge. Ihde, D. (1976): Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound. Stony Brook: SUNY Press. Knorr-Cetina, K. (1981): The Manufacture of Knowledge: Essays on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science. Oxford: Pergamon. Knorr-Cetina, K. (1993): Strong Constructivism—From a Sociologist’s Point of View. Social Studies of Science, 23(3), pp. 555–569. Latour, B. (1987): Science in Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. & Woolgar, S. (1979): Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Latour, B. & Woolgar, S. (1986): Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Luckmann, T. (1992): Social Construction and After. Perspectives, 15(2), p. 4. MacKenzie, D. & Wajcman, J. (Eds.) (1985): The Social Shaping of Technology. ­Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Nobel, D. (1979): Social Choice in Machine Design: The Case of Automatically Controlled Machine Tools. In: Zimbalist, A. (Ed.) Case Studies in the Labor Process. New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 18–50. Oudshoorn, N. & Pinch, T. (Eds.) (2003): How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technologies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pinch, T. (1986): Confronting Nature: The Sociology of Solar-Neutrino Detection. Dordrecht: Reidel. Pinch, T. (2003): Giving Birth to New Users: How the Minimoog was Sold to Rock and Roll. In: Oudshoorn, N. & Pinch T. (Eds.) How Users Matter: The Co-­ Construction of Users and Technologies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 247–270. Pinch, T. (2008): Technology and Institutions. Theory and Society, 37(5), pp. 461–483. ­ obussen, Pinch, T. (2016): The Art of a New Technology: Early Synthesizer Sounds. In: C M. et al. (Eds.) Routledge Companion to Sounding Art. New York: ­Routledge, pp. 451–462. Pinch, T. & Bijker, W.E. (1984): The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology might Benefit Each Other. Social Studies of Science, 14, pp. 339–441.

164  Trevor Pinch Pinch, T. & Bijsterveld, K. (2004): New Technologies and Music. Social Studies of Science, 34(5), pp. 635–648. Pinch, T. & Bijsterveld, K. (2012): The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pinch, T. & Trocco, F. (2002): Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rheinberger, H.-J. (2005): Gaston Bachelard and the Notion of Phenomenotechnique. Perspectives on Science, 13, pp. 313–328. Sismondo, S. (1993): Some Social Constructions. Social Studies of Science, 23(3), pp. 387–444. Sterne, J. (2003): The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. ­Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Taylor, T. (2012): The Avant-Garde in the Family Room: American Advertising and the Domestication of Electronic Music in the 1960s and 1970s. In: Pinch, T. & Bijsterveld, K. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 388–407. Thompson, E. (2002): Soundscapes of Modernity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Winner, L. (1980): Do Artifacts Have Politics? Daedelus, 109(1), pp. 121–136.

10 The concept of alternation and the sociology of scientific knowledge Harry Collins

[A]n individual may alternate back and forth between logically contradictory meaning systems. Each time, the meaning system he enters provides him with an interpretation of his existence and of his world, including in this interpretation and explanation of the meaning system he has abandoned. (Berger 1963: 65)

Alternation and forms of life Peter Berger’s book Invitation to Sociology was where I came across the concept of “alternation,” and I found it explained a lot about my relationship with the scientists I was studying. In more recent years, I have realized that there was a lot more going on than I first thought and that the concept of alternation is itself more complicated than it seems, and so are its applications. Here I am going to explore the various complexities by looking back at my own interactions with scientific communities over the past 45 years. On the face of it, the idea of alternation fits perfectly with the one “big idea” on which the whole of my academic life is founded and on which a lot of the sociology of scientific knowledge was built. This is the idea of “form of life.” The notion of form of life is Wittgenstein’s (1953), and I first came across it in 1967 when reading Peter Winch’s little book The Idea of a Social Science (1958). I guess I must have read Invitation to Sociology before that, but it did not have the impact on me made by The Idea of a Social Science. I  read Invitation at least three times as my career went on and each time I got more out of it; I guess I only began to understand it fully as a result of what I was getting out of the other material I was reading. Form of life is, of course, just one of a whole parcel of related concepts floating around in sociology in the 1960s and 1970s, and one could probably get to a similar place from many starting points, not least Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1967).1 It just happens that I first stumbled upon the notion in Winch’s book (and subsequent readings of Wittgenstein), it completely changed my understanding of the nature of the social and conceptual world, and it informs pretty well everything I have written since. Among the similar concepts, mostly rooted in Durkheim’s “social collectivity,” are

166  Harry Collins Fleck’s “thought style,” Schütz’s “taken-for-granted reality”; Kuhn’s “paradigm,” the anthropological idea of “culture” and, in turn, the criminologists’ and other theorists’ “subculture”; the ethnographers’ “microculture” and “ideoculture,” and the notion of domains of technical and other expertise. What all these have in common is the fundamentally sociological notion is that you are, essentially, not an independent individual but just a small particle of the social group in which you exist. For me and my career, what changed everything was the realization that this applied even to science and scientists, and I first got hold of this idea in Winch’s book, where he explains it in a couple of pages in terms of the germ theory of disease, anticipating Kuhn’s notion of paradigm (though we now know they were both long anticipated by Fleck and his thought styles). What Winch points out is that the discovery of the germ theory means a whole new way of acting for those involved in medicine; concepts and actions are two sides of the same coin. For example, the world of surgeons would no longer make sense unless they wore spotless gowns and scrubbed their hands ritualistically before entering the operating theatre. The discovery of a particular new germ within this existing form of life does not have the same kind of impact on the way we live. Anyway, once one has hold of this basic idea, whether one applies it to science or not, one knows that the job of the sociologist is going to have a lot to do with forms of life – but what exactly? Here is where the concept of alternation comes in and makes many things clear. A sociologist, among other things, is going to be “alternating” between different forms of life: immersing oneself first in one and then in another. And once one has done that, it is natural that one would want to describe, insofar as it is possible, a form of life to people who inhabit another form of life – notably, describe the form of life one has been absorbing in order to pursue one’s research to one’s professional colleagues who have not been immersed in it. For that describing to have any chance of success, one is going to have to keep switching between the two forms of life. One will be switching physically – living for a while in an initially strange form of life and becoming a particle of it and then returning and living as a particle of the home form of life again. And one will be switching mentally – recalling the researched form of life as one tries to describe it while being a particle of the familiar home form of life. Once one has the notion of alternation, one knows what to do with oneself as a sociologist – or at least one knows the important things one should be doing. Now, let us see how all this played out in the studies of science that I have engaged in over a career; it turns out to be rather complicated.

Parapsychology and incommensurability To start a short time after the beginning, Trevor Pinch and I noticed we had been practising alternation when we did our research on parapsychology, treating the parapsychological community and the mainstream scientists

Alternation & sociology of scientific knowledge  167 with whom they were at war as two groups with their own ways of seeing the world and their own ways of acting within it. Here is where we need to make a distinction within the concept of alternation. It is a distinction found in Berger’s book, but I did not really notice it until now. In Invitation, Berger talks of the possibility to choose between varying and sometimes contradictory systems of meaning (p. 68). He does not say this when he introduces the term on page 65 (see epigraph), but here on page 68 he talks of “varying and sometimes contradictory”! Thus, according to Berger (p. 68), only sometimes are forms of life contradictory; he is right. Actually, contradictory is too logical and brutal a term; things are rarely cleanly contradictory. For the sociologist of science, and for any sociologists in general who know the concept, a much better term than “contradictory” is Kuhn’s (1962) “incommensurability,” which Kuhn says characterizes the relationships between successive paradigms. When scientific paradigms change, the very way one measures things changes, such that measurements cannot be made in both worlds with the same ruler (as with the side and diagonal of a square – the side and diagonal will not both exactly fit the divisions on the same ruler however fine the divisions are). Kuhn, in applying the concept analogically to the relationship between social groups, had found “a new way of not being able to do two things at once,” as Pinch and I put it (1982). Pinch and I spent a lot of time trying to bring out the incommensurability of parapsychology and the ordinary world of science, alternating our lives in the two communities. When we spent time in California among the believers in the paranormal, it became obvious to us that the physical world could not possibly be exhausted by the four known forces: It became normal for us that consciousness interacted with measurement in a strange way; it followed from quantum theory that nothing could be more ordinary than that the mind would have an effect on matter even if it was very difficult to use controlled experiments to reveal the moments when it happened – for us the problem was with the experiments, not the world. But we also knew that after a couple of weeks back home, this would all seem, literally, ­“incredible” – we could not hold onto both worlds at once. We also did some experiments, which were famous for a Warholian moment: viewing young people, from behind a one-way mirror, who claimed to be able to bend spoons after the fashion of Uri Geller, and showing that they nearly always cheated. But we also reanalyzed those observations and noted that one young girl never visibly cheated, though she did bend a spoon, and we noted that we stopped analyzing when we found a point on the videotape when we could not quite see what was going on and she could have cheated. We noted that in a different form of life, we would have taken that girl’s manipulations as perfectly natural and would have been asking why all the other children were pretending to bend the spoons by physical force when, of course, they were really distorting them with day-to-day taken-for-granted paranormal forces! Where one has this kind of incommensurability-laden alternation, it is important to avoid thinking that it is possible to translate

168  Harry Collins the world of one community into terms that can be understood by the other – translation is not possible without loss or transformation. The best one can hope for is description and even attempts at description, for a community on the wrong side of the incommensurability divide is fraught with philosophical puzzles. Let us refer to this kind of alternation as “radical alternation.” Incidentally, radical alternation does not imply that the one who is alternating must be a “philosophical relativist” – a person who believes the world is nothing more than what one currently believes about it. One can equally be a “methodological relativist” (Collins 1981), one who, for methodological reasons, takes on the view the world is nothing more than what one currently believes about it without insisting that the world really is like this. It is not that difficult to “suspend one’s disbelief” in a world that a little while ago seemed incredible by embedding oneself in the corresponding culture and not that difficult to learn to disbelieve in a world that a little while ago seemed as solid as can be. If one is continually switching between such worlds, it is likely that one will be faced with a meta-choice about whether one believes the world is nothing more than these alternating perceptions or whether there may be some stability beneath the shifting views that might reveal itself but only in, say, the long term. If one accepts the possibility of the later but still believes that assuming radically different perspectives is necessary to do the work of analyzing the world without bias, as intimated, one is a methodological relativist. The once popular alternative is to take a short cut in respect of the analysis of social causes by taking it that only certain peoples’ incorrect perceptions have to be explained socially whereas others’ need no social explanation because they are perceiving correctly. This seems an obviously misguided approach to analysis. While we are on a philosophical track, it might be worth asking about the extent to which one really is “not able to do two different things at once” in cases like this. After all, when one is back at home but remembering what it was like in the other world in order to write it up, is one not managing to cope with both things at once in at least one sense? There is a philosophical topic here that needs exploring, but for the purposes of this chapter, let us just look at the conventional way of thinking that has grown in these studies. We conventionally understand these relationships in terms of certain metaphors – the Necker cube and Wittgenstein’s “duck-rabbit.” How they relate conceptually to the side and diagonal of a square I do not know in any exactly analyzed way, and the same goes for my understanding of the relationship between parapsychology and mainstream science. So, I am going to move on with the observation that thinking about these things in terms of these metaphors, and doing the analysis accordingly, has proved productive.

Gravitational waves and embedded forms of life Going back to the very beginning, consider the sociological investigation of the detection of gravitational waves with terrestrial detectors – for me,

Alternation & sociology of scientific knowledge  169 a 45-year-long project. (To go to the end, the science reached its triumphal conclusion with the first detection on September 14, 2015 and with the subsequent press conference on February 11, 2016.) I have now written four books about this field, and my earlier Changing Order uses it as a central case study (not to mention The Golem, (1993). The gravitational wave study was the foundation of my way of doing the relativistic sociology of scientific knowledge as first set out in my 1975 paper The Seven Sexes. At the heart of this was what later, in my book Changing Order, I came to call the “experimenter’s regress.” The experimenter’s regress showed that, contrary to what everyone had believed up to then, it was not possible to resolve a dispute in physics decisively with repeated experiments: Crucially, in a disputed area, scientists would not agree about which set of competing experiments had been performed competently, and there was no decisive criterion, because experiment is a skillful activity laden with tacit knowledge. This argument helped to create a space for the many social analyses of science that followed because it showed that what could now be seen as social disagreements among scientists could not be resolved just by repeating experiments and using the outcome as an incontrovertible proof of what was real. This kind of view turned out to be part of the beginning of a whole new subject – the sociology of scientific knowledge – which was also being developed in a more philosophical style by the Edinburgh School. The way the new subject looked at science was, of course, markedly at variance with the way scientists thought about their world. As a result, some of this work was later to become central in what became known as the “science wars.” Unfortunately, the science wars were characterized by intellectually weak and rather unpleasant arguments, some of the scientists taking as their audience not their fellow academics in sociology departments but a public with different standards and styles of argument. We can, however, fruitfully explore the conceptual divisions that the sociology of scientific knowledge posed by looking at more carefully thought-out arguments that were driven by genuine intellectual curiosity. To do the kind of analysis on gravitational wave that I was doing, especially as I wanted to keep it going over the long term, required continual alternation. If I was going to maintain reasonable relations with the scientists I was investigating, I had to be able to enter their world of science and understand it before analyzing it and continually reenter it as time went on. I also had to alternate back into my own professional world when I wanted to develop ideas like the experimenter’s regress and its consequences, which were critiques of the “canonical model” of science. At the outset, I had no interest whatsoever in convincing the scientists that my view of the world of science was superior to theirs; on the contrary, I tried to hide my view from them because I was afraid it would lead them to exclude me from their presence. Furthermore, like most of the other founders of the sociology of scientific knowledge, I was an admirer of science, and I did not want to change the scientists’ world only to describe it more accurately for my professional colleagues. I was saying

170  Harry Collins that the canonical model did not capture how science was actually done, but I did not want to stop scientists thinking in terms of the canonical model; the new model of science was aimed at social analysts alone. Given the long-term nature of my project, it was, however, impossible to keep my ideas permanently hidden from the scientists I was describing. Fortunately, I found I was dealing with a group with strong academic values, and this meant the scientists were willing to tolerate me in spite of my more “philosophical” writings; indeed, I became good acquaintances and even firm friends with some of them and still am to this day. What I was drawing on here, we now can see, was the absence of incommensurability and even the absence of any division between the academic form of life of one group of academics, the physicists, and another group – people like me. It becomes clear that forms of life can overlap and can be embedded within one another – here the idea of science, which meant two different things for me and the scientists, is embedded within the idea of what it is to be an academic, which means the same for both of us. This makes sense only if we think of forms of life as overlapping and embedded within one another as described by the “fractal model” (cf. Collins 2011). It becomes clear, then, that, in this instance, the notion of alternation has to be applied with subtlety. I have generally thought of my gravitational wave study as a case of my alternating between the community of sociologists and the community of scientists, but it turns out that the condition for that alternation to be continued was an overarching sharing of the one form of life – that of an academic; where there is sharing, there is no alternation. Here radical alternation and a shared form of life were to be found in the same social location at different levels of the fractal. Gravitational waves and incommensurability To show that there really was radical alternation going on under the umbrella of shared academic values, here are a couple of illustrative examples of how the scientists and I were thinking in different ways about the main focus of my research – the nature of scientific knowledge in general: I do not consider you “a trained observer of human behavior,” so far as concerns the gravity wave field. Science and technology move ahead through advances in instrumentation and publication of results. Not through gossip or “science wars” or deep introspection about what the other guy is thinking or what one is thinking oneself. That comment was made in 2001 by Richard (Dick) Garwin, a very senior scientist (an advisor to US presidents and creator of the detailed design for the first hydrogen bomb), for whom I had great respect, and who, in spite of this view of my work, continued to discuss things with me in a friendly way whenever I wanted.

Alternation & sociology of scientific knowledge  171 Earlier, in 1995, as a result of a similar mismatch of viewpoints, I met another of the gravitational wave scientists who I had not heard of up to then. Peter Saulson would later become my friend and what anthropologists would call my “native informant.” The meeting arose out of an unsolicited letter he wrote to me after reading Changing Order. A passage from his letter is shown in Figure 10.1.

Figure 10.1  Extract from a 1995 letter from Peter Saulson.

The relevant part of my reply is as follows (Figure 10.2):

Figure 10.2  Extract from my 1995 reply.

This exchange led on to dinner and discussion in a restaurant, many subsequent meetings and a personal as well as intellectual friendship. Unusually, in this case, I was not the only one alternating between the perspective of my home group and another; Saulson soon learned to understand how to take on my view of the world and a staple of our relationship would become teasing criticisms of each other’s projects from within

172  Harry Collins each other’s point of view, which markedly contrasted with the external perspective, science wars and rants. Once or twice Saulson even offered some serious sociological criticism, and once or twice I tried to do the same for his physics. I certainly learned ways to think about my project more deeply as a result of these exchanges. But neither of us were trying hard to change the other’s viewpoint though there was, perhaps, some slight mutual influence and more than once Saulson used his understanding of my position to help me to keep my own worldview consistent. These exchanges, however, I think also illustrate a case of radical alternation since it seems impossible to believe both that one is discovering true features of the physical or social world while, at the same time, socially constructing them – neither of us could hold on to the two views of the world at the one time; we had to switch between them depending on what we were trying to achieve.2 Other ways of relating to gravitational wave physics As I am beginning to see in writing this chapter, what I used to think of as a very simple case of alternation is actually rather complicated. Furthermore, now that I look back at all the aspects of my gravitational wave study, I realize that there are a number of other things going on which complicate the matter further. For example, my very long book Gravity’s Shadow develops some new concepts such as Pascalian funding, which has to do with how it is that the military is far more ready to fund wild scientific projects than the civilian sector; evidential collectivism and evidential individualism, which have to do with the extent to which scientists believe insecure findings should be released for public scrutiny before they are thoroughly investigated; and a careful analysis of the relationship between small science and big science. Each of these analyses could be said to arise out of the particular professional sensitivities and expertise of the sociologist, but once explained they are readily understood by the scientists and may well be embraced if they are thought to be useful for scientists’ work. Certainly, one or two scientists sometimes talk to me nowadays using the term “evidential collectivism,” and I have even been asked to lecture at a National Science Foundation meeting for scientists on the nature of big science. There is no incommensurability here, nor any need for alternation. Once the sociologist has grasped the concepts of the science being analyzed sufficiently well to exemplify the way the concepts work in that particular scientific context, other scientists can then apply them in the contexts of their own specialties. What the sociologist is addressing in these cases is not subject specific even though the claims have to be developed initially through a particular case study. What is being said here applies to scientific procedures as a whole – just as the critique of the canonical model does – but it is readily understandable by scientists from any specialty, including sociology, and there is nothing offensive about it.

Alternation & sociology of scientific knowledge  173 Alternation with remediable incommensurability But it is even more complicated than this. When one begins such a case study, and if one has ambitions to describe the substantive topic from the viewpoint of a participant, one has to acquire quite a bit of scientific understanding.3 Scientific understanding comes, once more, as a form of life embedded within another form of life. The embracing form of life is the canonical model – the kind of idea of science expressed in Garwin’s and Saulson’s remarks as shown earlier. But I did not have to do anything to enter that overarching way of understanding the world because I had been socialized as a physicist in (high) school. The hard thing was to invent the new way of looking at the world that came with the sociology of scientific knowledge. Alternation between the canonical model and the sociology of scientific knowledge model became part of my work, and it was, as explained, radical alternation. The new sociological world was being created by me and my colleagues in the sociology of scientific knowledge; the old world had long been familiar to us. Nevertheless, I had to acquire another existing form of life; this was ­g ravitational-wave detection physics. Does the term “alternation” have any application here? I think it does. The gravitational-wave physics form of life is characterized by a body of tacit knowledge which can be thoroughly acquired only through intense socialization: Insofar as one can manage it, one has to turn oneself into a particle belonging to that esoteric world through, as we would now say, the acquisition of at least “interactional expertise”.4 One then has to go back “home” and talk about that form of life to people who have not been socialized into it, and therefore one has to talk in a “popular” register, not the new language into which one has been socialized. Given that the new world is tacit knowledge laden, one cannot simply deliver it to the familiar world of sociologists by writing or talking about it in the way one would write or talk to the experts. But in this case, neither for analyst or expert is there any difficulty in maintaining both views of the world at once. One can thoroughly understand the technicalities of the ­g ravitational-wave physics world without there being any tension with the old familiar world – it is just something extra one has acquired – like a new skill. So, in so far as one has to switch into a popular register to talk about the technicalities, there is a kind of “effective” alternation going on, but there is no necessary incommensurability. Such differences as remain can cause great trouble for interdisciplinarity, especially where there is some common terminology disguising differences in meaning. I have argued elsewhere that this kind of mismatch is effective incommensurability, though unlike the radical kind, it can often be converted to mutual understanding given time and effort (Collins 2016b). We will use the label “effective alternation” to refer to what happens when this kind of effective incommensurability is encountered; it fits Berger’s remark that alternation does not always involve contradiction (incommensurability).

174  Harry Collins

Artificial intelligence and sharing a topic There is yet another kind of relationship between the sociologist and the scientist which is exemplified by my studies of artificial intelligence (AI) that began in the 1980s. Here there was no incommensurability and no alternation even though it was the very substance of the science that was at stake. For me it was just a matter of learning to understand a new technical area to a level which was easy to acquire in a fairly formal way without much in the way of socialization. I read some semipopular articles and taught myself to write some small computer programs. Thus, I painfully taught myself some of the AI programming language, PROLOG, and wrote a small program using it, but this was mostly a matter of acquiring some credibility; the main work could be done without deep technical expertise in AI techniques. The main work was done by arguing that the widely broadcast claims of the AI community could not be correct. They could not be correct because they were based on mischaracterizations of the nature of knowledge and what I brought to the debate was an understanding of the nature of knowledge. The professionals in the field thought enough of what I had to say to give me a prize for a paper I read at one of their conferences, to invite me to another and to give a passing reference to one of my books in a two-volume history of AI. Here, the practitioners and I came to share a common concern, and I was able to contribute to their field because of my work as a sociologist of scientific knowledge. The central critique has always been that knowledge is constructed by social interaction, not by collecting information, so it was based squarely in the part of sociology of scientific knowledge that did have a relationship of incommensurability to mainstream physics. This did not present a problem for the AI community as they were concerned with something else; it did, however, provide a critique of their approach to knowledge that they could understand if they were interested. I do not claim that my work had a big impact on AI, and I am still arguing the same points to this day, but some of the field’s practitioners took me seriously and some still do, and we need only to have a few take the criticism seriously to establish the points about the relationships between forms of life that are being made here. This was a very different relationship to that which I had with the gravitational-wave physicists. In that field, I have scored a physics point every now and again, and twice passed an “imitation game” as a gravitational-wave physicist.5 Nevertheless, I will never be taken seriously as a physicist – and quite right, too; my attempts to contribute to physics are mostly treated as amusing oddities. The difference between the gravitational wave and the AI cases is striking because in both, I came into a strange scientific field as an outsider, but the subsequent relationship was quite different. I should add that, technically speaking, I know enormously more about gravitational-wave physics than I do about AI, but it is the fact that I know about knowledge that enables me to be a participant in AI’s world in a way that I am not in gravitational waves’ world. This is because knowledge is the AI world’s topic.

Alternation & sociology of scientific knowledge  175

Gravitational waves once more To finish this exploration of the subtleties of alternation, I want to go back to the gravitational-wave study and the analysis I did subsequently on ­September 14, 2015 – the day, as scientists and most others now agree, that a gravitational wave first made an unmistakable presence felt on the big detectors. About two days later, I started writing a book about the discovery and finished it in about six months, working almost every day to produce a real-time account; its main title is Gravity’s Kiss (2017a). The press conference announcing the discovery, remember, was on February 11, 2016. I presented what I had been doing at conferences as 2016 wore on and the book was being finished. The physicists in America held a second press conference in June 2016 to announce the detection of a second gravitational wave. I knew all about this from the beginning, and I complained that the second event should have been announced at the February 2016 press conference since it had made itself felt on December 26, 2015 but had been kept secret outside of the specialist scientists (and me). This was just an example of what I thought was the excessive and misplaced secrecy that had attended this whole discovery process, and which I complained about at length in Gravity’s Kiss and whenever I spoke about my work. At one of these meetings, an old colleague from the early sociology of scientific knowledge days told me that I had lost my intellectual way. He said that the sociology of scientific knowledge should not be talking about the way discoveries were presented but the way they were socially constructed – the topic of the first bit of gravitational wave incommensurability and radical alternation that I discuss earlier. He subsequently wrote to me in an e-mail (December 5, 2016): I was trying to say how struck I was by the contrast between your early work and more recent stuff […] The former was bold, radical and ­puzzling – part of what drew me into science studies (and structured my work for years). The latter basically mimics the scientific propaganda machine […] It occurred to me to try suggesting to you that you’d forgotten all the aspects of science that you’d once helped us to see. It was this criticism that started me thinking about the many different ways in which I relate to the gravitational wave field and was the trigger for the writing of this chapter. First let me say that one of the problems presented to me as a sociologist by the September 2015 discovery was its rapid and uniform acceptance as the real thing; as far as sociological analysis in the style of the sociology of scientific knowledge is concerned, it would have been easier if there had been heated debate about whether to announce it or not and then heartfelt criticism of its reality from the scientific community.6 As it was, to tell a story about the “social construction” of this event, I had to point out how

176  Harry Collins remarkable it was that nothing more than a short sequence of numbers had been accepted as indicating the collision of two black holes 1.3 billion years ago and on what a huge body of trust and assumptions this conclusion rested; I had to work out for myself reasons why the assumptions might not be sound when I would have much preferred that the physicists were doing it for me; and I had to reach out to the fringe regions of physics to find physicists who did not believe the assumptions. So, as I see it, Gravity’s Kiss already included what was being asked for by the sociologist critic and maintains that incommensurable view of the science, but it does other things as well. There is another sense in which gravitational-wave physics is not an esoteric science at all. After all, the discovery of gravitational waves was the lead item in every evening TV news bulletin on February 11, 2016 – the day of the press conference – and the headline in many of the daily newspapers on the following day. The discovery was then something that belonged to citizens in general; it belonged to me as a citizen as well as me as a sociologist. It was to me as the owner of the discovery after the fashion of a citizen that made me feel uncomfortable with the way the discovery was presented: in particular, the secrecy. In that respect, I was judging it as a sociologist but also from what was very much my non-sociologist’s home territory, albeit my criticism was informed by my specialist insider knowledge of what went on in the course of the discovery. There was no alternation about this; it was just that I knew more about what went on than the public or pretty much anyone else outside the select 1,200 or so specialists who had followed events as they unfolded, and I expressed myself forcefully to some of the scientists and was met with a lot of sympathy. My criticism arose out of a sociologist’s sensitivity about the relationship between science and society, but it was immediately comprehensible to anyone. The wider focus of the complaint is explained at book length in Collins and Evans’s (2017) Why Democracies Need Science. This book discusses science as an enterprise that can give moral leadership to democratic societies. I think too much secrecy in science is damaging to this prospect. Another relationship with the science is a still more recent exercise in which I distance myself from the actuality of gravitational-wave physics and consider some counterfactual scenarios about what might have happened had it not been for the actions of certain individuals. For example, I argue that had it not been for Joseph Weber constructing gravitational-wave detectors that theorists said could not possibly be successful, and had Weber not claimed success, the whole direction of gravitational-wave detection physics would have been different; it would have been led by space-satellite detectors looking for slow duration gravitational waves rather than Earthbased detectors looking for short duration bursts. This is hardly sociology at all – it is more a kind of science-fiction-like speculation. But it still seems like the sort of thing that a sociologist has a license to think about because a sociological training loosens the ties between the analyst and the familiar

Alternation & sociology of scientific knowledge  177 world and so creates the conditions for this kind of speculation. At the same time, the deep understanding of the science that forms the foundation of a participatory understanding is another necessary condition if these counterfactuals are to have any plausibility at all.7 And there is yet one more relationship to be mentioned. This relates to the work of fringe physicists that I drew on in order to show how the string of numbers seen by the gravitational wave detectors were not uniformly agreed to represent the phenomenon that most scientists agreed they did – ­g ravitational waves. Quite separately, myself and colleagues were simultaneously working out the differences between the form of life of mainstream science and the form of life of the fringe – for example, that fringe scientists favored a different balance in what Kuhn called “the essential tension” in science between conformity to a paradigm and individual preparedness to stand up to the majority view; the fringe-valued individuality to what we called a “pathological” extent (Collins et al. 2017). In that paper, we show how this kind of demarcation criterion could be used by policymakers to exclude the fringe from policy-related decisions and such policy-related decisions would include how to move forward within specific sciences. Thus, just as I was citing the fringe to show how the September 14 detection could be disbelieved, I was showing how the scientists could find ways to exclude the views of the fringe from their considerations – a sociological contribution to their science similar in epistemological principle to the contribution I tried to made to the AI community, though one that I am sure the gravitational wave physicists do not think they need.

Summary of possible relationships between sociology and science This retrospective reanalysis of the activities over the course of a career of someone who would describe themselves primarily as a sociologist of scientific knowledge has revealed, as much to me as to anyone else, that the relationship of the sociology with the science is hugely complicated. The complexity begins with the fact that there are two kinds of alternation, radical and effective, and other kinds of relationship between different forms of life that involve simple disagreement, or new ways of seeing things that are not in any way incommensurable with the old; sometimes the relationship is simply a matter of cooperation; in none of these latter cases is there any need for any switching of perspective unless that label is to be applied to any kind of new thinking. The second contribution to the complexity comes from the nature of form of life or equivalents; as intimated, these cannot be understood in the absence of the fractal model, and the fractal model allows that the relationship between two forms of life can be both incommensurable and cooperative at the same time depending on which level of the fractal is being addressed. The levels of the fractal that have been described in this chapter are illustrated in Figure 10.3.

178  Harry Collins

WESTERN SOCIETY EVERYONE’S SCIENCE CANONICAL MODEL OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC COMMUNITY

ESOTERIC SPECIALTY

Figure 10.3  The Fractal Model.

Forms of life have overlapping and mutually embedded relationships. Here, the top of the fractal is “Western” society, and embedded within it is a series of understandings of science, each embedded within the one before and each analyzable as an independent form of life. These are science as encountered by the ordinary citizen (in the newspapers, television, etc.), the canonical model of science as understood by the citizen with a (high) school training in science, science as part of an academic community and, within that, the many esoteric scientific specialties. If the elements of the fractal represent numbers of participants, then the university-centered academic community lies within the group embodying the canonical model taught at (high) school science, but it is the embedding within the academic community that enables radical alternation in respect of the canonical model to be pursued without the researcher being expelled from the community – hence the arrows. There are also a corresponding series of sociological forms of life. The relationships allowed by the fractal model and discussed in this chapter are set out in Table 10.1. Table 10.1 begins with radical alternation, the examples discussed in this chapter being the tension between the canonical model of science and sociology of scientific knowledge model and the tension between the parapsychological view of the world and the mainstream. The second row is effective alternation – which is the relationship between a person who has acquired a new understanding through socialization into a specialist community and those who have not. The third row is the common embedding in academic life which, in my experience, enabled me to maintain a good relationship with those in the gravitational-wave physics community I was studying. The

Alternation & sociology of scientific knowledge  179 Table 10.1  Relationships between forms of life Relationship

Examples

Radical alternation with incommensurability

Canonical model of Parapsychology vs. science vs. SSK mainstream science as exemplified by brought out by SSK GW Any relationship where the tacit knowledge of another form of life has to be acquired through socialization Shared academic values

Effective alternation Shared understanding embedding alternation Sociological perspective applied to shared model of (high) school science Contribution of specialist sociological perspective to esoteric science Sociological perspective applied to science as property of citizenry

Critique and suggested modification of scientific procedures Sociological critique of AI

Counterfactual Sociological speculation critique of the fringe Critique of obsessive secrecy in presentation of results

Abbreviations: GW, gravitational wave; SSK, sociology of scientific knowledge.

fourth row describes some ways in which applying sociological sensitivity can supply something that may be useful to the expert community; from here down there is no incommensurability or alternation. The fifth row is when an outside sociological understanding of the world is applied directly to the substance of another science; the principal example discussed here is where a special understanding of knowledge has a bearing on AI, other examples being reflection on a possible counterfactual history of the field and analytic discussion of the relationship of the fringe and the mainstream (cf. Collins et al. 2017). The final row concerns ownership of science as a citizen and reflection on the role of science as the property of citizens.8

Broader considerations for the sociology of science Some people, such as the aforementioned critic of my recent work, think that some of the sociological activities listed earlier represent a betrayal of the true calling of the sociologist. They believe sociological analysis of science should be restricted to the critical, incommensurable way of being. In the early days of the sociology of scientific knowledge, I think that a fierce emotional loyalty to this way of seeing the world was a necessity. That is because not only were we pioneering a radical new understanding of science, but we were doing it in the face of enormously powerful forces; we had to do everything to prevent backsliding. At that time, the emotional impact of the new kind of alternation that was being invented in respect of science had something of the same

180  Harry Collins dizzying quality that Berger talks of where alternation of religious beliefs is concerned. The remark e-mailed to me by the sociologist of scientific knowledge nicely reflects the spirit of those times. Furthermore, the basic message referred to by the critic is still being missed by some of the groups who analyze science from the outside, and therefore it still needs stressing from time to time. For example, some philosophers are prone to accept scientists’ results at face value and then present these as a supposed “philosophical” critique of fringe science – showing it to be “irrational” or some such. I have always thought that “actor network theory” falls into the same trap – using what are scientific findings as though they could contribute unproblematically to sociological analysis without noticing what is being done (Collins & Yearley 1992); the very popular “new materialism” seems to be a prime example of this tendency. The invocation of the material should depend on exactly the work one is trying to do. When one is trying to explain why scientists come to believe this rather than that, one should never invoke the material world, because the scientists themselves cannot invoke it with certainty: What they are doing, in the very act of creating, is adding to the taken-for-granted world of material things, and whether an addition is legitimate or not is what they argue about. They cannot solve the problem of whether a new addition to the world is legitimate or not by referring to the material world, so why should sociologists think they can? Only after the addition to the material world has been created, do the new certainties become part of everyone’s world and only then should (or can) they be part of the analyst’s world too. But this kind of thing aside, the work of engendering a revolution in our understanding of science has now been rather thoroughly done by the sociological and humanistic community. Now we should see it as something that has enabled and brought to salience whole new ways of analyzing science. Some would say that the work done by the sociological and ­humanistic community has now accomplished a little more than we wanted, given that it has revealed ways to use science to undercut claims about the link between tobacco and lung cancer, oil and global warming and even, in the hands of some of its pioneers, to justify parents’ claims that the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine causes autism, meaning that sociology of scientific knowledge has helped to engender measles epidemics (at least that is how it looks when we alternate back into the regular world of Western medicine). And now we have Brexit, with its distrust of experts, and Trump, for whom experts are just one set of political propagandists among all the ­others – something which is truly terrifying. We cannot avoid the charge that sociology of scientific knowledge and its successors potentially give comfort to “post-truth politics” in general; this seems to be an unfortunate kind of enabling. It seems to me, therefore, that the time for the language of those fierce and necessary emotional attachments of the early days has passed, and the way the sociology of scientific knowledge is used now should be a matter of analytic and political judgment. Other perspectives, such as that known as the “Third Wave,” seem more

Alternation & sociology of scientific knowledge  181 needed than ever, and there seems to me no reason at all why, where a thorough case study is being undertaken, sociological sensitivity should not be applied in many ways.9 In any case, a reanalysis of the kind that has been pursued here, if applied to other past and well-established case studies in the sociology of scientific knowledge would, I am sure, reveal many instances of past “betrayals.”

Notes 1 Though, as it happens, this book didn’t have any direct impact on my work. It probably did help to set the scene for what I wanted to do, however (cf. Collins 2016a). 2 Those who have tried to hold on to two such views at the same time – such as Malcolm Ashmore (1989) – have wound up tying themselves into unproductive reflexive knots. 3 The very popular Latourian approach to the social study of science starts from the position that there is no need to understand any science and that the analysis is better done from the perspective of the stranger: This, indeed, may account for a lot of its popularity since it allows a far wider constituency to engage in a critique of science. 4 Indeed, when I wrote a paper (Collins 2004) describing the process by which one slowly acquires the understanding of a new scientific specialty, I called it “How do you know you’ve alternated?” For interactional expertise, see, for example, Collins and Evans (2015). 5 Imitation Games are like Turing Tests, except they involve humans, not computers (cf. Collins & Evans 2014 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1607.07373). A human tries to pretend to have a certain skill by answering questions set by a judge/interrogator who does have that skill and compares the answers with those of another person with the “target skill.” The judge’s job is to tell who is who and if he or she cannot tell, then we say the “pretender” has passed. We have done a huge amount of work on Imitation Games and consider that anyone who has ambitions to take on the role of a member of a strange culture or expert group – to alternate – should seriously consider exposing themselves to such a test or at least think hard about in which aspects of the target domain they would succeed or fail in the pretence. 6 As happened with the announcement and subsequent rejection of the discovery of cosmic background gravitational waves by the BICEP2 team in 2014. 7 The license for considering the role of individual in this way is chaos theory: If the flap of a butterfly’s wing can cause a tempest, then it is not unreasonable to think that the actions of an individual can make major changes in the direction in which scientific society moves, so long as the conditions are sufficiently finely balanced. The place these counterfactuals are written up is Collins (in preparation). 8 For a book-length treatment, see Collins and Evans (2017). 9 The original paper setting out the idea of the Third Wave is Collins and Evans (2002).

References Ashmore, M. (1989): The Reflexive Thesis: Wrighting Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Berger, P.L. (1963): Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

182  Harry Collins Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1967) [1966]: The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Allen Lane. Collins, H.M. (1975): The Seven Sexes: A Study in the Sociology of a Phenomenon, or The Replication of Experiments in Physics. Sociology, 9(2), pp. 205–224. Collins, H.M. (1981): What is TRASP?: The Radical Programme as a Methodological Imperative. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 11(2), pp. 215–224. Collins, H.M. (2004): How Do You Know You’ve Alternated? Social Studies of Science 34(1), pp. 103–106. Collins, H.M. (2011): Language and Practice. Social Studies of Science, 41(2) pp. 271–300. Collins, H.M. (2016a): Social Construction of Reality. Human Studies, 39(1) pp. 161–165. Collins, H.M. (2016b): The Notion of Incommensurability. In: Blum, A. (Eds.). Towards A History of the History of Science: 50 Years Since ‘Structure.’ Berlin: Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge, pp. 253–258. Collins, H.M. (2017a): Gravity’s Kiss: The Detection of Gravitational Waves. ­Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Collins, H.M. et al. (2017): Demarcating Fringe Science for Policy. Perspectives on Science, 25(4), pp. 411–438. Collins, H.M. & Evans, R (2002): The Third Wave of Science Studies: Studies of Expertise and Experience. Social Studies of Science, 32(2), pp. 235–296. Collins, H.M. & Evans, R. (2014): Quantifying the Tacit: The Imitation Game and Social Fluency. Sociology, 48(1), 3–19. Collins, H.M. & Evans, R (2015): Expertise Revisited Part I—Interactional expertise. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 54, pp. 113–123. Collins, H.M. & Evans, R (2017): Why Democracies Need Science. Cambridge: Polity Press. Collins, H.M. & Pinch, T.J. (1982): Frames of Meaning: The Social Construction of Extraordinary Science. Henley-on Thames: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Collins, H.M. & Pinch, T.J. (1993): The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press. Collins, H.M. & Yearley, S. (1992): Epistemological Chicken. In: Pickering, A. (Ed.). Science as Practice and Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 301–326. Kuhn, T.S. (1962): The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Winch, P.G. (1958): The Idea of a Social Science. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Wittgenstein, L. (1953): Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.

11 From pragmatism to interactive constructivism Kersten Reich

In this essay,1 I will give a short introduction to the program of interactive constructivism, an approach founded and continuously developed at the University of Cologne since the 1990s (cf. Neubert & Reich 2001; Reich 2010, 2012).2 This introduction will be combined with a discussion about the importance of pragmatism as a source of a socially orientated constructivism as given by Berger and Luckmann (1966). For the Cologne program, the philosophy of John Dewey has been especially helpful in this respect (cf. ­Neubert 1998).3 I will try to show this relation in two main steps: In the first part, I wish to reconsider Dewey’s concept of experience from the standpoint of social constructivism. In the second part, I shall do the same with Dewey’s concept of communication. Although I will not be able to explicate all the diverse and complex theoretical perspectives contained in both approaches, I will at least try to give an impression of how pragmatism and constructivism might mutually enrich each other from our point of view.4

First part: Dewey’s concept of “experience” reconsidered Why do we think that Dewey’s philosophy is a challenge for present-day constructivists? Since Dewey’s philosophy is such a rich and multilayered approach with so many constructive insights and ideas, there could be many different answers to this question (cf. Garrison et al. 2012, 2016). Maybe the first thing that comes to mind is Dewey’s philosophical core concept – ­“experience.” From the perspective of constructivism, Dewey’s notion of experience is very instructive for constructivism. For Dewey, human experience is a lived presence that builds on the past and stretches into the future. It is a world of action, a continuum of “doings and undergoings,” wherein meanings are socially co-constructed by those who participate in interactions with a natural and cultural environment. The constructivism that is implied in his philosophy of experience is grounded in culture (cf. Neubert 2009) or “the Social” as “the Inclusive Philosophical Idea,” as he himself once put it (Dewey LW 3: 41–54). Likewise, interactive constructivism puts strong emphasis on the dimension of social interactions in cultural contexts as the basis of our reality constructions. If constructivists in general claim that realities

184  Kersten Reich are constructed by observers, interactive constructivism adds the qualification that these observers are always at the same time agents and participants in cultural practices, routines and institutions as well. Observing begins and ends in life-worldly contexts – that is, what Dewey calls “life-experience” in all its ambiguities, uncertainties, contradictions and fuzzy varieties. Here we are involved as agents that act in more or less consciously reflected ways on the basis of preestablished habits that largely grant the viability of our daily practices. And as agents we are always participants, too, since it is only by communication and shared activities that acting becomes meaningful and endowed with performative agency. The three roles connect well with Berger and Luckmann. In The Social Construction of Reality, it is a central concept that people and groups are interacting and by interactions create or construct mental representations of their actions. For interaction on the whole, it shows that such representations form and empower the reciprocal roles by the agents (called actors by Berger and Luckmann) in relation to each other. In interaction, the construction of social realities is not arbitrary but tends to form institutionalized relations. In the process of the complex social construction of reality meaning is always embedded in social interactions. Knowledge and beliefs of what reality “is” can be shown as socially constructed. This insight is very close to Dewey. His concept of experience as starting point and telos of all philosophical reflection provides very productive grounds for seeing these three roles in their irreducible interdependency and complex combinations. The constructivist distinction of the three roles resonates well with his overall philosophical approach, even if Dewey himself did not use these three terms as consistently as interactive constructivism does today. Dewey distinguished (in Experience and Nature) between “primary” and “secondary experience.” For instance, he wrote, The consideration of method may suitably begin with the contrast between gross, macroscopic, crude subject-matters in primary experience and the refined, derived objects of reflection. He drew attention “to the relationship between the objects of primary and of secondary or reflective experience. That the subject-matter of primary experience sets the problems and furnishes the first data of the reflection which constructs the secondary objects is evident; it is also obvious that test and verification of the latter is secured only by return to things of crude or macroscopic experience ...” And as to the role that the objects of reflection play, he observed that they “explain the primary objects, they enable us to grasp them with understanding” by defining or laying out “a path by which return to experienced things is of such a sort that the meaning, the significant content, of what is experienced gains an enriched and expanded force because of the path or method by which it was reached.” The experienced qualities thus “cease to be isolated details; they get the meaning contained in a whole system of related objects.” (Dewey LW 1: 15f)

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  185 How does the distinction between the roles of observers, participants and agents apply to these two levels or phases of experience? Interactive constructivism claims that we are always already observers, participants and agents even before we begin to reflect upon these roles – that is, on the level of primary experience. And when we begin to reflect – for instance, on the secondary level – it is most important for interactive constructivism not to forget that our observations are not something “pure” in the sense of an isolated or detached faculty of observation, that is the “spectator” position of many traditional copy theories of knowledge that already Dewey aptly criticized (cf. Dewey LW 4: 19). Observations are always imbedded in the cultural contexts (cf. Context and Thought Dewey LW 6: 3ff.) in which we act (observation and knowing themselves being a form of action). And they depend on our participation in communities of interpretation. What Dewey in the above quote calls “explanation” or “understanding” – a constructed outcome of inquiry – always presupposes such participation. We think that pragmatists and constructivists can agree on this point. If, for Dewey, the ultimate end of such reflection is an increment of meaning in experience for which observation or inquiry construct “a path,” this pretty well points to what in interactive constructivism is called “cultural viability.” Such viability is always a solution constructed by an interpretive community. It expresses a symbolic order – a “whole system of related objects” that coordinates a multitude of perspectives. For interactive constructivism, viability in this sense always implies cultural constructions that refer to action and experience. What seems interesting for us is the question of the relation of viability, construction and experience. In this connection, the term “primary experience” that Dewey uses seems to suggest that beneath our constructions, there is also something “given,” something free from our own constructed viabilities, something immediately “there.” Dewey, as we can easily reconstruct in his works, defined what is “given” as a precondition of all our constructions. For him, culture is already constructed by others. He observed that life-experience ... is already overlaid and saturated with the products of the reflection of past generations and by-gone ages. It is filled with interpretations, classifications, due to sophisticated thought, which have become incorporated into what seems to be fresh naϊve empirical material. It would take more wisdom than is possessed by the wisest historic scholar to track all of these absorbed borrowings to their original sources ... These incorporated results of past reflection, welded into the genuine materials of first-hand experience, may become organs of enrichment if they are detected and reflected upon. If they are not detected, they often obfuscate and distort. (Dewey LW 1: 40)5

186  Kersten Reich How can we use this statement in constructivism? Obviously, we do not construct all cultural meanings ourselves. This was a core argument in Berger and Luckmann (1966), too. Interactive constructivism also puts emphasis on the limits of our observations, actions and participations. Culture has us before we have it. Inquiry into the potential meanings of our experiences is an endless task – too much for any single observer or community. This is why, in interactive constructivism, we further distinguish between the position of self-observers and distant observers. As self-observers, we observe ourselves and others from within the practices and interpretive communities in which we directly participate. As distant observers, we observe others in their practices and interpretive communities from outside, be it by temporal or spatial detachment or from the distance of reflection. However, this distinction should not be misunderstood as a separation. Transitions are fluid. As distant observers, we are always at the same time self-observers within our own context of observation, while as self-observers we may at any moment try to imaginatively project ourselves into the position of a distant observer who looks and reflects from outside. For interactive constructivism, the diversity of cultural contexts and the complexity of possible viable constructions characteristic of our liquid modern condition demand an ironical position of self-criticism that always reckons with the ambiguities, perplexities and possible contradictions implied in this distinction.6 In philosophical discourses today, we have to recognize that the proposed distinction between self-observer and distant observer positions applies to a specific cultural and historical situation. To many contemporary observers, this situation is characterized by a radical and irreducible diversity of discourses that allows for no ultimate or best observer position. Therefore, there is no level of ultimate reality that could be exempt from the application of the proposed distinction. Here we find some realism in Dewey that is so typical for some so-called constructivist approaches, too. Dewey indicated this “given” when he used such terms like “existences” or “events.” Even if he would agree that the “given” is not and cannot be ultimately captured in a last or best observer’s perspective, he points out that it is there, independent of our constructions. We can only point to it, and in pointing to it we recognize that there is a world beyond our constructions. He maintained that “in every event there is something obdurate, self-sufficient, wholly immediate, neither a relation nor an element in a relational whole, but terminal and exclusive.” He insisted on the “irreducible, infinitely plural, undefinable and indescribable qualities which a thing must have in order to be, and in order to be capable of becoming the subject of relations and a theme of discourse.” But such “[i]mmediacy of existence is ineffable.” This ineffability expresses the fact that of direct existence it is futile to say anything to one’s self and impossible to say anything to another. Discourse can but intimate connections which if followed out may lead one to have

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  187 an existence. Things in their immediacy are unknown and unknowable, not because they are remote or behind some impenetrable veil of sensations or ideas, but because knowledge has no concern with them. For knowledge is a memorandum of conditions of their appearance, concerned, that is, with sequences, coexistences, relations. Immediate things may be pointed to by words, but not described or defined. Description when it occurs is but a part of a circuitous method of pointing or denoting; index to a starting point and road which if taken may lead to a direct and ineffable presence. (Dewey LW 1: 74f.) Interactive constructivism also recognizes that there is “a world beyond our constructions,” as Dewey or others called it. Indeed, not to do so would lead constructivism into a solipsist dead end. In this connection, interactive constructivism uses the distinction between reality (as constructed) and the real (as an event).7 Our constructions of reality can never be completely draft-proofed against experiences that interactive constructivism calls the intrusions of the real. In this view, “the real” represents a kind of border concept, the designation of a limit. Real events enter experience as a tear, a gap or discontinuity, a lack of sense and meaning. I introduced the term “real” to denote the contingency of the not yet symbolically registered or imaginatively expected that lurks behind any construction of reality (cf. ­Reich 2009a). Taking us by surprise, real events do not “fit” into our so far constructed realities. They cannot be easily integrated and transformed into elements of a culturally viable understanding. They astonish or shock us: There is something that could not be foreseen, something alien, strange, incomprehensible. To the degree in which we are open to expand our experiences and to learn from the real in our lives, such events may move us to change the horizons of our reality constructions. Therefore, it is important for us to respect the limits of the real. To respect the limits of the real, to acknowledge uncertainty, indeterminacy, precariousness, incompleteness, vagueness or whatever term we may prefer for that which delimits our constructions, is after all one central message of Dewey’s pragmatism as well as of interactive constructivism. But interactive constructivists reject any attempt to devise an ontology or metaphysics of the real. We speak of the real in the sense of a void signifier that denotes a limit of our constructive capacities as observers. For interactive constructivism, there is no overall perspective, no best or final observer as to the real. That is to say, we cannot know what the real really is without incorporating and assimilating it into our (symbolic and imaginative) constructions of reality. The intrusions of the real that we encounter in our lives expose the gaps, the inner fissures in the texture of our realities. Insofar they are as much expressions of our cultural resources as are our re/de/constructions of reality. What can (and cannot) enter our experience and observation as a real event may therefore differ quite considerably from culture to culture, from person to person and

188  Kersten Reich even from situation to situation. In other words, “the real” designates but a constructed perspective that we use to remind us that there is a world independent of our constructions. Our relative openness to the real is a question of our being sensitive and vulnerable to the world in which we live. The intrusions of the real are often described as events of confusing, dumbfounding, perplexing loss and lack or failure – witnessing the unexpected death of someone we loved or feeling a sudden pain in our body without having any explanation. What these examples highlight is the dramatic extent to which real events may take us unawares and render us speechless. But the beauty of a landscape that seizes the spectator or the sublime feeling that captures one in the presence of a work of art are quite as much examples of our being open to the “limits of the real.” The decisive point for interactive constructivism is that the real does not speak to us. We speak about the real and transform it into symbolic (and, as we will discuss later, imagined) reality. In this sense, Wittgenstein is more consequent than Dewey when he states that “whereof we cannot speak, thereof we should remain silent.” Dewey, in his reflections on “nature” and “existence,” seems to seek something more “positive” than a void signifier – an existential basis, even if it be ineffable and can only be pointed to. He seems to hold on to a residual imagination that the real as such has its own articulation, and that this articulation might be captured in the symbolic.8 But his ideas about contingency, the “precarious” and “uncertain” dimensions of experience, his notion of “problematic situations” as indispensable starting points for new and constructive learning experiences in many respects come very close to our constructivist concept of real events.9 How does this constructivism connect with the displacement of “experience” by “language” that neopragmatists like Richard Rorty or Stanley Fish proposed? (cf. Rorty 1979, 1989, 2000; Fish 1998). The concept of the real seems to provide one important possibility to resolve the dispute within pragmatism for or against the use of the concept experience in light of the pragmatic linguistic turn. Seen from a symbolic perspective alone, the philosophy after Wittgenstein as reconstructed by Rorty – drawing on the works of, for instance, Putnam, Davidson or ­Brandom – has taken the unavoidable linguistic turn that has posted language into a predominant position (cf. Rorty 1998). From this point of view, experience is always already mediated through language. It has completely lost the existential grounding that Dewey tried to establish. But even this linguistic discourse finds its surprising supplement in Derrida’s différance, which denotes the reappearance of displacement and omission even within the symbolic and points beyond it. Language itself is important but limited.10 If we call this limit the real, then what we get is a void signifier, which gives us the chance, however, to relativize the new dominance of language. Although experience always presupposes language in our symbolic and discursive undertakings, this is not to say, on the other hand, that it is completely exhausted or swallowed up in language. It appears in our

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  189 imaginations as desire or wishes not yet refined through language or reflection. And it always implies the possibility that we encounter something real that we can linguistically reconstruct only after the event. If we concede this reconstructed sense of Deweyan experience – and we think this is not too far from his intentions – the dispute in not only pragmatism but philosophy in general could be better understood and given a different turn even if it may not completely be resolved. Dewey was against a “pluralist realism” when he insisted: [...] the question at issue is what the real is. If natural existence is qualitatively individualized or genuinely plural, as well as repetitious, and if things have both temporal quality and recurrence or uniformity, then the more realistic knowledge is, the more fully it will reflect and exemplify these traits. (Dewey LW 1: 127) Do we have to agree then that our constructivist notion of the real, upon consequent reflection, commits us to a version of a “pluralist realism”? How can we use the real as a primary category – a name for the inescapable limits of our “reality constructions,” without being, in ultimate consequence, ourselves a kind of realist? Should we not better call our approach “constructivist realism”? The real as a phenomenon is a very open-ended construct. Here, it is entirely up to the observer in his/her cultural contexts of participation and acting what is experienced as real. That can then be a symbolic effect, for example. After all, symbolic systems also exist materially. They return as reality in their use by humans. But although imagined, mental symbolic systems can appear as authoritative reality, and likewise imaginations that are taken for real. Symbolically, I may swear that my marriage will last, I can imaginatively trust that it will, but only future real events will show if it does. People who continually reject the real in order to put an emphasis on the symbolic may appear to others as rationalizing; people who reject it in order to primarily retain for themselves the imaginative may appear as daydreamers or deranged; but people who tend to excessively exhaust the real appear as fatalists. Here it is important for us to see through the tactics of changing observer perspectives between the symbolic, the imaginative and real events. Therefore, we think that it is decisive to establish a constructivist observer theory to avoid the traps of playing language off against experience. After all, only observer’s perspectives can help us to situate ourselves as observers in our participations and actions in the world. The real warns us not to overestimate ourselves. In consequence, we avoid to speak of realism in order to prevent misunderstandings. The term realism is connected to the imagination of either a form of copy theory of knowledge or to a view that is at some point in the hope of an approach to reality as it “is,” given, without sufficient regard, to observer positions.

190  Kersten Reich

Second part: Dewey’s concept of “communication” reconsidered Let us now move on to the theory of communication. We think that ­D ewey’s concept of communication stands in intimate connection with his theory of culture. He regards the development of communication in the way of an increasing and enriched interaction and participation of humans as an important historical process that is necessary for democracy.11 He argued, Modern methods of communication and transportation have made the market for goods as large as the civilized world. Education is constantly awakening new wants. The facilities for communication, for travel, and for education are constantly leading one part of the world to imitate the standards or fashions set by other parts. We have, therefore, a social standard for valuation which is constantly extending in area and in intensity. (Dewey MW 5: 455) Furthermore, communication has established presuppositions for additional development and growth: Gradually, however, free speech, freedom of communication and intercourse, of public assemblies, liberty of the press and circulation of ideas, freedom of religious and intellectual conviction (commonly called freedom of conscience), of worship, and to some extent the right to education, to spiritual nurture, have been achieved. (Dewey MW 5: 399)12 The comprehensive understanding of communication as both means and presupposition of democratic development and growth also finds expression in the affinity of certain terms all of which are related to the common. Dewey wrote, Society not only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication. There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication. Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common. (Dewey MW 9: 7) And even more precisely: “Free communication on one side signifies power to receive and to participate in values on the other side. The great problem of society is to combine a maximum of different values, achieved by giving free play to individual taste and capacity, with a minimum of friction

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  191 and conflict” (Dewey LW 8: 102). The aim of communication is to enhance participation: “Interactions, transactions, occur de facto and the results of interdependence follow. But participation in activities and sharing in results are additive concerns. They demand communication as a prerequisite” (Dewey LW 2: 330). If we compare this understanding of communication with interactive constructivism, there are different issues that come to mind with regard to the challenges between pragmatism and constructivism. We may discuss four selected issues here. First, we can consider communication as part of lived experience. Second, we should take a closer look on communication as interaction. Third, we have to examine some aspects of the relation of communication and democracy. And fourth, we can close with considering individual and social growth through communication. Communication as part of lived experience For Dewey, communication is a necessary component of lived experience.13 Communication and experience are closely tied together. Communication not only serves for the development of society but also gives clues as to how this development can proceed in a most democratic way.14 The question of how far democracy can be developed is a question of the actual, engaged and practical realization of a generous communication between all members of a community and society.15 Communication belongs to the basic values of a democracy, such as friendship, love, pity, sympathy, cooperation, justice, rights or duties (cf. Dewey MW 5: 439). And communication is an essential value because only through it the “participation in meanings and goods” necessary for democracy can be achieved (cf. Dewey LW 10: 249). The freedom of communication is as crucial for democracy as for science (cf. Dewey LW 13: 135). This presupposes communicative relationships that are entertained voluntarily, but on the other hand also involve common values that can be legitimated and experienced.16 For Dewey, we need a joint interest, a common interest, “so that one is eager to give and the other to take” (Dewey MW 9: 225f).17 Communication and experience cannot be separated: “Experience is the result, the sign, and the reward of that interaction of organism and environment which, when it is carried to the full, is a transformation of interaction into participation and communication” (Dewey LW 10: 28). From the perspective of interactive constructivism, we share Dewey’s basic understanding of communication. The favoring of personal freedom, which is expressed in individual achievements and growth, has become an opportunity for many people in the past as well as in the present to gain as far-reaching insights as possible. Their effort is rewarded particularly if there are projects, honored work and social acknowledgment for people interacting. This is the case if personal freedom can be reached through communication with others in view of mutual growth and social progress. But  we  also  have to realize

192  Kersten Reich that in modern and liquid modern societies, increase in freedom often means decrease in solidarity, especially for the socially disadvantaged (cf. Bauman 2004). Dewey criticized this tendency already in his time, but nevertheless he was hoping for more change in the future than has actually been achieved. Here, pragmatism has a clear, optimistic, yet not an unrealistic worldview, and it seems to me that this should also form a necessary basis for constructivism.18 But we always have to inquire and assess anew whether the orientation toward resources and solutions combines optimistic visions with realistic and critical analyses of actual conditions of living together. This also implies taking structural problems into account that delimit or hamper our opportunities of acting and communicating. Communication as interaction Now let us take a closer look on what communication means in the concrete. Dewey stated, “Discussion is communication, and it is by communication that ideas are shared and become a common possession” (Dewey LW 14: 89). But communication is also more than discussion; it always implies a context of interaction. Here, Dewey drew on Mead (1977), especially on a theory later called the theory of symbolic interaction. Mead’s work has been very influential, among other things, for Jürgen Habermas’ development of the theory of communicative action.19 In a different way than Dewey, Habermas tried to consider the possibilities of delimiting relations of domination with regard to democratic communication. In this connection, interactive constructivism takes a position that partly picks up the threads of Mead and Habermas20 and combines them with a critical reconsideration of Dewey’s approach. In Mead, the dimension of interaction between self and others finds a path-breaking elaboration. The position of the “I” refers to what we feel as subjects, what we perceive for ourselves from a position in which we can be spontaneous, creative, selfish, egoistic. But our culture does not allow us to remain this way. It brings us together with others. Through behavioral ­feedback – or what Mead calls “taking the role of the other” – we learn bit by bit what is proper in this culture and what is considered unacceptable. All these experiences produce within us the position of the “me.” Thus, there is a tensional relationship between the poles of “I” and “me.” A self, an identity, is integrated, although we have to concede that over the years also this self undergoes changes. In what ways and how much it changes is entirely dependent on the balancing of the “I” and “me” parts in our life. In interactive constructivism, we differentiate this self as introduced above: As observers, we experience and regard the tensional relationship of “I” and “me” from two positions: self-observers and distant observers. Therefore, we need to be continually balancing out our observing and observed self. As participants, we are already fixed in terms of particular participations. Mead speaks in

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  193 this context of roles. The norms, values and conceptions in place emotionally and cognitively direct us toward particular views. As agents, we need to realize and actualize in our actions, as well as in our observations and participations, that which closes the circle and places us in a continual interactional relationship with others. These three perspectives are constructs that may help us to realize our inner balance between “I” and “me” as well as to experience richly the exterior balance between ourselves and others. From childhood on, the relational tension of “I” and “me” develops via the interrelations with others a variable but ever more integrated image of one’s own self that is reliable enough for communication. This reliability is marked by Mead in his use of the term “role”; in Dewey, we find the term “habits.”

Figure 11.1  I nteraction in Mead.

Figure 11.1 expresses the fact that for Mead. There can be no direct access from one self to another, albeit a certain pressure of the other upon the self, which is transmitted via the tensional relationship between “I” and “me.” Communication as interaction between subjects only occurs via this inner tensional relationship. But Mead certainly places the emphasis on the other. The socialized pressure on the self occurs solely through the generalization of the behavior of others, and through the socialized pressure to conform – which appears to be crucial for finding one’s role and shaping one’s identity in a culture. As a pragmatist, Mead is aware of the fact that a person living in modern times has to undergo some extent of behavioral conformism if s/he is going to be socialized. In this way, the multitude of possibilities and

194  Kersten Reich ideas of the “I” are curbed and disciplined via the internalized looks of third persons in the “me.” When we come into this world as children, we must make claims on all the possibilities from the position of our “I,” but all educators in the world will predominantly rely on the development of a “me” in us in order to sneak into this important part of the self with their norms, values and meanings. Thereby they take part in shaping the self. This procedure is commonly called socialization and stands for the entrance of the subject into the symbolic systems of culture. We need symbolic systems because they give us the necessary orientation and control in our culture and make communication possible. However, the cultural history of the symbolic shows that the possession of sufficient symbolic certainties or an ultimately stable foundation for all observers, participants and agents is impossible. Symbolic systems themselves are contingent and undergo changes. Seen in a larger perspective, they only achieve particular views. They emerge in the process of civilization because they help us as observers in marking the opportunities and boundaries of our intentional standpoints. Symbolic communication is essential for every culture, but it is not the only dimension or access to communicating with others. Here interactive constructivism has developed a comprehensive theory of mirror-experiences in interaction with others. It is the imaginative desire of the other in mutual mirroring that allows for a wealth of lively and multifaceted relationships. This opens new perspectives on intersubjectivity. Let us look at Figure 11.2. I will briefly give an example for this concept of interaction: A couple in love each thinks that the other can understand everything, that they know how to interpret every gesture and read every wish from the other one’s lips. The imaginative seems like a mutual river that is rejoiced together. But is there not always also some doubt as to how long such joy may last? The lovers may indulge in navigating the mutual river. But ultimately, they will have to learn that they cannot take the other prisoner in their own imaginative wishes and mirror cabinets. The pleasure will last only temporarily. If the lover counts on what love is or could be, then s/he soon begins to cry out for symbolic clarities: faithfulness, marriage, renouncement of further possibilities, work on everyday realities, the first annoyances. In brief, symbolic demands, expectations and constraints move in to embed the imaginative river according to cultural contexts, social conventions and individual expectations. Or, to quote from Rilke: “Look at these lovers, tormented by love, when first they begin confessing, how soon they lie!” The “imaginative” stands for those impulses and images that we initially only experience and feel, but whose tracks are still so open that we end up being closer to the emotions than to the intellect, closer to intuition than to rationality and closer to experience than to a symbolic account of experiences. In imaginative mirror-experiences, there are wishes and desires not yet refined or transformed by symbolic work.

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  195 This connects well with primary experience in Dewey. For him, it is never exhausted or swallowed up in reflective experience. This is why he thought that every genuine communication is like art (cf. Dewey MW 9: 9).21 In interactive constructivism, the imaginative and the symbolic are two observer perspectives on communication that we may take. While we can distinguish between these two perspectives, it is important not to divide them too much. For example, as learners, we cannot entirely learn on the symbolic level and leave our imaginations completely aside. Neither can we remain entirely on the imaginative level since we need the symbolic to curb and discipline our dreams and impulses. The symbolic always introduces a reality principle on which we must rely in our culture. As constructivists, we pay particular attention to this imaginative dimension of all communication. In addition to pragmatist communication theories like the ones developed by Mead and Dewey, here we also draw on other approaches within the linguistic turn. Especially Jacques Lacan launched a tradition of thinking about communication that opens a different focus on the symbolic and imaginative. For him, there is a language barrier between the subject and the other.22 In symbolic interaction between self and other, we cannot directly capture the imaginative. There remains something unspoken in every linguistic exchange because in the imaginative we are speechless. Let us take a further look at Figure 11.2.

Figure 11.2  Imaginative interaction in interactive constructivism.

One subject stands in a communicative relationship to another. Yet – and this is the crucial difference to previous models – this subject has no direct access to the other via symbols or language. This passage is barred by a

196  Kersten Reich language barrier. Even that partner in communication who is closest to me in my life remains in this sense a stranger: s/he has his/her own imaginative, and we can only discuss our imaginations in the symbolic. We cannot develop a direct linguistic access to the imagined other, which we here call the small o. We have intuitions, sympathies or antipathies, moods and feelings that point to this observer dimension. However, if we try to communicate about these intuitions, etc. with each other, we must unavoidably change our perspective. The imaginative in all its particularity first needs to be symbolically articulated and refined in order that we may achieve understanding. The language barrier can be described from two perspectives. On the inner side of this barrier, the imaginative is individual, singular, unknown to another and even largely unconscious to ourselves. On the outer side of the language barrier, the imaginative is expressed in a process of symbolic articulation and thereby transformed. The context of this transformation is experience in culture where we construct symbolic commonalities driven by imaginations, which then circulate among and within us and further on develop or delimit our imaginative horizons. This is how the imaginative merges with the symbolic. Instead of a direct symbolic access to the other (the symbolic generalized other), Figure 11.2 suggests that communication occurs via an imaginative axis (o to o’). The subject (S) needs his/her imagination of the other in the encounter as it is subjectively experienced and intuitively constructed. This involves a process of mediating one’s own desire (o) through the mirrored effects of imagination with the other (o’). The positions o and o’ are partly comparable to those of “I” and “me.” What has been laid out for symbolic interaction above, reappears here for the imaginative, too. Let us remember once again the image of the lovers. From the perspective of the imaginative, they develop an idealized image of their own desires (o) as well as of the felt expectations toward the other (o’), but only in their actions will the lovers experience real effects in the symbolic encounter with the other. These effects may either confirm or disappoint their imaginations. Here we need to think of the symbolic and the imaginative as being part of an ongoing tensional relationship. This tension may be illustrated in a recourse to Mead. Without ever wanting to exclude emotions and sensations, Mead already saw the “I” as that part which situates the self in the world as relatively spontaneous and open, as creative and event-oriented. Our theory of imaginative mirror-experiences gives an extended background to this position. It links the “I” to an imaginative desire (o). But this “I” in the position of o would remain in hallucinations and unrealistic dreams if it could not build on the tensional relationship through which it is mirrored by others. From childhood on, we learn through the look of the other (e.g., as represented by mother and father), to delimit our own imaginative desires through these related mirror-experiences. The process of identity involves the presence of a self, which depends on the imaginative process of being mirrored by others.

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  197 Again, in this context it is also important to distinguish between different observer positions. From an inner perspective on communication, the self-observer may construct a highly subjective world. But in communicating through mirrored experiences with others, s/he will not be able to realize her/his merely subjective intentions but has to rely on a reality principle that includes the world of interaction and thus delimits her/his privacy. Delimitations through mirrorings are necessary for living together and communicating with each other. And culture takes pains to secure such delimitations through symbolic systems. Whenever the imaginative is articulated in the varied forms of language, the symbolic appears. Then a generalized other steps on to the scene. This is where we have Mead’s position of the “me,” which already implies generalizations in the discourse of others. And for all of us, these symbolic generalizations in culture are very powerful contexts. As children, we have almost no chance of defending ourselves against the symbolic expectations of others. Thus, we tend to overestimate the symbolic and to neglect the importance of imaginative interaction. For us it seems clear that this touches on the borders of the unconscious. We think that we should always take these borders into account without necessarily being proponents of Freudian psychoanalysis. And we would suggest that pragmatists as well as constructivists today become friends with such a reconstruction of the imaginative horizons in communication. In addition to what has been said in part one about the dispute between experience and language with regard to the symbolic and the real, the relation between the symbolic and the imaginative can now help us again to reconsider this dispute in pragmatism. Doubting that experience should still be a core concept for pragmatism today, Rorty suggests a conceptual shift from experience to language in order to prevent foundationalism and naturalistic essentialism through the linguistic turn (Rorty 1984; cf. Shusterman 1999: 193–219). We partly agree with Rorty in this attempt – partly, insofar as his intention is to avoid foundationalism and naturalistic essentialism. This seems to be a crucial task for the development of pragmatism and constructivism. But this strategy must itself be seen as an observer perspective that we construct as a viable interpretation of the development and application of language games in the symbolic dimension. If we give the symbolic perspective a home in language alone and make this perspective predominant, then we get, on the one side, a necessary linguistic approach that, on the other side, cannot fully come up to the multitude of phenomena in observation, participation and action. The imaginative, as we see it, provides a good example here. Although it can only be articulated and discussed in language, it shows at the same time also the limits of language and the language barrier. Here it is not sufficient to look on poetic vocabularies or sensitive narrations that long for the imaginative. It makes more sense, to our minds, to see the imaginative in its tensional relationships with the symbolic and the real as discussed above.

198  Kersten Reich We can share the objections against Rorty raised, for example, by Shusterman (1999). He tries to remind us of the dimension of a nondiscursive experience that for him resides especially in the human body. He takes this nondiscursive experience from Dewey, even if he critically observes against Dewey: “He was wrong to think that an unconscious, non-discursive immediate quality was the necessary grounding guide or regulatory criterion of all our thinking, though he was right to insist that non-discursive background experience influences our conscious thought” (Shusterman 1999: 207). But the main target of Shusterman’s criticism is Rorty against whom he insists on the somatic dimension of experience: Before burying the body, we need to assess more critically philosophy’s resistance to non-discursive experience. Such resistance is based not only on arguments but on deeply entrenched biases and agendas which work, most effectively, beneath the level of conscious thought. (ibid. 208) In this turn to the somatic dimension, we see another observer perspective, but one must be careful not to fall back behind the linguistic turn. And this is only possible if we recognize that reflection on the limits of discursive realities is bound to the symbolic dimension. For interactive constructivism, this is itself always a symbolically constructed observer position. And we think it is wiser not to delimit our perspectives about the nondiscursive to the somatical. In principle, both discursive and nondiscursive experiences can only be articulated and discussed in the symbolic. This is a dimension where the linguistic turn cannot be denied. But in the symbolic we also have to be aware of the limits of symbolization. Interactive constructivism, to conclude, claims two main perspectives for reflecting on the limits of the symbolic and, in this sense, reaching beyond it. One perspective is the imaginative, the other is the real. Both can only be understood as observer perspectives that we construct to overcome a narrow linguistic understanding. But we need language to discuss them. So it is possible to have nonlinguistic experiences in the imaginative and the real, but to recognize them we have to change into the symbolic, and to communicate them in a full sense we have to change into language games. The relation of communication and democracy The discussion about the importance of the imaginative dimensions of experience and communication is closely connected to the theme of the relation between communication and democracy.23 We agree with Dewey that democracy is not only an institutional scheme, but a quality of life in common that depends on the powers of imagination on the part of those who participate in it. It must be experienced immediately in communication as an increment of meanings, possibilities and visions. To fully recognize the

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  199 meaning of democracy presupposes, therefore, that we appreciate the values of communication. Dewey said, Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful. That things should be able to pass from the plane of external pushing and pulling to that of revealing themselves to man, and thereby to themselves; and that the fruit of communication should be participation, sharing, is a wonder by the side of which transubstantiation pales. When communication occurs, all natural events are subject to reconsideration and revision; they are re-adapted to meet the requirements of conversation, whether it be public discourse or that preliminary discourse termed thinking. (Dewey LW 1: 132) Communication makes participation possible, but participation is also a precondition for democratic communication. Democratic participation in Dewey’s sense is bound to plurality and diversity. Insofar as we find a common vision and understanding24 of our democratic living together, we are able to realize this plurality and diversity without fighting against each other in ways that prevent social growth. Therefore, in a social sense, there has to be communication in a free way that not only allows all participants to share in the possibilities of plurality and diversity but also provides sufficient participation of all in producing the common grounds of democracy.25 “Language is the device for communication; it is the tool through which one individual comes to share the ideas and feelings of others” (Dewey EW 5: 90). But this language needs a principle of equality of partaking in intercourse: “It is no accident that the terms communication and community lie so near together; or that intercourse means equally speech and any intimate mode of associated life” (Dewey MW 6: 16).26 More concretely, this is to say that free “communication is a means of developing free mind as well as being the manifestation of such a mind, and it occurs only when there exists sharing, partaking, in common activities and enjoying their results” (Dewey LW 15: 182). Or, with regard to the relation between the instrumental and the final aspects of communication, Dewey argued that Communication is uniquely instrumental and uniquely final. It is instrumental as liberating us from the otherwise overwhelming pressure of events and enabling us to live in a world of things that have meaning. It is final as a sharing in the objects and arts precious to a community, a sharing whereby meanings are enhanced, deepened and solidified in the sense of communion. (Dewey LW 1: 159) Or in short form, “Thus communication is not only a means to common ends but is the sense of community, communion actualized” (Dewey LW 1: 160).27 And communication

200  Kersten Reich is not announcing things, even if they are said with the emphasis of great sonority. Communication is the process of creating participation, of making common what had been isolated and singular; and part of the miracle it achieves is that, in being communicated, the conveyance of meaning gives body and definiteness to the experience of the one who utters as well as to that of those who listen. (Dewey LW 10: 248f.) Plurality and diversity are marked, for Dewey, by appreciation of differences within groups as well as between groups (cf. Dewey MW 9: Chapter 7). He saw both as crucial preconditions for the development of democracy and communication. They provide opportunities for actively engaging with conflicts and contradictions in society. This allows for experiencing other people’s opinions or beliefs in wide and varied ways and replying to them with one’s own arguments. Democracy is based not only on establishing consensus but also on the perception of dissent. But Dewey also saw the dangers of making communication a tool for mere interests of commercial profits in a capitalist society.28 Against these antidemocratic tendencies, he maintained the hope that democratic developments of societies would be possible in the future. His vision of democracy includes to see difference as an enrichment and cultural resource. Difference then becomes a chance to overcome the tendency to focus on the weaknesses of individuals. It represents a challenge to see every individual with his/her resources and strengths and to develop these as extensively as possible. All differences bear further differences, which again in turn create diversity, tension, joy of life and so on. This stands against boredom, indifference, simple-mindedness and so on. In this way, democratic social development may produce a wealth of new opportunities for action in accordance with the social changes at hand. Seen from a perspective of today, these democratic hopes have not been realized yet. Plurality and diversity are even increasingly turned into contradictions, for instance, between poor and rich, uneducated and educated, without and with opportunities. Until the very day, social differences largely appear as separations in society and between societies without sufficient perspectives of a common social growth. In many respects, individual, social and global inequality is still increasing. Interactive constructivism shares Dewey’s democratic view that stands for an increase in opportunities for as many as possible. Individual and social growth through communication To understand the democratic ideal of social growth, Dewey specified what communication means in respect to social life: Society exists through a process of transmission quite as much as biological life. This transmission occurs by means of communication of

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  201 habits of doing, thinking, and feeling from the older to the younger. Without this communication of ideals, hopes, expectations, standards, opinions, from those members of society who are passing out of the group life to those who are coming into it, social life could not survive. (Dewey MW 9: 6) Here, communication and education and learning are closely related to each other: “Not only is social life identical with communication, but all communication (and hence all genuine social life) is educative. To be a recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed experience” (Dewey MW 9: 8). Such communication can be successful only if we have a lived culture of participative relationships.29 This especially applies to the young who need participative relationships to develop individual growth in partaking in democratic processes of problem-solving. Dewey’s constructive theory of learning and teaching stands against a traditional model of instruction that poses pupils in a position of obedience and subordination.30 But in how far can we hope for a sufficient realization of these chances in the present development of societies? In the ambivalent transition from modernity to postmodernity as, for example, shown by Bauman (1997, 2000), there seems to be an increasing conflict between the ideal of individual and social growth, on the one hand, and the dangers of arbitrariness, on the other. In particular, these dangers appear whenever the variety of life-forms leads to indifference toward the common interests of all in a democracy. Dewey made strong efforts to fight against this menace although he did not underestimate the difficulties. The relation between the precarious and the stable aspects of our existence that we discussed in part one also applies to his understanding of democratic societies in which there can never be a final and stable solution for all problems of development. As Dewey showed in Experience and Nature, there is no clear decision for either side in the tension between the “precarious” and the “stable.” We have to always pluck up the courage to see the “precarious” as a risk, but also an opportunity to develop new solutions in the face of changing contexts. The “precarious” has greatly increased since Dewey’s times. This is one main observation in Bauman’s (1997) theory of postmodernism and its discontents. In this theory of ambivalence, a precarious mix of driving forces in globalization work together in producing a social reality that is often ruthlessly opposed to the relatively slow possibilities of many people: in learning, in mobility and flexibility with regard to requirements of work, in idealization of youthfulness, in emphasizing consumerism, feasibility and superficiality and so on. In the end, the struggle between the “precarious” and the “stable” seems to have even intensified. As constructivists, we share the pragmatist insight that we cannot actually escape the tension between the two poles. Instead, we need to concentrate all our symbolic and imaginative cultural resources on increasing the democratic qualities

202  Kersten Reich of our communications in order to further the growth of individual and social partaking in the interplay between differences and commonalities. Only then the constructivist claim of recognizing the varieties of versions of world-making makes sense and avoids the traps of arbitrariness and isolation of interests that hamper the improvement of democratic opportunities in life.

Notes 1 Together with Stefan Neubert, a different version of this chapter has been presented at the 2006 meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy in San Antonio (Texas). (cf. Neubert & Reich 2006). 2 For papers in English, see URL: www.uni-koeln.de/ew-fak/konstrukt/english/ index.htm. 3 See also the homepage of the Dewey Center in Cologne: URL: http://dewey.unikoeln.de. 4 This chapter draws largely on this work and on our reconstruction of Dewey and interactive constructivism in Garrison et al. (2012, 2016). When I argue in a “we” perspective here, I include my colleagues. 5 “For in any object of primary experience there are always potentialities which are not explicit; any object that is overt is charged with possible consequences that are hidden; the most overt act has factors which are not explicit. Strain thought as far as we may and not all consequences can be foreseen or made an express or known part of reflection and decision” (Dewey LW 1: 28). 6 Lyotard gives the following short explanation about the difference between modernity and postmodernity that we call liquid modernity following Bauman (2000): “I will use the term modern to designate any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse of this kind making explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or the creation of wealth. Simplifying to the extreme I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress in the sciences; but that progress in turn presupposes it … The narrative function is losing its functors, its great hero, its great voyages, its great goal” (Lyotard 1984: XXIIIf.). For a critical view on this, see Bernstein (1992: 200 ff.). For a broader view on the debate about postmodernity, see, for example, Bauman (1993, 1997, 2000). For the context of pragmatism, see, for example, Good and Velody (1998) or Goodman (1995). 7 In interactive constructivism, we have a complex and elaborated theory of the real that reflects different modern and postmodern theories, for example, poststructuralist approaches to the limits of discourse or theories given by Foucault, Derrida, Levinas, Deleuze, Lacan and others (cf. Reich 2009a). 8 We are not able here to discuss all the necessary aspects in the debate about naturalism, realism and constructivism. Regarding naturalism and realism in pragmatism, see, for example, Shook (2003) for a good newer introduction. 9 “The visible is set in the invisible; and in the end what is unseen decides what happens in the seen; the tangible rests precariously upon the untouched and ungrasped. The contrast and the potential maladjustment of the immediate, the conspicuous and focal phase of things, with those indirect and hidden factors which determine the origin and career of what is present, are indestructible features of any and every experience. We may term the way in which our ancestors dealt with the contrast superstitious, but the contrast is no superstition. It is a primary datum in any experience” (Dewey LW 1: 44f.).

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  203 10 Derrida is influenced by Lacan who, in our opinion, has originally given start to this discussion of language. A constructivist observer theory can learn from these definitions without having to subscribe, for example, to all of Lacan’s postulates, who often sets up a one-sided psychoanalytic focus (cf. Reich 2009a). 11 For further introductions to these complex themes, see, for example, Campbell (1992), Dickstein (1998), Hickman (1998), Langsdorf and Smith (1995), Stuhr (1997), Eldridge (1998) or Caspary (2000). 12 “All modern life, however, is completely bound up with and dependent upon facilities of communication, intercourse, and distribution” (Dewey MW 5: 427). 13 “Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession” (Dewey MW 9: 12). 14 “I conclude, then, with expression of the belief that it is this method, the method of achieving community by processes of free and open communication, which is the heart and the strength of the American democratic way of living and that the weaknesses of our democracy all represent expressions of failure to live up to the demands imposed by this method” (Dewey MW 8: 443). 15 “In short, a primary, perhaps the primary, loyalty of democracy at the present time is to communication. It cannot be denied that our American democracy has often made more in words of the liberties of free speech, free publication and free assembly than in action. But that the spirit of democracy is, nevertheless, alive and active is proved by the fact that publicity is a well established habit” (Dewey LW 14: 275f). For the question of how deeply democracy can be established in this sense in our days, see cf. Green (1999). 16 “Democracy also means voluntary choice, based on an intelligence that is the outcome of free association and communication with others. It means a way of living together in which mutual and free consultation rule instead of force, and in which cooperation instead of brutal competition is the law of life; a social order in which all the forces that make for friendship, beauty, and knowledge are cherished in order that each individual may become what he, and he alone, is capable of becoming” (Dewey LW 11: 417). 17 “Communication, sharing, joint participation are the only actual ways of universalizing the moral law and end” (Dewey MW 12: 197). 18 Some consequences for a participatory democracy are discussed by Hollinger (1996: 69ff.). 19 Cf. Habermas (1984, 1987a). Habermas shares a lot of opinions with pragmatism in his interpretation of the philosophic discourse of modernity (1987b), but pragmatists rightly criticize the unresolved dualism in his approach (cf. Hickman 2000). For a discussion of the transformation of critical theories in a pragmatic turn, see, for example, cf. Rehg and Bohman (2001). 20 However, interactive constructivism does not adopt Habermas’ counterfactual ideal of a domination-free discourse. With regard to power, we put more emphasis on, for instance, Foucault’s theories. 21 “Except in dealing with commonplaces and catch phrases one has to assimilate, imaginatively, something of another’s experience in order to tell him intelligently of one’s own experience. All communication is like art” (Dewey MW 9: 9). 22 For Lacan, there is a méconnaissance that describes this problem in psychoanalytic terms. For an introduction to Lacan, see, for example, www.lacan. com/­covers2.htm. Interactive constructivism uses the term without his psychoanalytical implications (cf. Reich 2009a). 23 For an introduction, see, for example, Campbell (1992) and Caspary (2000). 24 “We hear speech, but it is almost as if we were listening to a babel of tongues. Meaning and value do not come home to us. There is in such cases no communication and none of the result of community of experience that issues only when

204  Kersten Reich

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language in its full import breaks down physical isolation and external contact” (Dewey LW 10: 338). “In an intellectual sense, there are many languages, though in a social sense there is but one. This multiplicity of language-meaning constellations is also a mark of our existing culture. A word means one thing in relation to a religious institution, still another thing in business, a third thing in law, and so on. This fact is the real Babel of communication” (Dewey LW 12: 56). “It should make us aware that free thought itself, free inquiry, is crippled and finally paralyzed by suppression of free communication. Such communication includes the right and responsibility of submitting every idea and every belief to severest criticism. It is less important that we all believe alike than that we all alike inquire freely and put at the disposal of one another such glimpses as we may obtain of the truth for which we are in search” (Dewey LW 14: 89f). “To learn to be human is to develop through the give-and-take of communication an effective sense of being an individually distinctive member of a community; one who understands and appreciates its beliefs, desires and methods, and who contributes to a further conversion of organic powers into human resources and values. But this translation is never finished” (Dewey LW 2: 332). “Deterioration of the means of communication, carried sometimes to the point of complete corruption, is a striking feature of our day. It applies externally to systematic use of the radio, press and other mechanical agencies of communication; it applies even more seriously to words, the specific ways of human communication” (Dewey LW 15: 248, see also LW 2: 325–350). “Communication is an exchange which procures something wanted; it involves a claim, appeal, order, direction or request, which realizes want at less cost than personal labor exacts, since it procures the cooperative assistance of others. Communication is also an immediate enhancement of life, enjoyed for its own sake” (Dewey LW 1: 144). “Instruction always runs the risk of swamping the pupil’s own vital, though narrow, experience under masses of communicated material” (Dewey LW 8: 352).

References Bauman, Z. (1993): Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Bauman, Z. (1997): Postmodernity and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2000): Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2004): Wasted Lives. Modernity and Its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity Press. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1966): The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Bernstein, R.J. (1992): The New Constellation. The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Campbell, J. (1992): The Community Reconstructs. The Meaning of Pragmatic Social Thought. Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Caspary, W.R. (2000): Dewey on Democracy. Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press. Dewey, J. (EW 1-5): The Early Works 1882–1898. In: Boydston, J.A. (Ed.). Collected Works. Carbondale, IL/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press; London/Amsterdam: Feffer & Simons. Dewey, J. (MW 1-15): The Middle Works 1899–1924. In: Boydston, J.A. (Ed.). Collected Works. Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press; ­London/Amsterdam: Feffer & Simons.

From pragmatism to interactive constructivism  205 Dewey, J. (LW 1-17): The Later Works 1925–1953. In: Boydston, J.A. (Ed.). Collected Works. Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press; London/ Amsterdam: Feffer & Simons. Dickstein, M. (1998) (Ed.): The Revival of Pragmatism. New Essays on Social Thought, Law, and Culture. Durham, NC/London: Duke University Press. Eldridge, M. (1998): Transforming Experience. John Dewey’s Cultural Instrumentalism. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Fish, S. (1998): Truth and Toilets. Pragmatism and the Practices of Life. In: Dickstein, M. (Ed.). The Revival of Pragmatism. Durham, NC/London: Duke University Press. Garrison, J. et al. (2012): John Dewey’s Philosophy of Education. An Introduction and Recontextualization for Our Times. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Garrison, J. et al. (2016): Democracy and Education Reconsidered. 100 Years after Dewey. London/New York: Routledge. Good, J. & Velody, I. (Eds.) (1998): The Politics of Postmodernity. Cambridge: University Press. Goodman, R.B. (Ed.) (1995): Pragmatism. A Contemporary Reader. New York/­ London: Routledge. Green, J.M. (1999): Deep Democracy. Lanham/Boulder/New York/Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. Habermas, J. (1984): The Theory of Communicative Action. (Vol. I) Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1987a): The Theory of Communicative Action. (Vol. II) Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1987b): The Philosophic Discourse of Modernity. Oxford: Polity Press. Hickman, L.A. (Ed.) (1998): Reading Dewey – Interpretations for a Postmodern Generation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hickman, L.A. (2000): Habermas’ Unresolved Dualism: Zweckrationalität as Idée Fixe. In: Hahn, L.E. (Ed.). Perspectives on Habermas. Chicago, IL/La Salle: Open Court, pp. 501–513. Hollinger, R. (1996): The Dark Side of Liberalism. Westport, CT: Praeger. Langsdorf, L. & Smith, A.R. (Eds.) (1995): Recovering Pragmatism’s Voice. The Classical Tradition, Rorty, and the Philosophy of Communication. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lyotard, J.-F. (1984): The Postmodern Condition. A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mead, G.H. (1977): On Social Psychology. Selected Papers. (Anselm Strauss, Ed.) Chicago, IL/London: University of Chicago Press. Neubert, S. (1998): Erkenntnis, Verhalten und Kommunikation. John Deweys Philosophie des ‚experience’ in interaktionistisch-konstruktivistischer Interpretation. ­Münster/New York: Waxmann. Neubert, S. (2009): Pragmatism, Constructivism, and the Theory of Culture. In: Hickman, L. et al. (Eds.). John Dewey – Between Pragmatism and Constructivism. New York: Fordham. Neubert, S. & Reich, K. (2001): The Ethnocentric View: Constructivism and the Practice of Intercultural Discourse. In: Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.). Learning for the Future. Proceedings of the Learning Conference 2001.Champaign, IL: Common Ground Publishing. Neubert, S. & Reich, K. (2006): The Challenge of Pragmatism for Constructivism – Some Perspectives in the Programme of Cologne Constructivism. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, New Series 20(3), 165–191.

206  Kersten Reich Rehg, W. & Bohman, J. (Eds.) (2001): Pluralism and the Pragmatic Turn. The Transformation of Critical Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Reich, K. (2009a) [1998]: Die Ordnung der Blicke. Beobachtung und die Unschärfen der Erkenntnis. (Vol. I) Köln: Universität zu Köln. Reich, K. (2009b) [1998]: Die Ordnung der Blicke. Beziehungen und Lebenswelt. (Vol. II) Köln: Universität zu Köln Reich, K. (20106): Systemisch-konstruktivistische Pädagogik. Einführung in Grundlagen einer interaktionistisch-konstruktivistischen Pädagogik. Weinheim: Beltz. Reich, K. (20125): Konstruktivistische Didaktik. Das Lehr- und Studienbuch mit ­O nline-Methodenpool. Weinheim: Beltz. Rorty, R. (1979): Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rorty, R. (1984): Dewey between Hegel and Darwin. In: Ross, D. (Ed.). Modernism and the Human Sciences. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Rorty, R. (1989): Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge/New York: ­Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (1998): Truth and Progress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (2000): Philosophy and Social Hope. New York: Penguin. Shook, J.R. (Ed.) (2003): Pragmatic Naturalism and Realism. Amherst/New York: Prometheus Books. Shusterman, R. (1999): Dewey on Experience: Foundation or Reconstruction? In: Haskins, C. & Seiple, D.I. (Eds.). Dewey Reconfigured. Albany: State University of New York Press. Stuhr, J.J. (1997): Genealogical Pragmatism. Philosophy, Experience, and Community. Albany: State University of New York Press.

12 Autogenesis and autopoiesis On the emergence of social reality in social and radical constructivism Ilja Srubar Let me start with some clarifications concerning the subject of my contribution. Luckmann himself rejected the label of “social constructivism,” but he did not succeed. Thus, I follow the common usage and will address the approach of Berger and Luckmann using this term. Also, the label of “radical constructivism” denotes much more than solely Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic systems, but in this chapter I will concentrate on this variant of radical constructivist theory. I will compare these two approaches not just because they both conceive of the construction of reality as a process of self-production of society. More interesting is the fact that both concepts are built on the same philosophical ground, namely on Husserl’s theory of consciousness, and that, despite their common ground, both theories reach quite contradictory results even though they share a series of corresponding presumptions. Let me now sketch out their common starting point in Husserl and outline the different lines of their argumentation. Berger, Luckmann and Luhmann also share the assumption that the construction of reality is led by some kind of meaning constitution by means of which the societies are programming themselves. Looking for a philosophical foundation of this assumption, they both draw on Husserl’s investigation on the temporal stream of consciousness where intentional acts present the perceived world a meaningful and valid reality. This common interest in Husserl, however, is led by different theoretical questions. Berger and Luckmann rely on Husserl’s theory of meaning in order to clear the meaningful orientation of action that becomes externalized in interaction and communication so that the construction of social reality can start. Luhmann, on the contrary, looks for an example of a meaning constitution within a closed system that cannot communicate with the extern reality but, nevertheless, is able to assert to us that there is a world existing out there. Luhmann’s interest in Husserl starts already in the early period of his work. Here he pays attention particularly to Husserl’s temporal concept of meaning constitution as well as to his attempts to solve the problem of intersubjectivity (Luhmann 2005a: 92, 98). After his autopoietic turn, however, Luhmann takes Husserl’s investigations for evidence that the constitution

208  Ilja Srubar of meaning within the consciousness follows the premises of his theory of autopoietic systems. Those systems, as we know, are based on one basic operation that produces their components, lets them interact and ensures in this way the system’s maintenance. The operation on which the autopoiesis of the consciousness is based is in Luhmann (2005b: 55ff.) called “the thinking” and the system components that are generated by that operation are consequently called “the thoughts.” Taking up Husserl’s premise that thinking is always intentionally related to an object, Luhmann presupposes that thinking always includes observation and observation, in turn, triggers the autopoietic mechanism of consciousness. In order to observe, the thinking has to draw distinctions. The primary distinction in autopoietic systems consists in the difference between system and its environment, that is, in the present case, between the awareness of something and that what is perceived as its external object. Based on this, the thinking differentiates between the self-reference and the hetero-reference (i.e. between self-reflection and the relations to the environment). In order to draw this distinction, the singular thoughts have to observe each other whereby the observed thought attains the character of a representation. As the representations, too, are to be observed by the difference of self- and hetero-reference, the thinking generates the impression that some of the representations are able to reach out into the external world, although even the hetero-references are results of acts of consciousness and remain enclosed within its autopoiesis.1 Thus, the result of this basic systemic procedure within the consciousness is its operational closure. There are no common operations connecting the consciousness and the external world as the system elements of the ­consciousness – that is, its thoughts – cannot belong to its environment. The consciousness cannot maintain verifying contacts to the environment nor is it able to communicate with other psychic systems. The cognition as the meaningful result of the mutual process where the thoughts observe each other is provided solely by the internal acts of the consciousness and is not affected by the external reality (Luhmann 2005b: 22ff., 45). To use one of Luhmann’s metaphors, “The consciousness does not see anything real but rather operates looking at its own control panel” (Luhmann 1985: 12f.). With the operational closure of the consciousness, the own body becomes a part of the inaccessible system environment and is present just as the organic supporter of the cognition (Luhmann 2005b: 78ff., 182ff.). Correspondingly, Luhmann does not join in the criticism on Husserl’s failure to make the intentional character of the consciousness clear enough and suspecting him to foster unwillingly a solipsistic position. On the contrary, Luhmann argues that Husserl’s failure rather supports the theory of closed autopoietic systems as it provides the definitive evidence that a relation of the consciousness to the external world does not exist at all (Luhmann 2005b: 163f.). In that sense is Nasehi (2008) right writing that Luhmann’s reading of Husserl is much more radical than the phenomenological tradition itself where the intentionality of consciousness is believed to reach out into the world.

Autogenesis and autopoiesis  209 Luhmann’s solipsistic view of the operational closure of the consciousness involves many consequences concerning his concept of social reality. As a result of his solipsistic view, Luhmann has to deny the idea of an intersubjective construction of social reality since humans – if we exclude the possibility of telepathy – are not able to communicate (Luhmann 2005b: 162ff.). He substitutes “intersubjectivity” with his concept of social system that emerges from the “noise” generated by psychic systems when they try to communicate their observations (Luhmann 1985: 292). Thus, the autopoietic self-programming of social systems by meaning constitution happens in the context of the co-evolution of psychic and social systems. In this context, the social systems depend on the consciousness as the psychic systems represent the source of events that are processed within the social systems. Which events, however, would become elements of the social reality depends on the selection in the social system itself. Here the communication chains some of those events together while other events remain unnoticed. Only by this selective chaining events become meaningful elements of the social system. The communicative linkage of events within the social systems forms structures of expectations, enabling the system to observe itself and to use those self-descriptions as programs for its self-preservation. Thus, the selective chaining of events in communication forms meaningful structures of the social system regardless of the original subjective intentions of their producers. Hence, the construction of social reality understood as a co-evolution of psychic and social systems presupposes two autopoietic cycles producing two autonomous universes of meaning. We can see that the dual character of the construction of social reality, as perceived by Berger and Luckmann (1967 [1966]), Giddens (1999) and so on, is present also in Luhmann’s concept. Due to Luhmann’s theoretical architecture, however, the mutual relation of both cycles mentioned above is quite precarious. Their autopoietic closure raises the question of how such systems may access the world at all? In general, Luhmann states that autopoietic systems can be only “irritated” by their environments, particularly when they are not able to communicate, that is, to share their elements with other systems (Luhmann 2005b: 31ff.). Such “irritations” are processed autonomously within the respective system according to its internal modus of operation. This general principle, however, causes within psychic and social systems different consequences. As the thinking that is the basic operation of the psychic systems is not able to transcend the immanence of the consciousness, its environment includes the own body and all other items of natural world as well as the social systems and all other individuals. They all represent merely different sources of the consciousness’ irritation. Thus, the psychic systems are accessing the world observing these irritations by the acts of thought. Paradoxically, in Luhmann’s view, it is this closure of the consciousness that generates its ability to imagine endless variations of reality. As the social systems are just irritating the psychic ones, the psychic systems are free to think about these irritations at will. Hence, the openness of the meaning constitution by the

210  Ilja Srubar consciousness is, according to Luhmann, the consequence of its operational closure (Luhmann 2005b: 70ff.). Accessing the world in social systems is even more complicated. The environment of social systems includes everything that cannot be approached by communication, that is, what cannot work as a self-created element within the communicative chaining of events of which the meaningful structure of the social system is formed. As such, elements cannot exist out of the global social system as the communication is restricted to this area. The inner variety of the global society consisting of social subsystems and their self-­ descriptions represents that social reality with which social systems of any shape are able to communicate. Like the consciousness, the general social system, too, encloses the external world within its immanence. But in case of the social systems, we are confronted with a substantial complication: They depend on the observations of psychic systems delivering the events social systems are made of. Using another of Luhmann’s metaphors, we could say that psychic systems endow social systems with life (Luhmann 1985: 296ff.). The world access of the social systems is thus nolens volens prefiltered by the observations of the consciousness. This, of course, applies also in the opposite direction, as the social systems represent an inevitable source of irritations perceived by the individuals. Nevertheless, as the psychic systems are unable to communicate, and the social systems cannot think, Luhmann has to offer a particular theoretical construction in order to clear their mutual relation. He calls it, as we know, the “structural coupling.” Such a coupling represents a mutual irritation of autopoietic systems that limit the scope of the possible structures with which a system carry out its autopoiesis. […] It does not determine what happens in the system, but must be presupposed, because autopoiesis would otherwise come to a standstill and the system would cease to exist. (Luhmann 2012: 55) The language represents the structural coupling that works between the psychic and social systems. According to Luhmann’s statements given above, the existence of the language must be presupposed if both systems should exist. The psychic systems have to report their observations so that the social system could generate its meaning structure that, in turn, can be used for the self-description of the psychic observations. Such a coupling would interconnect the two autonomous cycles of meaning constitution within the co-evolution on which the construction of social reality is based. To put it in Luhmann’s words, “The meaning constitution within the two closed autopoietic systems were reintegrated in this way” (Luhmann 2005b: 48f.). Unfortunately, Luhmann’s theoretical construction defeats his attempts itself. The language as a semiotic and semantic processing of meaning that defines its elements autonomously and draws a line differentiating it from

Autogenesis and autopoiesis  211 its environment seems to be predestinated to form a social system par excellence in Luhmann’s sense. What else would emerge from the noise produced by humans when they try to communicate? But here we are facing a substantial problem: Since the language is involved both in the psychic and in the social systems where it represents a substantial part of their world access, it cannot be constituted as a system of its own. In addition, language has to function as a meaningful element within the closed autopoiesis of the consciousness and of the communication as well. But that would mean, according to Luhmann’s premises, that the consciousness should be able to generate language as its own element by mere thinking without any communication with others, which is obviously nonsense. And, based on the same premises, if language would be considered a result of communication, it could not become an element of the autopoiesis of the consciousness. All this would prevent the language from working as a structural coupling (Srubar 2007). It is correct when Luhmann postulates that language implies a difference of sound and meaning. But since the source of the meaning in the language remains in his concept obscured, he tends to stress the phonic character of the language: “Language comes about through the reuse of sounds and groups of sounds” (Luhmann 2012: 130). Regarding the psychic system, the language carries out its coupling function due to its physical quality. As a sequence of particular sounds, it is adapted to the sequential character of the stream of thoughts whose attention becomes irritated by the unique shape of linguistic phonemes (Luhmann 2005b: 72). On the part of the social systems, the language occurs primarily when the psychic systems start to irritate the social system by reporting their observations. These irritations assume unavoidably the shape of actions and become the events that communication may take up or not. Only the selective linkage of the linguistic events by the communication transforms them into meaningful elements of the social systems. Out of this linkage process, the unique words or speech acts remain ineffective sounds and are senseless in the context of the given system. Thus, actions in that sense allow the psychic and social systems to observe whether communication and understanding takes place or not. The course of the communicative meaning constitution, however, remains unpredictable, which is why the social systems try to affect communication by the media of power, money, love or truth and so on. Linguistic patterns may condense to particular semantics of the system’s self-description. But, at its basic level, the language is not seen here as a medium of meaning carrying common typifications and relevances. On the contrary, it can only work as a structural coupling when its phonetics and syntax remain reduced to their phonetic “materiality” that remains identical on both systems. Only by the phonetic shape of words is the language able to cross the lines of meaning separating the social and psychic systems (Luhmann 2012: 56, 128f.). Now, when we compare Luhmann’s conception to that by Berger and Luckmann, we can discern a series of similarities: Berger and Luckmann also distinguish the constitution of reality within the consciousness from

212  Ilja Srubar the construction of the social reality taking place in the externalization of that meaning, and they see these processes interconnected by the medium of language. Similar to Luhmann’s concept, Berger and Luckmann also state that the externalization of meaning is carried out in processes of interaction and communication and that it results in institutionalized patterns of expectations. These expectations, on the one hand, define different social positions, and on the other hand, they formulate narratives legitimizing the social structure emerging in that way. Berger and Luckmann’s conception is also based on Husserl’s investigation. They share Luhmann’s view that the consciousness distinguishes its own acts from those of the body. As it is able to perceive itself as having a body as well as being a body, the consciousness realizes the difference of the self- and the hetero-reference (Berger & ­Luckmann 1967: 50). Following Schütz (1932), Berger and Luckmann presuppose that the meaning of a lived experience is constituted by reflexive acts grasping it retrospectively, that is, to put it Luhmann’s terms, the meaning of mental events is generated by the self-observation of consciousness. Even in their presentation of the externalization of meaning by communication, Berger and Luckmann make clear that the patterns of action, as well as the patterns of interpretation constructed within that process, do not necessarily correspond to the individual projects of action but rather that the communication itself generates autonomous structures representing an objective reality independent of the actors. In regard to the autonomous construction of social reality, both concepts obviously rely on similar axioms. They differentiate the modes of social and subjective meaning constitution and agree that they are interconnected by the medium of language. Nevertheless, in Luhmann’s theory, these premises result in a concept of closed systems while they allow Berger and Luckmann to outline a construction of social reality that stresses the openness of the subjective meaning constitution reaching out into the world and setting the process of externalization into operation. This outcome of our comparison raises some questions: Are Berger and Luckmann mislead by the fallacies of the theory of action? Was their reading of Husserl not correct so that they missed his radicality as Luhmann suspects? (Luhmann 2005b: 162ff.) We do not need to discuss the two concepts in question in detail again in order to recognize that there is a substantial difference between them concerning the basic operation constituting the meaningful reality in consciousness. Luhmann conceives of this operation as ­ uckmann – thinking while in Husserl – and correspondingly in Berger and L this process consists in the living experiences and their intentionality. Thus, the basic element of the meaning constitution is presented here as a living experience and not merely as a thought. This difference provides far-­ reaching consequences within the theoretical architecture. When the basic level of the human world access is understood as living experience, then the bodily experiences belong to the meaning-generating acts of consciousness. The constitution of reality on this level is the result of the interaction

Autogenesis and autopoiesis  213 of the consciousness and the body. In that case, the intentionality of the meaning-generating acts is not only related to other cognitive constructs but rather also reach out for the material quality of the objects the body is interacting with. Thus, the action as a form of the lived experience becomes a substantial element within the social construction of the meaningful world. The crucial point here is not merely that due to the interaction with things and the others the consciousness becomes aware of their properties significant for the meaningful constitution of the object. Rather these implications of the object are essential for the constitution of typifications establishing the identity of the object within the consciousness (Husserl 1999: 26ff.). Thus, based on its corporeity, the consciousness is not merely enclosed within a self-referring operation of thinking; rather, the action as the active intervention into the environment becomes significant for the structuring of the cognition. In other words, the selection of the cognitive elements does not depend solely on the act of consciousness but is also affected by the properties manifested by the handled objects. But this exactly has to be refused if Luhmann’s autopoietic conception of consciousness should work. Therefore, Luhmann denies any meaning or reality constitution by bodily acts and expels body and the life itself from the autopoiesis of consciousness (Luhmann 2005b: 183). For the same reasons, Luhmann cannot accept that action would generate meaning. If action were conceived of as an element constituting meaning within the autopoiesis of consciousness, it could not work as an element of communication at the same time. In social systems, action would become merely a sort of sign indicating the pragmatic structure of cognition that is generated by the subject’s interaction with the others and the things within the world. Thus, the social characters of the cognition were recognized as substantial context forming the course of communication. The action would lose the character of a mindless component that is endowed meaning first within the course of communication. Rather, it should be recognized as a process of co-structuring the meaning constitution within the social system. Thereby, however, Luhmann’s crucial assumption stating that autopoietic systems must be based only on one basic operation was denied. If action would be recognized as an element generating meaning both in the consciousness and in the social system, the self-­ closure of these two meaning-generating cycles would be suspended. This could open a possibility to think about the concept of structural coupling in another way. But it would also rule out the realization of Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic systems in its rigorous sense. And, above all, the evidence that the implications of the object do affect the cognition would invalidate the basic axiom of radical constructivism entirely. Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality seems to avoid the problems mentioned above, even if the authors could not anticipate such difficulties at the time when the book was written. They accept the reading of Husserl by Schütz where the stream of living experiences represents the basic level of consciousness so that the action can be perceived as an act generating

214  Ilja Srubar meaning. Consequently, they do not conceive of the subjective constitution of meaning as a closed system where the thinking refers to itself, but rather as an open process where the action reaches out into the world generating both cognitive and social structures by which it regulates itself. This insight does not mean that Berger and Luckmann would not recognize that the results of communicative processes represent an autonomous reality that may not correspond to the subjective projects of action. They are well aware of the fact that communication and interaction create links of action and reaction whose results – independent on the actors – represent patterns of expectations forming future action. And they demonstrate how those patterns on the level of action, as well as on the level of semiotic representations, condense to the institutionalized reality of symbolized universes. So, the approach of Berger and Luckmann would not deny inquiries into the autonomous processing of communication just because they are carried out in the context of another theory. The crucial significance ascribed to the action by Berger and Luckmann does not imply that The Social Construction of Reality is based solely on the intentionality of subjective action. On the contrary, the starting question of their study, namely, “how the subjective meanings become objective facticities” (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 18 [emphasis in original]) already aims at processes generating transsubjective structures. In that sense, we can benefit from Luhmann’s inquiries as far as they may suggest some answers to the question asking for the autogenesis of social reality. This, of course, must not imply that we should share Luhmann’s autopoietic propositions drawing system borderlines across the context of subjective constitution and social construction of reality that are difficult to cross again. Berger and Luckmann’s conception seems to offer a suggestion on how to approach the problem of the autogenesis of social reality without causing the paradoxes that burden Luhmann’s theory. Berger and Luckmann do not deny the different character of the subjective and social construction of reality. But as they rely on the bipolar character of action, they take a theoretic position that allows them to conceive of the two processes as parts of the overarching autogenesis of social reality. Such a solution does not imply considering living experience, cognition and communication as separate closed systems. It rather allows understanding social reality as the product of the humans and the humans as products of that reality (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 61). In this way, the social systems may be endowed life and become lifeworlds. This approach obviously causes less cognitive dissonances than Luhmann’s suggestion trapping consciousness and sociality into closed systems and reconnecting them again by unwieldy couplings missing empirical verification.

Note 1 In Schützian terms, we could say that thoughts manifest themselves to the observer in their monothetic shape while their polythetic constitution remains concealed. As a consequence of this, Luhmann reaches a precarious theoretical decision as he makes a difference between the operative processes in the

Autogenesis and autopoiesis  215 consciousness and the conceptions which the consciousness may grasp of itself. Therefore, he states that the actual processing of consciousness remains inaccessible for the consciousness’ self-reflection. By this statement, however, he denies the possibility of Husserl’s epoché and thus questions his own concepts based on Husserl’s phenomenological investigations.

References Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1967) [1966]: The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday. Giddens, A. (1999): The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Husserl, E. (1999): Erfahrung und Urteil. Hamburg: Meiner. Luhmann, N. (1985): Soziale Systeme. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (2005a): Soziologische Aufklärung. (Vol. I) Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Luhmann, N. (2005b): Soziologische Aufklärung. (Vol. VI) Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Luhmannn, N. (2012): Theory of Society. (Vol. I) Stanford: Stanford University Press. Nassehi, A. (2008): Phänomenologie und Systemtheorie. In: Raab, J. et al. (Eds.). Phänomenologie und Soziologie. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Schütz, A. (1932): Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Wien: Springer VS. Srubar, I. (2007): Sprache und strukturelle Kopplung. Das Problem der Sprache in Luhmanns Theorie. In: Sruber, I. (Ed.). Kultur und Semantik. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

13 Knowledge as a form of the life-course The general constructivism of social systems theory Achim Brosziewski Shortly before his death and without much time to elaborate, Niklas ­Luhmann discussed the life-course as a medium of communication and knowledge as a form within this medium.1 At first sight, such an idea contrasts sharply with former works of Luhmann, which conceive knowledge as directly correlated to social systems like society,2 science (Luhmann 1992) or the system of mass media.3 Regarding the 50th anniversary of The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Berger & Luckmann 1966), two aspects could be of special interest: First, the lifecourse concept of knowledge bears some resemblance to the idea of everyday life as the ground for all knowledge, which Berger and Luckmann adopted from Alfred Schütz. The day-like-every-other-day could be conceived as the confirmation of a certain life-course “as it is,” while any day with remarkable events might shift one, some or many of its “taken for granted” assumptions.4 Second, seeing the life-course as a medium of communication forces to highlight the individuality of all knowledge. My contribution elaborates one of the major implications: The notion of construction must not be restricted to the social sphere. Therefore, social systems theory cannot be built upon a social constructivism. Instead, a general constructivism is needed, which can cover the coproduction of communication and consciousness.5 Sketching the basic problems and outlines of such a constructivism, it should become evident why Luhmann never referred systematically to Berger and Luckmann’s book. He could especially not accept the main assertion of its title, stating that reality should be a construction. Concerning questions of reality, it is not construction but production that would be the decisive notion. Social systems theory relies on itself as a realistic theory.6 To pit “realism” against social systems theory constitutes one of the great errors of an uninformed reception. Initially, I will introduce the concept of the life-course (Section titled “The life-course as a schema of perception”). Section titled “Individuality, the life-course and knowledge” discusses two basic facts of individuality: the operational closure of consciousness and its impossible last thought. In order to clarify the notions of observation and construction, I will sketch the general constructivism of systems theory (Section titled “The general

Knowledge as a form of the life-course  217 constructivism of social systems theory”). The duality of observing and construction is meant to replace the subject-object duality as epistemological super-code for cognition and knowledge. But it is not meant to deny reality, and it is definitely not a license for a postmodern anything-goes. Aiming to arrange the life-course within the whole set of communication media, the section titled “The ensemble of communication media” focuses on two of their general characteristics: on coding as a special type of observation and on negation as the main source for reflection at the side of communication and of learning at the side of the individual consciousness. My final remarks draw a conclusion on how the proposed approach conceives the triad of knowledge, learning and (self-) education.

The life-course as a schema of perception In a first approach, we can conceive the life-course as a schema of perception, as a schema that is defined and refined by modern society to single out, to identify and to talk about individual persons.7 The schema of the life-course is daily reproduced by countless cultural institutions, whenever a particular “who” has to be introduced. Usually sociology characterizes the life-course as “objective” in contrast to the subjectivity of the biography, as the narration of a single life.8 In my version, the term society replaces objectivity, just stating that the life-course is a schema suitable for all communications to address the issues of a single person including, but not restricted to, the genre of narration. The life-course is an all-including category. There is no person without a life-course, may it be a long one or a short one, may it be considered a good life or a bad life. In this respect, the life-course corresponds to the complete inclusion performed by the functional subsystems of modern society (­Stichweh 1988; Luhmann 1995b; Lehmann 2002; Fuchs 2003; Bohn 2006). Other than in former societies, no person is excluded by birth and by origin from societal functions. Exclusion stems exclusively from the facts that a concrete life-course accumulates.9 Of course, the circumstances of the individual’s birth and breeding belong to those facts. The life-course does not say that everyone is equal. On the contrary, it says that everybody is unique. All exclusions relevant to the life-course are performed by two specific mechanisms. It is their combination – not one of them alone – that replaces the old life schema of origin. The first mechanism is the membership decision of organizations (Luhmann 2000a: 81–122). Every organization, even the largest of the world, excludes nearly all mankind, except the few people involved as members, and still fewer ones within the inner circles of production, performance and management roles.10 The second mechanism is the self-exclusion of the individual, in traditional terms labeled as freedom and liberty. Whatever the functional systems offer through their media – buyable products and services, politicians and political programs to vote for or to fight against, artistic objects, public opinions,

218  Achim Brosziewski most desirable men and women – the individual is set free to say “no,” and even could cultivate a general indifference to some or all of the functions, in one or the other manner of asceticism. Again, the no-options and the notat-all-options are distributed unequally. That is the condition to mark a person as “individual.” Furthermore, any concrete freedom to choose might be revealed as an “illusion.” But the latter, the distinction between reality and illusion, depends already on the ability to observe – which will be discussed later on (Section titled “The general constructivism of social systems theory”). At this point, it is only important to identify the double mechanism of modern exclusion: exclusion by organizations and self-exclusion by the individual. In their interplay, these mechanisms produce the most significant form of modern integration: the form of the career (Luhmann & Schorr 1988: 277–82; Corsi 1993; Luhmann 2000a: 101–107; Lehmann 2011). The schema of the life-course is the sociocultural solution for the problem that one single person has only one life (at least this is what modern semantics tells him/her) but is forced to handle many different careers: a family career, a school career, an economic career, a political career, an esthetical career, maybe a criminal career, a health career, an intellectual career and so on. In contrast to premodern societies, there is no societal form to integrate such multiplicity.11 Instead, there is the form of the life-course with its imperative: You have to live your own life.

Individuality, the life-course and knowledge Pushing aside all cultural modalities of individualism (extensively outlined in Luhmann 1989b), systems theory treats two facts as constituents for individuality (Luhmann 1996: 255–277). Talking of facts, of factuality, and even of reality is indeed within the realm of social systems theory. If the term “constructivism” implies the denial of facts and of reality, the label goes completely wrong in the case of systems theory. The first fact of individuality is seen in the operational closure of consciousness. For to ease the description, I will call the operation of consciousness “thinking,” neglecting for the time being all the philosophical doubts and sophistications put forth since René Descartes. There might be other terms ­ rentano, for the conscious operation, for example, “intending” (Franz B ­Edmund Husserl, cf. Spiegelberg 1969) or “knowing” (William James, cf. Naur 1995) or “deciding” (cf. Fuchs 2012).12 But the terminology is of secondary importance as long as the consciousness is seen as an operating unit (and not as a substance). The term “closure” does not indicate solipsism ­(Luhmann 1995c). The consciousness might think of anything in the world – as long as it activates its own thoughts that can think about anything in the world. Operational closure means that the consciousness can think nothing else than own thoughts and cannot think anything beyond its own thinking. In this sense, the consciousness is indivisible, legitimating the coining of the word individuum/individual.

Knowledge as a form of the life-course  219 Of course, the factuality of consciousness cannot be measured by the means of empirical research. Quantitative research ignores the fact and measures only the products of consciousness such as opinions or attitudes. Qualitative research presupposes the fact, calls it subjectivity and constructs its own data as objectivations of subjectivities. Therefore, the analysis of consciousness has been excluded from normal social sciences and has been encapsulated within philosophy for a long time. It needed the appearance of constructivism to change this state of affairs (for an elaborated version, cf. Fuchs 2003). But the problem is far too important to leave it to academia alone. The basic problem is, Consciousness cannot deny itself. Even the thought “I am not real” is an own thought and proves the proposition as wrong. But when there is no chance of self-denial, then there could be no proof of the self because there cannot be any testable criteria. The consciousness confirms itself with each operation no matter whether it is right or wrong, good or bad, rational or irrational, constructive or deconstructive. For itself, the consciousness is unexchangeable (Fuchs 2016: ­117–122). Thus, by its own means, the consciousness cannot know itself. With the support of communication (by narratives), it has to imagine its own unity, its own reality, its own existence – as long as it wants to go beyond the mere fact of its thinking. The second fact of individuality is the most challenging obstacle for the operationally closed consciousness. It is delivered from communication, from society: the story of personal death.13 Provided with the story of dying and supported by evidence from the mass media and by experiences from close relationships, the consciousness learns about the fact of its own ending. But it cannot realize this ending. No thinking can ever think its last thought; simply because the thought of the last thought would be a thought transcendent to the last thought – obviously a paradox that cannot be overcome by rational means, only by creativity and imagination. One of such imaginations is the switch from the consciousness to the body; that means switching from thinking to distinguishing one special object against all other objects in the world, resulting in the “own” body as the only object helping the consciousness to locate and to identify itself. The consciousness can think that its body will die. It can elaborate, refine and garnish this idea with facts from biology and from the medical system. It can learn about the biological and medical circumstances of its ending, at least statistically or typically. Thus, it learns to compare its own, imagined death with the dying of others, and maybe discovers new degrees of freedom to influence its own ending, say, by deciding to live a healthy life or by deciding to sacrifice itself for a higher sake. As a closer look reveals, the biological solution for the impossible last thought presupposes already the concept of the life-course. The identification of the biological ending with the ending of consciousness is not delivered by biology itself nor by consciousness itself, but by modern culture. Still consciousness cannot think its last thought. Committing to the identity of the life-course, all its complementing ideas like aging and age-specific episodes of living come into play as temporal

220  Achim Brosziewski unities to structure the operations of an individual consciousness. Even to live my everyday life, and especially in order to live it in an acceptable manner,14 I have to know how old I am. Other than in former societies, the combination of origin, sex and age alone does not identify my social status. Instead, I need my life-course with its individual exclusions and inclusions (see section titled “The life-course as a schema of perception”) to know what I might ask others about myself and about the world we live in – and reciprocally what I should know myself about myself and about the world we live in. Of course, relating the life-course to the operational closure of consciousness cannot suffice as a foundation for a sociology of knowledge. Such a combination alone cannot explain the knowledge of any concrete fact or about any concrete requirements to fulfil specific social norms. For a comprehensive view of knowledge and learning, other media have to be taken into account: language, dissemination media and all the symbolically generalized media of communication such as power, love, money, truth, law and arts (cf. Luhmann 2012: 113–250). It needs an investigation of the complete media ensemble to determine if and in what sense the life-course, described before as a schema of perception, establishes a medium of communication in its own right. Relating the life-course to the operational closure of consciousness is only one of many pieces of the puzzle. But before starting with media analysis, the notion of construction and its status within systems theory of knowledge needs to be clarified. The prominent reference to consciousness should have indicated that, when it comes to knowledge, operations of consciousness do play a major role for social systems theory. Therefore, social systems theory of knowledge cannot take “social constructivism” as a paradigm. It has to use a constructivism that can cover the coproduction of communication and consciousness without degrading the structures of one process type to mere derivations of the other. My next section will sketch a constructivism that can treat individual and social constructions on the same theoretical level.

The general constructivism of social systems theory Within the architecture of social systems theory, construction is not a central concept. Luhmann’s books are known for their extensive subject indexes. There is no entry for “construction” neither in Social Systems (Luhmann 1996) nor in Theory of Society (2012, 2013) (the latter contains a couple of entries of “constructivism”). Thus, one may seriously doubt whether the label of “constructivism” really fits to the social systems theory at all.15 A closer look reveals that the notion of construction has a very limited scope. It is restricted to the realm of epistemology that is the theory of cognition (including the theory of theory-building). Here we find a central reason why Luhmann never referred systematically to The Social Construction of Reality. Berger and Luckmann excluded epistemology from their sociology of knowledge. Probably every reader reminds the metaphor: “To include

Knowledge as a form of the life-course  221 epistemological questions concerning the validity of sociological knowledge in the sociology of knowledge is somewhat like trying to push a bus in which one is riding.” (1966: 25) Not only did Luhmann want to push the bus: He wanted to build and fuel the bus he could ride with. Furthermore, he undertook the task to build his bus without a second theory. He wanted to learn from society how to describe society. Retracing Luhmann’s examinations of and derivations from the so-called “constructivism,” one has to refer to the notion of operation.16 That leaves any opposition between construction and reality obsolete and irrelevant. Operations are all-or-none phenomena: either they occur or they do not. Operations appear in order to disappear. What distinguishes operations from mere events is production.17 The reality of operations and therefore of operating systems is founded in production, not in construction. One out of many possible products of operations might be the probability of further operations of the same kind. The occurrence of such a phenomenon is called “reproduction” as a short term for “production out of products” (­Luhmann 1996: 49). As in traditional thinking, reality can still be experienced by a certain kind of resistance. But this resistance must not be attributed to an “outside.” Instead, “Everything that is experienced as reality arises from the resistance of communication to communication, and not from any ­imposition of an outside world ordered in one way or another” (Luhmann 2012: 51–52). From the perspective of systems theory, the reality of society is the probability of further communication (Luhmann 1981) – nothing more, nothing less. Thus, only those theories could be accepted as theories of ­society, which deliver better descriptions of and better explanations for the probability of communication. While production is the critical point for operation and reality, the problem of construction is limited to observation. Thus, social systems theory would not concede that reality could be constructed.18 The formula “social construction of X” has never been imported into the research agenda of systems theory. At the most, an observation might construct an indicator “real” and attach it to itself. As long as operations are produced and reproduced, the reality needs neither observation nor cognition nor construction. If there are observations, cognitions and constructions, and if there are cognitive capacities to distinguish observations, cognitions and constructions, only then could observation and reality be distinguished and indicated either as identical, as differential or as problematic. The transdisciplinary circle of researchers labeled “constructivists” shared a common scientific interest. They aspired to establish self-reference as a scientific concept, replacing the subject-object-schema: for biology, brain research, linguistics, social psychology, computer sciences, architecture and for mathematics. Luhmann’s contribution was to establish communication as one candidate for self-reference (cf. von Foerster 1993). And he did so in opposition to certain constructivists who wanted to reserve language, interaction and communication as secondary concepts within the realm of their own disciplines.

222  Achim Brosziewski The term “the observer” is a by-product of that specific discussion. It is nothing more and nothing less than a convention. “The observer” is the title or the name of a specific solution to a specific problem (Figure 13.1). The problem: How is it possible that an Inside (=self-referentially closed) refers to an Outside and gains structure from that reference? The convention: Call every complex, entity, organism, mechanism, object, subject, system or operator that solves this problem, an observer. Call any structure gained from Inside-Outside references a construction. The solution at the most general level: (that fits for all the involved disciplines; it has to be concretized by each discipline on its own account)

The entity must handle indication and distinction at the same time, repeatedly and produce a memory in order to distinguish its second operation from the first one, the third operation from the second one and so forth (in mathematical terms, this is called recursion).

Figure 13.1  T  he complex called “the observer.”

The often-cited George Spencer-Brown delivers the most elegant notation for the whole complex.19 Neither is he the “inventor” of constructivism nor is his calculus its “foundation.” Not the writing of Laws of Form has been the enlightening moment for constructivism, but its discovery and adaption for self-referential problems by Heinz von Foerster. Most reports about this kind of constructivism only refer to distinction, but indication is of no less importance than distinction. Only indication enables recursion and memory (Lee & Brosziewski 2009: 28–34). Within the aforementioned trinity of problem, convention and solution, the notion of construction is reserved to name the structures that are produced through recursively executed Inside-Outside references. From this follows the only statement that justifies the label “radical” because it marks the break with the traditional subject-object epistemology (Figure 13.2). The “radical” statement of construc vism (i.e. breaking with the subject-object epistemology): Never confuse any Outside with Reality.

Figure 13.2  A memento of constructivism.

With their dialectics of externalization and internalization and with their memory function called institution,20 Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann could have joined the constructivist complex. But they were not interested in self-reference – they wanted to reconstruct objectivity, namely, the

Knowledge as a form of the life-course  223 objectivity of social order. And they exiled observation as an outside-and-­ outsider phenomenon, mostly addressed to the social scientist as an “outside observer” (Berger & Luckmann 1966: 89, 126, 135, 198, 224), sometimes to the role of other actors observing the actor (ibid. 75, 194). The actor him/herself is stuck to typification (45–48, 72–76, 89–92): in our terms, to indication, recursion and memory, without the capacity to distinguish distinctions, to indicate indications, to observe observers.21 In contrast, social systems theory places observation within the core of each and every communication. To communicate means to indicate information and utterance (Luhmann 2012: 39), thereby providing every following communication with a twosided form, with a basic distinction, which can be elaborated on and on, so to speak, on a daily basis (Lee & Brosziewski 2009: 35–56).

The ensemble of communication media Media do not connect the consciousness to an outer world. We have to abandon the technical idea of media as transmitters or channels. Media are constituted by observation and exclusively for the purpose of observation. No environment contains any medium. Deriving from a psychological theory of perception (Heider 1926), Luhmann defines the notion of medium by the distinction between loosely and strictly coupled elements (Luhmann 2012: 117–20) – and as demonstrated before, distinctions are always accomplishments and instruments of the complex called “the observer,” as are elements always accomplishments and entities of an operating unit (“thoughts” in the case of consciousness, “contributions” in the case of communication). Distinctions distinguish self-produced elements, not elements “out there.” The medium of light gives the most demonstrative paradigm. One never sees light “by itself.” One sees the shapes and the colors of things, that is to say strict couplings of light, while the operation called seeing is loosening any strict coupling and moves on to the next strict coupling, changing from shape to shape and never able to catch a last and everlasting shape.22 To see “something” (a specific constellation of shapes and colors) is only possible due to the potential to see “everything else.” Calling light a medium indicates the permanent transition from shape to shape and the operator that performs and transits all these transitions – in this case, the perception called seeing. The perception called hearing can be conceived analogously by replacing shapes through sounds. We never hear the acoustic medium “by itself,” but only by transitions from sound to sound (cf. Fuchs 1987).23 The sociocultural evolution of communication media proves that higher order media could evolve when strict couplings on an elementary level could be recombined to forms on a higher level of coupling and decoupling. Therefore, we can sketch a kind of echelon of media (Luhmann 2012: ­113–250): language couples and decouples complexes of hearing; dissemination media couple and decouple linguistic, pictorial and musical complexes by technical means, thereby doubling language into acoustic and optical

224  Achim Brosziewski appearances; and finally success media (money, power, love, truth, law, art) couple and decouple action-motivation complexes under the regime of acceptance and rejection. Language is the most striking and still the most important example when it comes to the possibilities to (temporally) integrate communication and consciousness.24 Without the forms of seeing and listening, that is to say without the constitution of light and sound by the perceptional apparatus of the brain, there would be no language. But perception provides only the possibility and not the appearance of language. Neither seeing nor hearing could ever determine the next sentence, neither in real life nor in this text. Usually, linguistics and its followers in the philosophy of language start with reflections about the units called “words,” about their meaning (semantics), about word-combining rules (grammar) and about the use of words (pragmatics). In this manner, the theory of language sticks within the reference of words to things.25 It cannot overcome the distinction of consciousness and perception, leaving the relation of consciousness to communication beyond its scope. Whatever the ontological status of words may be, when words are distinguished from things, the basic communicative elements of language are formed on the level of sentences, not on the level of words. Words (with all their meanings, rules and performances) function as decoupling of sentences.26 Only in this manner any formed, strictly coupled sentence imposes itself against a paramount of many other possible, but actually decoupled sentences. In this sense, the sentence informs communication, following the famous definition of information by Gregory Bateson (1972: 271–272): The sentence makes a difference, which makes a communicative difference.27 Unfolding the evolution of communication media would be a long story to tell. Focusing on the question if and in what sense the perceptual scheme introduced as life-course could be conceived as a medium of communication as well, we can only highlight one product of the sociocultural evolution: I call it the universality of coding, which characterizes all communication media and distinguish them from any other kind of media, especially from “pure” perceptional media like light and sound. Within the context of media theory, codes must not be confused with rules of transcription or of translation, as handled in linguistic and semiotic approaches or in informatics. Instead, codes constitute a special type of distinction – therefore, their occurrence again indicates the presence of an observer. The specific function of codes is duplication (Luhmann 2012: 132). Both sides of the distinction offer connecting options for the system in question. Thus, the production of new elements is guaranteed in any case, regardless of which side of the distinction will be realized during the course of events. Again we can take language as an example. From the level of sentences, the following is valid: Whatever can be said, can be said in “a positive or negative version” (Luhmann 2012: 132). “Yes” and “No” are the most condensing identifiers of this fundamental code of language, which functions in

Knowledge as a form of the life-course  225 practice in many and sometimes highly sophisticated modalities. “If I could think about it in more detail, I might find some indicators that support the conclusion ‘X is probably true’.” Any expression of doubt modifies a “Yes” by some means of “No” and vice versa, resulting in a “weak Yes” and in a “weak No.” But as the unsuccessful career of skepticism demonstrated, there is no ultimate, no absolute, no total “No.” From the level of language, communicative reality persists as successfully negated negations. Concerning the descriptions of things, the Yes/No-code mutates into affirmations and negations of attributes and of parameters of proximity and connectivity. Proximity denies distance, connectivity denies detachedness and, in the end, identity denies difference.28 Finally, any affirmation of something as something appears to be the denial of a negation. Because communication is coded by Yes and No (from the level of language on), it works indifferent against any concrete Yes or No. Communication will go on in both cases, either provided with a positively indicated identity or in search for what could be the case when such identity is questioned by a negation (Luhmann 1991; Baecker 1996; Lehmann 2007). Seen from consciousness, the Yes/No-code of language constitutes the possibility of cognition, learning and knowledge. As communication perpetuates and cultivates the indifference of both sides, consciousness is tackled by the imposition to judge, to decide or at least to contribute preferences for the Yes or the No paths of further communication: “The cinema shows a very interesting movie tonight.” Shall we go, stay at home, shall we suspend the decision until the afternoon? Learning means to distinguish the implications and the consequences if a positive or negative formulation asks for its confirmation or rejection. Knowledge might be called all conscious operations that are provided with sufficient confirmation in the conscious contacts with communication29 – whereby the forms and the degrees of “sufficiency” vary with the individual history of former contacts with communication or, more precisely, with the individual’s derivations of communication called “experiences” and “expectations,” both operating simultaneously as memory in any actual situation. Dissemination media work with technically fixed documents,30 thereby decoupling communication and consciousness from speaking and listening, in space as well as in time. The couplings are executed by the complementary social mechanisms of authority and interest (Baecker 2007: 160). Documents either acquire authority (by their signatures or by their content) or gain some interest (of whomsoever), or they just fuel the social and the conscious processes of forgetting. At first sight, information becomes the main purpose of communication: The authorities try to inform the people; the people desire fresh information (in three versions: information as news, information as entertainment, information as affirmation of taste). But information cannot avoid its side effect: the production of redundancy in both forms, namely redundancy as repetition (for the individual) and redundancy as distribution (between the participants of communication).

226  Achim Brosziewski When I know that all others know the same, I do not have anything to tell – apart from my own socially nonbinding opinion. Thus, many, if not most, of the documents provide no difference at all. The demand for news (serious news, new entertainment, new pleasures) produces itself by consuming its own products. By dissemination, every information turns into noninformation. It could only be reactualized by a new time stamp, a new context or a new audience. Therefore, dissemination media are characterized by a basic coding, too. Dissemination media do not present information “by itself.” Instead they actualize the code of information and ­noninformation – a descendant of the Yes/No-code of language. And just as in language, cognition is elaborated at the negative side of the code, at the side of noninformation. In processing information by transforming a difference into a difference, cognition absorbs the information either by learning or by confirming the familiar knowledge. Knowing something means that information about that something is neither necessary nor possible, as long as there are no indicators that new time stamps or new contexts or new authorities might be available. The code of success media is announced by their name: success and failure.31 But it is crucial not to think of an individual success or failure and particularly not of a successful or failed life. Success media attribute their symbols for success and for failure strictly to communication processes. Success media indicate directly the risks of communication: the rejection either of its information, or of the form of its utterance, or of its status as premise in further communication. To keep the strict reference to communication risks in mind, the code of success media might also be named as acceptance versus rejection. In our context, in the quest for life-course and knowledge, it is noteworthy that only a decoupled and loose connection between communicative success and individual success enables the life-course to establish a medium in its own right. Due to the fact that a failure in transactions of money, power, love, truth, law or arts does not automatically degrade a person’s status, the individual gets the chance to learn from communicative failure. Read in the opposite direction, such decoupling encourages the individual to expose itself to the risks of communication: by demanding rare goods and services (money), by imposing unpleasant directives on others (power), by enforcing others to learn (truth), by irritating everyday perceptions (art), by accepting impersonal procedures to judge over one’s personal rights (law) and by desiring empowerment for an individual “mood” of living (love). The decoupling of communication and participating individuals is achieved by two specific restrictions, which stamp all communication within the realm of success media. First, each medium separates one certain type of motivation against all other types of motivation. Motives of needs are attributed to the medium of money (with its submedium property). Motives of protection against violence are attributed to the medium of power. Motives of

Knowledge as a form of the life-course  227 sustaining counterfactual expectations are attributed to the medium of law. Motives of resonance for an idiosyncratic worldview are attributed to the medium of love. Motives of esthetical stimulations are attributed to the medium of art. The term “motive” does not refer to intrapsychic realities. Embedded into the sociological tradition of the term (Max Weber, Alfred Schütz, Charles Wright Mills, Anselm Strauss and others), it refers exclusively to social available and plausible descriptions of actions, including interactional scenes as social contexts of actions. The mere existence of a psychology of motivation proves that social descriptions of actions and intrapsychic realities of motivation are very difficult, if not impossible, to integrate. The only exception is the real authentic behavior, which has to be motivated by the highest cultural awards. As a second restriction, all success media have to circumvent the direct exposure to the code of language. Acceptance and rejection cannot be articulated simply by a positive or negative verbal formulation. Acceptance and rejection both have to be expressed by a course of action, which might include positive and negative verbal statements, but never accomplishes itself in such statements. Such courses of action might span over short or long periods of time and might involve more or less complex networks of actors. Thus, media such as money, power and law are highly dependent from organizations (e.g., business plans or political revolutions), while media such as love and art reduce their social and temporal scope and operate more directly onto individual moods and preferences. In all cases, acceptance and rejection have to be observed, indicated and distinguished as consistencies and inconsistencies between within- and action-motivation complexes. For to achieve such kind of observation and to sustain its memory, each medium cultivates its own set of symbols, which express “more than words can say” and require a knowledge that could not be taught by textbooks and schools. Such symbols differentiate each individual medium against all other communication media on the one hand; on the other hand, they differentiate the medium internally, for example, by distinguishing money for investment from money for consuming, or distinguishing the first great love from a love for life. Without the possibility to elaborate on the details of external and internal media differentiations (what would need to unfold the theory of success media completely), we can state again that the negative side of the codes, the side of failure and rejection provides the starting points and the anchors for any individual learning. More than in any other case, communication by success media requires and produces a knowledge that stabilizes itself by negation of negations: a knowledge about viable business plans in face of all market competitors, a knowledge about the counterthreats of any specific power position, a knowledge about the chronic difference between justness and law, a knowledge about the aberrations of the search for truth, a knowledge about the sufferings of love and a knowledge about the agonies of esthetical desires.

228  Achim Brosziewski

Conclusion: knowledge, learning, and (self-)education The life-course must not be regarded as a super-medium. It functions neither as a fundament nor as a summit in the echelon of communication media. The concept does not promise a way back to a subject or to a cosmos of all knowledge. It indicates the individuality of knowledge and, therefore, plays its part within the super-code of social inclusion and exclusion. As described in the section titled “The life-course as a schema of perception,” the indicator can be read from both sides of the game. Consciousness gains its individuality (Fuchs 2003), communication identifies individual persons (Luhmann 1995a). As a schema of perception, any concrete life-course is mainly a product of socialization, and only on a secondary level a restriction as well as a potential for individual learning. All three types of communication media are involved: language by providing the possibilities of narration (biographies, normal and exceptional episodes of living), dissemination media by providing all documents of life (certificates of birth, education, disabilities, marriage and kinship, organizational careers, personal rights, one’s financial status, public victories, public defeats, illnesses and death), and success media by providing an inconsistent variety of motives for the conduct of an individual life (Wirth 2015). Thus, the theory of communication media enables to explore how society defines and refines the schema of the life-course and how the “symbolic universes for individual biography” (Berger & Luckmann 1966: 118) are constituted and sustained. According to Luhmann’s original idea, the life-course mutates from a mere perceptual device into a communication media exclusively under the auspices of the functional subsystem of education, that is, when individuals are personalized by observations in families or in educational organizations (Luhmann 2002). Education tries to modify the unknown future of a person’s life-course, equipping that future with successes that would not arise by mere socialization. As communicative endeavor, education is forced to address the individual consciousness. It cannot modify the body’s fate and the person’s life directly. As a form within the promised, but unknown personal future, knowledge has to distinguish a marked side from an unmarked side of the life-course. And it is the educative endeavor itself that introduces the marks, may they be framed as necessary, as obligatory, as contingent, as useful, as entertaining, as boring, as redundant or as superfluous. All such indications are reflections of the unmarked side of the life-course, by everything-else-but-­ education, by the codes of communication media, by negations of negations and by the residual society. Bearing the implications of its unmarked side, knowledge reflects that it is nonidentical with reality. Thus, the operative mode of knowledge is uncertainty and improbability, forcing any attempt of learning, teaching and (self-) education32 to concentrate on re-cognition, on social schemata and stereotypes (Hitzler 1995). Out of all schemata, the schema of the life-course might serve as lowest common denominator that no individual could reject without rejecting its own personal future.

Knowledge as a form of the life-course  229

Notes 1 For knowledge as life-course–relevant form, see cf. Luhmann (2004: p. 275); for knowledge as reproduction of the medium of the life-course, see cf. Luhmann (2002: p. 97). 2 In his studies about Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik (Luhmann, 1989a, 1993b, 1993c, 1995d, see for selected translations Luhmann 2003). 3 Luhmann (2000b; p. 1) starting with his famous theses: “Whatever we know about our society, or indeed about the world in which we live, we know through the mass media”. 4 ”Taken-for-granted” is probably one of most repeated formulas in The Social Construction of Reality. 5 The notion of coproduction gains a central status within the theory of meaning systems by Peter Fuchs (cf. Fuchs 2002, 2016). 6 For a discussion on an epistemological level, see cf. Luhmann et al. (2000). 7 To parallel the following with Berger and Luckmann, one would have to read “society” where they write “symbolic universe”; please see, for example, “The symbolic universe provides order for the subjective apprehension of biographical experience” (Berger & Luckmann 1966: 115). 8 (cf. Helfferich 2013: p. 41). With focus on the distinction between the life-course and biography, see cf. Hahn (1988). 9 Renn (2010: 206) attributes “objective individualization” to the life-course. 10 Exklusion ist mithin der Normalfall, Inklusion der Ausnahmefall (Exclusion is the normal case, inclusion the exceptional case) (Luhmann 2000a: 390). 11 Peter Fuchs (2010: 211) summarizes the individual and societal consequences under the trinity of heterarchy, polycontexturality and hypercomplexity. 12 German original dezidierte Operativität (Fuchs 2010: 15), which is difficult to translate. The notion focuses on cutting, not on choosing (lat. decidere: “to cut off”). 13 (Sartre 1956: 661, cited in Luhmann 1996: pp. 562) “since the for-itself is the being which always lays claim to an ‘after,’ there is no place for death in the being which is for-itself.” The following description parallels some points of Berger and Luckmann’s “location’ of the death” (1966: 118f.). But the authors determine the function of the story of death within the frame of legitimation, in our terms: in reference to society and not to consciousness. The self-reference of consciousness only shows up as the status of being terrified and as a demand for mitigation by institutional orders, legitimations and symbolic universes. 14 For the conditions of “living ‘correctly,’” see cf. Berger and Luckmann (1966: 117). 15 The reason to subsume Luhmann’s systems theory to “(radical) constructivism” is a mere intellectual one: a stormy happening at conferences and at the editorial markets in Germany, which saw an inflation of constructivist manifestos within the short time span between 1984 and 1987 (Müller 2015: 246–247; Köck 2015: 209–210). The historical coincidence of Luhmann’s publications of Soziale Systeme in 1984 and of Erkenntnis als Konstruktion (Cognition as Construction) in 1988 together with some references to the so-called “constructivists” served as sufficient evidence to feed the intellectual desire for “isms,” which disburdens from reading theories (for Luhmann’s own account of the movement, see ­Luhmann (1993a). The original constructivism, mainly situated in America (North and South), hardly noticed to be attached to “Luhmann.” Occasional encounters were characterized by mutual skepticism. The important exemption was the discussion with Heinz von Foerster (cf. von Foerster: 1993). 16 Thus, the foundations of systems theory remain systems, not constructions. I will try to tell a long story in a short way, neglecting all the “Luhmann-isright-is-wrong-in-citing X, Y, Z” claims, which fuel/fool the debates within and about the radical or not-so-radical constructivism. I take the credit to do so from

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Berger and Luckmann (1966), 8. The accuracy of my awareness of constructivism could be checked in Pörksen 2015, that of the relation between constructivism and systems theory in Baecker (2005). “We will speak of production if some but not all causes that are necessary for specific effects can be employed under the control of a system. What is essential to the concept is […] this ‚some, but not all’” (Luhmann 1996: 20). When Luhmann writes about “reality construction” (2000b: 82, 98; 2012: 357), he always refers to products of mass media, which impose specific constraints for the epistemological problems of other systems, in particular for society, consciousness and social sciences. Spencer-Brown (1969, 1997). There is a ramified debate about the “correct” and “incorrect” use of “Laws of Form” by Niklas Luhmann. As Fuchs and Hoegl (2015) show, the “Laws” condense a long history of meta-mathematical thoughts of the 20th century. Thus, citing the “Laws” constitutes a recursive and stenographic act in itself. “Institutions always have a history, of which they are the products” (Berger & Luckmann 1966: 72). As Anne Honer (1993: 111) elaborates, the possibility of typification is constituted by the operation of distinguishing. Open fire and wild water capture the seeing because their shapes are distinguishable and non-fixable at the same time. It is not easy to name the acoustic equivalent of what is light for seeing. In ­German, one could state that “Laut” is the medium and “Klang” is its form. But in English “Laut” and “Klang” both translate to “sound.” Maybe one could distinguish noise and sound (Lee: 2005; Lee & Brosziewski 2009: 96–119). Srubar’s (2005) argument, the empirical evidences of linguistic regularities (Systematizität der Sprache, the systematics of language, p. 604) enforce to conceive language as a system (and not as medium), relies on a different notion of system. In systems theory, not regularity or “structuredness,” but exclusively the proof of a specific operator qualifies for the notion “system.” Speech acts (speaking, writing) do not fulfill the requirement because they presuppose the appearance of language (the same holds true for listening and reading). Seen from media theory, the rich and highly differentiated regularities of language confirm the suitability of language to serve as a medium for structural coupling (of consciousness and communication). In its most prominent formulation: “How to do Things with Words” (Austin 1962). And it needed the visibility of language provided by script to single out and to identify the units of language as “words” (Fuchs 2001: 186–193). The decisive cultural invention was the introduction of blanks into writing sorry my space bar failed: The decisive cultural invention was the introduction of blanks into writing, probably established not before the fourth century AD (ibid. 192). Every word of the list (The, sentence, makes, a, difference, which, communicative) decouples the now-printed sentence and restores the variety pool of language, only restricted by social requirements for useful contributions. Hereby we touch the real challenges for digitizing the medium of language. Thereby constituting the fundaments of traditional logic: the laws of identity, of contradiction and of the excluded middle. These laws simultaneously execute and contradict the basic coding of language. They reduce language to true and false propositions, thereby excluding the form of the question, which pursues the indeterminacies of Yes or No, True or False, Proximity or Distance and so on. Also the interactionist approach identifies confirmation as the most important property of communication for the possibility of individual knowledge:

Knowledge as a form of the life-course  231 “The acts of confirmation by both actors complete the communication process. Each actor then knows that the other knows that he knows what the other had in mind” (Warriner 1970: 110). 3 0 “The term “mass media” includes all those institutions of society which make use of copying technologies to disseminate communication (Luhmann 2000b: 2, my accentuation). The term “dissemination media” refers to the same restriction of technology, but includes, in addition, any non-public use of copying and documentation technologies, for example, within organizations (records, files) and in private households (letters, bookkeeping). The technical identity of a certain document does not determine the meaning of the document. It is the difference of technology and information which constitutes the mediality of dissemination media (Luhmann 2012: 120–189). 31 Luhmann (2012: 190–250); Lee & Brosziewski (2009: 121–153). The term “success medium” (Erfolgsmedium) is a short form for “symbolically generalized medium,” which has its origins in Parsons’ theory, but is transformed from action theory to problems of communication. The justification for the short form “success medium” is given in my following description. 32 For an encompassing real-life experiment with self-education, see Adams (1918).

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232  Achim Brosziewski Fuchs, P. (2010): Das System SELBST: Eine Studie zur Frage: Wer liebt wen, wenn jemand sagt: »Ich liebe Dich!? Weilerswist: Velbrück. Fuchs, P. (2016): Der Fuß des Leuchtturms liegt im Dunklen: Eine ernsthafte Studie zu Sinn und Sinnlosigkeit. Weilerswist: Velbrück. Fuchs, P. & Hoegl, F. (2015) [2011]: Die Schrift der Form. In: Pörksen, B. (Ed.) Schlüsselwerke des Konstruktivismus. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 165–196. Hahn, A. (1988): Biographie und Lebenslauf. In: Brose, H.-G. & Hildenbrand, B. (Eds.) Vom Ende des Individuums zur Individualität ohne Ende. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, pp. 91–105. Heider, F. (1926): Ding und Medium.In: Symposion. Philosophische Zeitschrift für Forschung und Aussprache. 1, pp. 109–157. Helfferich, C. (2013): Biografien und Lebenslauf. In: Scherr, A. (Ed.) Soziologische Basics: Eine Einführung für pädagogische und soziale Berufe. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 41–47. Hitzler, R. (1995): Vom Vorteil des Vorurteils. Universitas, 50(585), pp. 243–251. Honer, A. (1993): Lebensweltliche Ethnographie: Ein explorativ-interpretativer Forschungsansatz am Beispiel von Heimwerker-Wissen. Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag. Köck, W.K. (2015) [2011]: Neurosophie. In: Pörksen, B. (Ed.) Schlüsselwerke des Konstruktivismus. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 197–213. Lee, D.B. (2005): Making Music Out of Noise: Barbershop Quartet Singing and Society. Soziale Systeme. Zeitschrift für soziologische Theorie, 11(2), pp. 271–292. Lee, D.B. & Brosziewski, A. (2009): Observing Society. Meaning, Communication, and Social Systems. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press. Lehmann, M. (2002): Inklusion: Beobachtungen einer sozialen Form am Beispiel von Religion und Kirche. Frankfurt a.M: Humanities Online. Lehmann, M. (2007). Negieren lernen: Vom Rechnen mit Individualität. Soziale Systeme, 13(1+2), pp. 468–479. Lehmann, M. (2011): Mit Individualität rechnen: Karriere als Organisationsproblem. Weilerswist: Velbrück. Luhmann, N. (1981): The Improbability of Communication. International Social Science Journal, 33(1), pp. 122–132. Luhmann, N. (1984): Soziale Systeme: Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (1988): Erkenntnis als Konstruktion. Bern: Benteli. Luhmann, N. (1989a): Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. (Vol. III) Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (1989b): Individuum, Individualität, Individualismus. In: Luhmann, N. (Ed.) Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik. Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. (Vol. III) Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, pp. 149–258. Luhmann, N. (1991): Über die Funktion der Negation in sinnkonstituierten Systemen. In: Luhmann, N. (Ed.) Soziologische Aufklärung 3. Soziales System, Gesellschaft, Organisation. Opladen: Westdeutscher, pp. 35–49. Luhmann, N. (1992): Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (1993a): Das Erkenntnisprogramm des Konstruktivismus und die unbekannt bleibende Realität. In: Luhmann, N. (Ed.) Soziologische Aufklärung 5. Konstruktivistische Perspektiven. Opladen: Westdeutscher, pp. 31–58. Luhmann, N. (1993b): Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. (Vol. I) Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.

Knowledge as a form of the life-course  233 Luhmann, N. (1993c): Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. (Vol. II) Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (1995a). Die Form “Person”. In: Luhmann, N. (Ed.) Soziologische Aufklärung 6. Die Soziologie und der Mensch. Opladen: Westdeutscher, pp. 142–154. Luhmann, N. (1995b): Inklusion und Exklusion. In: Luhmann, N. (Ed.) Soziologische Aufklärung 6. Die Soziologie und der Mensch. Opladen: Westdeutscher, pp. 237–264. Luhmann, N. (1995c): Probleme mit operativer Schliessung. In: Luhmann, N. (Ed.) Soziologische Aufklärung 6. Die Soziologie und der Mensch. Opladen: ­Westdeutscher, pp. 12–24. Luhmann, N. (1995d): Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. (Vol. IV) Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (1996): Social Systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2000a): Organisation und Entscheidung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Luhmann, N. (2000b): The Reality of the Mass Media. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2002): Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft. (Dieter Lenzen, Editor) Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (2003): Social Structure and Semantics. Edited by William Rasch. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2004): Erziehung als Formung des Lebenslaufs. In: Luhmann, N (Ed.) Schriften zur Pädagogik. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, pp. 260–277. Luhmann, N. (2012): Theory of Society. (Vol. I) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2013): Theory of Society. (Vol. II) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. et al. (2000): Theory of a Different Order: A Conversation with Katherine Hayles and Niklas Luhmann. In: Rasch, W. (Ed.) Observing Complexity. Systems Theory and Postmodernity. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 111–136. Luhmann, N. & Schorr, K.E. (1988): Reflexionsprobleme im Erziehungssystem (1979). Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Müller, K.H. (2015) [2011]: Die Versuchung der Gewissheit. In: Pörksen, B. (Ed.) Schlüsselwerke des Konstruktivismus. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 245–260. Naur, P. (1995): William James’s Psychology of Knowing. In: Naur, P. (Ed.) Knowing and the Mystique of Logic and Rules. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 5–50. Pörksen, B. (Ed.) (2015) [2011]: Schlüsselwerke des Konstruktivismus. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Renn, J. (2010): Reflexive Moderne und ambivalente Existentialität – Anthony Giddens als Identitäts-Theoretiker. In: Jörissen, B. & Zirfas, J. (Eds.) Schlüsselwerke der Identitätsforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 203–221. Sartre, J.-P. (1956): Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square Press. Spencer-Brown, G. (1969): Laws of Form. London: Allen & Unwin. Spencer-Brown, G. (1997): Laws of Form. Gesetze der Form. Lübeck: Bohmeier. Spiegelberg, H. (1969): “Intention” und “Intentionalität” in der Scholastik, bei Brentano und Husserl. Studia Philosophica, 29(189), pp. 189–216. Srubar, I. (2005): Sprache und strukturelle Kopplung. Das Problem der Sprache in Luhmanns Theorie. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 57(4), pp. 599–623.

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14 Oblivion of power? The Social Construction of Reality and the (counter-) critique of Pierre Bourdieu Jochen Dreher Introduction One criticism of the theoretical outline of The Social Construction of Reality relates to what is insinuated as an alleged oblivion of power. The authors Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann are confronted with the assertion – especially by Pierre Bourdieu – that they neglect power differences with respect to the “familiar world,” which is meant to be the “world of everyday life.” They are criticized for allegedly failing to analyze power structures that are initially involved in knowledge-generating processes. When carefully reading The Social Construction of Reality, it becomes clear that the theoretical outline developed in this book does not specifically deal with the concept of power and that power as a sociological problem is not part of Berger and Luckmann’s constructivism. In a recently conducted interview, Luckmann himself describes the criticism as simply “nuts” because, as he points out, the book does not deal with power as a specific form of interaction, institutionalization and interactional results. The authors deliberately disregarded the “rather loose” power concept (Dreher & Göttlich 2016: 39) that Max Weber already considered to be problematic, placing instead a stronger emphasis on the concept of “domination.” So it may be pointless to deal with these criticisms formulated toward Berger and Luckmann that others such as Zygmunt Bauman and Jürgen Habermas have also articulated (Bauman 1976; Habermas 1987). I will argue, however, that it makes sense to deal with Bourdieu’s critical reflections to specifically highlight the particular potential for an analysis of power that is offered by Berger and Luckmann’s social constructivism. The theoretical outline developed in The Social Construction of Reality presents a conceptual framework suitable for establishing a theory of power, as will be demonstrated. Berger and Luckmann’s differentiation between society as objective reality and society as subjective reality allows us to consider power phenomena not only in their objectivated form as part of the social structure of a society but also as functioning on the subjective level of the individual actor. This theory allows investigating the dialectical relationship between the social construction of objectivated power relations

236  Jochen Dreher and the subjective constitution of power structures. Furthermore, it offers decisive ideas that are particularly relevant for power construction related to institutionalization, legitimation and symbolic universes. After debating Bourdieu’s critique, I will apply Berger and Luckmann’s theoretical framework to a discussion of the concept of power. These reflections will be complemented by the concept of relevance as introduced by Alfred Schütz and Thomas Luckmann for the analysis of subjective power constitution. The concept of relevance basically serves as a regulating principle for the construction of reality, because it structures and organizes the interrelationship of objective knowledge and the subjective experience of the individual actor. Therefore, it perfectly allows for an explanation of the processuality of power constitution, which cannot be achieved by the concept of habitus. There is no case of oblivion of power – Berger and Luckmann present a perspective with the specific analytical potential and strength to establish a theory of power.

Bourdieu’s critique As a basis for his theory of practice, Bourdieu primarily parts from ­Merleau-Ponty’s fundamental assumption that philosophy concentrates on the continuing controversy between objectivity or realism on the one hand and subjectivity or idealism/intellectualism on the other (Merleau-Ponty 1966: xix-xxi). Bourdieu adapts Merleau-Ponty’s conviction and argues that the social sciences oscillate between two poles, and the major task of his sociology is to overcome this conflict. Remarkably, Bourdieu’s starting point is quite comparable to Berger and Luckmann’s viewpoint, rooted in phenomenology, since they establish the idea of a dialectic of objective and subjective reality. I share Bourdieu’s assumption that the investigation of the phenomenon of power, in particular, requires oscillating between objectivity and subjectivity because objectified power structures – for example, expressions of social inequality – of a society or social group are produced in social interaction processes in which individual actors are involved. At the same time, the subjectivity of the individual actors is determined by these power structures that frame their perception and experience, a reflection that Bourdieu captures with his concept of habitus. The opposition of subjectivism and objectivism artificially divides the social sciences – as Bourdieu argues – and reduces the social world, on the one hand, to social phenomenology and, on the other hand, to social physics. Since both perspectives are equally indispensable for each other, the antagonism of both standpoints needs to be overcome; this is the crucial task for Bourdieu’s theory of practice. The one-sided focus on the subjectivist perspective, which perceives the world as evident and unquestionably given, is subject to an illusion of immediate understanding. It is an “occasionalist illusion” that directly relates practices to individual-to-individual relationships in interaction. Practices that are actually influenced beyond the

(Counter-) Critique of Pierre Bourdieu  237 individual and the interaction by unconscious constraints of the objective structure, for example, represented in class habitus (Bourdieu 2010 [1972]: 81). The problem is that the subjectivist standpoint does not concentrate on the conditions of possibility of these everyday experiences. The objectivist perspective proposes the idea of defining objective regularities (structures, rules, systems etc.) that are independent of individual will and consciousness. This position, he argues, parts from a harsh discontinuity between scientific and practical understanding. The subjectivist viewpoint’s concepts, however, are rejected as “rationalizations,” “prescientific concepts” and “ideologies” (Bourdieu 1990a: Chapters 1–2). Each of the two rigid positions in their partial expression should not be accepted separately. Bourdieu’s plan is to bridge the gap between subjectivism and objectivism, a task that – as I ­argue – had already been fulfilled by Berger and Luckmann in the late 1960s in their theoretical outline of The Social Construction of Reality. As far as the problem of power is concerned, we now take up Bourdieu’s critique of an alleged ‘oblivion of power’ directed toward The Social Construction of Reality. It is obvious that Bourdieu developed a quite similar conception combining objectivism and subjectivism decades after Berger and Luckmann, also including the Marxian standpoint related to ruling classes and the exertion of power. With respect to Alfred Schütz and the “neo-phenomenological tradition,” which he associates with the name ­Peter L. Berger and certain forms of ethnomethodology, Bourdieu discovers a “naturalization of the familiar world.” This naturalization of the world of everyday life has the necessary side effect – he argues – that “the conditions of possibility and reflection on the symbolic field of power are condemned to obscurity” (Bourdieu 1991b: 276–277). This perspective, according to Bourdieu, has the disadvantage that in phenomenological terms, it considers the familiar world as “taken for granted” or perceived as natural. If this presupposition is accepted, the social conditions of possibility of the doxic experience of the world are omitted. Here, Bourdieu critically follows ­Husserl’s reflections, arguing that it is necessary to sociologize the phenomenological analysis of doxa, as unquestioned belief. The supposed problem is that phenomenology does not ask how the “taken-for-grantedness” of the familiar world comes into existence as a conditioning factor that makes social experience possible. Those sociologists and phenomenologists who fail to ask why the social world is taken for granted by the natural attitude, according to Bourdieu, do not consider on what grounds it is taken as doxa. They fail to reflect upon the genesis of the natural attitude (Endress 2005: 59). For Bourdieu, it is essential to reflect upon the social conditions of possibility of the scholastic point of view and the unconscious dispositions that form its basis. If we pursue this argumentation further, Bourdieu underlines the boundaries of the lifeworld in the natural attitude as not universal boundaries of the social world. The lifeworld is a prescientific world of experience that is structures by time, space, the social world and multiple everyday

238  Jochen Dreher transcendent realities. Bourdieu argues that they have a history of their own that sociology must take into consideration. And it is his specific aim to analyze this history, the historically situated preconditions of the lifeworld, to understand the “forgotten fields of power” involved in the constitution of the lifeworld. He concentrates on discovering the unconscious categories of thought that limit reflection and predetermine what is actually taken into consideration. To summarize, Bourdieu confronts phenomenologically oriented sociology with the critique of its supposed lack of any analysis of unconscious knowledge-generating processes that are always structured by power (Endress 2005: 58, 60). The subjectified “dispositions” that include categories and hierarchies of power are apparently forgotten, and these are supposed to be constituted dependent on objectively established concrete expressions of power. With respect to the “unknown” field of knowledge active in everyone’s consciousness – in my view – Berger and Luckmann would not speak of the “unconscious” but rather of sedimentations of experience and habitualization. The subjective stock of knowledge produced by sedimentation is therefore characterized by social differentiation and power structuration. Bourdieu as well as Berger and Luckmann conceptualize the social world in its objectified and in its subjectified dimension. Bourdieu disagrees with both purely objectivist and purely subjectivist perspectives and emphasizes the need to reflect on one’s own epistemological standpoint. For him, the validity claim of a scientific description is essential and has to be taken into consideration. One has to question one’s scientific practice. This is, according to Bourdieu, the only way to avoid the “illusion of immediate knowledge” that he criticizes with relation to subjectivism as well as the “illusion of absolute knowledge” that he finds in objectivism (Bourdieu 1990b: 125). As I argue, Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge previously managed to bridge this “epistemological gap” between subjectivism and objectivism by establishing the “dialectical relationship between objective and subjective reality.” Their intention was to investigate the processes of generating knowledge and their origins, which includes – and this is important for our argumentation related to power – the analysis of action and meaning constitution as well as the relevance structure of knowledge. As is well known, Bourdieu tries to overcome the discrepancy between the subjectivist and the objectivist standpoint with his concept of habitus, which is described as a disposition based on a specific stock of knowledge that structures our experience and actions. Our habitus includes the possibility of engendering products such as thoughts, perceptions, expressions and actions that are limited by the historically and socially situated conditions of their production; it secures “the conditioned and conditional freedom” of our actions (Bourdieu 2010 [1972]: 95). The habitus is perceived as an individually incorporated generative dynamic structure, which is prefigured by objective power structures.

(Counter-) Critique of Pierre Bourdieu  239 However, from my perspective drawing on The Social Construction of Reality, habitus is a rather static concept and less appropriate for describing the subjective dimension of the social world especially concerning its dynamic related to social action. The concept of habitus at the interface of objective and subjective reality may have the potential to explain the reproduction of power structures. But the habitus and its theoretical framework are unable to explain processes by which actors struggle against and transform established power structures (Dreher 2013: 114, 2016: 63). Based on Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge, the concept of habitus will be replaced by the concept of relevance with the argument that it offers a specific theoretical potential to explain the dynamic field of power exertion, action and subjective power constitution and, furthermore, of power opposition and power transformation.

The social construction of power Several key ideas as well as the theoretical framework of The Social Construction are significant for analyzing power. In contrast to the line of argumentation proposed by the aforementioned criticisms, no oblivion of power can be identified. The social constructivist approach of Berger and Luckmann offers the specific conceptual potential of investigating the social construction of power. Society as objective reality with its institutions and symbolic universes encompasses established power structures. The social world determined by power hierarchies is a product of human activity, which means that it is constructed in processes of human action. Society as subjective reality consists of internalized and shared stocks of knowledge, including categories of power structuration. Therefore, individual perception and experience to a great extent are determined by power structures. Power is constructed within the dialectical relationship between objective and subjective reality (Dreher 2016: 61). Berger and Luckmann overcome the epistemological gap between objectivism and subjectivism by establishing a connection between the sociologies of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. As Peter Berger stated at the Vienna Conference Social Constructivism as a Paradigm? in 2016, “we married Weber and Durkheim in a Schützian chapel.” With reference to ­Durkheim, Berger and Luckmann argue that “social facts” have to be considered “as things,” which leads to the assumption that society comprises objective reality. As opposed to this view, Weber emphasizes the idea that society is built by actions that express subjective meaning. But Berger and Luckmann do not perceive the two positions represented by Durkheim and Weber as contradictory, as they propose the “dual character of society in terms of objective facticity and subjective meaning that makes its ‘reality sui generis’” (Berger & Luckmann 1989 [1966]: 18) [emphasis in original]. They ask how it is possible that subjective meanings become objective facticities or how human activity includes the capacity to produce a world of things?

240  Jochen Dreher If we specifically concentrate on theories of power, it proves to be valuable to focus on Max Weber’s methodological individualism that considers power as the probability of one actor in a social relationship to carry out his or her will even despite resistance (Weber 1978 [1920/21]: 53). Power, in general, must be seen as a universal element of human existence that is present in all forms of human relationships. Power as part of the objective reality is foremost grounded in institutionalization. For Berger and Luckmann, institutionalization is based on the reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by specific types of actors. In this wide concept of habitualization, any reciprocal typification of habitualized action is an institution. The law, marriage and the incest taboo, for example, are institutions relevant for members of a specific group who have to comply with the demands proposed by the institution. The institutions are a product of human action and they are a historical product since reciprocal typifications are built into a shared history. When they come into existence, they control human conduct by establishing patterns of conduct that predefine possibilities for individuals to act. Institutions establish a primary form of social control, which can be considered a preliminary form of power – this form of power is exercised by the sole existence of the institution. Specific mechanisms of sanctions for individual actors who do not comply with the requirements of the institution occur as a secondary effect (Berger & Luckmann 1991 [1966]: 54–55). The other members of the group, which is constituted by the institution, are observers of those who do not comply with rules and laws; when the latter neglect rules and laws, they are sanctioned. Social control is implemented by institutions through action constraints imposed on the individual members of the institution. From such a perspective, institutions are defined as historical and objective facticities, which exist for individuals as undeniable facts and are therefore, to a certain extent, independent of the individual. Institutions are objectified social entities that endure from generation to generation, and they are able to protect themselves from potential attempts to change them from within or through external influences. They have the coercive power over human beings, “both in themselves, by the sheer force of their facticity, and through the control mechanisms that are usually attached to the most important of them” (Berger & Luckmann 1989 [1966]: 55). For the individual actors, the social world with its institutions is opaque and unfathomable, but its objectified existence is not affected. The institutional world transcends the individual, but at the same time, it is important to mention that it is humanly produced and constructed objectivity. With respect to the treatment of the power phenomenon, we have to mention Berger and Luckmann’s triad of “externalization,” “objectification” and “internalization” (Berger & Luckmann 1989 [1966]: 60–61). Human beings in processes of action and interaction, establishing institutions and cultural artifacts, externalize power differences and power relations; externalization leads to “objectivation” (Versachlichung) in the Hegelian and Marxian tradition. The objective world is determined by manifest power hierarchies that

(Counter-) Critique of Pierre Bourdieu  241 are experienced as the objective reality of society. “Internalization” refers to the process of socialization of human beings in which they incorporate objectively established power structures. Subjective reality is therefore prefigured by knowledge systems and material conditions that are predefined by established power structures (Dreher 2016: 56). Another decisive concept is “legitimation,” which has to be considered as “second-order” objectivation of meaning. Legitimation makes the “first-­ order” objectifications objectively available and subjectively plausible as a product of the institutionalization (Berger & Luckmann 1989 [1966]: 92). What the authors describe as the third level of legitimation refers to specialized legitimation theories of experts with particular knowledge to support an institution. This expert knowledge is, of course, used to exert power over those who are affected by the institution. On the fourth level of legitimation, specifically relevant for power phenomena, “symbolic universes” integrate different provinces of meaning and comprise the institutional order as a whole through symbolization. This way they legitimate the institutional order with reference to everyday transcendent realities, such as religious belief systems, scientific paradigms or political ideas; through symbolization, they are made present in the pragmatic world of everyday life. Through the presence of symbols in everyday life, these ideas occur within this reality. The symbolic universe is understood as a “matrix of all socially objectivated and subjectively real meanings” (Berger & Luckmann 1989 [1966]: 96) – the entire historical society as well as the individual is constituted within it and is therefore part of this universe. Therefore, a decisive factor for the functioning of symbolic universes is the fact that they again influence the socialization process in which subjective reality is shaped. This is why the authorities in power also control and protect symbolic universes, because exerting power, following Berger and Luckmann, “includes the power to determine decisive socialization processes, and, therefore, the power to produce reality” (Berger & Luckmann 1989 [1966]: 119) [emphasis in original]. Here, they anticipate what Bourdieu decades later considers as “symbolic power,” which depends on the way a worldview of a certain social group is founded on a specific reality (Bourdieu 1990b, 1991a, 1991b). The functioning of symbolic power is structured by objective expressions of reality, and at the same time it is structured by subjective models of perception and evaluation. Symbolic power is actually transferred to those who received recognition in order to enforce recognition themselves. It is based on the belief in the legitimacy of words, specifically of those in powerful positions who utter them.

The counter-critique Regarding Bourdieu’s critique of social constructivism, it becomes obvious that his theory of practice is rather flawed with respect to the subjectivist perspective, specifically related to the concept of habitus. The habitus is seen

242  Jochen Dreher as an internalized structure that determines how an individual acts in and reacts to the world with the function of generating practices, perceptions and attitudes that are regular without being consciously coordinated by any rule (Thompson 1992: 12). Bourdieu perceives the habitus as a generative system of “durable, transposable dispositions” that emerges out of the relation based on wider objective structures of the social world. These dispositions accompanied by proclivities to think, feel and act are the reason why the habitus is considered as a “conductorless orchestration” that gives systematicity, coherence and consistency to the practices of the individual. According to Bourdieu, the habitus includes a structured mode of perceiving and appreciating the lived world and leads to specific behaviors that reproduce the structural frames that first informed habitus. These structural frames, or what is simply considered “structure,” is nothing other than “the material conditions of existence characteristic of a class condition” (Bourdieu 2010 [1972]: 72). Therefore, the structural expression of power, the social structure, is represented in the habitus of the individual. The habitus in Bourdieu’s terminology is a socially constructed system of cognitive and motivating structures, which stem from materially determined and socially patterned structures. His well-known conviction is that the habitus is history transformed into nature (Bourdieu 2010 [1972]: 78); the habitus is considered the second nature or forgotten history, which – i­ mportant for the comparison with Berger and Luckmann – is considered “a spontaneity without consciousness or will” (Bourdieu 1990a: 56). This specific use of the term “spontaneity” refers to a nonconscious, prereflective activity that is as such unpredictable. Practice therefore is never perfectly predictable, but at the same time, it is important to mention that the individual’s habitus from Bourdieu’s standpoint is completely determined. The habitus is transmitted without conscious intention and is grounded on the intentionless invention of regulated improvisation (Throop & Murphy 2002: 187). As Bourdieu argues, each agent is the producer and reproducer of objective meaning, and “his actions and works are the product of a modus operandi of what he is not the producer and has no conscious mastery” (Bourdieu 2010 [1972]: 79). Bourdieu criticizes social scientists for trying to go back from the practice – the action they observe – to the motive of action. Allegedly, these ­researchers  – in Bourdieu’s view – insinuate a conscious, intentional and rational actor, an assumption that is supposed to be illegitimate. Agents are considered as acting based on consciously felt goals; according to Bourdieu, this is not the case, because one rather should argue that these are attempts on the part of the agents to retrospectively rationalize their behavior after it in fact has occurred spontaneously. We can part from the idea of a homogeneity of the habitus of the members of a group or class, but Bourdieu acknowledges that there are slight variations among the individual agents with their habitus. But each individual system of dispositions should be seen as a structural variant of all the other group or class habitus, expressing difference between trajectories and social positions within the class.

(Counter-) Critique of Pierre Bourdieu  243 Bourdieu’s theoretical outline does have a bias toward the objectivist model of social structure, and he only nominally deals with subjective experience, which for him is always inculcated by objective structures (Throop & Murphy 2002: 198). This means subjectivity is first and foremost shaped by objective power structures that are incorporated in the individual habitus. With such a focus on subjective reality, the individual actor is ultimately always the victim of the structure. What Bourdieu calls the agent is a predetermined instance externally controlled by structural preconditions, without the possibility of willingly reflecting upon these structural dependencies. Bourdieu’s perspective is therefore overly deterministic when it comes to experience and action. Individuals are not completely at the mercy of social structures, they also act according to their will, their wishes and their feelings. The individual consciousness does have willful, volitional, sensory and affective capacities that interfere with a relative degree of autonomy within conscious experience. Of course, there is a degree of automaticity in all our actions, but in our conscious life our intentions, motives and goals interfere in our actions. Just because a particular response, behavior, thought pattern, evoked emotion, feeling, or sensation is habitual or automatic does not mean that the individuals to some degree are not aware of the occurring habitual responses. The result of this conflation of automaticity, habituation and nonconscious processes provides, as Throop and Murphy argue, a fundamentally flawed model of human mentation and action, which is far removed from the processes of the direct apprehension of individuals that are related to their lived experience (Throop & Murphy 2002: 199). At this point of the argumentation, the disadvantages of practice theory occur, since the reflection on lived experience of agents is missing, which indeed is quite often strongly affected by consciously felt goals, feelings and ideas. The problem of Bourdieu’s conception lies in his emphasis on the nonconscious grounding of social action; this neglects the validity of the world as it is experienced by the actors who are obliged to organize their daily social interactions. If we follow Alfred Schütz (Schütz 2004 [1932]) and Berger and Luckmann, it is the lifeworld as a doxic realm that is experienced by the individual actors as a consequence of their interactions. A major part of the knowledge of the lifeworld is shared with other human beings and results from the social stock of knowledge. The lifeworld is, of course, determined by objective power structures, which are incorporated by the individual in his or her socialization. The lifeworld as pre-reflective structure gives meaning to the lived experience of the individuals. And if we take seriously the meaning structure of the lifeworld, we have to reconstruct what individual actors perceive in their lived experience. We have to interpret their experienced meaning; we have to investigate the “native accounts” that give us access to the meaning structure of the lifeworld. But this is exactly what Bourdieu rejects since he distrusts “native accounts” because they lead the researcher to form an “illusionary explanation” (Bourdieu 2010 [1972]: 19). For him, the investigator’s account is privileged and must concentrate on

244  Jochen Dreher uncovering the underlying unconscious determinants of behavior in the generative organization of habitus. From this perspective, meanings given to events, experiences and behaviors are trivialized and ignored (Throop & Murphy 2002: 199). Bourdieu’s theoretical conception does not offer the tools to analyze the meaning structure of the lifeworld of the individual. He is, however, able to analyze the predetermination of the habitus of the individual, insinuating a specific generative structure. But it would be highly important to investigate the doxic realm of the lifeworld that gives meaning to the lived experience of the individual actors. This can only be reached by a consequent analysis of the “native accounts” of the individuals; Bourdieu’s position is deficient with respect to this issue. What becomes obvious is the necessity of a theoretical outline that, at the same time, takes into account the predetermined structure as well as individual intentionality if Bourdieu’s task of bridging the gap between objectivism and subjectivism is supposed to be accomplished. With respect to the analysis of subjectivity, Bourdieu’s position lacks the theoretical tools to investigate the subjective lifeworld with its meaning giving structure, on the one hand; while on the other hand, it does not provide concepts for the analysis of action in its temporality and processuality, a task actually achieved with Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge. Bourdieu does not believe actions are often driven by conscious projects based on sedimented experiences from the past that are, of course, the result of culturally and materially patterned dispositions (Atkinson 2010: 14). If we reassume the discussion of the phenomenon of power, it becomes obvious that Bourdieu’s theory of practice does not offer a theoretical framework to investigate the potential of the individual to act against existing power structures. The individual actor as a point of resistance who reflects upon and consciously acts against imposed power structures cannot be convincingly theoretically captured by Bourdieu’s conception. But as we will demonstrate, dismissing the consciously and rationally acting individual proves to be highly problematic as far as the functioning of the phenomenon of power is concerned. The subjective constitution of power will be conceptualized specifically based on the idea of relevance, replacing the concept of habitus.

Power and relevance – subjective power constitution The strength of Berger and Luckmann’s approach lies in a description of the interplay of objective and subjective reality from the perspective of methodological individualism. It is the individual actor involved in producing and objectifying the social world that is the focus of the argumentation. The subjectivity of the individual actor interfering in processes of action is significant for this viewpoint. Power is not only part of the argumentation with respect to the objectivity of the social world; it is also involved in processes of action related to the subjectivity of the individual. And we are

(Counter-) Critique of Pierre Bourdieu  245 not just focusing on the habitus as a subjectively generated precondition of action prescribed by power structures. From the perspective of a constructivist theory of knowledge, I propose investigating the subjective dimension of power constitution in its relation to everyday life and structures of relevance of the individual. Specifically, the knowledge of everyday life as structured by systems of relevance forms the basis for the subjective dimension of power constitution. The problem of relevance is the problem of choice/ selection from the totality of the world, that is, from the existing universe of meaning, from which specific meanings are singled out. Relevances not only determine what becomes a topic that needs to be interpreted, their specific concurrence also characterizes the way in which the interpretation of a topic – for example, as unjust perceived hierarchies of power – takes place (Göttlich 2012: 73). Berger and Luckmann, in their first chapter on The Foundations of Knowledge in Everyday Life, underline the relevance structure of our knowledge of everyday life. Some of the relevances are determined by immediate pragmatic interests of mine, others by my general situation in society (Berger & Luckmann 1989 [1966]: 45). The authors follow Schütz reflections on the problems of relevance, which we must apply and expand in order to explain the subjective constitution of power. The notion of “relevance” specifically serves to explicate power at the interface of objective and subjective reality, since it functions as a regulative principle of reality construction. It coordinates the knowing and experiencing of objects and it serves the individual actor to define the situation (Nasu 2008: 91). The social world possesses a structure of meaning and relevance for all those who live, think and act in it (Schütz 1962 [1953]: 5f.). The social world with its power structures is already pre-interpreted and contains a stratification based on typifications and symbolizations that are unquestionably given to the members of the social group. The relevance concept enables us to investigate the subjective motivation of the individual entering into processes of action. The individual actor living in the world experiences him- or herself in a certain situation that – following the Thomas theorem (Thomas & Thomas 1928: 572) – has to be defined by him- or herself. The definition of the situation includes two decisive components: the first is the result of the ontological structure of the pregiven world and the other is defined by the actual biographical state of the individual. The first component cannot be changed by the individual and determines the imposed systems of relevance. These are not connected to his or her chosen interests and do not originate in acts of our discretion; there is no possibility of changing them. The second component determines our intrinsic systems of relevance that are related to our chosen interests, established by our spontaneous decision to solve a problem by our thinking, to attain a goal by our action and so on. (Schütz 1964 [1946]: 126f., 1970: 26ff.). Intrinsic systems of relevance make it possible to consciously take decisions to act against what we reflect upon as, for example, unjust hierarchies of

246  Jochen Dreher power related to inequality. The theory of relevance allows us to establish a bridge between subjective motivation and objective knowledge structures imposed on the individual (Dreher & López 2015: 214f.). Power structures as part of the objective reality of society are implemented in the stock of knowledge of the individual, specifically in the form of imposed systems of relevance. The subjective motivations of the individual actor depend on imposed and intrinsic relevances; at the same time, they are the starting point for challenging the objectively given determinations of imposed power structures. Furthermore, the theory of relevance developed by Schütz and Luckmann offers a differentiation between “motivational,” “topical” and “interpretative relevances,” which serves to illuminate determination and freedom of action and thus subjection to power structures on one side and the resistance to them on the other. Motivational relevances are used to conceptualize subjectively experienced motives in order to define the situation and describe the interests that are predetermined and prestructured by the objective reality. This concept refers to consciously and unconsciously perceived categories of power from the social stock of knowledge, which enter into the subjective stock of knowledge; they are involved in the motivation of our actions. On the basis of motivational relevances, the individual defines the situation thinkingly, actingly and emotionally, in order to be capable of coming to terms with the world. They depend on our taken-forgranted knowledge, and furthermore, they are determined by a pre-given world of meaning and the symbolic universes of the objective reality of the social world. First and foremost, they are based on routinized action and are not questioned by the individual actor (Schütz 2011 [1970]: 118ff.; Dreher 2016: 65). Motivational relevances refer to a general predisposition of the individual based on the social stock of knowledge as well as specific biographical experiences. In this sense, they are “minted” by established categories and structures of power that are expressed in the social stock of knowledge. Topical relevances, the second ideal type, differ from the first one since they actually do not account for what is taken for granted; they do not focus on taken-for-granted knowledge. These relevances become important when our taken-for-granted knowledge no longer helps us to solve a problem in the course of action; the actual stock of knowledge cannot offer the respective “answers” to solve a problem. And now the unknown and the unfamiliar comes into focus – a new idea and solution becomes relevant for our consciousness of knowing. In this case, the creative acquisition of additional knowledge becomes important, because the current, previously known explanations and worldviews are not sufficient to provide solutions to problems. Topical and motivational relevances may be either imposed or intrinsic. But specifically, intrinsically motivated topical relevances include the subjective potential to confront or challenge pre-given structural conditions, for example, when current work conditions are experienced as

(Counter-) Critique of Pierre Bourdieu  247 unequal and unjust from the perspective of the employees. In this way, objectively imposed power structures may be contested starting from topical relevances that reject taken-for-granted imposed knowledge (Dreher 2016: 65); based on topical relevances, action against imposed power hierarchies – as they are perceived as unjust – can be motivated and initiated. Exactly this circumstance or process of confrontation with and resistance against established power structures is outlined in Berger and Luckmann’s idea that legitimizing experts who appear as revolutionary ideologists question the predominant symbolic universe of the status quo. As far as interpretative relevances are concerned, these relevances are the outcome of former topical relevances. If a new solution for currently occurring problems in the course of action is found, it may be established as a typical solution for frequently occurring problems that are similar in their expression. Interpretative relevances are biographically and ontologically determined and have their origins in motivational relevances. Divergent new interpretations of the social reality (e.g., religious interpretations, magical understandings, or natural scientific explanations, etc.) can be used to propagate new perspectives and solutions to problems. New established legitimations of power circumstances or counter-perspectives against the predominant worldview, if they become topically relevant, can be very diverse. The individual actor has the freedom to accept or confront biographically, culturally or socially determined interpretative relevances that are “imprinted” by power structures. The theory of relevance, which is conceptually arranged on the interface of objective and subjective reality, is able to capture the dynamics of the social world, specifically when it comes to the analysis of the phenomenon of power. The social constructionist position of Berger and Luckmann complemented by the idea of relevance is not only able to explain the construction of objective power expressions as part of the social structure. It also includes the theoretical potential to conceptualize subjective power constitution related to the subjective stock of knowledge of the individual. Furthermore, with emphasis on a theory of action, we can explain how counterpower is established based on intrinsic systems of relevance. If current taken-forgranted, power-related prefigured solutions for problems are no longer adequate, there is a possibility for resisting the existing social conditions motivated by topical relevances. The individual actor has the capacity to creatively distance him- or herself from imposed relevances characterized by established ideas of power differentiation. Seen from a phenomenological perspective, counterpower is rooted in a general sentiment of suffering from the existing circumstances that cannot be tolerated. In a subsequent step, the suffering is reflected and interpreted as just or unjust and constitutes the conviction to act against the prevailing criticized circumstances. If this reflection upon the suffering from circumstances that are perceived as unjust does not take place, no counterreaction occurs and the individual remains in a stage of powerlessness.

248  Jochen Dreher The individual is the social entity with the potential to initiate changes starting from intrinsic topical relevances with the possibility – based on interpretative relevances – to formulate counter worldviews against the predominant symbolic universes that depend on the established power structures. The concept of relevance therefore appears to be more adequate for describing the dynamics of the social world than the concept of habitus.

Concluding remarks Berger and Luckmann’s constructionist sociology of knowledge offers significant ideas and conceptual tools to establish a theory of power. In contradiction to Bourdieu’s assumption, they do not remain in what is labeled as “subjectivism” but develop a theoretical conception that “bridges” the “epistemological gap” between objectivism and subjectivism by investigating the dialectic of the objective and subjective reality of the social world. Objective reality expresses manifest power structures that are internalized by individual actors and become part of the subjective reality. ­P restructured subjective reality based on the subjective stock of knowledge, including categories of power, interferes in human production and externalization, which leads to the objectifications of the social world. This constructivist position of power offers the theoretical framework to explain the power of and domination by elites propagating their symbolic universes independent of the substantial content of these worldviews. ­Specifically, the criticism of an “oblivion of power” proved erroneous with respect to Berger and Luckmann’s theoretical conception, since their particular sociology of knowledge offers the possibility of analyzing the “forgotten fields of power” by focusing on the genesis and relationality of knowledge. As far as the problem of power constitution related to the subjective reality of the individual is concerned, the deficiency of Bourdieu’s static concept of habitus becomes obvious, because individual motivation and action processes structured by power cannot be captured by his terminology. Following and going beyond the sociological outline of The Social Construction of Reality, I replace the concept of habitus with the concept of relevance. It particularly serves to analyze the subjective dimension of power constitution related to the interplay of imposed and intrinsic systems of relevance. The notion of relevance includes the theoretical potential to elucidate how the subjectivity of the individual actor interferes and steers the resistance against opposed objectified power structures. Based on topical relevances, new solutions for problems of action are created; revolutionary ideas are formulated against the status quo of established symbolic universes and their power elites. Counter-ideologies are implemented as interpretative relevances with the capacity to redefine the existing power hierarchies of a society. Based on Berger and Luckmann’s constructionist reflections, we are

(Counter-) Critique of Pierre Bourdieu  249 able to develop a theoretical scheme for an explanation of social change starting from the dialectical relationship of individual and society, using the concept of relevance to characterize the dynamics of the social world related to action. It would be erroneous to insinuate an oblivion of power with respect to Berger and Luckmann’s social constructionism – this perspective is predestined to found a theory of power.

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15 Habitualization and habitus On the relation between social constructivism and the theory of practice Gregor Bongaerts In spite of the differences between Berger and Luckmann’s social constructivism (cf. Berger & Luckmann 1966) and Bourdieu’s theory of practice (cf.  Bourdieu 1976), especially the differences regarding the role of power and class structures in both approaches (cf. Dreher 2016), one can obviously find some similarities. Both theories combine the so-called two sociologies, subjectivism and objectivism. Berger and Luckmann reconstruct both positions from the perspective of the phenomenological theory of consciousness and action and focus on how objective reality can be derived from subjectively meaningful social action and, vice versa, how the subjective reality of society is produced by learning the objective structures or, according to Berger and Luckmann, the knowledge structure of institutions. Bourdieu combines subjectivism and objectivism with his concept of habitus (cf. Bourdieu 1987: 97ff.), which is thought of as an incorporation of objective structures. In both theories, the marriage of the positions succeeds in the end with a concept of nonconsciousness. On the one hand, institutionalization presupposes the habitualization of action routines, meaning the oblivion of the origins of action routines that solve a social problem permanently (cf. Luckmann 1992: 134). On the other hand, in theory of practice, the nonconscious habitus explains why actors are familiar with the social world and why they are able to act more or less reasonably/appropriately in typical situations. Thus, habitualization and habitus uphold the social world as an objective reality and therefore as a world taken for granted. Both approaches seem to be complementary to the effect that theory of practice can make intelligible the way habitus work in the social world and social constructivism can explain how habitus are produced. In the following, I will argue that these similarities and complementarities are only apparent at the surface of the approaches. To get a better view on the relation of both theories, I will stress the differences that are grounded in two completely different theoretical architectures of social constructivism and theory of practice. Thus, and in contrast to Hubert Knoblauch’s article (cf. Knoblauch 2003), I treat the approaches as incompatible. I further assume that it is not possible to subsume one theory under the other if an aspect of one theory is reconstructed by means of

252  Gregor Bongaerts the other approach. Furthermore, it is not possible for social constructivism to adopt a concept of the theory of practice or vice versa without giving up essential elements of the specific theory and, thereby, the theory itself. Nevertheless, I assume that emphasizing the differences allows for an analysis of the ways in which the theories can learn from one another. I will demonstrate the contradictory foundations of both theoretical approaches as concern the different starting points of theory-building, the concept of “actor,” and most importantly, the different concepts of habitualization and habitus.

Starting points The first obvious difference between the two theoretical architectures is that social constructivism finds its theoretical point of departure in the tradition of phenomenology, with the structures of lifeworld reflecting a regional ontology as protosociology. This protosociology is thought of as mathesis universalis (cf. Luckmann 2007: 52) and is thus a common ground and common ontology for social sciences in general. Theory of practice, in contrast, does not find its foundation in any kind of explicit ontology but in research problems, both interdependent theoretical and empirical ones. The theories at hand in the 1950s could not make intelligible and explain the concrete empirical observations Bourdieu made in Algeria. The later work of Bourdieu sticks to a fundamental skepticism regarding universalistic assumptions underlying a theory. Instead, the theory of practice prefers a radical historicism, thus positioning universal assumptions at the end of historical research as a kind of remainder that cannot be historicized. Theory of practice is a problem-driven approach, not a philosophy of consciousness-driven one. One can observe this point as well in the distinction between subjectivism and objectivism. While social constructivism starts, ontologically, as subjectivism, it tries to make intelligible how it is possible that a primarily subjective meaningful action can transform into objective reality. Therefore, it remains a subjectivistic explanation of objectivism. This is also the reason why Bourdieu criticized social phenomenology (cf. Bourdieu 1987: 79ff.), because it seems to be a sociology that treats objective structures as objectified subjective meaning, thus redescribing the knowledge of social actors on a second degree/level while failing to explain the objective conditions under which this special knowledge is generated and the objective conditions which demonstrate why the socially dispersed knowledge varies in different societies. This, in short, is Bourdieu’s critique of social phenomenology and social constructivism. In any case, the main argument against subjectivism is that it allows for an understanding of the leeway social actors possess to do something different than the expected; however, it does not explain why actors follow historically established rules and norms. For that, Bourdieu needs objectivistic instruments that enable him to construct socialized and

Habitualization and habitus  253 socially “regulated” actors who do not have the choice to act against specific dispositions. This argument leads directly to the differences of the concepts of social actors in social constructivism, on the one hand, and in theory of practice, on the other.

Concept of actors The concept of actors the theory of practice offers is problem driven, as is the whole architecture of the theory. Bourdieu does not start, like social constructivism, with a clear concept of specific characteristics that constitute a proper social actor. He does not assume that specific characteristics are common for all social actors under all conditions. And for some reason, from the start he is not interested in finding such characteristics if they are not relevant to explicit and specific sociological questions. This means that if they can be treated as trivial, they are a condition sine qua non of social phenomena. In other words, if the characteristics can be treated as a trivial infrastructure that is necessary for social processes in general, these characteristics do not allow for a foundation upon which a theory can be constructed. Theory of practice, therefore, formulates concepts for actors that allow social actors to be considered as “effects” of the social structural conditions under which they are socialized. The first time Bourdieu engages with general anthropological questions about actors is in his book Cartesian Meditations (cf. Bourdieu 2001: 212), which appeared at a decidedly late point in his career. In this writing, he stresses that actors do have a tendency to want to be acknowledged by other actors, and in this tendency lies the root of social order, which largely is an order of social inequality; basically, an order of symbolic power. That is the only general assumption of actors Bourdieu makes without solving a concrete research problem. In his early works, the problem is an empirical one: The Kabylian actors could not adapt to the new economic expectations the colonial power brought into their region. It was especially notable that actors could not generate appropriate goals for their future actions if they lived under conditions of the “subproletariat” (cf. Bourdieu 2000: 87ff.), that is, if they had extremely limited economic resources. Rational choice theory and structuralism could not explain this phenomenon. Bourdieu needed new theoretical instruments. Later in his work, in the 1970s, he used the term habitus to name his concept for explaining social actions in regard to the empirically observable variances of actors’ conduct under similar ­conditions. Theoretically, and in connection with the concepts of “social space” and “social field,” the concept of habitus solved the problem of understanding and explaining the genesis of the variance of actors’ preferences and actions regarding objective structures. Put differently, it answers, Who creates the creators? (cf. Bourdieu 1993: 197ff.) This formula wraps up the main critique against every action theory that exclusively places focus on the perspective of the participants, the actors

254  Gregor Bongaerts themselves. Instead, theory of practice diverges from the subjectivistic perspective of the participants in order to generate a surplus knowledge, which enumerates the sociological causes for the differences of actors living under different circumstances. Therefore, theory of practice describes social reality mainly, but not exclusively, from the perspective of the observer. Sociology needs both the perspective of the actors to understand their orientation in social reality and the perspective of the objectivist observer to explain this subjective orientation. In Bourdieu’s words, sociology needs a “double breach” (cf. Bourdieu 1998: 83ff.). A sociology that sticks to just one description is, from this point of view, incomplete. Thus, from the perspective of theory of practice, social constructivism is incomplete. What is more, it is trivial in regard to its ontological concept of actors, which, on the one hand, explicates merely an infrastructure for social action and, on the other hand, runs the risk that this infrastructure is simply a naturalization of a sociohistoric embedded understanding of actors. In setting a fixed concept of actors, social constructivism gives up the control over this concept and is not able to test whether the concept fits for all social realities.1 Theory of practice, in contrast, tries to control this problem by reconstructing the historically specific actor. Assumptions that are made about actors are, therefore, assumptions that answer questions that arise from empirical fieldwork. The generalization of the habitus concept is nothing more than an assumption that has proven useful for understanding and explaining why actors are obviously not able to change their preferences of action and conduct through free will. It also explains why social order is usually relatively stable. The theoretical concepts of theory of practice are thus held up as answers to concrete research questions not because of the plausibility of a protosociological description of the existential relation of consciousness to the (life-) world.

Habitus and habitualization One can think of habitualization as the process by and through which habitus are acquired. And this understanding of habitualization is very plausible, at least at first glance. Hubert Knoblauch (cf. Knoblauch 2003) has shown in a convincing way how to think of both concepts as complementary ones. The problem in approximating both concepts lies, however, in the fundamental differences of the action theories of social constructivism, on the one hand, and theory of practice, on the other. The first difference is a consequence of the problem-driven theoretical architecture of theory of practice. Like every other concept of the theory, habitus is, as I have shown above, the answer to concrete research questions. In this respect, the concept does not presuppose a specific ontology or an ontology in general.2 The concept finds its ground solely in responding to and answering the questions related to why actors act and why they are not able to change their ways of action and conduct simply through insight and free will.

Habitualization and habitus  255 In answering these questions in more detail, however, it is necessary to explicate some implied assumptions regarding the logic of action and actors. Bourdieu implanted the concept of habitus in his theoretical framework and defined it as a system of dispositions of perceiving, thinking and acting (cf. Bourdieu 1987: 102). It works as a principle for producing conduct and action, as modus operandi (cf. Bourdieu 1987: 106). As such a principle, it is the unconscious foundation for every possible conscious action. It can be seen as a socialized infrastructure of action and as conditio sine qua non for a social actor who is to be acknowledged as such by other social actors. Therefore, the core of the concept is “nonconsciousness.” The practical sense (cf. Bourdieu 1987: 122), which is acquired by the habitus, is a nonconscious orientation that leads to the production of conduct and actions. It adapts the actor and the actions to a situation, and, in case the habitus does not match with the situation, it generates inappropriate action and conduct. The phenomenological description of habitus as practical sense places emphasis on phenomena like taste, a feeling for appropriate and inappropriate behavior, as well as distinctions to classify social reality, including sympathy and antipathy not only for individuals but also for social groups. Habitus and practical sense do not seem, according to such kinds of phenomena, to be routinized actions that were initially conscious and reflexive (cf. Bongaerts 2008). To acquire antipathy for individuals or groups is, to be sure, learned emotional behavior, but it is learned in a different way than more technical actions. More technical actions are, however, included in the focus of the concept of the habitualization of social constructivism. This is necessarily so, because social constructivism explicates the development of institutions as a process in which habitualized actions are typified to solve permanent social problems. Thereby, habitualization is thought of as consciously planned action that becomes a routine in the sense that the action can later take place without further conscious planning. In this way, one can learn to brush his or her teeth or to drive a car or to clean his or her apartment and so on. At first, there is a conscious plan for the action, an intended goal. In a second phase, the actors practice the action, so that the abilities of the body are learned and routinized. The process is finished when the typical action can be actualized automatically when a typical situation is perceived. The originally intended goals of the action successively sink into oblivion (cf. Luckmann 1992: 134). In theory of practice, it is not presupposed that the habitualized dispositions are intended action before they become habitus. On the contrary, it is essential for the term habitus that the learned dispositions are not under the “control” of the actor. The learning process is understood rather as sociopsychological conditioning, which proceeds “by the way.” The dispositions of habitus comprehend other phenomena of action than initially intended, including technically executed actions. One does not learn the dislike of certain foods or art or social groups on purpose. One does not plan to not like food/art/groups and then routinize that action. The incorporated practical sense can hardly be explained by purposeful learning.

256  Gregor Bongaerts

Concluding remark To conclude, I would like to take a moderate position in regard to the relation of both theoretical approaches. I argued that theory of practice and social constructivism are incompatible because of their completely different theoretical architectures and theoretical “attitudes.” The differences between a theory that is based on an ahistoric, regional ontology of actors and a theory that is problem driven and historic at the core of its concepts are not to be overcome. But that does not necessarily mean that both approaches cannot learn from one another. This learning, however, should take place within the boundaries of each theoretical framework. As I mentioned in the beginning, it is not possible to extract a concept from one theory and then transpose it upon another without violating the theory in focus. Instead, it is possible and maybe fruitful to observe the theory of practice from the point of view of social constructivism and vice versa in order to both observe social constructivism from the point of view of theory of practice and to identify phenomena in the opposite theory that are different. If such phenomena are identified, one can try to reconstruct them in terms of his or her own theoretical approach. I want to illustrate this strategy briefly with two examples drawing on the distinction of habitualization and habitus: 1 Social constructivism has, as I have implied, difficulties in reconstructing tacit knowledge like the dispositions of habitus, because learning, routinization and habitualization are thought of as initially intended actions which then sink into oblivion. Social constructivism can learn from theory of practice that tacit knowledge, which primarily is an incorporated knowledge, plays a main role in reproducing social order. Social constructivism could try to reconstruct the acquirement of tacit knowledge, which is essentially not a reflective conscious process, in modeling situations such as behavior settings in which actors are socialized and make experiences, some of which are conscious and some of which are not. Behavior settings comprehend the entities (things and other actors) and the organization of situations that affect and regulate conduct and thus condition behavior. Phenomenologically, it is possible to focus on the behavior and conduct that are generally not part of the plan of an action, for instance, the gestures and mimics that accompany and support intended speech. In reconstructing the interaction of this conduct and the structure of situations, the conditions of acquirement of tacit knowledge, meaning habitus, might be reconstructed. 2 Theory of practice has problems in considering the subjective perspective of the actors and in analyzing how exactly this perspective is involved in and interplays with the reproduction of social order. Understood as a genuine research problem, theory of practice has difficulties in analyzing social action and interaction on the micro-level. Theory

Habitualization and habitus  257 of practice can learn from social constructivism how actors typify situations, how actors understand what others do and what role typified and objectified knowledge plays in these processes. Theory of practice can launch a subjectivist analysis of social situations from the point of view of the participants if it does not forget to control the subjective knowledge against the background of objectively constructed social structures. The typified knowledge and the orientations and strategies of action may be different if and when the positions of the actors within the social space and the plurality of social fields are different. Surplus knowledge, in contrast to subjective knowledge, is gained by determining the position of actors within objectively constructed social structures. Nevertheless, the subjective orientation has to be considered and reconstructed to fully understand the ways and mechanisms that produce, reproduce and transform social order and how habitus interplays with permanently changing situations. Thus, given the fact that both approaches are mutually exclusive does not mean that it is not fruitful to compare the different concepts in order to highlight the strategic points at which they can learn from each other.

Notes 1 This effect of protosociology is especially obvious in Luckmann’s article about the Grenzen des Sozialen, in which he analyzes the human conditions of ascribing actions to nonhuman social actors (cf. Luckmann 1980). 2 Nevertheless, one can make explicit the implicated ontological assumptions of “habitus,” but that does not change the fact that such assumptions are not the foundation of theory-building but rather are belated reflections.

References Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1966): The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Bongaerts, G. (2008): Verhalten, Handeln, Handlung und soziale Praxis. In: Raab, J. et al. (Eds.) Phänomenologie und Soziologie: Theoretische Positionen, aktuelle Problemfelder und empirische Umsetzungen. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 223–232. Bourdieu, P. (1976): Entwurf einer Theorie der Praxis auf der ethnologischen Grundlage der kabylischen Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, P. (1987): Sozialer Sinn: Kritik der theoretischen Vernunft. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, P. (1993): Soziologische Fragen. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, P. (1998): Praktische Vernunft: Zur Theorie des Handelns. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, P. (2000): Die zwei Gesichter der Arbeit Interdependenzen von Zeit- und Wirtschaftsstrukturen am Beispiel einer Ethnologie der algerischen Übergangsgesellschaft. Konstanz: UVK.

258  Gregor Bongaerts Bourdieu, P. (2001). Meditationen zur Kritik der scholastischen Vernunft. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Dreher, J. (2016): The Social Construction of Power: Reflections Beyond Berger/ Luckmann and Bourdieu. Cultural Sociology, 10(1), pp. 53–68. Knoblauch, H. (2003): Habitus und Habitualisierung: Zur Komplementarität Bourdieus mit dem Sozialkonstruktivismus. In: Rehbein, B. et al. (Eds.) Pierre Bourdieus Theorie des Sozialen. Konstanz: UVK, pp. 187–201. Luckmann, T. (1980): Über die Grenzen der Sozialwelt. In: Luckmann, T. L ­ ebenswelt und Gesellschaft. Grundstrukturen und geschichtliche Wandlungen. Paderborn: Schöningh, pp. 56–92. Luckmann, T. (1992): Theorie des sozialen Handelns. Berlin: de Gruyter. Luckmann, T. (2007): Lebenswelt, Identität und Gesellschaft: Schriften zur Wissensund Protosoziologie. Konstanz: UVK.

16 The Social Construction of Reality Traces and transformation Kenneth J. Gergen

My attempt in what follows is to offer an intellectual history in which Berger and Luckmann’s classic work has played a pivotal role. While this early work is no longer central to this story, its major thesis ultimately served as a conceptual catalyst for an intellectual transformation of major proportion. It is the stages of this transformation I wish to illuminate. Admittedly my account cannot be separated from my position as an American social ­scientist, confronted with a particular configuration of challenges and influences. However, the intellectual developments at issue have grown in significance, now moving globally; multiple perspectives are essential for gaining ­understanding and appreciation.1 In the following account I first consider, then, the controversial intellectual climate into which the Berger and ­Luckmann treatise arrived. Here their work played a key role in the shift from a foundationalist philosophic to a social account of science. In the subsequent stage, the rapidly accumulating scholarship in critical and literary domains began to undermine the assumptions of the social account, including those undergirding the Berger and Luckmann formulation. Ultimately emerging from these dialogues was an orientation to knowledge described as reflective pragmatism. In a third stage, a major shift occurred from attempts to ground a social epistemology to constructionism as a discourse of practice. Here we find an enormous range of professional practices inspired by constructionist discourse. Finally, I consider the way in which constructionist ideas opened a space for imaginative and ideologically sensitive theoretical departures. I conclude with a discussion of a newly emerging, relational conception of human action, one presaged by Berger and Luckmann, but now opening entirely new vistas of inquiry.

The gathering storm: the end of foundationalism The English translation of Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality, published in 1966, arrived in a period of intellectual and cultural upheaval. Indeed, the conditions of the times formed the very context that imparted such significance to the work.2 Of particular importance is that in both the United States and Europe, there was growing

260  Kenneth J. Gergen antagonism – particularly among the younger generations – toward the established structures of society. There were many reasons for the strikes and demonstrations of the times, but a primary target of critique was what was largely perceived as an unjust war in Vietnam. The scientific establishment was included in this critique, especially as its claim to ideological neutrality seemed disingenuous. Science seemed essentially serving as a handmaiden to military and societal control. The adulation enjoyed by science – the apex of modernity – was eroding. Likewise, logical empiricist philosophy of science, which had provided the foundations for both the natural sciences and the newly developing array of social sciences, became the subject of increasing skepticism. The critiques of Wittgenstein (1953) and Quine (1960) were among the most crippling. It was under these conditions that an opening developed for an alternative to the philosophically based logical empiricist account of science. The ground had been laid for a fully social theory of science by sociologists such as Durkheim (1915) and Mannheim (1985 [1936]). But it was the 1962 publication of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that was to carry the banner of transformation. Partly owing to its title – echoing the revolutionary spirit of the times – and partly to its rhetorical brilliance, the work became a major catalyst of critical reflection. As Kuhn demonstrated, what had been viewed as linear scientific progress in physics was not the result of increasingly accurate measures of the world, but a shift in paradigms of understanding. These paradigms were constituted primarily by agreements among enclaves of scientists in the assumptions that informed their inquiry. A shift in assumptions could bring into focus a new way of observing, understanding and making claims to knowledge. In bolder form, scientific knowledge is not driven by observation, but observation is driven by social interchange. Controversy was intense, and the scholarly outpouring enormous. It was into this controversy that the Berger and Luckmann volume arrived. The work was of signal significance for, unlike Kuhn, it offered a sophisticated and richly elaborated account of the social process out of which reality claims emerged. It also buttressed the arguments in the history of science – of which Kuhn was a part – with extensive deliberation in the sociology of knowledge. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, was the title of the work. Cadres of scholars from across the social sciences and the humanities were exploring the potentials of a social (as opposed to philosophical) view of science. Yet, there was no overarching term or phrase that united these efforts. Owing to the broad scope of the Berger and Luckmann volume, their choice of the phrase “social construction,” proved prescient. It enabled scholars from across disparate communities to recognize, appreciate and integrate the work of others. And it was this very breakdown in disciplinary restrictions that enabled diverse movements to unite in a major transformation in the concept and practice of knowledge-making.

Traces and transformation  261

Radical emancipation: the end of knowing While scholarly contributions to a social account of scientific knowledge have continued unabated, they have been accompanied by two other intellectual movements of substantial scope. These movements – emphasizing ideological critique and literary artifice – have both augmented the social view of science while simultaneously undermining the assumptions on which it rests. To put it differently, they have expanded the scope of a social constructionist vision, but transformed its premises. To expand, the ideological critique of knowledge claims gained prominence in the 1930s’ emergence of the Frankfurt School writings of ­Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse (Tarr 2011). Their critiques were both novel and unsettling as they thrust into question claims to knowledge, not in terms of evidence, but of their underlying ideology. This form of argument was easily grafted onto the social account of science, as it suggested (to use Kuhn’s terms) that the paradigms framing any given research project could be both ideological and politically freighted. Thus, lines of social inquiry were stimulated that illuminated, for example, the gender biases inherent in both biology (Martin 1987) and physics (Longino 1990). With Foucault’s (1980) writings on the ways in which knowledge claims subtly affect relations of power, the span of critical analysis was dramatically expanded. Minority groups from across the spectrum (e.g., African American, feminist, gay and lesbian), along with advocates for various social causes (e.g., environmentalist, anti-psychiatry, economic equality), were furnished with a means of challenging empirical knowledge claims with a logic that could not convincingly be refuted.3 While Berger and Luckmann made note of the important place of language in their sociology of knowledge, their formulation was scarcely prepared for the ferment occurring in the fields of literary theory and rhetorical studies. In both cases, scholars went on to demonstrate the extent to which scientific accounts of the world are not so much dependent upon or driven by the world in itself, as they are on our discursive conventions (Goodman 1978; McClosky 1985). Regardless of “the way the world is,” we must rely on circumscribed traditions of language to describe and explain this world. Both the critical and the literary/rhetorical movements added substantial scope and power to the social accounts of knowledge. At the same time, however, they undermined the premises upon which these accounts were based. The problem was most acute in the social studies of science, because virtually all such analyses employed empirical data to justify their conclusions. If such data could not adequately provide the grounds for truth claims in the sciences, they could not then be used to justify their own proposals. Further, one might properly inquire into the ideological and political investments of such accounts. Did they not represent liberal and anti-­establishment interests? And finally, were the social accounts themselves not linguistically circumscribed and rhetorically fashioned? Is social construction itself not a social construction?

262  Kenneth J. Gergen With these two intellectual laminations added to the social account of knowledge, the premises of the Berger and Luckmann (1966) thesis could scarcely be sustained. As Berger and Luckmann had concluded, “our conception of the sociology of knowledge […] does not imply that [it] is not a science, that its methods should be other than empirical, or that it cannot be ‘value-free’” (p. 189). Now impugned, however, were both the status of empirical fact and the possibility of ideologically uninflected theory.4 More generally, these additional lines of argument essentially threw into question the entire modernist project: The presumption that the application of astute reasoning, combined with systematic observation, could provide continuous progress toward the goals of mastery, well-being and survival. Through reasoning itself, reason lost its command.

From impasse to outcome: the pragmatic turn These three intellectual movements – the social account of science, critical studies and the literary/rhetorical movement – converge into what may be termed the social constructionist dialogues. Together they have virtually eliminated foundationalist philosophy of science from the contemporary agenda in philosophy. At the same time, they have undermined interest in establishing foundations for an alternative epistemology – including the social constructionist. The Cartesian dream of an inclusive rational framework for directing action lost its momentum; in Berger and Luckmann’s terms, claims to knowledge – regardless of origins – could no longer be legitimized. And, because the teeth were simultaneously removed from critical analysis (unable to justify its own critique), one could begin to see the demise of the social constructionist dialogues themselves. Interestingly, the reverse occurred: Constructionist-informed initiatives increased in vitality. The sources of this explosion in activity might be traced to the contributions of Wittgenstein, Foucault and John Dewey to the constructionist dialogues, and particularly to their strong pragmatist leanings. If one abandoned the quest for foundationalist metatheory, logic or legitimation, there still remained the question of the resulting outcomes. What is achieved by virtue of a given standpoint, paradigm, theory, empirical study or construction of the world? What doors to action are opened; what is no longer permitted; what forms of life do we create or subvert? Put in these terms, all traditional forms of knowledge-making could be resuscitated. Traditional empirical work could be honored (or not) depending on what such research contributed (or not) to the world. And further, all those voices marginalized by the dominant order now had a place in the agora of reality-making. What could they offer, how would these offerings play out for our future? This did not mean an “anything goes” mentality; indeed, the criteria of acceptability were multiplied. For what constitutes a useful contribution in one enclave, may be deeply oppressive in many others. The rights to reality were open to all, but so were the rights to moral, political or ideological resistance.

Traces and transformation  263 In short, emerging from the constructionist dialogues was a general orientation of reflective pragmatis (cf. Gergen 2015a). The concern with societal outcomes was already evidenced in much critical work, oriented as it was to liberating readers from taken-for-granted assumptions. The outpouring of books and articles beginning with the phase “The social construction of…” has been continuous, with targets including mental health, geography, sexuality, race, homicide, gender, age, deviance, the theory of evolution, among many others. Yet, many professionals found means of employing constructionist ideas to transform practices more directly. Two illustrations are illuminating: First is the virtual explosion of research methods or practices in the social sciences. Empiricist foundationalism had come to dominate 20th-century social science. As a result, all those orientations that differed in assumptions – such as phenomenology, psychoanalysis, ethnography and participatory action research – were either disparaged, suppressed or eliminated. The focus of research was radically narrowed to prediction and control, with experimental methodology and statistical analysis considered the gold standard. With the development and expansion of constructionist ideas, the rationale for such restrictions evaporated. Nurtured especially by the critical work of feminist, gay and lesbian, humanist and African American enclaves, there was increased motivation to develop alternatives. Traditional claims to value neutrality seem disingenuous, and the manipulative and distancing practices of experimental research smacked of exploitation. How else could inquiry proceed? First, this meant a revival in a range of the otherwise marginalized practice. Feminists also began to develop a range of research practices congenial with an ethic of caring (Gilligan 1982). Constructionist researchers launched a new range of research practices, including narrative study, discourse analysis and conversation analysis among them. The focus on the place of narrative in constructing worlds stimulated enormous range of inquiry – spanning the humanities and the social sciences. Most importantly, with the traditional strictures now removed, a space was opened for the imagination to soar. The result was a plethora of newly minted practices – auto-ethnography, portraiture, critical hermeneutics, visual methodology, online ethnography, creative nonfiction and arts-based research (cf. e.g., Denzin and Lincoln 2005). Collectively, these many forms of practice are placed under the rubric of qualitative inquiry, in contrast to the quantitative methods preferred in the empiricist tradition. However, the label is misleading in two senses: First, many of the newly emerging practices have made use of empiricist assumptions (e.g., value neutrality, independent subject matter, subject/­object dichotomy). Much that appears under the banner of qualitative inquiry is simply empiricism without numbers. Second, there are substantial differences among the various qualitative practices in terms of assumptions, values and pragmatic interests. Most interesting from a constructionist standpoint, however, is that while vast differences prevail, there is relative equanimity in terms of relationships among enclaves. As Wertz (2011) has

264  Kenneth J. Gergen put it, the qualitative movement is essentially pluralist in character. Mutual openness prevails. In effect, without a metatheoretical foundation, there are no grounds for mutual dismissiveness. These innovations in the practice of social inquiry are currently changing the character of social science. However, there is a second significant illustration of the constructionist-based shift toward pragmatic outcomes. Especially relevant to the continuing significance of the Berger and Luckmann thesis is the metamorphosis of constructionist ideas from a theory of knowledge to a discourse of practice. From a metatheoretical perspective, fields of study such as physics, chemistry, economics, literary study and so on can be viewed as communities of practice. At the same time, there is an active and expanding community of practice in which the social constructionist vocabulary plays a central role. Constructionist ideas essentially constitute a vocabulary of practice. Here, both scholars and practitioners explore ways of using the vocabulary in their research, creative theorizing and innovations in practice. A significant illustration is furnished by developments in the therapeutic world. The traditional orientation to psychotherapy is based on assumptions borrowed from medicine. That is, bizarre behavior and intense anguish are constructed as “illnesses,” for which psychotherapy should furnish a “cure.” The result over time has been the development of an enormous classification system for mental illness (as represented in successive volumes of the DSM), the dissemination of mental health information to the general public, and institutional requirements for assigning labels to those providing help. The results of these efforts, now spanning a century, is that the number of people defined as mentally ill has continuously increased (now numbering more than 1 in 10 in the United States), and the amount spent on psychotropic drugs has entered into the multibillions of dollars. As constructionists argue, the very use of mental illness terms to define people with personal problems leads them to construct themselves in these terms, thus expanding the dependence on therapists and psychotropic drugs. The outpouring of constructionist critique of deficit discourse has been a significant precursor to a creative and far-reaching search for alternatives. ­ avid Drawing from the constructionist dialogues, Michael White and D ­Epston (1990) developed the concept and practice of narrative therapy. “Problems” on this account do not reside in the individual mind, but within the individual’s narrative. The therapeutic challenge is thus to work toward transforming the narrative. In the same way, a range of brief therapies and strength-based therapies (de Shazer 1994) shift the focus of conversation from what the individual lacks or is anguished about, to positive potentials. Collaborative therapies (Anderson & Gehart 2006), in turn, emphasize the power of joining with clients in searching for more viable life forms. All these practices avoid using diagnostic categories; all center on ways of reconstructing reality. In related initiatives, Tom Andersen (1991) and his colleagues have developed the practice of reflecting teams, that is, teams of therapists who offer clients multiple ways of understanding their condition

Traces and transformation  265 and potentials. Jakko Seikkula and his Finnish colleagues (Seikkula & Arnkil 2006) have developed the practice of dialogic meetings as a means of subverting the process of “expert diagnosis.” In the initial consultation, multiple parties share their views of “the problem” and potential directions for action. Client difficulties are ameliorated with help from their families, friends, teachers, coworkers and others, including medical personnel, social workers and therapists. Dialogic meetings have succeeded in reducing the number of patients in mental hospitals and lowering dependency on drugs. These developments in the therapeutic world are simply illustrations of creative endeavors across a vast spectrum. In the world of organizational development, for example, constructionist-informed practices have given rise to an entirely new way of transforming organizations. Rather than studying the organization, and using the results of empirical study or strategic planning, innovators focus on “changing the conversations” within the organization (Bushe & Marshak 2015). As participants co-construct the meaning, values and activities of the organization, so they can generate routes to change (Cooperrider & Whitney 2005). In education, scholars and practitioners have relied on constructionist ideas to transform pedagogy, curricula, school administration and school culture (Dragonas et al. 2015; Lewis & Winkelman 2016). In the area of healthcare, we find constructionist ideas emerging in practices of collaborative medicine, hospital reorganization and doctor-patient relations (Charon 2006; Uhlig & Raboin 2015). In peace-building, constructionist ideas have stimulated the development of new practices for traversing boundaries of understanding (Herzig & Chasin 2005; Winslade & Monk 2008). Additional contributions of constructionist ideas to practice may be found in practical theology (Hermans et al. 2002), geography (Henderson & Waterstone 2009), economics (Granovetter 1992), social work (Witkin 2011), counseling (Monk et al. 2007) and nursing (Kelly & Symonds 2003).5 It should be noted that one of the major reasons for constructionist ideas having been so important to communities of practice lies in their implicit optimism. Fields of study like sociobiology, neuroscience and experimental psychology are based on the presumption of a fundamental human nature. Human patterns of selfishness, aggression, racism, philandering, ­power-seeking and so on are locked into our biological system. For constructionists, however, these very constructions of the world are inimical in their consequences. They invite a conservative posture: “After all, there is no way you can change human nature.” For constructionists, human action largely emerges from social negotiation. As we come to agree on what is real, moral, rational or worthwhile, we fashion our patterns of acceptable activity. In this context, the potential for change is as close at hand as the next conversation.

Reconstructing the social: the relational turn As just discussed, the constructionist dialogues have had a liberating effect on forms of inquiry in the social sciences. A pluralist orientation toward

266  Kenneth J. Gergen research is pervasive. This same spirit of liberation has also entered the domain of theory. With the increasing domination of empiricist foundationalism in the social sciences, the status of theory had diminished. After all, it was argued, a theoretical proposal without supporting evidence was mere armchair speculation. In effect, theory should serve a summary, integrating function, a means of drawing together empirical findings into a coherent whole. The constructionist dialogues struck a major blow to this inductivist view, in demonstrating how a socially negotiated fore-structure of understanding was essential to carrying out research at all. Without a world of constructed realities, there was nothing to study. In this context, creative theoretical work is at a premium. As new worlds are opened theoretically, there are also new ways of seeing and new routes to action. To illustrate the impact of this line of reasoning, I wish to focus on a single but highly significant development in theory, one that is directly stimulated by the constructionist dialogues themselves. To set the context, one of the chief problems confronted in the Berger and Luckmann treatise inheres in their concept of social life. At the outset, they draw from two separate traditions of discourse. On the one hand, Berger and Luckmann draw from the individualist legacy in Western culture, that is, a conception of society composed of single individuals, each living in a subjective world. At the same time, they draw from the more recent, macro-sociological legacy in which the concept of society (or social structures) is essentially what Berger and Luckmann, posit as an “objective reality.” Neither of these legacies, alone or in combination, offers a viable conception of social life, a conception that permits an understanding of the origins of social life. If there is to be a social life, how does it become organized; how does it change (or not) over time; how are we to account for conflict? Such questions would seem to require a viable account of communication. With respect to the individualist conception, it has remained impossible for scholars to solve the problem of communication. How is it that one’s subjective world can be understood by another? This has been a problem not only for those attempting to develop forms of verstehende Psychologie but also for ­ uckmann (1966) several centuries of hermeneutical philosophy. Berger and L speak of this process in terms of a “taking over” of the world of others. But how this occurs remains mysterious. They speak only of a “complex form of internalization” in which “I not only ‘understand’ the other’s momentary subjective processes, I ‘understand’ the world in which he lives, and that world becomes my own” (p. 130). We are still left, then, with the major hermeneutic conundrum of how we can adequately draw judgments about private meanings from public display, when we have no means of knowing how these realms are connected, nor the ability to verify a judgment save through further display (for further discussion, see Gergen 1994a). The sociological legacy offers no panacea for this problem as communication is a process that we conceptualize as taking place within a society and its structures. It is communication that enables a social group or structure

Traces and transformation  267 to become solidified and identified as such. In effect, macro-sociology must presuppose a relationship among its units in order to realize intelligibility.6 Yet there does remain a further alternative to theorizing the social world and the potential for communication. If we remove individual subjectivity from the center of analysis, along with macro-social entities, there remains an alternative largely underdeveloped within the historical context of Berger and Luckmann’s writings. This is the discourse of the micro-social world, lying between the macro and the individual. To be sure, there were intellectual stirrings available at the time of Berger and Luckmann’s treatise. There was first a range of symbolic interactionist writings, with George Herbert Mead’s Mind, Self and Society preeminent. As Mead proposed, there is no thinking, or indeed any sense of being a self, that is, independent of relations with others. For Mead (1934), No hard-and-fast line can be drawn between our own selves and others, since our own selves exist and enter as such into our experience only in so far as the selves of others exist and enter as such in our experience also. (p. 164) Also available was the expanding dialogue that came to be identified as relational psychoanalysis. There had long been discontent with Freud’s relative inattention to social as opposed to psychodynamics. However, the most concerted attempt to shift the focus to social dynamics emerged in the object relations movement of the 1950s. In this case, theorists variously reasoned that the individual’s fundamental drives are more social than ­pleasure-seeking in their aims. Thus, relational processes move onto center stage from childhood into adult years. In the hands of analysts such as ­Fairbairn, Mahler and Klein, the focus turned to the origins and dynamics of subjective interrelationships.7 While these and other entries into a micro-social understanding of social life were available as theoretical resources, they were also flawed. They all sustained the impasse of mind/world dualism.8 How can one mental world grasp, penetrate or comprehend the mental world of another? It is this impasse that gave way in the decades following the publication of Berger and Luckmann’s prominent work. This transformation in micro-social theorizing can be traced to three specific movements in the social constructionist dialogues. First, as described earlier, there was the liberation of the imagination sparked by constructionist scholarship. The theoretical exploration of the micro-social world stood as an open and yet to be explicated door. Second, a pointed reason for entering this door emerged from the critical movement in constructionism. For a wide range of critics, Western individualism became a prime target for critical reflection. As critical anthropologists made clear, the Western concept of the individual self is a cultural invention, and to presume the existence of mental concepts such as cognition

268  Kenneth J. Gergen and emotion in studying other cultures is a subtle form of imperialism. Further, as critics variously proposed (Wallach & Wallach 1983; Bellah et al. 1985; Sampson 2008), the primacy of the individual subject has injurious consequences for Western culture itself. The placement of the psyche at the center of human action lends itself to narcissism, instrumentalism, greed, loneliness, callousness and implicitly a “war of all against all.” The challenge, however, is to generate an alternative vision of human functioning. Perhaps the major impetus toward a micro-social theorizing – including both communication and human functioning more generally – emerged from the pivotal place of language in the development of constructionist ideas. There was first of all Wittgenstein’s (1953) replacement of the picture theory of language with a use-based vision: The meaning of words arises in their social use. Implicitly, the metaphor of the language game lends itself to a micro-social analysis. Importantly, however, it is the game that takes prominence and not the individual players. Resonating with Wittgenstein’s vision, writers in the Bakhtin circle (Bakhtin 1981) pointed to dialogue – as opposed to mental functioning – as the primary source of meaning. Most importantly, dialogue is conceptualized as a super-individual process. It cannot be performed by a single individual alone. One may thus view relational process as a logical prior to individual functioning. Until there is dialogue, one cannot speak meaningfully of an individual or a self. These intellectual currents flowed together in what may be viewed as a conceptual innovation of major proportion. In the social sciences, description and explanation have been dominated by a logic of separable units – stimulus, response, the individual, the group, the institution and so on. The relationship between the units has remained problematic, with cause and effect the most widely embraced solution. In contrast, implicit in the metaphors of the language game and the dialogue is the end of entification, or the fundamental separation of units. Rather, we move from “things in themselves” to relational process. “This” is only “this” by virtue of its relationship to “that” and vice versa. In sociology, one could begin to sense the potential of this shift in the early writings of Garfinkel (1967) and colleagues in the ethnomethodology movement. A “suicide” could only be such, for example, by virtue of a social negotiation. As discourse analysts further began to document, one could illuminate the process of negotiation solely with reference to the discursive moves of the participants. Recourse to subjectivity or “meanings in the head” was unnecessary. Such post-structural arguments are extended in Gergen’s (2009) writing on “relational being.” As first argued, discourse about the mind originates within a relational or dialogic process, and its chief function is serving the relational process itself. That is, such discourse functions pragmatically in steering the direction of relational action. In this context, Potter and Wetherell (1987) take “attitudes” out of the head and focus on the positions people take up in discursive relations; Billig (1996) proposes that reasoning is essentially an exercise in rhetoric, and a variety of scholars

Traces and transformation  269 have explored memory as a social process (Middleton & ­Edwards 1990). As Gergen (2009) further proposes, mental discourse is a constituent of bodily performances, and these performances are embedded with larger interaction scenarios. Thus, for example, anger is a culturally scripted pattern of action and embedded within a more or less routine scenario in which others participate. On this account, emotions are not possessions of individuals, but of a relational process. From this position, it is a short step to understanding all meaningful action as originating within, and sustained (or not) within a relational process.9 This line of theorizing resonates also with a range of writings on practice theory (Nicolini 2012; Raelin 2016). Practice theory, like constructionism more generally, is not so much a unitary theory as a dialogue among theorists. Central to much of practice theory is the assumption of interlocking actions or performances. At the same time, such theory also recognizes the place of material settings, objects, technologies and the like within the interlocking array. Thus, we move from a specifically micro-social realm into a more holistic conception of a relational process. As Buddhist philosophers might put it, we arrive at a consciousness of codependent origination.

Coda: reconstructing constructionism In retrospect, I must again underscore the way in which the present account itself emerges from a social process. The account is neither a map nor a mirror, but an entry into a continuing reflection on our trajectory through time, its significance and potential. But writing now from a relational perspective, we can also see the way in which Berger and Luckmann constitute what Derrida would call an “absent presence.” The specifics of their initial formulation may no longer drive our scholarly dialogues, but traces of their work pervade and inform these various developments. They offered to the scholarly community a rich discursive structure, but ultimately they are not in control of its meaning. As scholars, we have “run away with it,” and future scholars will, as Wittgenstein would put it, take our own writings “on a holiday.” This inability to control our meaning is not a failing of any kind, but a recognition that it is only together that we keep meaning alive.

Notes 1 In addition to the common (though inconsistent) conflating of constructionism and constructivism, one may wish to contrast a variety of understandings and interpretations of social construction: for example, Hacking (1999), Best and Harris (2012), Gergen (1994a), Heiner (2015), Shotter (2010) and Lock and Strong (2012). 2 As Berger and Luckmann note in their Introduction, their work deviates from the mainstream sociological interests of the times. 3 Should targets of critique defend themselves, they ran the risk of seeming simply to be protecting self-interest. The one argument left to them was essentially that

270  Kenneth J. Gergen employed by the critic, to wit, the critique itself was ideologically or politically motivated. 4 Interestingly, Adorno (1985) had criticized Mannheim for not being able to apply his own theory of knowledge to himself. Much the same critique now applies to the Berger and Luckmann proposals. 5 For a broad review of research stimulated by social constructionist ideas, see Holstein and Gubrium (2008). 6 Berger and Luckmann confront an additional problem in proposing a relationship between society and subjectivity. Remove society, and there is no subjectivity; remove all subjectivity and there is no society. The two are essential redefinitions of each other. 7 In more recent years, relational theorists such as Mitchell (1988) and Aron & Harris (2011) abandoned the search for truth in psychoanalysis and centered their concerns on the interdependence of the analyst and analysand in constructing reality. 8 Also at hand were the more mystical writings of Martin Buber (1923) and Vygotsky’s (1978) illumination of relational learning. 9 While not constructionist in their origins, the participatory ontology of Westerman (Westerman & Steen, 2007), Slife’s relational ontology (2004) and Hermans’ dialogical self-theory (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010) all lend themselves to this more radical form of relational theory.

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Traces and transformation  271 Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds.) (2005) [2001]: Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. De Shazer, S. (1994): Words Were Originally Magic. New York: W.W. Norton. Dragonas, S. et al. (Eds.) (2015): Education as Social Construction. Chagrin Falls, OH: WorldShare Books. Durkheim, E. (1915): Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foucault, M. (1980): Power/Knowledge. New York: Pantheon. Garfinkel, H. (1967): Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Gergen, K.J. (1994a) [1993]: Toward Transformation in Social Knowledge. London: Sage. Gergen, K.J. (2009): Relational Being, Beyond Self and Community. New York: ­Oxford University Press. Gergen, K.J. (2015a): From Mirroring to World-making: Research as Future Forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45(3), pp. 287–310. Gilligan, C. (1982): In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goodman, N. (1978): Ways of World Making. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Granovetter, M. (1992): Economic Institutions as Social Constructions: A Framework for Analysis. Acta Sociologica. 35(1), pp. 3–11. Hacking, I. (1999): The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Heiner, R. (2015) [2005]: Social Problems: An Introduction to Critical Constructionism. New York: Oxford. Henderson, G. & Waterstone, M. (2009): Geographic Thought: A Praxis Perspective. New York: Routledge. Hermans, H.J.M. & Hermans-Konopka, A. (2010): Dialogical Self Theory: Positioning and Counter in a Globalized Society. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hermans, C.A.M. et al. (Eds.) (2002): Social Constructionism and Theology. Leiden: Brill. Herzig, M. & Chasin, L. (2005): Fostering Dialogue across Divides: A Nuts and Bolts guide from the Public Conversations Project. [pdf] JAMS Foundation. ­Available through: www.intergroupresources.com/rc/Fostering%20Dialogue%20 Across%20Divides.pdf [Accessed 29 January 2018]. Holstein, J.A. & Gubrium, J.F. (Eds.) (2008): Handbook of Constructionist Research. New York: Guilford. Kelly, A. & Symonds, A. (2003): The Social Construction of Community Nursing. London: Palgrave. Kuhn, T. (1970) [1962]: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lewis, R. & Winkelman, P. (2016): Lifescaping Practices in School Communities: Implementing Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry. New York: Routledge. Lock, A. & Strong, T. (Eds.) (2012): Discursive Perspectives in the Therapeutic Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Longino, H.E. (1990): Science as Social Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mannheim, K. (1985) [1936]: Ideology and Utopia: Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Harcourt.

272  Kenneth J. Gergen Martin, E. (1987): The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Boston, MA: Beacon. McClosky, D.N. (1985): The Rhetoric of Economics. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Mead, G.H. (1934): Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Middleton, D. & Edwards, D. (Eds.) (1990): Collective Remembering. London: Sage. Mitchell, S.A. (1988): Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis: An Integration. ­Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Monk, G.D. et al. (2007): New Horizons in Multicultural Counseling. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Nicolini, D. (2012): Practice Theory, Work, and Organization: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Quine, W.V.O. (1960): Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Potter, J. & Wetherell, M. (1987): Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behavior. London: Sage. Raelin, J.A. (Ed.) (2016): Leadership-as-Practice: Theory and Application. New York: Routledge. Sampson, E.E. (2008): Celebrating the Other: A Dialogic Account of Human Nature. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Seikkula, J. & Arnkil, T. (2006): Dialogic Meetings in Social Networks. London: Karnac. Shotter, J. (2010): Social Construction on the Edge. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Slife, B. (2004): Taking Practice Seriously: Toward a Relational Ontology. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 24(2), pp. 157–178. Tarr, Z. (2011): The Critical School: The Critical Theories of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. New York: Transaction Publisher. Uhlig, P. & Raboin, W.E. (2015): Field Guide to Collaborative Care: Implementing the Future of Health Care. Overland Park, KS: Oak Prairie Health Press. Vygotsky, L. (1978): Mind and Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wallach, M. & Wallach, L. (1983): Psychology’s Sanction for Selfishness. San ­Francisco, CA: Freeman. Wertz, F.J. (2011): The Qualitative Revolution in Psychology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 39(2), pp. 77–104. Westerman, M.A. & Steen, E.M. (2007): Going beyond the Internal-External Dichotomy in Clinical Psychology. Theory and Psychology, 17(2), pp. 323–351. Winslade, J. & Monk, G.D. (2008): Practicing Narrative Mediation: Loosening the Grip of Conflict. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Witkin, S. (Ed.) (2011): Social Construction and Social Work Practice: Interpretations and Innovations. New York: Columbia University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1953): Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. White, M. & Epston, D. (1990): Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. New York: W.W. Norton.

Part III

Recent developments of social constructivism

17 From the social to the communicative construction of reality1 Hubert Knoblauch

Introduction The Social Construction of Reality, published in 1966 by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (Germany 1969), is a milestone in sociological theory. The book reinvented the sociology of knowledge, and it was also an initial incentive for the almost explosive dissemination of the concept of “social construction” and the associated movements of “social constructivism” or “social constructionism.” In addition, its clear stress on language as the most important objectivation of knowledge contributed to the upsurge of sociological research on language and speech and, indirectly, to a series of innovative new methods particularly in qualitative and interpretive research, such as the analysis of communicative genres (Luckmann 1985), hermeneutic sociology (Soeffner 1996), the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse analysis (Keller 2005) or videography (Knoblauch et al. 2014). Because the theory of social construction is the central starting point of the communicative construction of reality, it should be briefly summarized (1). As the sketch of the reception of the book shows (2), it shaped the concept of “social construction” internationally and became the point of reference for some subsequent academic movements which will briefly discussed. Since Berger and Luckmann discontinued their work on the theory of social construction after only a few years, these movements also contributed to its theoretical refinement, linking it to theories which cropped up after, such as the post-structuralist theories of discourse, practice and subjectivity. In order to be able to follow these innovations, we have to outline the variety of notion of “constructivisms” linked to these theories. (3) Due to its dissemination, the concept of social construction, however, lost its distinctness. Particularly authors who knew the book rather from hearsay than from reading (which seems to be common even among some renowned researchers) contributed to serious misunderstanding of “social constructivism” and deviations from what Berger and Luckmann had written (4). This confusion led logically to a number of misleading criticisms of “social constructivism” of which we will mention the most important (5). However, there is also a number of serious criticisms demanding modifications of the theory of “social construction,”

276  Hubert Knoblauch such as (a) the problems of a subjectivistic justification of social theory lead to a relational theory which, instead of abandoning the subject, treats it as part of a relational process. (b) This process can by no means be reduced to language but includes the objectification and the physical activity. (c) Social action must therefore always be taken as communicative action. In order to account for these basic modifications, we prefer to talk of “communicative” instead of “social construction.” By way of conclusion, we will stress that the reformulation “communicative constructivism” is intended to avoid the confusion with the multiple use of “social construction” and enables to analyze the dramatic changes in contemporary society.

The social construction of reality The question posed by Berger and Luckmann (1979) [1966] follows a classical sociological problem: How can we explain that individuals become part of a society and of social reality? In Max Weber’s line, they see this basic question of sociology answered by the concept of social action. At the same time, they follow Emile Durkheim’s supposedly opposite position, which considers subjective actions of individuals to be resulting from socially objective facts. The contradictory nature of these two statements forms the dialectical antitheses that carries the argument: They “resolved” it by taking objective reality as the result of social actions. Social actions thus “construct” objective reality. Berger and Luckmann roughly follow the Marxian model of the dialectic of “externalization,” “objectification” and “internalization.” However, externalization and objectification are not sharply distinguished, and the relationship between Marx’ materialism to Weber’s “idealist” notion of action (which includes “nonacting” and thus nonexternalization) remains unsolved.2 The dialectics serves to structure the book, yet it does not contribute essentially to define what is social. In order to define its subject matter more precisely, Berger and Luckmann use another set of categories which make up The Social Construction of Reality. The most important analytical terms are “typification,” “objectification,” “institutionalization,” “legitimation” and “socialization.” The actual starting point of this social construction is not the actor as an individual. Rather, it is the consciousness that can experience and act. It is subjective in an explicitly phenomenological sense, which is existent before it becomes socialized. The role of phenomenology is significant as Berger and Luckmann regard Schütz’s concept of typification as fundamental to the world-relation of consciousness. By means of typification, the world can be experienced meaningfully. They are the prototypes of knowledge in experiencing the world. The concept of action also derives from this: Action means a typical experience projected into the future, or, as Schütz calls it, modo futuri exacti. Social actions are externalizations in the common environment of the subject and the others, which they experience as objectifications.

From social to communicative  277 Even if the book focuses on “knowledge,” the Weberian concept of action, already taken up by Schütz (1974/1932), serves as the reference point for the sociological goal throughout the book: Reality is constructed in action. If Schütz was concerned with the “meaning” which constitutes social action, Berger and Luckmann also point to “an analysis of the knowledge that regulates behaviour in the everyday world” (1979: 49). This remark is by no means incidental, but formulates as the first sentence in the main chapter of the book its central goal. For The Social Construction of Reality does not derive simply from shared knowledge. It neither arises only from action, it is social action which gives rise to knowledge. If action is social, it is guided by the interaction with others (and, as Berger and Luckmann emphasize, by their knowledge); but, inasmuch as it is action, it requires a typifying and projecting consciousness. Social action thus forms the logical link between the allegedly dialectical poles of objectivity and subjectivity. In order to explain intersubjectivity and the sociality of action, Berger and Luckmann revert to Mead and Schütz. It is Mead’s (1934) “role-taking” as well as Schütz’s (1964) “reciprocity of perspectives” which enable objectivations to be experienced as part of the actions of others. We hear something and we assume that it comes from the other person just as our own voices come from us. We see her hand and we take the branch broken from a tree as a result of this “action.” In essence, we are acting symbolically, as Mead calls it: Through objectivations, actions of at least two actors can be coordinated. For Berger and Luckmann, this kind of coordinated interaction is the basis for the formation of institutions. The process of institutionalization is based on the interrelated perception of a typical problem of action and on the interactive application of a solution to this problem. The incorporation of the solution requires specific activities by the embodied consciousness, such as the sedimentation of typifications and the habitualization of bodily processes. In addition, institutions are based on the distribution of roles (i.e., actions typified and expected reciprocally). The process of institutionalization is only concluded when the interaction process is adapted by a third party. In this case the process can be said to become sedimented: The interaction process, which is constructed from many steps (“polythetic”) by the first two actors, is adopted “en bloc” (“monothetic”) by a third, a process called merely “black-boxing” in other theories.3 By handing it over to third parties, the original processes of the construction of institutions itself are no more accessible and additional interpretations, which Berger and Luckmann designate as legitimations, may become necessary. Legitimations indicate how to do something and why, they lend institutions additional meaning, and secure or, in the case of conflicts, transform or reverse them (Luckmann 1985a). Legitimations are not just “justifications” but meaningful interpretations of institutions. Legitimations explicate what actions in institutions are about by determining the categories, formulating the rules, defining the scope and locating these actions in the context of

278  Hubert Knoblauch institutions as a whole. In order to safeguard institutions, they can build a legitimatory apparatus (including institutions of legitimation) which clarify the meaning of an institution to insiders, as well as outsiders, mediate it and implement it with the help of institutionalized power. Because subjects are born into worlds already socially constructed, the meaning of actions is empirically always constituted, it is “derived from the social stock of knowledge.” This socially constituted meaning can be called knowledge.4 Like social action, knowledge is a bridge between society and subjects (or social and subjective knowledge). Objectivations, institutions and legitimations certainly form the “objective” part of social reality. The dialectical process, which is connected by analytical concepts, comes to an end when these legitimations and institutions are mediated in the process of socialization and are internalized by subjects. The basic life-worldly knowledge and skills are transmitted in primary socialization, and more specific knowledge is conveyed in the subsequent secondary or tertiary socialization processes. Through the subjective integration of these processes, finally, a “personal identity” is created that differs from the subject as the original source of social construction, as personal identity is the result and the “subject” of the social construction. In the end of the “social construction,” the circle comes to a close: What has been the pre-social subject, with which the journey of the dialectic begins, turns ultimately into the “personal identity,” which is largely socially constructed.

The reception of The Social Construction of Reality5 The Social Construction of Reality is widely recognized as the subject of many introductory books, manuals and systematic overviews on sociology and sociological theories. Together with books, such as Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life or Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, it became one of the most widely read books in sociology worldwide. It was the result of the collaboration of the sociologists Thomas Luckmann and Peter L. Berger. Both had migrated to the United States after World War II. They met at the New School for Social Research in New York and became students of Alfred Schütz, who had a great influence on their thinking.6 Obviously, the book lived to see an immensely impressive reception, which is to be summarized here only in its basic features. The compositum “social construction,” which had been used for the first time by Ward (1905), had been hardly used. After the publication of Berger and Luckmann, it became part of social scientific language and even entered the general vocabulary of different languages. The book has been translated into over 20 languages. In addition to this worldwide spread from Europe to China, Japan, Korea, South America and Africa, it is also possible to identify wide-ranging patterns of its scientific reception:

From social to communicative  279 On the one hand, there was a gradual reception in sociology. Since the 1980s, the work has acquired the status of a “modern classics” and entered into the canon of introductory books. This was not only the case in ­A nglo-Saxon sociology and beyond. Although some subsequent “grand theories” do not mention the “Social Construction,” at the 25th anniversary of its first publication the American Sociological Association acknowledged it as “one of the great feats of theoretical synthesis in American Sociology” (American Sociological Association 1992: 3). In his introduction to sociology, Abels (1998: 87) describes it as a “milestone of sociology” and Seidman (2004: 81) as “one of the most monumental statements of social theory in the postwar years.” Mainly because of the book, Berger and Luckmann are still counted among the most important authors in sociology in 2014 (Gerhard’s 2014). Next to its sociological reception as a classic, there is a second pattern which is interdisciplinary. When we look at the Web of Science, the number of sociological articles citing the work is the highest (701), but references are also found in psychology (344), business management (266), educational science (190) and numerous other disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. Although bound to the genre of “sociological theory,” the book became a point of reference both in sociological subdisciplines and in particular interdisciplinary approaches, such as The Social Construction of Social Problems (Kitsuse & Spector 1977), The Social Construction of Technology (Bijker & Pinch 1987) and The Social Construction of Gender, which has become even a public issue. Its interdisciplinarity might be the reason that many researchers forgot that the idea of the “social construction” was linked to the book by Berger and Luckmann. Frequently, it is only quoted ritually, sometimes translated into the language of the respective discipline (such as political science), and often the reference to the book is completely missing. In addition to the interdisciplinary reception, during the 1970s and 1980s, the word “social construction” became, third, the common reference point of newly emerging intellectual movements in the social sciences and humanities. Examples are Empirical Constructivism by Knorr-Cetina (1989) or The Constructivism of Political Science (Checkel 1998). Some of these movements have created their own fields of research, such as social constructivism in the study of emotions (Harré 1986) or in international relations (Wendt 1994). The “Social Construction” found a particularly broad theoretical reformulation in what came to be called “social constructionism.” There are special introductory books (Burr 1995), overviews (Weinberg 2014) and entire manuals (Gubrium & Holstein 2008) on this approach. Social constructionism explicitly refers to the “Social Construction” and reformulates it in the light of some later theoretical developments and empirical research lines. Thus, ethnomethodology, practice theories and particularly post-structuralist theories (Foucault) are integrated, extending Berger and Luckmann’s emphasis on language to discourse, as well as social studies of

280  Hubert Knoblauch science, feminism, narrative philosophy and psychology, post-foundational philosophy and post-positivist philosophy of science (Stam 2001: 294). This integration has facilitated the adaptation of the concept of “social construction” also in the humanities. Yet, the farther the reception moved away from sociology, entered into other disciplines or became interdisciplinary, the less the term “social” or “social construction” exhibits knowledge of the book. As to the authors themselves, Berger and Luckmann pursued the ideas of The Social Construction explicitly in their subsequent religious sociological work: Luckmann published his Invisible Religion in 1967, which became a classical text not only in sociology of religion but also in religious studies and theory of religion. The work incorporated the terminology of The Social Construction. Also Berger had written a landmark in the sociology of religion immediately after The Social Construction: The Sacred Canopy. Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. This book also followed the social-constructivist point of view, and both books were translated widely. However, it should have consequences that both authors took very different views on religion, and Berger (1974) himself distinguished between his substantialist approach and Luckmann’s functionalist definitions of religion. This difference may have been one reason why Berger and Luckmann did not continue their collaboration further – with one exception (Berger & Luckmann 1995). Neither did both authors build on The Social Construction in their later publications. Only decades later, Luckmann took the concept of “construction” once more programmatically – but now as a Communicative Construction (Luckmann 2013).

Constructivism and social constructivism: what is the social construction? The detachment from the original concept of social construction was regarded by some as an advantage. Weinberg (2014), for example, takes the “openness” of the term “social construction” as its greatest advantage, particularly considering the rapid social changes and the diversity within social reality. On the other hand, Hacking (1999) sees the problem of the notion of The Social Construction in the lack of inaccuracy resulting from its detachment from the original book: The concept lacks specificity and precision. As Hacking emphasizes, it is the detachment of the use of this notion from the concept presented in the book which leads to confusion. But even if we allow for an interpretive openness of what “social construction” may mean, one fundamental confusion should be avoided: “Constructivism” is not synonymous with “social constructivism.” The necessity of this distinction is also underlined by the authors who repeatedly and explicitly distance themselves from being called “constructivists.”7 We shall briefly consider this distinction because it is one major reason for misunderstandings in the criticism of social constructivism.

From social to communicative  281 The equation of “constructivism” with The Social Constructivism has been already proposed in 1986. Being located in the “social constructivist” branch of science studies, Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar (1986) argue that the concept of “social construction” has become so self-evident that one does not need to mention it any more. Therefore, they changed the title of their joint study from The Social Construction of Scientific Facts to The Construction of Scientific Facts in the second edition of their book. This equation later led Latour to a sharp criticism of constructivism which, as we shall see, he falsely equated to a critique of social constructivism.8 Constructivism in a social scientific meaning goes back to psychology. The term “construction” emerges for the first time in the work of the Swiss psychologist Piaget, for example, in his 1950 book entitled La construction du réel chez l’enfant (The Child’s Construction of Reality). Around 1955, it was taken over by the American developmental psychologist Kelly. These writings formed the basis for the movement which came to be called “Constructivism.”9 This movement includes the Developmental Psychology of Bruner and Haste (1987) or Coberns (1993) Contextual Constructivism.10 Even if Raskin (2002) restricted this kind of constructivism to psychology, it has been received much wider received due, for example, to Watzlawick et al. who became popular far beyond the social sciences. Constructivism is also found in biology as the famous Biology of Cognition by Maturana, published in 1970, and this version got labeled by Glasersfeld in 1974 as “radical constructivism.” Radical constructivism is characterized by the assumption that the individual, the individual intellect, and more radically, the individual brain contain all mechanisms for the construction of reality.11 Berger and Luckmann knew the psychological work of Piaget, so that their epithetum “social construction” quite clearly marks a difference. While “construction” is to be understood in accordance with the English translation of the term “construction,” as used, for example, in Schütz’s Meaningful Construction of the Social World of 1932, the founder of social constructionism and a psychologist by training, Kenneth Gergen, underlined the decisive difference: Social construction, he emphasizes (1985), does not take place in the individual psyche. To the contrary, he says, it indicates that the subject matter of psychology, consciousness, the subject and the individual themselves are social constructions, subject, so to say, to sociality. One has to recall again that neither Berger nor Luckmann agreed to this radical idea that subjects are in general social constructions. One reason for this is that they considered consciousness and its anthropological-biological materiality a precondition or, as we can say, a “protosocological” prerequisite for the social construction (Luckmann 1990). Yet even if they avoid this radicality, they do not mix up the process of consciousness, that is, the “constitution” to the social processes, and the social construction, as Velody and Williams (1998: 4) claim. On the contrary, they distinguish between “constitution” and “(social) construction” quite clearly. What is the difference?

282  Hubert Knoblauch In order to answer this question, we can refer to the distinction drawn in an earlier publication: “In contrast to the phenomenological reconstruction of the genesis of subjective meaning in consciousness, i.e. constitution,  […] construction means the production of social structures by means of interaction and social actions […]” (Knoblauch 1995: 41). Constitution as the process happening in consciousness, such as typification, also plays a role in The Social Construction of Reality. Typifications, however, are not identical with “social constructions” but their (protosociological) prerequisite in subjective consciousness. Once typifications are coined by others, by language or, more generally, socially constructed, they turn into what we call knowledge. When we suggest to substitute social action by communicative action in order to designate the basic process of The Social Construction of Reality, we have to consider that Berger and Luckmann remain quite eclectic with respect to the notions designating basic processes of social construction. Although they mostly draw on Weber’s “social actions,” it was mentioned above that they also use “conduct,” and in the process of institutionalization they take “interaction” as a basic category.

The critique and misunderstanding of social constructivism In recent years, criticism has accumulated on “(social) constructivism.” Because this critique often equates “constructivism” with “social constructivism,” it misleadingly suggests that both are the same. It is only on the basis of this assumption that we can understand the paradigmatic turn to a new “post-constructivist,” “neorealist” or “ontological” paradigm. Even if the question of the paradigmatic status of (social) constructivism has still not been clarified, indeed hardly treated, we must confine ourselves here to the criticism of (social) constructivism. With regard to some of the best-known counterarguments, we want to demonstrate that these criticisms overlook the difference mentioned before between “constructivism” and “social constructivism.” Moreover, they forward arguments which may hold against “constructivism” but have been made already in The Social Construction and, in contrast to the claims, belong to the core of social constructivist arguments. In this section, we will address some of these arguments because they are also shared by communicative constructivism. In the section after, we will then discuss the criticisms that “social construction” cannot overcome and which leads to its modification, the communicative construction. In view of the enormously broad reception of The Social Construction, it is hardly possible to even consider listing all critical arguments. Therefore, we would like to focus on a number of crucial arguments which are voiced by Bruno Latour, one of the most distinct counter-positions, who has gained a great deal of prominence for his contribution to the development of the Actor Network Theory. He is widely regarded as one of the most important international figures in post-constructivism. Latour was one of the

From social to communicative  283 first to equate social constructivism and constructivism. His criticism of social constructivism is also of interest because he addresses basic question in social theory (Latour 2010). We will discuss four of his objections to social constructivism here in order to answer each of them from the perspective of “social construction.” (a) A first objection concerns the supposed lack of “objectivity” of the (social) constructivism as put forward by Latour: How can construction become a social fact, an empirical fact? (His criticism of the lacking recognition of materiality will be addressed below.) Where does the “thingness” of reality come from if the process of construction is accomplished only socially? This question cannot be answered by constructivism since it has no concept for “things.” “Constructivism” is, therefore, as Latour polemically argues, “the poor man’s creationism” (Latour 2010: 64). As mentioned above, Latour raises the same argument against social constructivism. The accusation is that, because of a lack of appreciation of objectivity, (“social”) constructivism is “arbitrary” and relativistic. The thesis of relativism is clearly addressed against a strongly social-constructivist concept which has become popular in the humanities, but also in gender studies. As clear cut as Latour’s opposition between “idealist” social constructivism and materialist “post-constructivist realism” appears at first glance, his criticism of the lack of objectivity of the social is precisely misleading in regard to The Social Construction. For this kind of construction does not only imply a continuous accomplishment but also stresses the relevance of objectivity with its strong stress on institutions. For actors, the objectivity of institutions is not easily circumvented, but forms a “sociohistorical a priori”; as Luckmann (1972) calls it.12 (b) There is a second point of criticism famously raised by Latour. It concerns his thesis that sociology had only treated human beings as actors and forgot nonhumans can act. This assertion is quite central since it has led to a movement that extends the concept of action beyond the human being and is, almost apocalyptically, called “posthumanism” (Schatzki et al. 2001: 149ff.). Latour extends this thesis to the whole of sociology. Doing so, however, he ignores that, for example, ­Luckmann had emphasized already in 1970 that social action can be applied to practically everything: not only animals or plants, but also stones (Luckmann 1970). The reason for such an extended notion of the actor is quite obvious, for example, in the sociology of religion where “agency” can cover an enormous range: Invisible gods can act as well as spirits or higher powers. Luckmann added that the distinction between nature and society, which Latour claims to have been ignored, too, is itself a special “secular” ideological development. (c) A third Latourian critique has been also repeatedly formulated in practice theory: Social constructivism is “cognitivistic” (see, e.g., Reckwitz

284  Hubert Knoblauch 2004). This criticism quite obviously fits psychological constructivism, which explicitly uses the concept of “cognitions”; yet the critique is also addressed against the “theory of knowledge” in The Social Construction. It is said to reduce emotional, physical and practical meanings of action to mere cognition. This argument is, again, a result of the confusion between constructivism and social constructivism. For in the social construction “knowledge” is crucial as it represents the socialized form of meaning of action. Moreover, in The Social Construction human corporeality, as indicated by the concepts “conduct” or “behavior,” plays a decisive role. Berger and Luckmann stress this role by drawing on ­Philosophical ­Anthropology, an approach which looks for the conditio humana in terms of its physical, biological and social contexts. Therefore, the particular physicality of humans is the central reason for the construction of the social as a “second nature.” Social reality is a counterpart of the (in biological sense) deficiency of human bodies (Gehlen 1986). The objectivity of the institutions is thus not confined to their purely social validity, the cognitive or merely “imagined” order. The obligatory character of institutions is thoroughly physical because it takes material and physical forms (Berger & Luckmann 1979: 117). Thus, Berger and ­Luckmann make a strong case for the body in the social construction. Yet, one has to concede that they restrict their analysis to the body as a condition of social action and fail to work out its role for action. This is, therefore, one of the desiderata of the communicative construction. (d) Latour’s fourth criticism of (social) constructivism is that it maintains the subject-object division known from classical epistemology. This difference certainly resonates in the dialectical contrast between the subjectively constituted social meaning of action and the objectivity of the socially constructed reality mentioned above. However, by stressing dialectics, it is precisely the goal of The Social Construction to overcome this opposition. And this goal the authors certainly pursue: In fact, it is the very processes of social action, their institutionalization and their internalization in which the opposition is overcome. These processes allow to explain how a person who is presumed to be a pre-social, endowed only with some negative anthropological dispositions and a consciousness, can become a socialized actor. However, the driving force of socialization for Berger and Luckmann does not lie in the mere ­socialization of the subject. Since subjects are never fully socialized into society, the dialectics is also responsible for conflicts and social change. Since dialectics that creates the objective is based on the interaction between two subobjects, one can push Berger and Luckmann’s model even further. Instead of a subject–object separation, as Latour contends, The Social Construction is, at closer inspection, rather circulating around the axis of a subject-subject relationship. But one decisive step in the social construction, the process of institutionalization, relies not only on singular social actions but on the interaction between at

From social to communicative  285 least two subjects (in the final phase even three). The same holds for socialization which does involve more than singular individuals but the interplay and interaction of various individuals. Dialectics thus is not reduced to a relation between subject and object; it is rather a process between different subjects in which objective social reality is created. Therefore, we will call this process relational.13

Modifications of the “Social Construction” Although some of the criticism raised against the “Social Construction” fail and some even support its arguments, we need to acknowledge that some arguments require a reformulation of the idea of social construction. This reformulation includes the relational interpretation just presented which goes beyond the understanding of the “Social Construction” by their authors. It represents the first of those modifications of social constructivism that lead us from social to communicative constructivism.14 (a) The shift from subjectivism to relationality. The starting point of communicative construction is not the individual subject as distinct from other individuals but subjects as related to other subjects as well as to their objectivations. Against the background of the social constructionist rejection of the subject (as expressed most explicitly by Gergen) we should emphasize, however, that this does not mean to get rid of the subject. Rather, the subject is not the sole center of the social; it is decentered by the relation. In order to avoid the far-reaching assumptions about the “essence” of subjects, we take subjectivity to designate formal aspects of who is acting. This is possible because of the very form of the relation of which subjects form part while being simultaneously dependent upon and located by the relation. Therefore, the relational approach does not lead to a dismissal of phenomenology. Rather, it leads to a reversal of the relationship between social theory and phenomenology: Because even phenomenologists are necessarily socialized and knowledgeable, any phenomenology needs to start from sociality and can only then approach the subjective perspective. Phenomenology thus presupposes the analysis of social construction because consciousness is already embedded in social relations. Phenomenological introspection must always be related in a way to the introspections of others. This relational phenomenology must not lead to relativism if one builds on what Mannheim (1936) has called “relationing,” that is, focusing on what is common within the difference. (b) The modified role of subjectivity is directly connected with a modification of the aspect objectivity which has been addressed by the “new materialism.” In the same vein, Latour criticizes the lack of consideration of materiality. Social constructivism, he complains, has neglected the role of objects, things and material. As with his critique of objectivity, Latour’s argument ignores a basic understanding of The Social Construction. In

286  Hubert Knoblauch fact, Berger and Luckmann (1979) repeatedly stress the materialism of social construction in their retrospective commentaries on “social construction.” Berger, for example, emphasizes that there is “a robust reality beyond our desires” (Berger 2011: 95), and Luckmann (1999) calls The Social Construction explicitly materialistic. However, even if Berger and Luckmann expressly refer to Marx, it must be admitted that neither they nor their successors explained what this materialism can mean in detail. If we look for a connection to materiality in The Social Construction, the crucial concept of objectivation provides for a helpful point of access. Objectivations are to be distinguished from reification, that is, objectivations appear as if they are independent of the actions which they have produced. If we look for more details, we realize, however, that neither Berger nor Luckmann did elaborate the concept of objectivations.15 In their later writing, they only focus on specific kinds of objectivation, particularly on linguistic objectifications. The reason for this focus is that they take language to determine the meaningful orientation of action, and since language itself represents a social institution, it is the medium by which subjects are being socialized. Particularly Luckmann had shifted his attention to linguistic action. As relevant as language may be, it can hardly provide the basis for social theory for a simple reason: Unless we assume that language is given by God (or by nature), it presupposes sociality. And if we want to explain the sociality of language, the notion of objectivation is quite apt if we take it to include nonlinguistic objectifications. This notion is, actually, explicated in Berger and Luckmann as objectification also includes physical “expressive motions” or objects (Berger & Luckmann 1970: 50).16 If we avoid restricting objectifications to linguistic sounds or characters, we can take them to include anything else: things, technologies, media and materialities. It is only by looking at physical processes, things and material processes that we can explain The Social Construction of Reality without having to presuppose language or discourse. Next to the clarification of relationality, the theoretical elaboration of the concept of objectification and its materiality is therefore a second desideratum. Because this concept no longer exclusively refers to language, it is also responsible for the shift from “social” to “communicative construction.” (c) The third central modification of social construction is a consequence of the two prior arguments: If we move from subjectivity to relationality, we must also reformulate the notion of action or, since relationality already implies at least two subjects, social action into communicative action. Social action is communicative as it depends always on objectivation. And as we also need to integrate objectivations, the question arises as to how (at least two) subjects and objectification are connected with each other. While this connection is conceived by Berger and Luckmann as a dialectic, it leaves open the question as to what constitutes sociality. As we start from relationality, we will account for this connection by a triadic model of subjects and objectivation (Figure 17.1).

From social to communicative  287

Figure 17.1  T  riadic model of communicative action.

Objectivation is what makes sense in the relation of subjects. It is, however, not only “meaning” but something that is part of the related subject’s common environment. Even more, it is the third that represents any material thing (even if it is the other’s body or part of it) focused reciprocally by the subjects in the environment. Objectivations are the reason why social reality is really beyond the mere relation of the subjects.

Conclusion It seems to converge with the everyday meaning of the word when we refer to an action between two subjects, oriented toward objectivations, as “communicative”: Nevertheless, the extension of the term “communicative” beyond language to objectivations may still sound daring to many ears, particularly as it substitutes notions such as action, social action, practice and communication. Proposing the concept of communicative action and suggesting the theory of communicative construction certainly requires further explanation which cannot be offered in the frame of this article. As mentioned, we have made an attempt in an extended treatise published in German which is being translated into English (Knoblauch 2017). But the elaboration of the communicative construction of reality has not been the goal of this chapter. The goal has been, rather, to show that The Social ­Construction of ­Reality, rather than having been overcome by “post-constructivism,” still provides an enormously rich theoretical framework for social theory in g­ eneral and sociological theory in particular. It needs, however, to be adopted and ­updated. The update of The Social Construction of Reality is not only a consequence of logical arguments which have been put forward. They are also a consequence of the social changes which affect also the analytical apparatus. As we could only hint at the modification in social theory, we can only mention in the end that there are good empirical reasons to assume that the social changes support the move toward communication, as, for example,

288  Hubert Knoblauch the intensification and expansion of technological infrastructures and the massive mediatization in terms of information and digitalization (cf. Knoblauch 2013). Communicative construction provides a scheme which allows to grasp the respective transformation of subjectivity, of the new technologies and objects as well as their relation and social order we call the communication society.17

Notes 1 Parts of this chapter are translated from Hubert Knoblauch (2007): Die kommunikative Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit. Wiesbaden: Springer. 2 Steets (2015) proposes a strictly dialectical interpretation of Berger und Luckmann. In a more vague sense, dialectics is understood by Miller who uses the notion of objectivation, however, without mentioning Berger und Luckmann (Miller 2010: 54ff.). 3 This interpretation will be elaborated later. As to “Black Boxing” cf. Latour (1991). 4 As already mentioned elsewhere (Knoblauch 2010: 359ff.), neither Schütz nor Berger and Luckmann are very precise with regard to the relationship between meaning and knowledge. However, Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge certainly goes beyond their own definition of knowledge as “certainty that phenomena are real,” because knowledge can also refer to phenomena which are unreal or explicitly fictitious and be only partly certain, indeed completely untrusted, unknown or indeterminate. 5 For more details on the reception of the book, see cf. Knoblauch and Wilke (2016). 6 On Berger cf. Pfadenhauer and Berger (2013), on Luckmann cf. Schnettler (2006). 7 “Luckmann and I have felt constrained to say repeatedly, ‘we are not constructivists’” (Berger 2011: 95); Luckmann (1999: 17) distanced himself from radical constructivism. Moreover, both authors distanced themselves from all “isms.” It is for this reason that we refer to the book The Social Construction when referring to their view. 8 It is quite likely that Latour’s misunderstanding goes back to the internal discussion in science studies which seems to have received debates on social theory not in a systematic manner and sometimes even intentionally ignored them. 9 As Stern (1985: 132) notes, the psychologist Trevarthenhas used the label “constructionist” in order to distance himself from these approaches. 10 “Methodological constructivism,” as developed by the philosophical schools in Konstanz and Erlangen, constitutes an approach which cannot be elaborated here (Kamlah & Lorenzen 1967). 11 Luhmann’s reference to “radical social constructivism” is rather a radicalization as it does not make any systematic reference to the subject, to consciousness or to the brain (and organism) which are deemed to be only “structurally coupled” to sociality. 12 Berger (2011: 91) stresses that the notion “construction” misleadingly suggest that it starts ex nihilo. 13 Simmel has explicated the idea how interaction overcomes the distinction between subject and object: “After the synthesis of the subjective has produced the objective, the synthesis of the objective now produces a new and higher subjective” (1992: 467, transl. HK). 14 These modifications and the reformulation are elaborated in Knoblauch (2017). 15 For a recent discussion on the social constructivist notion of objectivations, see cf. Steets (2015).

From social to communicative  289 16 “The very concept of objectivation implies that there are social facts as well, with a robust reality that can be discovered regardless of our wishes” (Berger 2011: 95). 17 For a first sketch in English on the Communication Society, see cf. Knoblauch (2016); a more elaborate analysis of the communication society is to be found also in Knoblauch (2017).

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18 From understanding to impact Communicative power Jo Reichertz

Introduction Considering the long-lasting discussion about the notion “social construction,” one uncomfortable question arose, which is a crucial one in this discussion. The more I read about the “social” of the construction, the less I  understood what “social” means. Does it mean the use of language as Berger and Luckmann did in their early writings (Reichertz 2017) or does it mean the interaction or even the division of labor? Or does it mean the practical routine that binds us together and forms particular figuration (Elias 2004)? All of these answers are good, but perhaps not good enough. Therefore, I would like to take the stand that the mutual communicative acting between particular human beings in a particular situation is the resource, the ground and the construction of buildup in general: In this sense, “social” means made by mutual communicative acting. Therefore, I would like to bring forward the concept of communicative constructivism – a concept developed in recent years by colleagues, such as Hubert Knoblauch, Reiner Keller and me – also to be able to face the recent challenges made by practice theory (Reichertz 2009, 2017; Keller et al. 2013; Knoblauch 2013; Couldry & Hepp 2016; Reichertz & Tuma 2017). Communicative constructivism defines itself explicitly as a continuation of social constructivism, as developed by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann 50 years ago (1966). In this respect, communicative constructivism strives for continuation of the perspective of sociology of knowledge by Berger and Luckmann. First, a significant change of communicative constructivism is that language can no longer be seen as the main factor for objectification and internalization, but (in particular) it is communicative acting that produces objectification and internalization. Second, the continuation consists of not comprehending communicative acting as an act of informing the others, but as an action that tries to achieve impact by making someone do what we expect him to do. The instrument needed to achieve this is communicative power. So the concept of communicative power switches the aim of communicative acting from understanding to impact.

From understanding to impact  293 The goal of this chapter is to propose a new approach to the understanding of the problem of everyday communicative acting. I do not focus on the media, states, organizations and companies at first – as Manuel Castells does in his Communication Power (2009). Therefore, I also do not focus on public communication and network societies. The subject matter of this chapter is the everyday communicative acting between individuals living their lives and communicating who they are and how the world functions. I certainly do not pretend to provide definite answers to the questions I raise, but rather open up a new discussion about the basics of communicating and its relevance for a sociological theory of the social. With my subsequent considerations I only wish to bring forward an empirically based “grounded” theory of everyday communicative acting that is, in my perspective, the basic form of each kind of communication, even the media kind. If we wish to understand the power of public communication in a network society, we need to study the everyday communicative acting first. This kind of communicative acting is always the starting point.

What matters? We all know that words, once articulated, can reveal considerable power and that communication is in a position not only to change people but also to change the course of the world. Yet, despite the certainty that communicative acting is powerful, surprisingly little is known about the sources of this power. Certainly, we are well aware of specific powerful sources of the spoken word: Our everyday common sense tells us that words accompanied by the threat of substantial violence will easily motivate others to do the things they are being told to do. For its part, sociology teaches us that the words of the master will inspire the servant to perform; the latter clearly knowing that noncompliance will lead to the loss of employment. Sociology also teaches us that those who hold someone to be something special – indeed who ascribe charisma to that person – will follow the words of the esteemed one even when they do not fully grasp the message. Now, it is not really surprising that violence, domination or charisma lend power to words. What is more, it would be surprising if this were not the case. In fact, violence, domination and charisma undoubtedly explain quite a lot – in some areas, in corporations, for example, a great deal. The crucial point is that communicative acting can also be (very) powerful even if neither violence, domination nor charisma is at the back of things. More to the point, this kind of communicative power is frequently the norm and not an infrequent borderline case. “Normal” communicative acting in everyday situation manages quite well without violence, domination and charisma, but involves power nevertheless. It is precisely this power that is of interest in this chapter. I am interested in why people when asked by others to pass the salt or close the window will do exactly that. Indeed, people will do much more

294  Jo Reichertz than this for one another. Because they have communicated with one another, they (often) change their behavior, their attitudes and even their lives. And much of all this is due to the everyday power of communication. I am not interested in why a secretary carries out boss’ instructions when she (the latter) has requested him (the former) to do so; that is self-explanatory. I am interested in why the secretary carries out that request with particular care and also thinks of certain details that his boss may not have thought of. I am also interested in why the boss will use a reminder sent by the secretary, for instance, that a certain detail is still missing, ensure to supply the missing detail and thank the secretary for the reminder. I am interested in how the founder of the Christian religion, without a doubt someone with great charisma, would, if he had had the time and the opportunity to raise his own children and motivate them to tidy up their rooms, be honest and accept responsibility, would have actually done so without recourse to threat (namely, if you do not do the task X, then negative sanction Y will follow) and without recourse to bribery (namely, if you do not do X, then positive sanction Y will follow). I am interested in why communicative acting among those present usually leads to the desired results and effects. For, as a rule, adults can achieve with other adults that which they wish to achieve – even if they know what effect words can achieve with others in the first place. Of course there are situations in which communicative acting no longer achieves anything: when silence suffices, when everyone is quiet or if communicative action is used to hurt or belittle others. Even then communication has power, and a lot of it in fact. Mutual communicative acting can dominate without domination, be hurtful, belittling and even render speechless. And of course there are other situations in which mutual communicative acting ends and violence begins, but that is not the topic I wish to address. My focus is on the communicative acts that have power among those present, those in situ. This is the reason why the central question of this article addresses everyday power of communication on this side of violence, domination and charisma. Communication science, at least in the German-speaking countries, has never really addressed the power of everyday communicative acting.1 However, media science, which tends to focus on the study of topics relating to the effect of mass media, can only provide answers because it reduces “effect” to the use of remote controls, to the aided or unaided memorizing of names and messages and to the movements of the pupils. Meanwhile, language philosophy – and here primarily speech-act theory – posits the power of spoken words in the conventions of correct pronunciation and, more often than not, in the mysteries of illocutionary force. Sociology, by contrast, is exclusively taken up with the forms of social power and emulation. No academic discipline, however, seems to occupy itself with the everyday power of communication among those present – in other words,

From understanding to impact  295 with the power that first builds up during the interplay of communicative actions and subsequently also unfolds. Considerable research still needs to be done in this area. Such a consideration – that is, one that takes the subject away from the center of communication, as well as the deep structure that engenders the communicative action – must also ask whether greater significance should be afforded the social praxis of communication than hitherto generally assumed. If one agrees with that, the function of mutual communicative acting might be defined under another perspective: Mutual communicative acting would then not be about the transmission of messages on the one hand and understanding on the other hand; communication would instead be about effect, about impact, and that can only be achieved via power. Power is what leads actors to do that which is communicatively asked of them. This is one reason why it would make sense to switch the focus of communication theory away from “understanding” to “impact.” I would furthermore like to call for support for the hypothesis that the power of communicative acting must first establish itself within communicative interplay in order to be effective at all. The communicative construction of reality that not only generates the world in which we deal with one another but also the identities of the persons communicating with one another is also necessary for the power of communication to emerge. Communicating with one another implies constant negotiating of identities with one another (Reichertz 2009, 2013; Keller et al. 2013; Reichertz & Tuma 2017).

What is impact? Action has its cause in problems. Since problems do not solve themselves, one has to undertake something in order for a solution to occur. The traditional means to do so is via communicative acting intended to close the gap between making the wish and its realization. Communicative acting must therefore give a reason for taking the action without this reason becoming identical with classical causality. Here, power takes the place of causality. But power suggests only one course of action, provides reasons for it and formulates hopes. Power then comes into the game when the interlocutor accepts what is expected of him and turns the expected into a deed – especially if he/she wants something different. Communicative acting is therefore not really powerful when the participants share congruent goals. The proposal of “Come on, let’s go to the cinema” is not really difficult to implement when it is precisely what the interlocutor wants to do anyway. The really interesting question is this: Why does one accept expectations of one’s own action if, at that moment, one has other plans and actually does not want to go to the cinema in the first place?

296  Jo Reichertz The person using signs as an act announces and thus informs the other. He does not, however, inform because he wants to trigger an inner experience, but because he wants to trigger an action. The person giving the signs wants to influence the action of his counterpart. The question is, however: Why would the recipient of the announcement want to accept being influenced by the signs? He does not have to do what he may have understood he ought to do. He could also do something different. After all, in the case of human interaction, objection and contradiction cannot simply be put to rest. The possibility of contradiction is constitutive to communication between people. In fact, contradiction is what creates a framework for communication in the first place. If one could not do differently, then the other would not have to communicate. Communicative acting is meant to give a reason to do something. If it did not require a reason, then we would have a case of stimulus and response, a case of causality. Yet human action is not determinate by causality; rather, it requires reasons and motives. Speaking on its own, however, is not sufficient to induce the action of others. Something needs to be added, something supplementary (Luhmann 2003: 6f.). The choice between consequences and non-consequences can “not be guided by language alone because it indeed offers both possibilities” (Luhmann 2003: 6). The question is, then, what is it that induces us to follow the wishes of the announcer? An initial answer to this question might be power. In the process, power is a kind of a placeholder for all the reasons that bring the chance of inducing the other to act. Or, in the words of Max Weber: “Power means the chance of imposing one’s own will on a social relationship even against resistance, no matter what this chance is based on” (1972: 28, 531). According to Weber, power is only a chance, not a certainty. Similarly, power can wane or be augmented. Additionally, it is not as though there is just the one power; power can also feed off and arise from many different sources. In this way, I can follow the communicative request of the other – that is, be acquiescent because everyone follows, because everyone is acquiescent. I  can imitate what others do because, perhaps, I believe that others had good enough reasons for doing so. Then the power of the person communicating would lie in the readiness of the counterpart to imitate others who have allowed themselves to be influenced by him or her. That is not very convincing. But I can also follow a communicative request because others also follow it and have always followed it because it is custom and tradition. In this case, I would be associating myself with a socially established practice. This does happen. But if one looks from a vantage point at the “motives” that make people follow communicative impositions – that is, look at the phenomenon of “power” – then it is possible to pinpoint three basically different motivations: violence, domination and relationship. All three sources of power consist of practices, namely, the practice of exerting violence, the practice of using domination and the practice of building up relationships. These practices

From understanding to impact  297 are aimed at exerting power, that is, imposing one’s will on other participants, even against resistance. Power is the hypernym; violence, domination and relationship are the hyponyms. Put another way, where there is compulsion, there is power; where there is an order, there is power; where there is love, there is power; and even where there is truth, there is power. Nevertheless, it does make a difference what the source of the power is. The first reason to follow communicative acts of imposition has already been suggested: It is the readiness and the ability of the announcer in the event of nonfulfillment of his expectation of action to cause the other some degree of bodily harm – in other words, pain. In brief, the reason for acceptance lies in the readiness and the ability of the announcer to exert violence and, of course, in the wish of the person announcing to avoid pain and bodily harm. The second reason to follow communicative acts, that is, comply with acts of imposition, is to be found in the readiness and the possibility of the announcer and, in certain circumstances legally so, to cause the person announcing some damage or to allow him certain advantages. Thus, the speaker may utter commands, instructions, orders or sentences that obligate and that as the result of utterance are imposed. He may utter these because he is acting within a certain social function (e.g., he is a superior) and because this right is not only associated with that function but also, in some form, is a set right. These kind of reasons, to follow Max Weber, can be called domination (1972: 28). One can, in this way, legitimize domination in that the relevant dominators are merely the personal implementers of an entity recognized to be more powerful – God or a people, for example. In that case the persons, who obey, submit themselves to an organized power or institution that is assumed to possess a much higher rationality or that it would, if necessary, be able to impose the wish as communicated by exerting violence. This kind of social power, namely, domination, makes actions (more) predictable – not certain as such, merely more expectable to a greater degree of probability. That being so, one can compute the acquiescence and count on the acquiescence, which makes the living in organizations much simpler because one knows what is expectable, what one may hope for and what one has to fear. The third general reason for reacting with acquiescence to the communicated expectations of an announcer can be found in the social relationship that emerges between announcer and the person announcing. This relationship must, however, be of a special kind. The term “social relationship” will be used to denote the behavior of a plurality of actors […]. The social relationship thus consists […] of a probability that there will be, in some meaningfully understandable sense, a course of social action. For purposes of definition there is no attempt to specify the basis of this probability. (Weber 1972: 13 – translation see Weber 1964: 18)

298  Jo Reichertz The relationship can be consciously brought about by the announcer, and it can come about via negotiation, or it just happens to emerge – perhaps against the participants’ will. Due to this social relationship, the participants have become relevant for one another, which means that they can sanction the behavior, the person and thus the identity of the counterpart in a sustainable way. To achieve a positive sanction – for example, praise and recognition – someone is acquiescent. Or someone is acquiescent because he or she wishes to avoid a negative sanction: here a reprimand or derecognition. The decisive thing with this kind of power is that it is based on the voluntary recognition of the power of the other(s) and that in essence it is not rooted in violence and domination but, rather, in the situation and in the common history of the participants. If one now turns from general considerations to the particular forms of power and examines the theories and the sciences that have been preoccupied with communicative power and with the power of communicative acting to achieve effects, then one can point to an array of different explanatory approaches, the majority of which can be assigned into two groups. The first group of theories and concepts aimed at the explanation of communicative power ascribes power to language itself, to the forms of speaking or to the forms of articulation. The second group sees power in the communicating actor or, to be more precise, in the social situation that the persons communicating jointly construct, if not always with the same interests – and not in the language. The first group of theories, that is, that group that perceives the source of power in language itself, covers (a) the notion of language as a magical force; (b) the notion that a specially processed (rhetorical) form of language spontaneously entails power by virtue of its “truth”; and (c) the notion that a specific part of the speech act, namely the illocutionary act, has the force (illocutionary force) to trigger specific reactions in the counterpart almost compulsively (Searle 1969; Austin 1975; Habermas 1981). I will not be going into these approaches in this article (please see Reichertz 2009: 202ff.). Into the second group of theories fall those that locate the power of communication in the actor and in the situation in which communication between people takes place. One of these theories focuses on the authorized speaker (Bourdieu 2005) and another on the concept of charisma (Weber 1972). I will not be going into these approaches in this article either (please see Reichertz 2009: 211ff. for greater detail), but would wish to turn to the most important element relating to communicative power, an element that also places the speaker in the foreground and which is often overlooked: the interrelationship of the persons communicating. To make my argument even clearer, perhaps we should at least provide a summary of the two positions, beginning with Bourdieu. For Bourdieu, language is not merely a means of communication but also primarily an indicator of social status and the social background of the person communicating – and therefore a means of domination. It is obvious to Bourdieu that the force effected via words does not lie in what is spoken; rather it lies with the speakers or, to be more precise, in the societal status that they have (cf. Bourdieu 2005).

From understanding to impact  299 Only the communicative action that is authorized by the social status of the speaker has power. The speaker is thus empowered by the society and/or its organizations or its institutions while society also vouches for this authorization, which means that, if necessary, it can also justify and initiate sanctions. People who succeed in being heard must have an office that is recognized (Bourdieu 2005: 79). The persons communicating, therefore, do not (only) communicate in their name but also (and always) in the name of their group. It is through them that the social group to which they belong speaks. The importance of the social group determines the importance of communicative action. The possible elegance of the speech then belongs only to the symbolism of the power, not to the power itself. Yet Bourdieu’s reflections only take a specific kind of communication into account, namely, the “official” communication between actors who are tied to one another by means of a power relationship. In short, Bourdieu explains the power of communication via domination. Although this is a perfectly feasible approach, such a restriction covers only that part of communication in which domination is effective because it is recognized as domination. Bourdieu explains (only) why the servant listens when the master says something. But that is really not surprising – even if this view of things is much closer to the power of communication than that given by many language philosophy debates about success conditions and conventions. Nevertheless, the specific problem as to why communicative action and communicative doing can involve power without violence and domination remains unresolved. Something similar also applies to the power of communication that lies in charisma, which undoubtedly exists. Be that as it may, charisma lies in a non-everyday relationship in a crisis situation. Hence, one cannot explain why communication can unfold power in the everyday. All the same, the effect of charisma shows emphatically that the power of communication essentially feeds off the personal relationship and the identity work associated with it. I will follow this track of thought below and will also be asking the question whether, and for what reason, the social relationship can build up the power of communication. I would now like to turn to the most important element relating to communicative power, an element that also places the speaker in the foreground and which is often overlooked: the interrelationship of the persons communicating.

Relevance and reliability Predicated on the relevance of the persons communicating for the identity of the participants, the everyday power of communication is relevance built in the course of communicative interaction. Actors gain relevance for one another if they are reliable (Brandom 1994: 206ff.). Accordingly, a reliable coactor in a communication process is the one whose communicative acting, to a high degree of probability, has the (mostly) implicitly stated reasons

300  Jo Reichertz and consequences. One trusts a reliable coactor to ensure that deeds will follow his words. This trust can be brought into the communication process by virtue of the shared interaction history; however, it can also be built via communication. In producing assertions, performers are doing two sorts of things. They are first authorizing further assertions (and the commitments they express), both concomitant commitments on their part (inferential consequences) and claims on the part of their audience (communicational consequences). In doing so, they become responsible in the sense of answerable for their claims. That is, they are also undertaking a specific task responsibility, namely the responsibility to show that they are entitled to the commitment expressed by their assertions, should that entitlement be brought into question. This is the responsibility to do something, and it may be fulfilled for instance by issuing other assertions that justify the original claim. (Brandom 1994: 173) Understanding and the unfolding of communicative power are therefore only possible if words and deeds correspond with one another, if words are true. The attribute of true does not refer to whether we actually mean what we say (i.e., it does not refer to an inner doing), but to whether we do what we say (i.e., it refers to the consequences). The problem is therefore not authenticity (I say what I really mean); the problem is the certainty of action, reliability. The crucial question is, Do I let the deeds as announced follow my words? For specific groups, communicative acting must – at least to a certain ­extent – have a specific form of commitment. Otherwise, we could and should ignore it. No wonder there is a ban on lies in all societies – even if the truth need not always be told to every single person and in every single situation. The social norm does not intend words to blow in the wind; it intends spoken words to be actions that abide. Seen from this perspective, the history of mankind can be read as the ongoing attempt to regulate and keep stable the relationship between word and action. In this view of things, the power of communicative acting is predicated on the powerful implementation of specific forms of socialization that are aimed at the creation of reliability. Goffman has, in fact, named this process the “standardization” of communication (Goffman 2005). Berger and ­Luckmann would speak here of institutionalization (1966: 47f.). Or, to borrow a term from Foucault’s discourse, one can say disciplinization (but see also White 2008: 63ff.). The disciplinization of communication is older that the invention of military and economic discipline at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. Discipline existed long before military and work cycles. Yet, although discipline can go hand in hand with domination, it does not

From understanding to impact  301 necessarily have to. Discipline can operate without domination and can also emerge from social relationships. What is meant by “discipline” here is a reliable process of advance and progress that is oriented to others and that is directed at a specific social cycle. It is a matter of reliability that does not feed off violence and domination. Communicative discipline is a bidding, a ruling that is aimed at the predictability of further action. It thus creates a structure of enabling. The disciplinization of communication is not repressive and forbidding, nor does it rule out specific actions. On the contrary, it assures a horizon of expectation; it sets up a framework; it creates reliability, which is why discipline empowers, making lots of things possible. Yes, it does on occasions forbid; forbidding is, after all, the converse of bidding. Non-adherence to what was said may be forbidden, for example. Nevertheless, this discipline belongs to the enabling of actions and not primarily to the forbiddance of actions.

Communicative acting makes identity The will not to be ordinary but also to be someone special and at least appreciated by others as well is constitutive to the life of humans. This will to identity does not need any self-reflexive reassurance; rather, the will to identity is as certain as pain suffered of which one is also certain. One does not need to reassure oneself that one has an identity, but is certain of it. It is not a will in the sense of an individual wanting one thing and not the other; rather, it is a will in the sense that one wills to survive. It is fundamental. If you do not have that will, then you do not have anything anymore. This will ultimately lie in the hope that there, in the inner being, is something stable. But precisely because there is nothing there – except for biological impulses (as modern angst has it) – the human being needs recognition that there is something there, that the human being exists and that he or she is a social being: “We are what we are through our relationship to others” (Mead 2015: 369). Identity wills recognition, that is, feedback from the other. This need not necessarily be a positive reply, a consent to the real being (as understood by Honneth 1994). Recognition means seeing that which is there to see. And when that which is seen is the other, the alien, the disruptive, the misshapen, the sick, then even such a reply is a reply that goes to create identity and recognize it. In the struggle for recognition, there are not just merely winners and losers; it is more a matter of allocation across the entire field. Not everyone, not even the most of us, become masters; most of us end up as servants or indeed as merchants, purveying to the masters and the servants what they need. Communicative acting always creates the identity of the persons communicating with one another. Initially, communicative acting does this in a structural way, which means that all those who participate in the communication process are generally understood to be the owners of identity.

302  Jo Reichertz This assumption, this doing as-if, consequently leads to the identity being created at the same time. Furthermore – and, in this connection, this plays a much greater role – the communication process always ascribes a particular identity to the counterpart and to the communicating person as well. We are evaluated and rated during the communication process and, above all, via communication. Communication therefore does not just say that we are somebody but also what we are for others and what we are for ourselves. Communication therefore does not just say that we are a person but also which person we are. Communication allocates us in our field of interaction. Some move up, some move down – with the others, namely the majority, somewhere in between. It is from this fundamental task of communication that the power of communication grows. For just as communication can ascribe a specific identity, so too can it deny that identity or reinterpret it and bring an entirely new identity to the light of day. To that extent, in the course of every communicative action, all the participants involved in the communication process commit their entire identity in order to reach their goals. Each communication process has consequences not just for the imminent problem that is to be solved with the help of communication but also for the subsequent communication process. With each act of communication, the persons involved contribute to the writing of a future open-ended history that will never be really deleted. Indeed, it will always influence the following communication processes (cf. Goffman 2005). No communication process starts at point zero; each one picks up from the preceding one, continues it, modifies it or transforms it, even if the persons so involved have previously never communicated with one another.

Relationship as the basis of communicative power “Power” induces people to accede to impositions communicatively made, according to the argument advanced above. One form of power – the one that is of particular interest here, since it is the most frequent kind of everyday ­communication – is the power that arises from the special relationship that the persons communicating enter into with one another, create with one another. This form of power leads on from the social relationship created in and with the communication process and from the motives constituted by the relationship. There, with the motives so validated, the action can be referred to one another, also because only specific reasons were permitted for this action. However, as Marcel Mauss asserts, a social relationship only comes about through exchange (1978: 11–143). First of all, looks are given, taken and reciprocated, then (at which point the relationship is further consolidated) communicative actions are given, taken and reciprocated – before, finally, reasons for action are given, taken and reciprocated. If, at the beginning, the bodies speak to one another and recognize whether they want to have something to do with one another further, the voices of the actors and their culture will also come into effect. A social relationship so originated binds

From understanding to impact  303 all the participants because a relationship does not just connect the consciousness of the participants with one another but also their identities (see also the concept of figuration – Elias 2004; Couldry & Hepp 2016). This power does not precede the relationship; rather, a relationship such as power is successively built up in and with the communication process. This power only arises from the actual communication process. For communication is not just an interplay relating to the coordination of action but also, as we play the game, we learn what we are to think of the other. And the other learns with he has to think of me. Thus, the relationship is built and if the participants succeed in becoming important for one another, then this will be a special social relationship to which Brandom gives deontic status (1994: 201ff.). This results from the fact that the participants in the communication process voluntarily commit themselves to the validity of specific norms via their communicative action and conduct. In a kind of self-commitment, the persons communicating with one another take on the rules during the communication process. And whether one is prepared to follow these rules will be revealed in the communication process itself. The communicative action thus creates reliability. It is our attitude toward a rule, our acknowledgment or recognition of moral necessity alone that gives it a grip on us – not just in terms of its effect on our actual behavior, but in terms of our liability to assessment according to the rule that expresses that necessity. In this sense the norms that bind us rational creatures are instituted by our practical attitudes and activity. They are what we bring to the party. (Brandom 1994: 52) If the persons communicating agree on what they should “bring to the party,” as Brandom puts it, then they have reached a common status, the deontic status. The deontic status, and this is an essential point here, cannot be established by one of the speakers alone: He is not able to set up a norm as obligatory. Both speakers must commit to following the norm since the commitment of the one does not necessarily mean that the other follows suit. All the participants must play the same game of giving and demanding reasons. Otherwise, that deontic status will not be achieved. When both do that, when both have become relevant for one another in their action, then they share a deontic status. The deontic status is, therefore, a specific kind of relationship, a special social relationship (as similarly argued by Taylor 1989). The effectiveness is, therefore, based on voluntary recognition on the part of the actors concerned (Searle 1995). To power belongs the consent to power by the counterpart.

Communicative power is power over identity It does exist – an everyday communicative power that can operate without commanding, threatening and corrupting. Indeed, communicative acting

304  Jo Reichertz usually succeeds in the everyday, namely, without force and also without threat and corruption but never without power. But it is a power that leads on from the relationship of the actors to one another and for the significance of the other for own definition of identity. This power is ultimately based on recognition, on voluntariness. As mentioned several times above, mutual communicative acting creates identity and because identity is never really fixed, mutual communicative acting can define identity anew, damage it or – in the worst case – destroy it. “This vulnerability cannot simply be wished away” (Butler 2006: 260), or put more positively, the configurability of identity can never be put to rest. Identity is not something that one receives forever thanks to social ­interaction; rather, identity is assigned to you until further notice. For this reason, each identity always needs to be communicatively renewed via recognition, communication and exchange. Which, however, also implies that identity can at any time be attacked, injured and damaged via insult, belittlement and disrespect. Identity is never fixed – despite all those attempts to make a fixed entity of it. Identity is always a provisional result if also the current expression of societal communication processes that always have a history and that always create history in which everyone has his or her own place. The world in which we live is symbolically structured, unavoidably so, precisely because it produces by means of communication, that is, symbolically, and precisely because it is also conveyed symbolically. This is why this world consists of a complicated, not evenly woven net of different senses, a net that is displayed in non-lingual and lingual signs and that embraces the entire world – that is, the actor’s exterior and interior. The actor unfurls himself in and with communicative acting and in it be­ comes visible to all and, as a result, also configurable. As he learns the tech­niques of competent communicative acting (which always consist of a combination of words and deeds), the space of reasons is also conveyed to him, a space that makes it possible within the language and interaction community to separate the legitimate from illegitimate reasons. Furthermore – and this is connected with the space of reasons – the actor is also provided with typical motives for symbolic as well as nonsymbolic action. These motives are articulated in the action situation as typical intentions that drive actions on. Seen from this viewpoint, intentions are also of a social origin: They are internalized forms of the socially desired, the expectable and the feared. Intentions are socially configured and socially fixed ways of channeling biologically rooted desires into acceptable and recognizable forms. What we wish, what we feel, what we reject and what we recognize all have its social base and social roots. Power – at least the power meant here, that is, the power of relationship – does not arise from the relationship between words and humans but, rather, always from the (social, not private) relationship from human to human – that is, from social relationships and from the significance that relationships possess for the construction and maintenance of identity. It is always humans whose words have power; not words that have power. Of course, this

From understanding to impact  305 involves a kind of control (cf. White 2008: 280ff.), control over what something is worth to us because we are something or want to be something for ourselves and for others. It are always humans who, in the course of mutual communicative acting, commit to norms of action. Communicative power is therefore not made by the word but made by humans, or, to be more precise, by the interplay of humans, by their relationship. Without humans to back them up, words would have no power at all. This definition of power binds power – that is, the ability to give others a motive for their actions – to the actors, even if the power over which the actors dispose by means of communicative acting is in essence the power of sociality. This social power, though, if it is to be effective, always requires an actor. Without actors, power is inevitably empty. And since this kind of power is bound to the actors to a certain degree, they can dispose of their acquired power only within limits. It can be stored and multiplied (one has, after all, a “reputation”) and one can pass it on, again within limits – when one recommends someone and thus vouches for the person so recommended, for example. Nevertheless, communicative power is not the characteristic feature of a person as such but, rather, it emerges again and again from the relationship that persons always enter into with one another. This “unforced force” of communicative acting is vouchsafed by social recognition. The closer the relationship between the persons communicating is, that is, the more relevant they are for one another, the more power unfolds communicative acting. One assigns identity, reliability and social competence to those who ensure that their words are followed by matching deeds. One knows with whom one is dealing, shares the same world with them and trusts them. One likes to have their company, do business with them and, possibly, even build a life together. But those whose words do not mean anything, since no one takes heed of them, one must first remind and warn. If that remains ineffective, one soon begins to avoid them, deny them their identity, mark them out to others and exclude them. The starting point for all is therefore the special, relevant relationship that I, borrowing from Brandom, have called the “deontic relationship.” If one wishes to unfold power, then it is the first thing that has to be created. It is the starting point from which a common space of good reasons can be set up or, alternatively, from which an already existing space of good reasons can be put into force. If that succeeds, then it is no longer just the “significant other” – sitting opposite us, with us – who communicates within the “relevant relationship”; but rather, within this relevant relationship, it is the generalized other to whom both are committed, who speaks out of the significant other. For constitutive to the creation of a relationship is the establishment of a common generalized other – or, formulated differently, the establishment of a space of good reasons (cf. Sellars 1997) that all participants consider meaningful, to which they therefore feel themselves voluntarily committed and of which they also expect that the others will voluntarily commit.

306  Jo Reichertz However, there are many spaces of good reasons in this world and there are equally many good reasons for preferring one space of good reasons to another space of good reasons. To that extent, the “good reasons” do not really get us further. What is crucial is which space of good reasons can be established as the valid space for the participants. Yet even if there are many good reasons for (almost) everything, even if nobody really knows what truth is (cf. Reinhard 2006: 125), at least everybody knows what reliability is. For the meaning of truth – and perhaps less so: the meaning of ­truthfulness – is coextensive with the meaning of reliability. One can perhaps no longer determine what is true, but one can surely determine what reliability is – if only because everybody can determine and test it and because one can verify it within the common history. Reliability, that is, the certainty that the person communicating will have his words followed by deeds, is the key category in terms of achieving communicative power. Reliability does not arise from a moral imperative or a philanthropic ethic but from a calculation: He who is reliable is predictable and can be counted on. What he says has substance and I can orient myself to him (one way or another). For me, he has an identity. He is identical with himself because his words are identical with his deeds. However, he who is rated as unreliable, he who is denied reliability, with whom one talks increasingly less or only talks about what is really necessary or with whom one does not even talk – or at least about anything of any relevance. He loses his “linguistic ability to act” (Kuch & Herrmann 2007: 193). First of all, what he says becomes meaningless and then he himself: He becomes excluded, marginalized. His identity suffers damage – but admittedly only in the eyes of the excluder. One, or to be more precise the excluders, still hear him but they no longer listen to him and pay even less heed to what he says. He may have words, but his words lack the power to move others and provide others with a motive for their actions. To a certain degree, people who are denied reliability die a “communicative death” before the real one. What they say does not induce anything anymore.

The social significance of communicative power The idea of communicative power I have conveyed here is not concerned with morals, let alone with improving the world through more honesty or more sincerity. Of the latter, it may be doubted, and with good reason, whether sincerity would lead to a better world anyway. Instead, it is a matter of improving communicative power in the sense of making effective communicative power, a power that in essence is a relationship power. Such effectivity means increasing the virtuosity of (nonviolent and nondominant) dealings between humans with one another and with themselves. After all, this communicative power helps people to better coordinate their behavior. Mutual communicative acting is neither the place of reason and self-­ determination nor the means of bringing about reason and self-determination.

From understanding to impact  307 Nor is it a tool for depicting the world in such a way that all reasonable people (have to) consent. Mutual communicative acting is in equal measure the reason and the unreason of utility. It is open to everything that can communicatively express itself and be reached – also open to naming the unreasonable reasonable. What can communicative acting do? On this side of violence and domination, it can suggest and provide other human actors with motives for their actions. It can do this because communicative action and conduct can create identity – one way or another. Which is why laying claim to communicative power for one’s self always means the risk of compromising one’s identity – if, admittedly, only on condition that the participants have entered with one another into a relationship that all the participants consider important for one another. Communicative power makes easier the coordination of human behavior, renders it sustainable. If one dispenses with the power of relationship in the communication process or if it becomes ineffective, then domination (and ultimately violence as well) must close the gap between the wish for action as communicated and its fulfillment. However, domination and violence do not just generate considerably greater social costs; they are also much more ineffective since they always sow the seeds of resistance and revolt instead of consent and reproduction. How strong and how forceful is the power of communicative acting? The answer to this question is not an easy one since it is often the case that the power of communicative acting achieves little to nothing; sometimes, though, its power is almost limitless. It always depends on how much a specific communicative acting of a specific person in a specific situation counts among the participants. Communicative power can set free and it can enchain. What is decisive for the power of communication are the relationship and the ensuing significance of the person communicating for the identity negotiation by the counterpart. If this significance is high enough, then the power of communicative acting is stronger than domination and violence. If communicative acting is rated high, then one can indeed motivate others to skyjack planes or confess to crimes. Communicative power is able to inspire someone a whole life long or to bind him to his past. Communicative power has nearly no limits, and the unequal distribution of that power is the cause why some social constructions matter and others do not. Communicative power makes the difference – at the level of the coordination of action as well as at the level of theory formation: If the other’s communication power is considered in formation of theory, this results in a transformation of social constructivism toward a communicative constructivism. So communicative constructivism is an extended social constructivism regarding situativity and path dependence of the mutual communicative acting and thus regarding the systematic observance of social practices and artefacts. This communicative constructivism deals with the problem that not everyone involved in social communication has

308  Jo Reichertz the same power to realize or even to legitimize and institutionalize their expectations and demands. In this respect, communicative constructivism is social constructivism extended by terms of theory of power.

Note 1 If communication science does address the power of communicative acting, then it is always in another context. For example, studies have been conducted on the significance of trust where a given message is to be successful – that is, if the message is to convey power. However, I look at this question in another field, though not in a different way. The field is a different one because I take into account nonpublic communication; at least with mainstream communication science, it is the public media discourse that is the focus of attention – also because many of the more recent works were inspired by the Foucaultian concept of governmentability (Foucault 2004).

References Austin, J.L. (1975): How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1966): The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Bourdieu, P. (2005): Was heißt Sprechen? Wien: Braunmüller. Brandom, R.B. (1994): Making It Explicit. Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Butler, J. (2006): Hass spricht. Zur Politik des Performativen. Berlin: Berlin Verlag. Castells, M (2009): Communication Power. Oxford: University Press. Couldry, N. & Hepp, A. (2016): The Mediated Construction of Reality. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Elias, N. (2004): Was ist Soziologie? Weinheim: Juventa. Foucault, M. (2004): Geschichte der Gouvernementalität. (2 Volumes) Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Goffman, E. (2005): Rede-Weisen. Formen der Kommunikation in sozialen Situationen. Konstanz: UVK. Habermas, J. (1981): Theorie kommunikativen Handelns. (2 Volumes) Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Honneth, A. (1994): Kampf um Anerkennung: Zur moralischen Grammatik sozialer Konflikte. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Keller, R. et al. (Eds.) (2013): Kommunikativer Konstruktivismus. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Knoblauch, H. (2013): Communicative Constructivism and Mediatization. Communication Theory, 23(3), 297–315. Kuch, H. & Herrmann, S.K. (2007): Symbolische Verletzbarkeit und sprachliche Gewalt. In: Herrmann, S.K. et al. (Eds.) Verletzende Worte. Die Grammatik sprachlicher Missachtung. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 179–210. Luhmann, N. (2003): Macht. Stuttgart: Lucius und Lucius. Mauss, M. (1978): Soziologie und Anthropologie. (Vol. II) Berlin: Ullstein. Mead, G.H. (2015): Mind, Self and Society. Chicago, IL: University Press. Reichertz, J. (2009): Kommunikationsmacht. Was ist Kommunikation und was vermag sie? Und weshalb vermag sie das? Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

From understanding to impact  309 Reichertz, J. (2013): Grundzüge des Kommunikativen Konstruktivismus. In: Keller, R. et al. (Eds.). Kommunikativer Konstruktivismus. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 49–68. Reichertz, J. (2017): Die Bedeutung des kommunikativen Handelns und der Medien im Kommunikativen Konstruktivismus. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 65(2), 252–274. Reichertz, J. & Tuma, R. (Eds.) (2017): Der Kommunikative Konstruktivismus bei der Arbeit. Weinheim: Juventa. Reinhard, W. (2006): Unsere Lügengesellschaft. Hamburg: Murmann. Searle, J.R. (1969): Speech Acts. Cambridge, MA: University Press. Searle, J.R. (1995): The Construction of Social Reality. New York: The Free Press. Sellars, W. (1997): Empirism and the Philosophy of Mind. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Taylor, C. (1989): Sources of Self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weber, M. (1964): The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation. (Edited, translated and introduced by Talcott Parsons) New York: Free Press. Weber, M. (1972): Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen: Mohr. White, H.C. (2008): Identity and Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

19 The discursive construction of realities Reiner Keller

Although my interest is not historical, I feel obliged to explain why and in what way my conception of the relation between sociology of knowledge and discourse differs from how it has hitherto been generally understood in earlier periods of ‘social construction’. At the end, I will make some concluding remarks to indicate what I consider the ‘pay off’ of this enterprise for sociology of knowledge in general and for certain areas of empirical research. (Berger & Luckmann 1966: 7–8, slightly modified by the author of this text)

Overture A conference such as the one held in Vienna celebrating 50 years of Social Construction requires a great deal of work in order to take place at all. I am aware that about two years ago, a group of people (some of whom would later become the organizers) met somewhere, sharing thoughts, food and wine. Someone then pointed out the upcoming 50th anniversary of Berger and Luckmann’s book on social construction. An instant discussion evolved: Shall we celebrate? How? Where? And most importantly: Who will pay for it? After an intense period of deliberation, decisions were made. Letters of invitation were sent out. Replies were sent back. A webpage was created, posters and flyers designed. Future talks written, reservations made, tickets bought, talks given. What is more (as Howard Becker is tireless in pointing out): A venue was chosen, childcare organized, catering ordered. There can be no conference without meals and drinks. Such activities are not specific to a sociological symposium. You might insert any event you like into this very general description of ”doing a symposium.” But there definitely was something specific about this gathering: its thematic reference. There are two authors who wrote the book The Social Construction of Reality more than 50 years ago. At least this is what the book cover claims and some sociologists say. As can easily be checked, on the very first pages the authors point to the summer of 1962 as the starting point for their reflections. In this book, they assembled a comprehensive account of earlier sociological (and to a lesser degree philosophical and

Discursive construction of realities  311 anthropological) work: Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Alfred Schütz, Arnold Gehlen, George Herbert Mead and others; more than one hundred names are referred to. The two young sociologists, then aged 34 and 33, added and combined ideas, concepts, arguments and examples to form a new and fresh story to tell about society: How it historically emerges as “objective reality” via interaction, typification, objectification and the institutionalization of meaning/knowledge, and how it is internalized to become the subjective world of people. The book slowly gathered momentum, became influential and sold copies around the world. In 1998, it was number five in the International Sociological Association’s world ranking of the “books of the century” in sociology. As time went by, other authors commented on it, other books referred to it. There were some celebrations of its 25th anniversary. At this time John Meyer explained how he had developed neo-institutionalism out of the book’s second chapter on Society as Objective Reality. German sociologist Stephan Wolff stated that the arguments put forward in the book offered the most comprehensive theory of “society as an effect of communication.” In the recent special issue of Human Studies on “social construction,” its subliminal influence has been traced further along the road up to today’s sociology. The book traveled, via translation, and via personal moves, for example, Thomas Luckmann’s return to Germany in the 1960s. As the two authors subsequently turned to other things, such as religion or “the homeless mind” in industrializing countries, there was no immediate consolidation of this work as a “new paradigm.” The so-called linguistic turn and even a “sociology of knowledge and meaning” turn, as both Roland Robertson and Clifford Geertz suggested, were very much in the air at the time. The book therefore participated in a developing “constructivist mood” with a range of different manifestations. Such manifestations included the emergence of the second Chicago school (scholars such as Howard S. Becker, Anselm Strauss and their colleagues, who were more or less inspired by the former Chicago school of sociology), and Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, which built on the work of Alfred Schütz. Many of the developments in the United States were opposed to grand abstract theory as presented by the work of Talcott Parsons, as well as to quantified statistical analysis, which seemed not to correspond to “what really happens” out there. Such “moods,” according to Thomas Kuhn, might be part of, or the expression of paradigm shifts, due to new generations of scholars trying to find their place in academia and trying to make a difference. They exist in shifts in (sociological) statement production – indeed, they are those shifts. Or they might just be an effect of very selective ex-post observations by interested observers and sociological textbooks, which create the theory shifts they are talking about by presenting selected works. Andrew Abbott (2001: 90) considered the Berger and Luckmann book “the last elegant statement of the old dilemma of ideologies. It was an end rather

312  Reiner Keller than a beginning.” I strongly object to this misjudgment. I would rather relate the ambivalent “non-present presence” of Social Construction in the ­English-speaking academic communities to two reasons: First, the sociology of knowledge was already prominently conceived of as the sociology of scientific and technological issues (such as establishing scientific facts), and on its way to becoming the field of STS and the “social construction of science and technology.” Second, Berger and Luckmann were not part of the “Chicago school crowd,” consisting of sociologists like Howard Becker, Herbert Blumer, Erving Goffman, Anselm Strauss, in some ways even Harold Garfinkel and many others who were working on symbolic interactionism, the interaction order and ethnomethodology. This meant that Berger and Luckmann were at the margins and could not enter with full force an emerging academic space interested in meaning-making within an already established canon. Core ideas and concepts of this tradition, especially the idea of the actors’ “definition of the situation” as a key to understanding action and its effects, had been established as early as 1918, as well as a cultural theory of reality and reflections on meaning-making inspired by German Weberian sociology.1 This was different in other countries and languages. In France, the emerging Bourdieusian theory of social fields strongly opposed the work of Alfred Schütz and social phenomenology, as well as what Bourdieu called the “naive” and “spontaneous” sociology of everyday life and people. Not by chance, the first French translation of Social Construction in 1986 was promoted by Michel Maffesoli, the leader of an opposing sociological tribe in France, interested in the sociology of everyday life. And once again it was not by chance, after a long-term shift in French sociology, away from Bourdieu and toward symbolic interactionist author Howard S. Becker and others from the Chicago tradition, that the second translation and presentation of the book, published a decade later and now promoted by more mainstream French sociologists, did not even mention the first one. The case of Germany was very different again. With its substantial references to past German thinkers and the presence of Thomas Luckmann, as well as the absence of symbolic interactionist work in the late 1960s in Germany, the book succeeded in occupying an “empty space” in the world of sociological paradigms, beyond critical theory or positivist research, and became the core reference for a group of young scholars around Luckmann in the 1970s and early 1980s. It is not our concern to trace this here, however. In summary, via continual permutations of action, the book traveled through time and space, in contexts of consent or dispute, critique, attack and ignorance. As with the symposium, much of this kind of action is not specific to sociological work; some is even not specific to academic or scientific writing (e.g., the process of reading, writing, producing paper, printing and selling). Text production and documentation is always important throughout all such fields of work: for organizing symposiums, for sending out messages, including text messages and messages in bottles. But some of it is specific. And here we are right now, memorizing, celebrating, discussing.

Discursive construction of realities  313

Universes of discourse In 1992, Peter Berger reflected upon the marginality of the book in US sociology in the 1960s. In the American Sociological Association theory section newsletter, he stated that “it is not possible to play chamber music at a rock festival.” He referred to the book’s melody, to its style and content. This brings us to some of the details. It was a book on sociology. It did not refer to astrology, brain research, neoclassical economics or diet recipes to establish its story. So it was sociological (whatever that means). But it deviated from the then-dominant orders and even counter-orders of sociological discourse, that is, from the predominant ways of “telling about society” (Becker 2007). This was not a complete deviation, just a small variation and recombination. Just enough to constitute an event. And just enough to mark a small space for discretion, which allows for the argument that universes of discourse guide their speakers: They increase the likelihood that certain utterances, statements and action patterns will be produced instead of others, but they do not determine the outcome of such a guidance. Those who perform communication and statements are acting upon a basic human capacity for freedom to interpret and “define the situation,” to play a particular interpretation of a song or piece and possibly add new elements to it or replace the instruments. In 1945, Alfred Schütz published his article on Multiple Realities. He explained the existence and effects of the world of scientific reasoning by using the pragmatist term “universe of discourse,” pointing to restrictions on what can be said, thought about and done, for example in mathematics, once someone has entered such a field: All this, however, does not mean that the decision of the scientist in stating the problem is an arbitrary one or that he has the same ‘freedom of discretion’ in choosing and solving his problems which the phantasying self has in filling out its anticipations. This is by no means the case. Of course, the theoretical thinker may choose at his discretion, only determined by an inclination rooted in his intimate personality, the scientific field in which he wants to take interest and possibly also the level (in general) upon which he wants to carry on his investigation. But as soon as he has made up his mind in this respect, the scientist enters a pre-constituted world of scientific contemplation handed down to him by the historical tradition of his science. Henceforth, he will participate in a universe of discourse embracing the results obtained by others, methods worked out by others. This theoretical universe of the special science is itself a finite province of meaning, having its peculiar cognitive style with peculiar implications and horizons to be explicated. The regulative principle of constitution of such a province of meaning, called a special branch of science, can be formulated as follows: Any problem emerging within the scientific field has to partake of the universal style of this field and has to be compatible with the pre-constituted problems and their solution

314  Reiner Keller by either accepting or refuting them. Thus the latitude for the discretion of the scientist in stating the problem is in fact a very small one. [...] Theorizing [...] is, first, possible only within a universe of discourse that is pregiven to the scientist as the outcome of other people’s theorizing acts. (Schütz 1973a [1945]: 250–256) We might consider chamber music and rock music as distinct universes of musical discourse, with rules of their own for instruments, arrangements, melodies, timing, setting and so on. A particular scientific (sub-)discipline also creates its own rules for content and argumentation. It establishes conventions for topics, conflict and consent, as well as the differences and hierarchies between sociological chamber music (fine and sophisticated, requiring a high level of literacy) and sociological rock music (loud and brutal). To be clear, it is not the discipline itself that does these things. There is a history of embodied interactions, of doings, sayings, writings and of all kinds of material objectifications (such as books, salaries, software, etc.). There are familiar and new actors, institutional devices, personal and material resources, enacted routines, stocks of knowledge and sets of communication practices, which, in their particular way, closely correspond to what Schütz and Luckmann describe for society as a whole. We just have to replace “social structure” with “established universe of discourse”: First, a particular historical social structure has governed a particular chain of typical communication processes: by stabilizing and changing elements already on hand, these processes produced a particular language structure and stratification. But second, a given social structure governs more or less bindingly, and in a more or less functional manner, the typical uses of existing means of communication in typical situations, starting from early phases of language acquisition [...] up to the institutional establishment of semantic, syntactic, and rhetorical elements of communication. [...] Furthermore, the actual present use of the means of communication is, in concrete situations, socially regulated. The regulations can consist of strictly or loosely enforced negative and positive rules of selection. Among these rules are prohibitions and word taboos, the forbidding of certain stylistic variants in certain situations or toward certain types of person, commands for the use of certain forms of language or of entire strata of language, as in the binding (symmetrical or asymmetrical) use of status-conditioned formulas of address, stylistic variants, etc. [...] The use of means of communication is thus determined both by the historically available structure of the means of communication and by the concrete social regulation of communicative processes. [...] The actual use of the means of communication is, in any case, composed of rule-following, routine, and action in the we-relation, however limited. Structural preservation and structural change result from this. (Schütz & Luckmann 1989: 155–156)

Discursive construction of realities  315 Schütz used the term “universe of discourse” again in the text quoted here in the late 1950s (Schütz & Luckmann 1989: 261). Universes of discourse take place around their particular orders of discourse. Such orders imply related adjustments of actors: “The greater the differences between their system of relevances, the fewer the chances for the success of the communication. Complete disparity of the system of relevances makes the establishment of a universe of discourse entirely impossible” (Schütz 1973b [1955]: 323). Much of this ordering is brought about by producing and circulating oral or written communications. When we use language, signs and symbols to write this text we do not intend to reproduce English as a language system. But in fact this is also what we do when arguing a case. In the same way, we do not always explicitly intend to produce or reproduce a particular sociological universe of discourse. We simply argue a case in a given language game, maybe without even reflecting on its basic rules. Given all our tribal, epistemic, conceptual and empirical differences, we could stay up all night wondering what exactly it is that makes us a part of the sociologists’ tribe (or different sub-tribes). As a faster solution I suggest we all go and listen to the psychologists’ or dentists’ symposium next door. Then we will know or/and at least feel the answer. Entering a particular universe of discourse is like entering a preestablished space of communication; becoming familiar with it is the condition for entering its conversations: Where does the drama get its materials? From the ‘unending conversation’ that is going on at the point in history when we are born. Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally’s assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress. It is from this ‘unending conversation’ (the vision at the basis of Mead’s work) that the materials of your drama arise. (Burke 1941: 110–111) What Schütz was referring to in the “universe of discourse” quote are “rules” or “orders of discourse” that shape such a “parlor.” In his discussion of signs, symbols and reality he argued in the same direction. A sign becomes a sign in relation to a particular and conventional set of signs. A straight white line on a dark background could be anything: a trace of drug

316  Reiner Keller use; a trace of pigeon droppings. Or a mathematical symbol when contextualized by the latter’s universe of discourse. Signs and symbols do not show up as isolated objects, but as “objects within a network of relations” to other signs, symbols, practices, objects and sense-making structurations. A similar idea was expressed 20 years earlier by Robert Park and Ernest Burghes, commenting on John Dewey: Society not only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication. There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication. (Dewey 1916, cited in Park & Burgess 1924 [1921]: 36) And they continue: Not only does communication involve the creation, out of experiences that are individual and private, of an experience that is common and public but such a common experience becomes the basis for a common and public existence in which every individual, to greater or lesser extent, participates and is himself a part. [...] The characteristic product of a group of individuals, in their efforts to communicate is, on the other hand, something objective and understood, that is, a gesture, a sign, a symbol, a word, or a concept in which an experience or purpose that was private becomes public. This gesture, sign, symbol, concept or representation in which a common object is not merely indicated, but in a sense created, Durkheim calls a ‚collective representation’. Dewey’s description of what takes place in communication may be taken as a description of the process by which these collective representations come into existence. (Park & Burgess 1924 [1921]: 37–38) Therefore, the “expression ‘different universes of discourse’ indicates how communication separates as well as unites persons and groups” (Park & Burgess 1924 [1921]: 423). The pragmatist concept “universe of discourse” refers then, according to George Herbert Mead and in parallel to Alfred Schütz, to a set of collectively shared meanings produced, reproduced and transformed by a set of practices called communication: The significant gesture or symbol always presupposes for its significance the social process of experience and behavior in which it arises; or, as the logicians say, a universe of discourse is always implied as the context in terms of which, or as the field within which, significant gestures or symbols do in fact have significance. This universe of discourse is constituted by a group of individuals carrying on and participating in a common social process of experience and behavior, within which

Discursive construction of realities  317 these gestures or symbols have the same or common meanings for all members of that group, whether they make them or address them to other individuals, or whether they overtly respond to them as made or addressed to them by other individuals. A universe of discourse is simply a system of common or social meanings. (Mead 1963 [1934]: 89–90) Later, in the same series of lectures, Mead wrote: There has to be some such field as religion or economics in which there is something to communicate, in which there is a cooperative process, in which what is communicated can be socially utilized. One must assume that sort of a cooperative situation in order to reach what is called the ‘universe of discourse.’ Such a universe of discourse is the medium for all these different social processes, and in that sense it is more universal than they; but it is not a process that, so to speak, runs by itself. (Mead 1963 [1934]: 259–260) From the late 1930s, Charles Morris (1946) built on the work of Mead, discussing processes of differentiation within such a general or basic universe of discourse. He describes how particular “types of discourse,” as he called them, have come into existence historically, such as poetry, religion and economics.

Discursive formations and discursive battles I assume that I have to beg your pardon for the numerous and extensive quotes in the last section. I choose not to reformulate them in my own words for a simple reason: I want to give you some evidence of the usage of “discourse” in pragmatist and social-phenomenological thinking in sociology. Referring to universes or orders of discourse in a “beyond linguistics” sense can be traced far back in the history of the social sciences. It is not just the effect of a new “jargon” established in the 1960s. But the term discourse refers to very different things in and between languages. When celebrating an anniversary like that of Social Construction, the French would cry out: “Un discours! Un discours!,” and they would expect someone from the core group to stand up and start a celebratory, hopefully humorous and preferably brief ad hoc speech. Or they would invite a professor from the Collège de France to present her or his hottest ideas about life, the universe and everything. Maybe, like the good old René Descartes, they would simply write a “discourse on method.” Germans, at least those trained in political science or philosophy, and nowadays also journalists and politicians, would start thinking of Jürgen Habermas and his practical ethics of discourse, which refers to particular settings and rules for deliberation, discussion and argumentation in case of disagreement. Finally,

318  Reiner Keller colleagues from English-speaking countries might simply refer to situated communication between people in everyday life. Maybe they would add “public” and then discuss contested issues in mass media and the public sphere. This points to the legacy of the symbolic interactionists whose sociological research on public discourses, frames and contested issues became very prominent in US research on social problems and movements from the late 1970s. One of the most interesting works here is Joseph Gusfield’s study on what he called the Culture of Public Problems. It differs enormously from the usual media content research based on frame analysis. The subtitle of this 1981 book is Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order. It is about something we are all concerned with: drinking alcohol and then driving a car. What he is interested in is how this problem was conceived of and regulated in different institutional spheres, including religious worldviews, law, medicine, insurance companies, politics and car manufacturers: The people whom I talked with [...] presented a fairly uniform view of the problem. Alcohol leads to impaired driving and increases the risk of accident, injury and death. Since drinking coupled with driving ‘causes’ auto accidents, solutions lie in strategies which diminish either drinking or driving after drinking. The available strategy is to persuade the drinker not to get behind the wheel of the car. Law enforcement and punishment perhaps supplemented by education are the most useful and acceptable means to diminish auto accidents due to drinking. [...] This homogenous consciousness of alcohol and automobile use appears to the sociologist as a salient form of social control. It eliminates conflict or divergence by rendering alternative definitions and solutions unthinkable. This subtle, unseen implication of cultural ideas is perhaps the most powerful form of constraint. Unlike the conflict of power it goes unrecognized. What we cannot imagine, we cannot desire. [...] The absence of alternative modes of transportation is logically as much a cause of drinking-driving as is the use of alcohol. (Gusfield 1981: 11) In Gusfield’s view, the problematization and institutional regulation of drunk driving produced a particular structuring of this problem of action, including laws, disciplinary control and texts: At any moment the ‘structure’ itself may be fought over as groups attempt to effect the definitions of problems and authority to affect them. [...] Structure is process frozen in time as orderliness. It is a conceptual tool with which we try to make that process understandable. What is important to my thought here is that all is not situational; ideas and events are contained in an imprecise and changing container. (Gusfield 1981: 5–7)

Discursive construction of realities  319 This reference to Gusfield is not an arbitrary one. As he states very early in his book, and as others have stated about their own work (e.g., more recently Adele Clarke (2005), writing about situational analysis), the influences of Berger and Luckmann’s book lie at the very heart of his reflection. In his 2001 discussion of the Chaos of Disciplines, American sociologist Andrew Abbott (2001) reflected upon the success story of the Social Construction text and the high impact of a more general and often less precise usage of the words “social construction” in academic texts, and this was not a reference to engineering. Ian Hacking’s famous 1999 treatise The Social Construction of What? gives an account of this generalized and “free-­floating” references to “social constructedness (SC),” not the one in Berger and ­Luckmann’s book, but the one in the broad and rather loose, often arbitrary use of this “best-selling branding.” Hacking assembled all kind of works referring to “social construction,” not only from the point of view of sociology, but even more from the broader field of humanities. Such work led to some confusion about the rather loose use of “social construction” and “discourse” as more or less equivalent terms. Abbott (2001: 18) considered Berger and Luckmann as protagonists of the “third wave of constructionists” and stated that meanwhile, during the 1990s, the (“fourth generation” Foucauldian) term “discourse” had replaced Berger and Luckmann’s reference to ­“symbolic ­universes” as the core concept used to approach processes of social ­construction – though he also argued that the concepts were closely aligned and covered the same ideas. This is something I do not agree with. To be more precise, I do not agree that the concept of discourse covers the same comprehensive range with the same precision as the book The Social Construction of Reality. The theoretical arguments made in the book present a very fundamental theorization of how objective and subjective realities come into being and refer to each other. This is something the term “discourse” as used in more recent academic work does not do. I strongly oppose the arguments made by some colleagues in discourse theory work that all is discourse, or that there is nothing outside of discourse. Instead, I consider discourses to be particular processes or forms of knowledge-making and unmaking, of objectifying and de-objectifying realities. Remember Gusfield’s book: It is about discourses, about discursive constructions of realities. The sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD, cf. Keller 2010 [2005], 2011, 2012a, 2018; Keller et al. 2018) that I am arguing for is about social relations of knowledge and knowing,2 about politics of knowledge and knowing, about the making and unmaking of realities in institutional and organizational contexts, in public arenas and special social fields, and in between. It is about the discursive construction of realities as covering a particular field of communicative construction and social construction. Discursive construction is performed via “serious speech acts” (in the Foucauldian sense).3 Communicative construction, according to my usage, is a more general term covering rather disparate communicative events, including small-scale everyday “text and

320  Reiner Keller talk” or explicit practices of language use or sign use.4 Social construction, according to this approach, is also a more general concept, including nonverbal interaction as well as the instrumental activities of human actors collaborating for a purpose at hand (including daily routines of work). Discursive construction is what this book is performing here and now, and it is what made Berger and Luckmann’s celebrated book travel from the 1960s up to the present moment. In Germany, the concept of the “discursive construction of reality” was first used by Angelika Poferl (2004) in her study of the “cosmopolitics of everyday life.” It then became the title of a 2005 book edited by Werner Schneider, Willy Viehöver, Andreas Hirseland and myself, subtitled “On relations between sociology of knowledge and discourse research.” Given the diffuse usage of the word “discourse,” and the particular research questions linked to it in different disciplines (such as linguistics, political science, education, cultural studies, sociology or history), I will have to clarify my usage. And here is my confession: I have tried to introduce Michel Foucault as late as possible. As you will remember, it is difficult to play rock music at a chamber music concert. These are two separate social worlds. For a long time, both tribes tried to maintain firm boundaries. But now we can no longer avoid crossing them. Foucault’s work is, as his friend Paul Veyne wrote, a planet in itself. I do not intend to cover it here and now. I will simply offer a very brief explanation of my reading (cf. Keller 2017). Given the background of the linguistic turn, speech act theory, the Durkheimian sociology of knowledge and classification and the Weberian sociology of meaning, one can suggest that Michel Foucault might have been inspired by pragmatist thinking when he established his ideas about the archeology of discursive formations in the late 1960s (Foucault 2001, 2010 [1969]). There is some new evidence that he was reading Dewey and pragmatist philosophy at the time (Auxier 2000). Inspired by Nietzsche, Foucault transformed ahistorical philosophy into historical sociology of knowledge, institutions and fields of practice. This was stated as early as 1960 by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard and later by several sociologists in the Anglo-American world. Consider his work on the sane/insane divide, on the medical gaze, the order of things or on discipline and punishment. Sometimes, very rarely, he referred to himself as a sociologist interested in the history of systems of thought (an almost Durkheimian concept close to the latter’s sociology of knowledge concerned with historical systems of representation and classification; cf. Durkheim 1915 [1912]), in historical institutions, organizations and role-playing and in the effects of all these things. This is very like Joseph Gusfield. In his famous book, The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault (2010 [1969]) introduced discourses not as ideas or linguistic objects, but as regulated s­ ocial practices, which constitute objects of experience, knowledge and a­ ction by using signs in particular ways. He pointed to several dimensions of the institutionalization of discourses (such as academic grades, a particular vocabulary, etc.). And he called “knowledge” the outcome of such communicative

Discursive construction of realities  321 activities. Foucault’s Archeology does not propose a theory of discourse. It merely tries to establish an idea of this object and a corresponding heuristic toolbox for analysis. Foucault considered himself not a theorist but an experimenter, working through precise empirical analysis. He therefore used historical methods, such as close readings of a wide range of documents. Foucault later saw The Archaeology of Knowledge as a failure. He seldom ­returned to it, and did not use the concepts he had advocated in it. Despite some claims to the contrary, then, there is no particular “Foucauldian ­discourse analysis.” Foucault kept on using the concept of discourse not letting himself be encumbered by any previous conceptual baggage. In his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France, he talked about the “order of discourse”: Who is allowed to speak and to be heard? What objects can be talked about? What is to be avoided?5 What role do comments play? What happens when “truth” becomes the point of reference for texts and talks? A few years later, in the Pierre Rivière book (Foucault 1982), he stated his interest in discursive struggles and conflicts where discourses meet and a highly consequential social event of competing “definitions of the situation” unfolds. Rivière was a young man in Normandy, France, in the early 19th century. He murdered his mother, sister and brother in order to reestablish the lost honor of his father. At least this is what he wrote in a long confession where he explained his deeds (you see parallels to the Norwegian Breivik case). ­Rivière wanted to be held responsible and sentenced to death. But this was not what happened. During the trial, different experts – or, as Foucault says, discourses – intervened, performed by the speakers present: Experts from opposing psychological schools gave differing statements about Rivière’s sanity, his state of mind. For example, he was seen reading books in his younger days – an obvious sign of insanity because book reading implies withdrawal from social life. (Please take a minute to reflect on your own reading list at this time.) Medical, police and juridical discourses were added to the mix. According to Foucault, there was a battle between discourses, performed by actors, over the correct “definition of the situation.” Foucault stated that his interest here (similar to his interest in discursive conflicts) was in investigating problematizations: He suggested that the analytics of power/knowledge should look for situations where established ways of doing and thinking become a matter of dispute and transformation, and where a “new” reality might replace the former one. Foucault, probably influenced by in-depth readings of John Dewey’s work, was moving from structuralism to pragmatism. This is the focus of some of the current discussions of his work. Many things are missing in Foucault’s work: There is no argument on signs, on the actors’ competence in and their practice of sign usage and their anthropological requirements. But without sign use there is no discourse. Without socially shaped and interacting consciousnesses constituting reality through typification and sign usage, there is no process of construction. Nor does Foucault offer any argument on concrete methodology and on the work of interpretation. How do we ground our sociological interpretation and our

322  Reiner Keller account of the processes we identify as objects of our research, which is in itself the result of interpretation and meaning-making? How do we conceive the discursive construction we, the researchers, do of the observed discursive constructions “out there in our field of inquiry”? Foucault presents no argument on the relationship between objective and subjective reality – but this is necessary to conceive of the effects of discourses. I therefore consider Berger and Luckmann’s book and its legacy to be much more fundamental: It offers an anthropological account of humans, not as stimulus-response machines, but as interpreting animals. It uses arguments from social phenomenology and pragmatist sociology to address basic questions of human sign use, interaction and relations between consciousness, objective reality and institutions, socialization and subjective reality. Hans-Georg Soeffner later added a particular methodology of social science hermeneutics, and Ronald Hitzler, Hubert Knoblauch, Jo Reichertz and Norbert Schröer established what is now known as the hermeneutic sociology of knowledge. But this legacy was in need of a concept of discourse in order to address some of the most prominent issues in contemporary knowledge society – the discursive construction of realities in, across and between different social worlds and arenas. The leading theorist of cultural studies, Stuart Hall, stated in 1997: Recent commentators have begun to recognize not only the real breaks and paradigm-shifts, but also the affinities and continuities between older and newer traditions of work; for example, between Weber’s classical interpretative ‘sociology of meaning’ and Foucault’s emphasis on the role of the ‘discursive’. (Hall 1997: 224) After all, if we look closely, can we not say that Max Weber’s work on the “Protestant ethic” (Weber 1992 [1904–1908]) is an example of sociology of knowledge and discourse research avant la lettre? Just consider the data he was referring to, and the arguments he made. What if even Peter Berger, in his work on religious movements and economic transformation, or on South Africa, was actually also conducting discourse research (Berger & Godsell 1988)? By analyzing origins, events, dimensions, processes and effects of discursive construction, the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD) now broadly in use in Germany and beyond therefore adds to the legacy of the new sociology of knowledge. This is a serious methodology for research into the ongoing production and transformation of reality within and between particular social arenas. It acknowledges that social studies of science and technology have been very helpful, but it argues that the sociological interest in knowledge cannot be reduced to this. Knowledge, in the broad sense used by Berger and Luckmann, and also by Foucault, is produced and circulates between heterogeneous social spheres. It is not about positive or factual knowledge, but about the interconnections between scientific theories and facts, religious belief systems, political ideologies and

Discursive construction of realities  323 other discursive formations. It is about the overwhelming experience that we are “awash in a sea of discourses” (Clarke 2005: 145).

Crossover There are two final questions I would like to address here and now: First, do we need to decide between chamber music and rock music? During the 1990s, a new musical style emerged that is called crossover. It tries to avoid the former modes of discipline and punishment in music. Could this not be a promising path for research on the sociology of knowledge? Second, given the context of the early 1960s, could it not be said that the book I have been writing about here was in itself, at the time, a practical exercise in crossover (mixing Marx and Durkheim and Weber and Mead and Schütz... and...and…)? Just take a look at all the references that were quoted and (potentially) used by Berger and Luckmann. As it happens, it seems that yesterday’s crossover easily becomes today’s purified tradition and will be challenged by other crossovers to come. For better or for worse, this is the way transformations happen. This observation could even be seen as summarizing the history of sociology.

Notes 1 Please note that several early pragmatist sociologists used to travel to Germany (cf. Znaniecki 1919; Park & Burgess 1924 [1921]; Thomas & Thomas 1928; Thomas & Znaniecki 1958 [1918–1920]; Mead 1963; Keller 2012b). 2 By analogy with Karl Marx’s use of the term “relations of production.” The corresponding German terms are Produktionsverhältnisse and Wissensverhältnisse. 3 This includes media texts as well as institutional text production, speeches during demonstrations, scientific reports and so on. 4 Here I am unable to enter into a broader discussion about the different theories of communicative construction recently elaborated by Jo Reichertz and Hubert Knoblauch. 5 Please consider here the earlier-cited quote by Schütz and Luckmann on the structuring of communication.

References Abbott, A. (2001): The Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Auxier, R. (2000): Foucault, Dewey and the History of the Present. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 16(2), 75–102. Becker, H. (2007): Telling About Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Berger, P.L. & Godsell, B. (Eds.) (1988): A Future South Africa: Visions, Strategies, and Realities. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T. (1966): The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Burke, K. (1941): The Philosophy of Literary Form. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.

324  Reiner Keller Clarke, A. (2005): Situational Analysis. London: Sage. Dewey, J. (1916): Democracy and Education. New York: Columbia University Press. Durkheim, E. (1915) [1912]: The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, a Study in Religious Sociology. London: G. Allen & Unwin; New York: Macmillan. Foucault, M. (1982): I, Pierre Rivière, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister, and My Brother: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Foucault, M. (2001) [1966]: The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Routledge. Foucault, M. (2010) [1969]: The Archaeology of Knowledge & the Discourse on Language. New York: Vintage Books. Gusfield, J. (1981): The Culture of Public Problems. Chicago, IL: University of ­Chicago Press. Hacking, I. (1999): The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hall, S. (1997): The Centrality of Culture: Notes on the Cultural Revolutions of our Time. In: Thompson, K. (Ed.). Media and Cultural Regulation. London: Sage/The Open University Press, pp. 207–238. Keller, R. (2010) [2005]: Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse. Grundlegung eines Forschungsprogramms. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Keller, R. (2011): The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD). Human Studies, 34(1), 43–65. Keller, R. (2012a): Entering Discourses: A New Agenda for Qualitative Research and Sociology of Knowledge. Qualitative Sociology Review, 8(2), 46–55. Keller, R. (2012b): Das Interpretative Paradigma. Eine Einführung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Keller, R. (2017): Michel Foucault. In: Wodka, R. & Forchtner, B. (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Power. London: Routledge, pp. 67–81. Keller, R. (2018): The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse. A Research Agenda. New York: Springer VS (in preparation). Keller, R. et al. (Eds.) (2018): Using SKAD. The Sociology of Knowledge Approach in Practice. London: Routledge (in preparation). Mead, G.H. (1963) [1934]: Mind, Self and Society. Chicago, IL: University Press. Morris, C.W. (1946): Signs, Language, and Behavior. New York: Prentice Hall. Park, R.E. & Burgess, E.W. (1924) [1921]: Introduction to the Science of Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Poferl, A. (2004): Die Kosmopolitik des Alltags. Berlin: Sigma. Schütz, A. (1973a) [1945]: On Multiple Realities. In: Natanson, M. (Ed.) Collected Papers I. The Problem of Social Reality. Den Haag: Nijhoff, pp. 207–259. Schütz, A. (1973b) [1955]: Symbol, Reality and Society. In: Natanson, M. (Ed.) Collected Papers I. The Problem of Social Reality. Den Haag: Nijhoff, pp. 287–356. Schütz, A. & Luckmann, T. (1989): Structures of the Life-world. (Vol. II) Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Thomas, W.I. & Thomas, D.S. (1928): The Child in America. New York: Knopf. Thomas, W.I. & Znaniecki, F. (1958) [1918–1920]: The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. (2 Volumes) New York: Dover. Weber, M. (1992) [1904–1908]: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge. Znaniecki, F. (1919): Cultural Reality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Conclusion The Social Construction of Reality as a paradigm?1 Hubert Knoblauch

Introduction Even though there are many names and forms of constructivism in the social sciences, there are few doubts that Berger and Luckmann’s book, The Social Construction of Reality, published in 1966, had a decisive impact on what came to be called social constructivism. As the book became something of a classic in the social sciences, we shall test the thesis that it also contributed to the constitution of social constructivism as a paradigm (and as different from constructivism). In order to support this thesis, we will first sketch the notion of paradigm as it has been suggested by Kuhn. In order to demonstrate its paradigmatic character, we shall, then, turn to its content. We want to argue that by stressing the social character of the construction, The Social Construction of Reality introduced a specific new idea which demands that we sharply distinguish it from what came to be known as constructivism in the sciences and humanities. It was this idea which has been adapted by its followers, modified in various ways by various academic movements and taken up as a formula by public discourse. In the third part of the paper, we shall sketch one part of the paradigm’s social basis constituted by an academic movement relating explicitly to the book. As we will argue in the fourth part, the social construction has been adapted also in a formulaic way which crossed the borders of academic discourses and institutions and affected public discourse until today. Despite the lack of research on the book’s reception, we want to make clear the paradigmatic character of theoretical approaches must not be reduced to the field or system of science. In fact, it has been one of the major contributions of The Social Construction of Reality to consider knowledge as something which is not restricted to the “higher forms” but an essential part of any social action. In this vein, The Social Construction of Reality may be suspected to constitute a paradigm not only of academic thinking but of the current episteme or worldview.

Paradigm The most salient concept of paradigm with respect to the social sciences as well as to the sciences is general has been coined by Kuhn (1969). Paradigm

326  Hubert Knoblauch refers to the content of what scientists think as well as the social units representing these thoughts, simultaneously. More specifically, Kuhn defines the paradigm as “generally accepted scientific achievements, which for a certain time provide a community of experts with relevant problems and solutions” (1969: X). Paradigms express themselves in conceptions, in certain observations and apparatuses, which are taught in textbooks, lectures and laboratory exercises. This concept of paradigm was quite consequential since it allowed Kuhn to found himself a new paradigm in the history of science. Before, the idea of a continuous growth of scientific knowledge had dominated its history, and this very same idea provided the basis for Popper’s theory of science which assumes that the state of scientific knowledge increases steadily and continuously by means of verification and, more importantly, falsification of knowledge. Instead of the steady continuation, Kuhn demonstrated the relevance of “scientific revolutions” which lead to the devaluation of former scientific knowledge and its substitution by new knowledge. By all means, the substitution has reasons as “an existing paradigm ceases to work adequately in its function to explain” (Kuhn 1969: 91). The devaluation and substitution does not (mainly) follow from “logical reasons”; rather, it follows a social logic in that it is formulated, initiated and enforced by a new social group which takes the social place and the symbolic power of the former paradigm’s representatives. Scientific revolutions are by no means dependent only on theories and facts. Rather, they resemble political revolutions: New groups are formed, they change the institutions, and “as with political institutions, there is no higher norm in the choice of a paradigm than the approval by the respective community” (Kuhn 1969: 93). Examples include the change from the geocentric to the heliocentric view of the world, from the phlogiston to the oxygen or from corpuscular theory to the theory of waves. For a long time, the opinion prevailed that light consisted of material corpuscles. Later physics books taught that light was a transversal wave motion before it turned to the doctrine that light consists of photons. This contradiction also has its social expression: Representatives of old paradigms seldom turn around, but are replaced more or less quickly by those of the new paradigm. Kuhn formed from this a regular developmental scheme of science which starts with pre-paradigmatic “chaotic” phases. Thus, in the 17th century, many “electricians” (electricity explorers at that time) were of the opinion that electricity was characterized above all by attraction and friction. Others regarded attractiveness and repulsion as the core of electricity, while again seeing electricity as a liquid. These schools were only brought together in a paradigm by the work of Franklin. This should by no means imply that schools and pre-­ paradigmatic conditions would only be a disadvantage. Thus, two followers of the “liquid theory of electricity,” which had just been regarded as erroneous, independently developed the “Leyden bottle” (the precursor of the condenser) – a discovery which would have been hardly made without this

Conclusion  327 doctrine. Non-paradigmatic phases generally have the advantage that all facts can equally come into view. A paradigm, on the other hand, must appear as a better theory, but it does not need to explain all the facts. On the contrary, in its phase as “normal science” a paradigm contains many “drawers” into which the facts must be fitted. The concentration on particular “esoteric problems” resulting from it forces the scientist to “examine a sub-region of nature with an accuracy and to a depth that would otherwise be inconceivable” (Kuhn 1969: 25). Paradigms therefore have many advantages: They save a complex discussion, prevent the waste of time and energy in school disputes, direct their members to a common goal and allow the stabilization of the scientific community. In the postscript to the first edition of his book, Kuhn later introduced the concept of the “disciplinary system” or the disciplinary matrix. A disciplinary matrix is constituted by the scientific activities performed by a certain scientific community guided by explicit knowledge as well as principles of engendering knowledge and maps orienting. This specification shows that Kuhn was not quite satisfied with the concept of the paradigm, which blurs the boundary between social paradigms, that is, scientific achievements, “artefact paradigms” (e.g., classical works), and, finally, between the values of the order of nature, metaphysical paradigms and the world views. In fact, the notion of paradigm remains highly ambivalent as it had already been used by Aristotle. He considered paradigms to be a general logical category: It is a way to evade induction and deduction by establishing the analogy between two cases without generalizations and rules.2 Paradigms, according to Kuhn, are not restricted to the “exemplum,” that is, the paradigmatic example. They can take quite different forms, ranging from apparatuses, concepts and interpretive schemes to symbolic generalizations, common metaphysical assumptions, shared values and even ­k nowledge-generating principles, that is, rather than maps they are “guidelines for creating maps.” Even to Kuhn, paradigms can encompass whole cosmologies as, for example, the “heliocentric” or the geocentric worldview in physics (Kuhn 1969: 143). The ambivalence of paradigms is expressed in the multitude of forms; moreover, it is expressed in the fact that it contains two components. This is due to the source of the category of paradigm which lies in the early studies on the sociology of science by Ludwik Fleck. He had introduced the notion of “thought styles” (“Denkstile”) and “thought collective” (“­Denkkollektiv”). Like his predecessor Karl Mannheim, who had proposed the notion of “Denkstil” as part of his newly created “Sociology of Knowledge,” “thought styles” are determined by specific social units which were applied by Fleck to science and scientific “thought collectives.” As opposed to Fleck, Mannheim, however, did not restrict the idea of thought style to scientific knowledge but claims it to be of relevance to all kinds of knowledge. We would like to propose here that the same argument can be made for the paradigm: Paradigms must not be restricted to science but can

328  Hubert Knoblauch transcend its boundaries – and social constructivism, so we claim, is one point in case.3 The variety of forms are explained by the different social contexts in which they are used and by the different social groups who adapt the paradigm. Given the fact they are defined by these social groups, paradigms are characterized as shared knowledge, a knowledge that can be shared as an idea to be reflected in the core of the group, as a commonplace at the fringes or as a formula in the wider audience of the discourse.

The “idea” of social constructivism and the formula Having sketched the idea of the paradigm, we now need to ask what it is about the social construction that may be considered a thought style before we turn to its social form. Given the enormous diffusion of the book’s idea we will sketch below, it has earned an enormous recognition. On its 25th anniversary, for example, it was hailed as “one of the greatest feats of theoretical synthesis in American Sociology” (Perspectives 1992: 3), Abels (1998: 87) calls it a “milestone of sociology,” and Seidman (2004: 81) takes it to be “one of the monumental statements of social theory in the postwar years.” The globally organized International Sociological Association ranks the book among the five most prominent books in sociology, and it is still said to be one of the most popular best sellers in sociology on an international level. Even if its authors have deserted the book, it became a “field-defining book” (Hjelm 2014: 7). Even if it does not seem to have achieved a “hegemonic argument in the social sciences” (Abbot 2001: 88), it is related to a paradigmatic shift in sociological theory. Until the publication of the book, sociology, and particularly sociological theory, had been dominated by Parsons’ structural functionalism and the Harvard school. In fact, Parsons’ approach has been called a “normative paradigm” by W ­ ilson (1970), and it is quite clear that The Social Construction of Reality contributes to the opposing new paradigm Wilson calls “interpretive.” In fact, Luckmann later stated that The Social Construction of Reality had been intended as an “alternative to structural-functionalism dominating sociology, disguised as sociology of knowledge” (cf. Pfadenhauer & Berger 2013: 103, for more details cf. Schnettler 2006). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the diffusion of social construction in sociology contributed strongly to the interpretive paradigm in fostering hermeneutic approaches (Soeffner 1997); it also contributed to a series of qualitative methods which have been expanding within the interpretive paradigm, such as the analysis of communicative genres (Luckmann 1985), the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse analysis (Keller 2012), focused ethnography and videography (Knoblauch et al. 2014).4 As its role within the interpretive paradigm is, to say the least, not yet clarified historically, it is a common reference within what came to be called “constructivism,” “social constructivism” or “social constructionism.” It is exactly in contradistinction to constructivism that we can identify its specific

Conclusion  329 paradigmatic status: It was the first contribution and formulation of a social form of constructivism.5 The distinction between constructivism and social constructivism has not been recognized by all authors. Thus, already in 1986, Latour and ­Woolgar had changed the title of their famous study the Social Construction of Scientific Facts into Construction of Scientific Facts in the second edition of their 1979 book arguing that “social construction” does not differ from “construction.” As quite a few students of scientific knowledge, they did not explicitly relate to The Social Construction of Reality, and some even confess publicly that their use of “social construction” was not informed by the reading of the book but, as Collins (2016) relates, from hearsay. It is, however, noteworthy that Berger and Luckmann disliked all “isms”; they distanced themselves explicitly from “constructivism,” not from its social equivalent. And indeed, there are good arguments to assert the difference. Construction had not only been used in the context of building and in the arts: Since around the 1920s, we also find a steady use of “constructivism” which rises onward from 1985. But if we look in Google’s Ngram viewer for its use in the social sciences, we can discern that “constructivism” had entered the social sciences already before the 1960s. The word had been suggested by Piaget in his book La construction du réel chez l’enfant in 1950 and adapted by Kelly (1955). These writings constituted the basis for the development of a movement that came to be labeled as “psychological constructivism” particularly in the 1990s (Raskin 2002). It crossed the boundaries of psychology to the social sciences (e.g., communication studies and sociology) through the work of Paul Watzlawick (1984) who also succeeded in making it popular outside of academia. There is also another line of what has been later designated (social) constructivism, tracing its origin back to Wittgenstein and Vygotsky represented by, for example, the psychologists Bruner and Haste (1987). The concept of radical constructivism originated in neurobiology. One of its origins can be found in the 1970 edition of ­Maturana’s Biology of Cognition. Its name “radical constructivism” was coined among others by Glasersfeld (1974).6 It is worth noting that both constructivism and radical constructivism clearly stressed cognition and have been dedicated to positivist methodologies. These features have been essential for the “social constructionism.” It was particularly Gergen (1985) who suggested to clearly distinguish the psychological constructivism from what he called “social constructionism.” Although or because he was a psychologist himself, he particularly opposed the psychological constructivist idea that reality is based on the processes of the individual psyche, brain or mind. Unlike the psychological constructivist approach or the contextual constructivism by Cobern (1993), Gergen drew explicitly on The Social Construction of Reality in order to stress the social aspects of construction. And indeed, it is often ignored that Berger and Luckmann, though stressing the basis of knowledge in consciousness, elaborate the sociality of the construction in terms of social action,

330  Hubert Knoblauch interaction and institutions as well as it subsequent socialization. Construction is by no means a “void metaphor,” nor can it be understood in terms of radical constructivism.7 Instead, it makes a specific sociological argument: The “construction” of reality is not performed (not only, as some social constructivists would say, and not at all, as others would) by individual actors, by consciousness or even by brain; it is rather a peculiar social process grasped in terms of social action, interaction and institutionalization, which creates reality, and it is this relevance of the social process which is underlined in the formulation by Berger and Luckmann for it is (objectivated) reality which is socially constructed.8 The “social construction,” then, is not just mere repetition of what constructivism is about, it is a different and, one has to stress, deeply sociological idea. As the book clearly elaborates this idea, its fate is related to the ingenuity of formulating this idea succinctly in its title and thus producing what should become a formula.

Social constructivism as academic movement The Social Construction of Reality has established itself as a “classic” which forms part of the “canon” in many introductions to, overviews on and systematic presentations of sociology, social sciences and other disciplines. The publication of the book prompted an academic movement which not only referred to The Social Construction of Reality but which also took the formulation as name of its various research programs. If one looks at the Web of Science, the reception of the book started slowly with only six publications in the remainder of the seventh decade of the past century (1966–1969); then it rose to more than 341 in the seventies, 507 in the eighties, 759 in the nineties, to 854 in the first decade after the turn of the century and already 633 articles in the first half of the second decade elapsed since the beginning of the 21st century. Between 1966 and 2015, we find 3,100 entries of articles quoting The Social Construction of Reality (in English only). As these numbers indicate only the quantitative diffusion, there is a series of indicators for the diffusion of the idea of social construction. Thus, in 1999 Hacking complained about the excessive use of “social construction” which was applied to almost any possible subject matter of social scientific and cultural studies research, such as “authorship, brotherhood, children as television audience, danger, emotions, facts, female refugees, gender, homelessness, homosexuality, knowledge, illness, literacy, oral history, postmodernity, population statistics, quarks, reality, serial murderers, technical systems and Zulu nationalism.” While these titles seem to be isolated, there is a series of approaches named by the social construction. These include, for example, the “social construction of emotions” (Harré 1986), the “social construction of social problems” (Spector & Kitsutse 1977) and, as Lynch (2016: 197) recounts, it inspired Science and Technology Studies (Bijker et al. 1987), an interdisciplinary approach to the study of science and technology. In addition, The Social Construction of Reality also provides the reference

Conclusion  331 for the interdisciplinary approach called “social constructionism” founded by Kenneth Gergen. Social Constructionism has established itself in academia internationally, producing its own introductory books (Burr 1995; Hjelm 2014) and handbooks (Holstein & Gubrium 2008). We talk about an academic movement since The Social Construction of Reality is not institutionalized in any sense as a “dogmatic” text, but rather provides the reference, the formula or the common denominator (the “idea” or thought, as mentioned above) for a huge number of theoretical and empirical research activities, research projects and publications, some of which are concerted approaches, while others are rather isolated endeavors, and still others only rhetorically related to The Social Construction of Reality. As little organized as the movement may be, its dissemination is characterized by a high degree of internationality: As The Social Construction of Reality is translated in more than twenty languages, the movement itself can also be found in many countries across the globe. Moreover, the movement exhibits still another striking feature: its high interdisciplinarity. If we, again, look in the Web of Science (as by 2015), we find more than 700 references to The Social Construction of Reality in sociology, but also almost 350 in psychology and more than 200 in the natural sciences, ecology and health science. The latter is quite remarkable as it demonstrates that the reception is not restricted to the social sciences and cultural studies at all. Notable number of references to The Social Construction of Reality can be found in law (81), in information science (89), in economics (122) and, of course, in all varieties of social and cultural studies, such as religious studies (181), education (190) or organization studies and management (more than 400).9 If we take the reference to the book as only one indicator for its reception, we can summarize that The Social Construction of Reality has entered into academic discourse in an impressive way. Instead of being a fad lasting only a few years, it has been established as a classic in sociology on a global level which is read as much today as it was since its publication 50 years ago. Next to its international dissemination, it was received across a multitude of disciplines, and it has inspired a range of “social constructivisms” ranging from “Grand Theories” to “Middle Range Theories” and new approaches (“New Institutionalism,” “Constructivist Political Theory”). The combination of a huge number of references to the book in isolated publication and explicit approaches hints at the diffuse social basis of the paradigm we have referred to as an academic movement. Linking this social basis of the movement with its distinctive idea of social construction, we could have an argument for claiming a loose, yet successful and enduring “paradigm” in the sciences. One might even suspect that the diffusion of the idea follows a certain pattern. Thus, Abbot (2004: 250) has suggested that science currently follows a “fractal logic” in that certain properties recur “at finer and finer levels, always in the same form.” Whether this pattern applies also to The Social Construction of Reality is, however, an open question which would deserve a more detailed analysis of its reception.10 Moreover, we need

332  Hubert Knoblauch to question if the diffusion of the idea and, consequently, the “paradigm,” can be restricted to science as in a strong sense clearly demarcated “system,” discourse or institutional field.

The social construction beyond science The fact that the idea of the social construction has been often misunderstood and equaled to “construction” is not only linked to the loose structure of a movement; it is also due to the fact that neither Luckmann nor Berger laid a claim on the book after the mid-1970s. Neither Berger nor Luckmann elaborated on the theory itself for more than a couple of years after its publication, and so they turned only retrospectively to the book on the occasion of its anniversaries. In the meantime, Berger and Luckmann discontinued any collaboration,11 and they rarely referred to their book at all. Luckmann hardly ever used the book in his seminars, and both distanced themselves from its reception.12 The reason for this distancing does not only lie in the frequent confusion of “construction” and “social construction” already mentioned. It also related to ideological differences expressed by Berger and Luckmann distancing themselves from any “isms.”13 For various reasons (e.g., its reference to Marx, its stress on “dialectics” and critical stance to positivism), the book had entered political discourse of the 1960s student movement, so that Berger (2011: 92) complained that it “was taken as a license for an orgy of ideology and utopianism.” On the other hand, the authors were considered as “inherently conservative” (Hjelm 2014: 102). Some applauded the stance of the book (Simpson 1967; Maquet 1968); other reviewers criticized the politically indifferent position of the book (Light 1967; Simpson 1967). This critical view of The Social Construction of Reality may explain why particularly “critical” (Foucaultian, feminist and postcolonialist) adaptations of the formula hardly ever referred explicitly to The Social Construction of Reality, including also social constructionism. “One final view of social constructionism is that it is opposed to ‘constructivism’ by virtue of being more critically and politically engaged” (Restivo & Croissant, 2008: 224). Across these differences, social construction seems to have become “a distinctive way of seeing and questioning the social world – a vocabulary, an idiom, a language of interpretation,” as Gubrium and Holstein (2008: 5) stress. This lack of reference is also related to another feature of the diffusion we mentioned above: The formula as well as the idea have been diffused way beyond the boundaries of academia, universities and whatever may be called science. By formula we mean the wording of “social construction” which implies a semantic extension of “construction,” without referring to the precise meaning as detailed in the book. As a formula, it could be misunderstood, for example, for constructivism, but it could also enter public discourse as part of what used to be called a (social) constructivist worldview. Due to the lack of research on its reception, we can provide here only a few and sketchy evidences for this argument, but they are still quite telling.

Conclusion  333 If we look at the very formula of “social construction,” it seems that one of the first users of the term in English has been the sociologist Ward as early as in 1905.14 Yet even if the term had been around, it seems that it was only very rarely used. Drawing on the “big,” yet admittedly somewhat undifferentiated data corpus of Google’s 5.2 million books (in 7 languages), covering the years from 1800–2008), we can clearly discern that the use of “social construction” only took off in a noticeable way after the publication of Berger and ­Luckmann’s book in 1966 and its inexpensive paperback edition in 1967.15 0.000160% 0.000140% 0.000120%

social construction constructivism

0.000100% 0.000080% 0.000060% 0.000040%

social constructionism social constructivism

0.000020% 0.000000% 1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

Figure C.1  N  gram (Google): ratio between the word “classified” and the words in the English language corpus.

As the diagram (see Figure C.1) shows, the use of “social construction” exhibits a slow rise since the 1960s, doubling about every five years, from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s when the phrase suddenly rises steeply. In 1998, it is 3.5 as high as in 1987. Since then, its use has been in slow decline (at least in British English, whereas it seems to still be on the rise in American English). Turning to related terms, note that “constructivism” had been more common before 1975. In the 1980s “social constructivism” and “social constructionism” entered the scene. Ngram indicates that “social constructionism” has been in decline since about 2000 (falling from 0.000022), “social constructivism” as a phrase takes the lead around this time and is still rising to higher levels (from 0.0000117 in 2000 to 0.000023 in 2008). When considering the frequency of words, one should be aware that the sample of Google’s Ngram is in no way restricted to academic books or the sciences. However, it does not allow to differentiate the diffusion in more detail. In order to get a sense of the dissemination of the word, we may draw on another datum which is quite easily accessible: Google Search.16 On December 17th 2015, “social construction” yielded 149,000,000 entries in Google Search. It is quite telling that the book’s title gets almost 10,000,000 hits, while the academic movement names remain much below this number at nevertheless still impressive 776,000 hits for “social constructivism” and 337,000 hits for “social constructionism.” The latter numbers support the thesis of an academic movement in other terms; the fact, however, that “social construction” appears in almost 150 million entries cannot be accounted for by its academic dissemination.

334  Hubert Knoblauch It forces anyone talking about this word to assume that “social construction” has become part of a public discourse outside of academia.

Conclusion To be true, these are but some sketchy indications for the thesis that the social construction has become part of public and popular discourses, and we must repeat that the warrant for such a thesis would require an extended research project on the reception of The Social Construction of Reality which is still lacking. While empirically the thesis is left to further scrutiny, one should be aware that it follows the specific idea of the sociology of knowledge represented by The Social Construction of Reality. To Berger and Luckmann, knowledge is not reduced to some higher intellectual and cognitive insights only within science or other areas of specialized “knowledge production.” Knowledge is a basic feature of everyday life in that it is what guides social action, any action at that. For this reason, there is no substantial distinction between “real” or “true” knowledge and any other mundane knowledge (although empirically there are certainly different procedures in the “legitimation” of knowledge in different social spheres, as this is what makes them different). Therefore, it does not only come as a surprise to claim that scientific knowledge works on the basis of everyday knowledge; moreover, there can be good reasons to explain how and why “scientific” knowledge becomes part of everyday life – and vice versa. The fact that (social) scientific ideas, such as “social construction,” enter into public discourse, can be explained quite easily by what Giddens (1987) has called the “double hermeneutics” of sociology: The social sciences need to consider that discourses enter into public discourses, become part of and affect them (an effect which has been formulated as an explicit goal for the kind of “public sociology” identified by Burawoy). Although we lack any research on this “social scientification” (Beck & Bonß 1989) of public discourse, the presence of such a public use is probably evident to anyone on a global scale: The idea of social construction is one of the pillars of the discourse and the institutional policies on gender, feminist politics and the populist movements opposing these policies and its discourse. We would suspect that the “social construction of gender” has become probably one of the most widely used application areas of the idea of social construction. One may even suspect that the dissemination of this idea is linked to its reduction to a formula17; one may hypothesize that it is related to the elaboration of “knowledge society,” that is, the rapid increase of higher education and its effect on gender and gender politics. It is this political context which would allow to test the hypothesis almost ex negativo. Parallel to the rise of social constructivism, we have witnessed the rise of an oppositional view. In contemporary social theory, this view has come to be called post-constructivism. It is typically linked with a critique of “social constructivism” in a way that exhibits quite basic awareness of the

Conclusion  335 difference to constructivism even among the prominent representatives of post-constructivism. What is called post-constructivism in theoretical academic discourses seems to be called “neo-realism” in more popular intellectual discourses if it comes to the opposition to “social constructivist” positions – often in ways that are even less informed than the post-constructivist theories. And finally, crossing the boundaries of all sciences, we find an oppositional movement toward the public forms and uses of social construction in its formulaic manner.18 This movement is often identical with rightist populism. It shares its vigorous and aggressive attack against the social construction of gender, ethnicity or identity. As much as these attacks demonstrate the worldview character of social constructivism ex negativo, their lacking acceptance of critique as the basic method of any scientific communication demonstrates the elective affinity of The Social Construction of Reality to the human enterprise called science.

Notes 1 Parts of this chapter are based on a paper written together with René Wilke (Knoblauch & Wilke 2016). I am grateful for the comments by Michaela Pfadenhauer. 2 Agamben (2009: 15) also compares the notion of paradigm to Foucault’s “discursive regime” and even the episteme – although Agamben notes that Foucault seems not to have read Kuhn. 3 Thus, the use of “paradigm” is quite widespread in intellectual debates and has been taken over by marketing. In order to avoid its diffuse meaning, we draw not only on Kuhn but also on Fleck and Mannheim. 4 For the argument that the institutionalization of qualitative methods has been prepared and legitimated by interpretive theories such as The Social Construction of Reality, see Knoblauch (2013). 5 There is a series of (social) constructivist movements which have been founded later. Only one year after The Social Construction of Reality, the philosophers Kamlah and Lorenzen founded in 1967 what later came to be called “methodological constructivism,” a philosophical logic based on the pragmatic insertion of predications. In 1989, Knorr-Cetina designated her ethnomethodological approach to the interactive construction of social reality “empirical constructivism,” and in 2001 Reich developed an “interactive constructivism,” which adapts elements from life-world theory and has been applied in education studies. 6 Cf. Panasuk and Lewis (2012). Although referring explicitly to radical constructivism, systems theory in the tradition of Luhmann takes a similar stance (­Luhmann 1997: 156). 7 Berger and Luckmann continued to stress their distance to “constructivism” and radical constructivism. Berger (2011: 91) complained that the notion of “construction” falsely suggests that reality may be created ex nihilo, and Luckmann (1999: 17) stressed that he should not be considered a constructivist inasmuch as this refers to the theoretical position referred to as radical constructivism. 8 The notion of “construction” is no empty signifier, as Lynch contends; it rather corresponds to the German “Aufbau.” “Aufbau” could be called constitution, but the translation “construction” corresponds much better to the meaning of a social process which results in objectified, institutionalized, even materialized social reality.

336  Hubert Knoblauch 9 For more information on these data, see cf. Knoblauch and Wilke (2016). 10 On should note that Abbot (2001) himself has addressed the reception of The Social Construction of Reality; on the basis of very restricted data, he concluded that the book almost had no impact on sociology and the social science – a conclusion our data seems to refute clearly. 11 Except for one book in 1995 on the “crisis of meaning,” which was not relating to The Social Construction of Reality at all (cf. Berger & Luckmann 1995). 12 “Luckmann and I have felt constrained to say repeatedly, ‘we are not constructivists.’” (Berger 2011: 95). 13 The role of ideology in its reception has been stressed by Eberle (1992: 495f.). 14 Evolution of Social Structures (Ward 1905): “A structure is something that has been constructed, and a study of social structure is the study of a process and not a product. Our task, therefore, is [. . .] to inquire into the methods of social construction” (589). 15 Google’s Ngram viewer indicates a constant level of 0.000001–0.0000003 (which is almost insignificant) from 1900 to the 1960s; only by around 1970, there is a significant number of occurrences of the phrase. 16 The reference to Google does not express a preference or support its dominance. 17 As, for example, Berger distanced himself from gender studies and argued that The Social Construction of Reality “does not call for a gendered perspective” (Berger 2011: 193). 18 In this respect, it resembles “theoretical tokenism,” that is, a mere “theoretical shibboleth” linked to “flat propositions about how people ‘construct’ their identities, worldviews, and taken for granted meanings” (Rogers 1992: 6), yet, it can be used in any contexts outside of science, too.

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Index

Abbott, A. 7, 319 academic culture 11, 120 actor 65–68, 71–73, 135, 235–6, 242–8, 252–6, 276–7, 283–4 actor network theory 180 alternation 165–8, 170, 172–80 anthrozoology 71 apriorism 29, 31 architecture 75–6, 79, 83–5, 87–8 Argentinian dictatorship 119 artificial intelligence 162, 174 autogenesis of social reality 214 autopoietic systems 139, 207–10, 213 Bath 153–4 Bauhaus 76–9, 89 Becker, H. 310–3 Berger, P. L. 1–7, 21–8, 36–7, 45–51, 66–7, 84, 91, 118–19, 135–7, 166–7, 259–61, 276–7; see also Luckmann, T. body techniques 87–8 Bourdieu, P. 105, 235–9, 241–5, 247–9, 251–7, 298–9 Burke, K. 315 catastrophes 48, 55–6 co-construction 91, 93, 97–8, 100; see also construction cognitive competencies 100 cognitive constructivism 138–9, 142, 144 collective memory 66 commonalities 92, 95 communication 72, 98–100, 105–15, 139–42, 145–7, 190–201, 207–14, 216–28, 287–9, 293–304, 311–16; communication media 217, 223–4, 227–8; communicative acting 292–5, 298–305; communicative construction

59, 140, 144–6, 275, 282, 284, 286–7, 319, 323; communicative constructivism 146–8, 276, 285, 292, 307–8; communicative power 292–3, 298, 300, 302–3, 305–7; see also speech; language conceptual legacies 120 consciousness 207–14, 216–20, 251–2, 254, 276–7, 281–2, 284–5 constitution 132, 137–8, 209–14, 236, 238–9, 244–8 construction 2, 5, 29, 55, 83–5, 137–49, 152–3, 184–8, 208–9, 319; see also social construction; constructivism; social constructivism constructivism 1–3, 26–7, 124, 131–49, 153, 183, 216–20, 325; construction; constructivism; social constructivism conversation 263–5; see also speech; language; communication corporeality 52, 284 cosmion 22 creativity 91, 154, 219 critical theory 144, 312 culture 66–8, 72, 155, 157–8, 160–1, 185–7 deduction 39, 327 demarcation criterion 177 Dessau-Törten 76–8, 85–90 development 91–3, 95, 98–100, 102 dialectic 57–8 dialogue 123–5, 267–9 discourse 310, 313–17, 319–22; universe of discourse 314–7 doings 65, 67–8, 71–3 dones 65–8, 71–2 dwelling 75–6, 80, 83, 85–9

340 Index effective alternation 178 electronic music synthesizer 156 emancipation 261 empirical constructivism 141–2; see also constructivism empirical sociology of epistemologies 124 epistemology 148, 220–2, 259, 262, 284, 289 ethology 70 experience 183–9, 191–8; living experience 212; self-experience 71; see also experience; consciousness experimenter’s regress 169 externalization 9, 76, 83–9, 100–1, 133–4; see also internalization; material objectivations; objectifications falsificationism 29 form of life 153–4, 165–70, 173, 177–9 Foucault, Michel 320–3 fractal logic 7, 331 fractal model 170, 177–8 gravitational waves 168, 174–7 Gusfield, J. R. 318–20 habitus 236–9, 241–5, 248, 251–7; see also Bourdieu, P. hermeneutics 334 heuristic model 92, 94 historicity 46–9, 58, 60 ideology 261 idiomatic expressions 112 ignorance 37 imaginative and real 189 incommensurability 166–70, 173–5, 179; see also Kuhn, T.; paradigm individuality 216, 218–19, 228 interaction 94–101, 107–11, 184, 190–7, 212–14, 236–7, 282–5; interactivity 93, 101 interactive constructivism 183–7; see also constructivism internalization 75–6, 83–9; 133–4, 222, 240–2, 266; see also externalization; material objectivations; objectifications interpretation 313, 321–2; interpretative flexibility 16, 155; interpreting 51–5 intersubjectivity 25, 92, 98, 194, 209, 277 intra- and interindividual coordination 92

knowledge 22, 26–8, 32–6, 46–8, 91–92, 132–3; scientific knowledge 152–5, 169, 173–5, 180, 334; spheres of knowledge 26; stock of knowledge 238, 243, 246 Konstanz School 5 Kuhn, T. S. 6–7, 166–7, 177, 326–7 laboratory 155, 326 language 105–15, 210–12; see also communication; conversation; speech legitimating 52–3, 55, 58–9 life-course 216–21, 223–9, 231, 233 lifeworld 132, 134–6, 138–9 linguistic expressions 111–13 linguistic ideology 114 linguistic signs 105, 110–14 literary theory 261 Luckmann, T. 1–7, 21–8, 36–7, 41–3, 118–19, 135–7, 276–7, 310–15, 319–4, 328–35; see also Berger, P. L. machines 69, 71–3 Mannheim, K. 46, 49–50, 57, 59, 63 Marx, K. 47, 54, 57, 61–2 material objectivations 75–7, 79, 81–9; see also externalization, objectifications medium transcendence 72 methodology 132, 141 multiple realities 24, 35–6; see also reality musical culture 157 nature 165, 170, 172, 174, 177, 283–4, 286 new materialism 180 non-social 65 object 106, 108–10, 115 objectification 106, 108, 276, 286, 292 objectivism 251–2; see also subjectivism oblivion of power 235–9, 248–9 observation 216–17, 221, 223, 227 openness 68, 157, 188, 209, 212, 264, 280 paradigm 6–7, 131, 135–6, 147–8, 166, 177, 325–8; see also Kuhn, T. parapsychology 166–8 perspective taking 99 phenomenology 12–13, 45, 106–7, 136–9, 276, 285 pluralism 36, 122 positivism 24, 27, 39, 131–2, 332

Index  341 power 235–43, 261, 264–5, 292–300, 302–8, 318, 321; see also communicative power practice 54, 143–5, 241–4, 251–7, 259–60, 263–5, 269, 296, 320–1 pragmatism 33, 94, 187–9, 191–2, 197, 202–3 protosociology 134, 138, 139, 144, 252, 257; see also Schutz, A. qualitative inquiry 10, 121–2, 263 qualitative methods 5, 123, 328, 335 radicals 154 rationalization 85 realism 186, 189; 216, 236, 283, 335 reality 1–2, 27, 131–38, 207–14, 216–19, 221, 225, 228, 230 reflexivity 45–7, 58–9 regional ontology 256 relational theory 14, 144, 146, 270, 276 relativism 283, 285 relevance 53, 55, 59, 112, 211, 236, 238–9, 244–9, 315; see also Schutz, A. roboethics 71–2 Schutz, A. 4–5, 21–8, 32–7, 46–50, 132–7, 236–7, 246 science 6–7, 23, 152–8, 166–81, 259–64, 331–6; scientific community 327; see also scientific knowledge Second Modernity 22, 38 Sinn 9, 66 social birth 92, 96–7 social construction 1–2, 9, 26, 51–2, 65–72, 84, 100–1, 131–4, 137–8, 155, 239, 260–1, 275–80, 285–6, 319, 332; of reality 9, 214; of sound 160; see also construction; constructivism; social constructivism; social constructionism social constructionism 1–2, 124, 142–5, 279, 281, 329; see also constructivism social constructivism 1–3, 7, 52, 91, 131, 137–8, 141–2, 148, 207, 251–7, 282–5, 328–35; see also constructivism social differentiation 105, 114–15

social facts as things 76; see also objectifications social growth 191, 199, 201 social identity 97 social relations 95, 101–2, 105, 155 social robots 68–9; see also roboethics social structure 50, 91–2, 94, 96, 99, 235, 242–3; see also structure sociality 46–7, 58–60, 97–9, 277, 281, 285–8 socialization 84, 91–9, 133–4, 139; see also socialization research 91–5 sociological theory 46–51, 141, 275, 279, 287, 293, 328 sociology of knowledge 3, 10, 15, 46–50, 142–5, 275, 319–22, see also knowledge sociology of language 51, 105; see also language sociology of technology 155–6; see also technology sociology of valuation and evaluation 51–3 sound 157–62; see also social construction of sound Spanish-speaking world 118–25 speech 105–14, 275, 294, 298, 299, 317–20; see also conversation; language structure 50, 91–7, 106–8, 242–5, 251, 256, 314, 318; see also social structure subjectivism 236–9, 244, 248, 251–2 systems theory 2, 106, 139–40, 146, 216–21, 229–30 technology 67, 152–63; technological frame 156 thinking 208–14, 245–6, 255, 267 universal projection 71–2 users 156, 158–9 utopianism 5, 332 Vienna Circle 8, 28 Weltanschauungen 23 Wittgenstein, L. 26, 39 Wolff, K. H. 61, 63