Social Constructionism and Realism
- 1 May 1992
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Theory & Psychology
- Vol. 2 (2) , 175-182
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354392022005
Abstract
Greenwood's (1992) views are criticized from a social constructionist's point of view. It is argued that constructionism, because of its radical reflexivity, confronts itself with problems not faced by realism. Although it is true that constructionists do not treat talk as referring to an extra-linguistic reality `outside' of our conversational existence, this does not mean to say that we think just anything goes. It is still possible for us to discover that we cannot act as we please. But what is at stake is not the accuracy of our talk, as Greenwood supposes, but its adequacy, its ability to render aspects of our psychological being rationally visible to us rather than invisible.Keywords
This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
- Realism, Empiricism and Social ConstructionismTheory & Psychology, 1992
- The Rhetoric of IrrationalityTheory & Psychology, 1991
- Social psychology and the wrong revolutionEuropean Journal of Social Psychology, 1989
- Psychology from the standpoint of a generalist.American Psychologist, 1989
- The Rhetoric of Theory in psychologyPublished by Elsevier ,1987
- The social constructionist movement in modern psychology.American Psychologist, 1985
- Implications for psychology of the new philosophy of science.American Psychologist, 1983
- Social psychology as history.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973
- IX.—Essentially Contested ConceptsProceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Hardback), 1956
- Situated Actions and Vocabularies of MotiveAmerican Sociological Review, 1940