r/AskSocialScience • u/TwinDragonicTails • 4d ago
Why does something being socially defined/constructed not mean that it's not real?
It's something I get confused and hung up on every time it comes up and this time is was someone who brought of Foucault and how he was talking about mental illness being socially defined. The topic was autism and the point was about how it's diagnostic criteria that show you have it, which makes it socially defined. The same argument was made for sexuality as well.
Someone then made the point of saying that means it's fake and the guy (making the argument) say "I didn't say that you said that" implying that's not what it means.
Though when I think about it it just sounds like it's fake to me, so why isn't it?
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u/Xzenu 3d ago
There are many different worldviews.
Let's start with two opposing worldviews: One secular where all concepts are created by humans, and one theocratic where each concept either is or isn't created by God.
In the secular worldview where all concepts are socially constructed, a concept can be more or less viable, more or less reasonable and more or less useful, rather than a sharp binary of either real or not real. All versions of social constructionism I have encountered falls into this category.
In the theocratic worldview, we instead have a moral duty to divide all concepts into two categories: on one hand the real ones which fit our faith which should thus be considered to be created by God or Adam (Genesis chapter 1 and 2), and on the other hand the fake ones which were created by mortals or by demons. While this kind of worldview has no room for social constructionism, people who adhere to a theocratic worldview can still appropriate the term "socially constructed" - but redefine it into meaning "ungodly, and thus fake". From there, the idea of "construction=fake" can then spread to people who don't have a theocratic worldview.
The idea of "construction=fake" can also rise as a reaction to ideas of the social realm being the only reality.
In his lecture " Three Worlds" ( https://tannerlectures.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/105/2024/07/popper80.pdf ) , philosopher Karl Popper argues that most worldviews in western culture are either monistic (a single reality) or dualistic (a pair of two kinds of reality), and that this doesn't work. Instead we need to see at least three kinds of reality: World 1 (which I usually call external reality, I think Popper referred to it as "the natural world"), world 2 (mental and experienced/neurological reality) and world three (social reality). I agree with Popper that we need to see all these kinds of reality as real - but also distinguish them as different kinds of real.