I find this a bit too broad. What would it mean to abolish sewing machines? It's not what I had in mind, though there is clearly some connection. I'm inclined to say that a sewing machine or a pumpkin patch is not a social construct as I mean it, precisely because it is a physical presence. Whereas the notion of property 'that it is my sewing machine or my pumpkin patch' very much is. — unenlightened

Point well taken. I don't know what it would mean to abolish sewing machines. Though, on second thought I might know what it would mean to abolish nuclear warheads, for instance, though they have a physical presence. Perhaps the word 'abolish' just requires a sense of importance, unlike what abolishing sewing machines would be, which just sounds silly? Though, regardless, I get your drift here at least. This can be passed over.

The connection between the two I'd hope to maintain, which is what I was trying to drive at at least, is that the slavery is a product -- it's something we create together. It's through our collective activity that slavery becomes an institution. This is more of a genesis and genealogy than a mechanism, I'd say, as institutions begin to take a life of their own outside of our collective activity over time. The structure of slavery comes out of what we do -- which includes concepts but also includes who counts as slaves, treating them as such, informing the authorities when slaves escape, believing they deserve such treatment because of [whatever], the police, the jails, the state...

So what are you..indirect realist?

What is that?

I honestly believe that informed citizens sharing their views with each other is crucial to change. Changed minds is a necessary if not a sufficient condition for social change, and talking is how you get there. — Srap Tasmaner

But social reality marches on in spite of belief. I'm not sure how Searle's account of social reality can survive that.

In spite of collective belief that blacks are equal to whites in America, blacks are -- by the stats -- treated worse than whites.

One could take this as evidence that people really believe that blacks are inferior. I'd just say that in spite of widespread intentional beliefs of racial equality, we continue to see white supremacy operate in the world. Not unanimous widespread belief, mind, but widespread.

Also, on the back-end of the civil rights movement, in spite of widespread belief that blacks were inferior, a minority political movement was able to enact and enforce (to a limited extent) laws that bettered their position.

Belief is only a small part of the overall social world, and is often times not even relevant to its functioning and operations.


EDIT: I hope not to get too far off on this, because I mentioned it as an aside more than anything to say that if I were to distinguish social reality from anything it would be from psychic, as opposed to physical reality. This is more to say that there is more to the social world than psychology, and so we can't just look at psychology or the mind and expect to understand social entities by that method.

It's what I assumed you are based on your last comment. Could be direct realist I guess.

I think there is a widespread feeling, or even "prejudice", that nominalism, if not simply true, is at least the default position, and that any theory that makes use of non-particular entities requires justification, and that this justification is likely to be vaguely pragmatic or instrumental. ("Natural kinds" is just an oxymoron, on this view.)

Concepts become something that is, by definition really, imposed on reality. I haven't quite figured out what image is driving this idea. It seems to have something to do with granularity: we imagine the conversion of our incomparably rich and detailed visual field into grainy pixels, or a paint by numbers, a process something like rotoscoping, boundaries separating one thing from another, foreground from background, drawn in an arbitrary and heavy-handed way, reflective of our needs, desires, preconceptions and preferences rather than reality.

That's not quite it, but it's close. I'm convinced there's an intuition pump at work here, but I can't quite nail it down.

Needless to say, something about this view feels off to me, but I haven't figured that out either.

↪Thanatos Sand It's what I assumed you are based on your last comment. Could be direct realist I guess.

Considering the difficulty you had defining "indirect realist,' I'm not sure you know the definitions yourself. But nothing I said in my post pointed to such simplistic two-word phrases.

Concepts become something that is, by definition really, imposed on reality.

No, concepts are something that arise out of and reflect reality, if not perfectly or always successfully.

One issue as you noted is the problem of knowing what people really believe.

But I agree with just about everything you said. I'd be okay with describing my view as "Changed minds are necessary but very far from sufficient for social change."

This is the deconstruction as I understand it, that we are conditioned by our social constructs to the extent that we cannot distinguish the real from the conditioned. And to pretend that we can - which is all of our discussion - is hubristic overreach. — unenlightened

This is not quite it; the point would rather be to question the cogency of the very distinction between 'the real' and 'the conditioned' to begin with; that is, it's not a question of epistemic limits: it's not a matter of us being unable to make a distinction that could, in principle, be made, if only we were not conditioned, etc. This is why I keep trying to locate the real on the side of the constructed: if the social is real, if it belongs on the side of the real, then the distinction to be made is no longer oppositional; one cannot neatly parse the social and the real not because of some limitation on our 'finite', human selves - the attempt to go beyond which would be "hubris" - but because the concepts themselves no longer lend themselves to any such neat parsing. It's not a matter of 'from which position' we attempt to make the distinction.

if the social is real, if it belongs on the side of the real, then the distinction to be made is no longer oppositional; one cannot neatly parse the social and the real not because of some limitation on our 'finite', human selves - the attempt to go beyond which would be "hubris" - but because the concepts themselves no longer lend themselves to any such neat parsing. — StreetlightX

But then we still have the question of how to distinguish what is (real and) constructed from what is (real and) not constructed. I can't tell whether you're suggesting that "neat parsing" is only available when there is an opposition of real and unreal, rather than just a distinction between

• one real thing and another real thing,
• one sort of real thing and another sort of real thing, or
• one way of being real and another way of being real,

whichever one of those you'll go for, or think we should all go for.

I think that question is abandoned entirely. In older parlance, the question of "social construct" was about how something was caused, the whole "nature" vs "nurture" question which tries to ask what people were capable of separate to their own existence. People were trying to sort out whether behaviours, social positions, thoughts, etc. were created (and usually necessitated) by primordial nature of biology as opposed to the actions of human culture.

Nowadays this separation is more or less understood to be incoherent. Biology never does anything without an environment. Culture never does anything without biology. The question of "social construction" has shifted from a means of causation (nature vs nurture) to something more like a description of being-- to be "constructed" means that nature/biology has interacted with nature/culture to form a particular state rather than another.

In this sense, everything is constructed because it has to be formed by a continent state coming into being. There is no longer any opposition of "constructed (not real)" or "not constructed (real)," only the real which is constructed.

So if we are to talk about any state of our society, it amounts to a "social construction," for it is a state of existence of society, constructed out of particular biological and environmental interactions.

But then we still have the question of how to distinguish what is (real and) constructed from what is (real and) not constructed. — Srap Tasmaner

See I'm not even sure about this either: I think that if taken to the limit, deconstruction entails that there are, as it were, constructions other than those of the social. That is, the word 'social' in 'social construction' ought to be understood as something that qualifies scope. There are asocial constructions, constructions of biology, of geology, of celestial dynamics, and then there are constructions that pertain to 'the social', each of these with it's own specific mechanisms and modes of functioning. I understand 'social construction' in an entirely naturalist way, as it were. And I think, moreover, this is how it should be understood.

By contrast, I think many people take 'social construction' to qualify not scope, but 'ontological status', as it were. As if 'social constructs' are somehow unreal, or lacking in substantiveness. But I think this is an anthropomorphism: there is nothing special about humanity that somehow locates them outside the sphere of 'reality': as if there is reality on one side, and the social on the other. It's this view that makes Un think that 'social construction' entails a kind of 'imprisonment', I think. But this is only the case if one remains caught in a kind of human exceptionalism in which only humans 'construct'. But once you see that the social is continuous with nature (along a very specific dimension, at any rate), the problem dissipates.

This is similar to what Willow is saying in the post above, I think.

In spite of collective belief that blacks are equal to whites in America, blacks are -- by the stats -- treated worse than whites.

Would you say that blacks and other minorities are being treated better today than say 70 years ago. Isn't it a little quick to assume as in the case of the USA , that 350 years of social constructed prejudice is going to wiped off a cultures minds in one, two, three generations. Social constructs of prejudice are strong, long inbred systematic in our culture, yet we did elect a black president. Social constructs can change, in some cases more rapidly than others.

Would you say that blacks and other minorities are being treated better today than say 70 years ago.

.

In some ways yes. In many ways, no. Unarmed blacks are getting gunned down by police in alarming number and with alarming alacrity and the police are almost always found innocent...even if the victims were running in the opposite direction.

Yes, there is a long way to go, the fight is hard, but (and who knows what damage Trump can do) we seem have made some progress. Yes, blacks, minorities, women all the have legitimate right to scream about the treatment they continue to receive the hands of the majority, and I think the only way to get the numb majority to react is for these oppressed social groups to continue to push their cause in any manner they deem appropriate.

Sure, but we also need politicians like Obama to do more when they become president and for attorney generals to act more like Bobby Kennedy and less like Eric Holder. Lord knows the Trumps of the world aren't going to do anything when they're president except make it worse.

See I'm not even sure about this either: I think that if taken to the limit, deconstruction entails that there are, as it were, constructions other than those of the social. That is, the word 'social' in 'social construction' ought to be understood as something that qualifies scope. There are asocial constructions, constructions of biology, of geology, of celestial dynamics, and then there are constructions that pertain to 'the social', each of these with it's own specific mechanisms and modes of functioning. I understand 'social construction' in an entirely naturalist way, as it were. And I think, moreover, this is how it should be understood. — StreetlightX

Okay, I think I've got it. The "social" bit is easy, The hard bit is understanding what happens to agency, and to the distinction between organism and environment. You can keep that distinction by situating construction not at the level of organism, as something an organism might engage in (a bird building a nest), but a level up, so that construction can be a process that includes both organisms and their environment.

Even setting aside my qualms about this, I'm still going to want to distinguish between construction processes dependent upon organisms acting within an environment and constructions processes that require only natural forces. But if I'm allowed to pick out something and call it an agent, something that can bear responsibility, without denying that its actions are embedded in an environment, then I'm going to question the point of the ascension in the first place.

I hope I haven't misunderstood you, because it's starting to get interesting.

I'm still going to want to distinguish between construction processes dependent upon organisms acting within an environment and constructions processes that require only natural forces. — Srap Tasmaner

I guess the immediate deconstructive response to this ought to be suspicion regarding the very terms of the question: why are organisms acting within an envionment not considered to belong to the class of forces deemed 'natural'?

Regarding agency and responsibility, I'm not clear, on the basis of your post, what the exact issue raised is. I think you have a worry about what happens to those terms if the organism is too tightly(?) embedded in the environment, but I can't be sure if thats what you meant.

I think we just start with observations. A baby feels something, but can't distinguish that feeling from any other until words come along. That's hunger, that's itching, etc.

In the same way, a society, under stress, can exert influence on what that feeling of disappointment or frustration is rightly directed to.. it's black people, it's Jews, it's Socrates... kill them and we'll be fine. Now we're looking at society like a large organism. Individuals are themselves given shape by language.

How far one is willing to let this insight grow (until it consumes its own ground?) is a matter of temperament I think. If one is strongly Anglo-philosophical, no mystical shenanigans will be allowed. If one is Hegelian at baseline... oh yea... the whole thing can disappear back to becoming.

My point wasn't that things should happen more quickly, but that belief -- and in the particular case of Searle we-intentions which designate status -- isn't the operating force in such change. Beliefs are strapped to our social world, rather than the social world being strapped to belief. Where it goes, we follow.

There is more permanence to social reality than what we happen to believe, collectively. Social reality is curious in that since it is constructed it can be changed, but that ability for change does not then indicate (nor does construction indicate) that it is not real. Construction's defining opposite is not reality.

Similarly to a house. A house is constructed -- and by my lights, at least, socially so. It is made of wood, metal, cloth, glass, and paper. It can be destroyed or un-built or re-built. It's very real in spite of all these things. Our beliefs about the house do not change the house.

Likewise, our beliefs about social reality do not change social reality. It's a pernicious myth, I think, because reparations, in the case of slavery for instance, can only be achieved through material reparations, rather than good will, contrition, and recognition. (just as a for-instance) (also note that "material" isn't the same thing as "visual" -- much of social reality is not visual)

Similarly, what is often considered "merely symbolic" actually has causal properties. A simple demonstration which disrupts the day-to-day rhythm of life, but is purely symbolic and not used in any other way, effects the paths of social systems.


The civil rights movement is a good example of how belief isn't the main operating force in social systems -- at least, in the change of social systems. Perhaps it has more force in the sustenance of social systems. It began with more people believing it shouldn't succeed, and succeeded, and now more people will say it was a good thing rather than a bad thing. It's a clear case of belief being changed by the social, rather than the other way around.

Some interesting comments there. I'm going to have a go at reformulating in a way that avoids some of the objections about human exceptionalism, and avoiding therefore 'nature' and 'reality'.

I think it is reasonable to limit 'construct' to the productions of life-forms. Thus a mountain is a formation, but an ant-hill is a construct. I can then use the same notion of life-forms to make the further distinction between a construct made of formations the ant-hill again, and a construct made of life forms, an ant colony.

I think such a formulation allows a new look at this:

I am happy to provide a supporting reference, the first example Ryle gives in The Concept of Mind to explain his newly coined term "category-mistake": a visitor being shown around Oxford and told about all the buildings, finally asks his guide, "But where is the University?"

His mistake lay in his innocent assumption that it was correct to speak of Christ Church, the Bodleian Library, the Ashmolean Museum and the University, to speak, that is, as if 'the University' stood for an extra member of the class of which these other units are members. He was mistakenly allocating the University to the same category as that to which the other institutions belong.

I don't think you'll find category mistakes limited to definite descriptions though. — Srap Tasmaner

It might have been that he was expecting another building called the university, or, he might have (correctly, I would say) surmised that a university is a social construct, consisting of students and professors and so on, and not the bunch of buildings that they occupy. To see that it is so, simply imagine that all the students and professors have departed; what remains is a tourist attraction, not a university.

I think it is reasonable to limit 'construct' to the productions of life-forms. Thus a mountain is a formation, but an ant-hill is a construct. — unenlightened

Is this reasonable though? Surely this simply widens the circle of exceptionalism to a kind of 'life-exceptionalism' - from anthropocentrism to biocentrism. At the very least one would have to ask about the philosophical utility of such a limitation: what - if such a limitation is indeed reasonable - are the reasons for it? What kind of distinction is the one between 'formations' and 'constructs? What motivates it? Or is the limitation merely nominal, for the sake of conversational convenience?

From the point of view of individuation, it is not at all clear that one can make an in-principle distinction between the kinds of processes involved in either the construction of mountains or molehills. For someone like Manuel Delanda, for example, the processes at work in the formation of both mountains and societies, are, at a certain level of abstraction, exactly the same: "Sedimentary rocks, species and social classes (and other institutionalized hierarchies) are all historical constructions, the product of definite structure-generating processes" ... which Delanda describes, but I'll omit for reasons of space. In any case, the conclusion being that "this conception of very specific abstract machines governing a variety of structure-generating processes not only blurs the distinction between the natural and the artificial, but also that between the living and the inert." (Delanda, The Geology of Morals).

As far as Ryle's example is concerned, there's nothing that stops it from being applied to non-human, or non-living things: one simply has to imagine showing someone a ridge, a plateau, a peak, a spur, and having them ask 'but where is the mountain?'. Indeed, Ryle's own criteria for what constitutes a category is entirely 'neutral' with respect to the 'kinds' of things that can or cannot fall under it (here is his rather dry formulation: "when two terms belong to the same category, it is proper to construct conjunctive propositions embodying them" i.e. one does not 'conjunct' 'the peak, the ridge and the mountain').

Is this reasonable though? Surely this simply widens the circle of exceptionalism to a kind of 'life-exceptionalism' - from anthropocentrism to biocentrism. — StreetlightX

Yes, I think it is reasonable to deny non-life a centre, where a centre is a point of view. The distinction between life and non-life I would say is indispensable to almost any kind of sensible talk about the world.

one does not 'conjunct' 'the peak, the ridge and the mountain'). — StreetlightX

One does, however conjunct the anthill and the ant colony, or the university and it's facilities, or more generally, house and home.

Yes, I think it is reasonable to deny non-life a centre, where a centre is a point of view. The distinction between life and non-life I would say is indispensable to almost any kind of sensible talk about the world. — unenlightened

I don't understand what a 'center' or a 'point of view' has to do with constructs or formations, and why either would be important to the latter in any principled way. Indeed, it is perfectly sensible to talk about living and non-living formations in the same breath. And note that I'm not denying that arbitrary distinctions are important for sensible talk, but I would hope there is more than arbitrariness involved when we make distinctions that are supposed to have some kind of philosophical import.

One does, however conjunct the anthill and the ant colony, or the university and it's facilities, or more generally, house and home. — unenlightened

Yes, and?

I don't understand what a center or a point of view has to do with constructs or formations, and why either would be important to the latter in any principled way. — StreetlightX

You said I was biocentric. As if there were another place to be; another viewpoint to take. I must surely be on the right lines here, as I just had the same argument with Banno, that there is no third person point of view, ending here.

There is a kettle.
There is a third person mode of speech.
There is no third person, and no third person point of view.
If you think there is a third person, be so kind as to introduce them to me. — unenlightened

As if Delanda were not a lifeform. It is surely a fundamental principle of the forum that if SreetlightX and Banno agree about something it must be wrong.

I don't understand what you're talking about. I was under the impression that we were discussing the scope of what it means for something to be a 'construction'. You seem to want to argue that this concept ought to be employed ('limited') only in reference to living things. I asked why. I can make no sense of your reply.

You seem to want to argue that this concept ought to be employed only in reference to living things. — StreetlightX

I think that simply is how it is generally used, and yes, we ought to use it that way too. It is you that wants to suggest that it ought to mean sedimentary rocks as well as things we make with them.

One does, however conjunct the university and it's facilities.
— unenlightened

Yes, and? — StreetlightX

And therefore Ryle's exemplar of a category error turns out not to be one, by his own criteria, and the distinction between the inanimate construction of the university buildings and the social construct of the university itself is a valid one.

I think that simply is how it is generally used, and yes, we ought to use it that way too. — unenlightened

Why ought we?

It is you that wants to suggest that it ought to mean sedimentary rocks as well as things we make with them.

In the absence of a reason or motivation to make a distinction that seems otherwise unnecessary, yes.

And therefore Ryle's exemplar of a category error turns out not to be one, and the distinction between the inanimate construction of the university buildings and the social construct of the university itself is a valid one. — unenlightened

But your examples are not at all clear. One can, for example, conjoin house and home, but whether or not the conjunction is a category error will depend on the use to which conjunction is put. To be shown around a house and to ask 'but where is the home?' is to commit a category error. To speak of 'house and home' in some poetic flourish is not. Category errors are context dependent. Ryle's 'use' of the university and it's buildings is very much a category error, and you are wrong about it not being one.

Category errors are context dependent. Ryle's 'use' of the university and it's buildings is very much a category error, and you are wrong about it not being one. — StreetlightX

I am happy to provide a supporting reference, the first example Ryle gives in The Concept of Mind to explain his newly coined term "category-mistake": a visitor being shown around Oxford and told about all the buildings, finally asks his guide, "But where is the University?" — Srap Tasmaner

To which a perfectly intelligible reply would be, "The university relocated to Inverness during the war, and never came back", or even, "the university is on vacation at the moment."

It's not enough simply to declare that I am wrong, you need to present some argument or explanation. I think I have done enough work here to provide explanations myself to warrant more than your dismissive one line 'so whats' and 'you are wrongs' and 'why ought wes'. I have laid out a fairly coherent analysis of the concept of social construct in terms that are about as uncontroversial as terms get, and all your response seems to amount to in the end is a vacuous all-is-one-ism.