Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T16:20:00.189Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Constructionism and Relativism: An Aporia?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2018

ABIGAIL KLASSEN
ABIGAIL KLASSEN*
Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
*
*<[email protected]>
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I analyze the extent to which the theoretical cogency and practical efficacy of descriptive and ameliorative social constructionist programs are affected by relativism in the context of competing analyses of some purported social construction X. My task in this paper is successful if it can explain, organize, and clarify how relativism concerning the question ‘What should our concept of X be?’ affects social constructionist programs, and ameliorative versions of social constructionism especially. In this paper, I aim to make clearer to those not well-versed in this field what is at stake in these programs and why these programs should not be easily dismissed.

J’analyse dans quelle mesure la cohérence théorique et l’efficacité pratique des approches constructionnistes sociales, en particulier les approches descriptives ou amélioratives, sont affectées par le relativisme dans le contexte d’analyses concurrentes d’une construction, prétendue sociale, de X. Ma tâche dans cet article consiste à expliquer, organiser, et clarifier comment le relativisme appliqué à la question «Quel devrait être notre concept de X?» affecte les approches constructionnistes sociales — en particulier, les versions amélioratives. Cet article vise à clarifier, pour ceux qui ne sont pas versés dans ce domaine, ce qui est en jeu dans ces approches et pourquoi elles ne doivent pas être facilement rejetées.

Keywords

social constructionismrelativismsocial metaphysicsprogressfeminist philosophy
Type
Special Issue: Philosophy and its Borders
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 303 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alcoff, Linda M. 2006 Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self (Studies in Feminist Philosophy). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, Elizabeth 2014 “XV—Going Beyond the Fundamental: Feminism in Contemporary Metaphysics,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 114 (3pt3): 335–351.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith 1993 Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge.Google Scholar
Code, Lorraine 1995 Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations. Routledge.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest 2003 Selected Philosophical Themes: Contemporary Thought and Politics. Vol. II. Routledge.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian 1999 The Social Construction of What? Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian 2007 “Kinds of People: Moving Targets,” Proceedings of the British Academy 151: 285–318.Google Scholar
Haslanger, Sally 2012 Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Alison 1983 Feminist Politics and Human Nature. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Katharine 2016 “Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman,” Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political and Legal Philosophy 126 (2): 394–421.Google Scholar
Jones, Karen 2014 “Intersectionality and Ameliorative Analyses of Race and Gender,” Philosophical Studies 171 (1): 99–107.Google Scholar
Koopman, Colin 2009 Pragmatism as Transition: Historicity and Hope in James, Dewey, and Rorty. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catherine, and Dworkin, Andrea (Eds.) 1997 In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catherine 1993 Only Words. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catherine 1989 Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catherine 1987 Feminism Unmodified. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McGowan, Mary Kate 2005 “On Pornography: MacKinnon, Speech Acts, and ‘False’ Construction,” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 20 (3): 22–49.Google Scholar
Mills, C. Wright 2013 “Notes from the Resistance: Some Comments on Sally Haslanger’s Resisting Reality,” Philosophical Studies 171 (1): 1–13.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard 1989 Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Shannon 2000 “Reconfiguring Gender with John Dewey: Habit, Bodies, and Cultural Change,” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 15 (1): 23–42.Google Scholar
Sveinsdóttir, Ásta 2013 “The Social Construction of Human Kinds,” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 28 (4): 716–732.Google Scholar
Zalewski, Marysia 2000 Feminism After Postmodernism: Theorising Through Practice. Routledge.Google Scholar