The paper interrogates the status, nature and significance of epistemological relativism as a key element of constructionism and critical realism. It finds that epistemological relativism is espoused by authorities in critical realism and marginalized or displaced in the field of management and organization studies, resulting in forms of analysis that are empirically, but not fully critically, realist. This evaluation prompts reflection on the question of whether, how and with what implications epistemological relativism might be recast at the heart of (...) critical realist studies of management and organization. (shrink)

This paper develops and refines the suggestion that logical systems are conceptual artefacts that are the outcome of a design-process by exploring how a constructionist epistemology and meta-philosophy can be integrated within the philosophy of logic.

Upshot: Constructionism must return to its epistemological roots to make any lasting impact on education. Constructionism should be transformed from a framework of action into ways to conceptualize and record what people actually do in constructionist environments so that theories of knowledge-building acts can be tested and the designing of those environments can be made more effective.

The constructionist thesis of history states, in general, that the historian must construct a theory to explain the past. Some, including Leon Goldstein, attempt to push this formulation beyond a description of historical methodology. They argue that since the real past is inaccessible to present observation, the real past can have no relevance for historiography. The distinctions made between the present, the real past, and the historical past generate problems with the concepts of past and present knowledge, theoretical infrastructure and (...) experience, verification and truth, conflicting historical theories, and observation and knowledge. Goldstein's formulation of the constructionist thesis assumes the conflicting positions that experiential perception is paradigmatic of all methods of acquiring knowledge, and that knowledge is itself a kind of experience. As well as conflicting with commonsense views, his thesis is internally incoherent. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Social Constructionism Introduced The Social Construction of Reality Why Bother About Global Constructionism? Against Global Constructionism Matters Political The Social Construction of Mental States Why Mental States Are Not Socially Constructed The Social Construction of Psychological Categories Conclusion.

There is a prima facie conflict between Russell's empiricist task of grounding all knowledge claims in sense-data and his realist view of the independently existing physical world. It is to resolve this dilemma between empiricism and realism and to bridge the gap between perception and physical objects that Russell introduces constructionism.

An explanation of how we acquire concepts of kinds if they are socially constructed is a desideratum both for a successful account of concept acquisition and a successful account of social constructionism. Both face the so-called “mismatch problem” that is based on the observation that that there is often a mismatch between the descriptions proficient speakers associate with a word and the properties that its referents have in common. I argue that externalist theories of reference provide a plausible and (...) attractive account of concept acquisition, including the acquisition of concepts of social constructs, that avoids the mismatch problem. However, externalist theories are ontologically and psychologically highly demanding, which places strong constraints on accounts of the metaphysics of socially constructed kinds. In particular, they require a rather strong form of realism that is incompatible with some but not all theories of social constructionism. Finally, I show that these demands can be met by means of adopting a homeostatic property cluster view of natural kinds. (shrink)

This article offers an account and defence of constructionism, both as a metaphilosophical approach and as a philosophical methodology, with references to the so-called maker's knowledge tradition. Its main thesis is that Plato's “user's knowledge” tradition should be complemented, if not replaced, by a constructionist approach to philosophical problems in general and to knowledge in particular. Epistemic agents know something when they are able to build (reproduce, simulate, model, construct, etc.) that something and plug the obtained information into the (...) correct network of relations that account for it. Their epistemic expertise increases with the scope and depth of the questions that they are able to ask and answer. Thus, constructionism deprioritises mimetic, passive, and declarative knowledge that something is the case, in favour of poietic, interactive, and practical knowledge of something being the case. Metaphilosophically, constructionism suggests adding conceptual engineering to conceptual analysis as a fundamental method. (shrink)

This chapter develops a schematic historical and political analysis of the rhetorical usages of social constructionism within specific social movement contexts. It is therefore an attempt to illuminate the essentialism/social constructionism debate, rather than to explore the social theoretical issues around constructivism itself. It is concerned with the power of such arguments to mobilize public support, and as instrumental interventions in the political process. -/- It is my suggestion that this very power consists in the ability of such (...) discourse to represent social reality in a way which individuals see as corresponding to personal experience, in the first instance, and to open up the space for dynamic social change, in the second. Social constructionism is a rhetorical strategy. Judgements are made by social actors in terms of their understanding of biographical experiences, the prospective political utility of the analysis offered, and the context in which they find themselves. Further, arguments appeal to two relevant constituencies: first, an indigenous community of interest, which I will explore further below, and second, the wider public including, critically, that section of the population with access to governmental power, notably legislators and other members of the ruling class. (shrink)

In this paper I defend anti-realism about race and a new theory of racialization. I argue that there are no races, only racialized groups. Many social constructionists about race have adopted racial formation theory to explain how ‘races’ are formed. However, anti-realists about race cannot adopt racial formation theory, because it assumes the reality of race. I introduce interactive constructionism about racialized groups as a theory of racialization for anti-realists about race. Interactive constructionism moves the discussion away from (...) the dichotomous (social vs. biological) metaphysics that has marred this debate, and posits that racialized groups are the joint products of a broad range of non-racial factors, which interact. (shrink)

Social constructionism is a broad position that emphasizes the importance of human social processes in psychology. These processes are generally associated with language and the ability to construct stories that conform to the emergent rules of "language games". This view allows one to espouse a variety of critical postures with regard to realist commitments within the social and behavioural sciences, ranging from outright relativism to a more moderate respect for the "barrier" that linguistic descriptions can place between us and (...) reality. This paper first outlines some possible social construction-ist viewpoints and then goes on to show how each of them conforms to the basic principles of information theory. After establishing this relation the paper then argues that this leads to a great deal of commonality between social construction-ist positions and the baseline aims of cognitive science. Finally, the paper argues that, if information theory is held in common, this both suggests future research collaborations and helps to "mop up" some of the arguments surrounding realist commitments. (shrink)

We point out that constructionist models from experimental psychology account for the sociocultural, psychological, and neural levels of analysis in emotion. Individual constructionist models form a “metamodel” that integrates the levels of analysis important to a science of emotion. By clarifying the multilevel nature of constructionism, we hope to help lay a strong foundation for future cross-disciplinary collaborations.

In this chapter, we argue that the web is a poietically- enabling environment, which both enhances and requires the development of a “constructionist ethics”. We begin by explaining the appropriate concept of “constructionist ethics”, and analysing virtue ethics as the primary example. We then show why CyberEthics (or Computer Ethics, as it is also called) cannot be based on virtue ethics, yet needs to retain a constructionist approach. After providing evidence for significant poietic uses of the web, we argue that (...) ethical constructionism is not only facilitated by the web, but is also what the web requires as an ethics of the digital environment. In conclusion, we relate the present discussion to standard positions in CyberEthics and to a broader project for Information Ethics. (shrink)

The volume brings together a series of theoretical analysis and field studies in applied ethics. The philosophical perspectives concerned are the social-constructionist and the appreciative one (derived from appreciative inquiry). Are addressed themes of ethics, as autonomy and its social construction, contractualist ethics, and feminist ethics of care. The volume also examines some contemporary challenges that rise in front of ethics: transumanism and artificial improvement of species, protection of dignity of the human species, etc. Are also addressed both ethical counseling (...) and supervision of ethics, presenting an unique approach. In the volume we propose a model of ethics as appreciative ethics of care, which proposes a synthesis between feminist ethics of care and appreciative inquiry, as a priority of the author. (shrink)

It is not uncommon today to find the claim made that the computer's capacity to adjust its course of action based on negative feedback satisfactorily explains human agency or free will. Conversely, postmodernism and social constructionism are said to be theories of behavior in which a language system locks people into a cultural determination that denies them agency. The author argues that precisely the reverse is true: computers cannot account for true agency whereas both postmodernism and an important wing (...) of social constructionism do have certain loopholes enabling agential explanations to be developed. The key here is the employment of oppositionality in the theories under analysis. The ability to freely select the grounds for the sake of which one is determined requires an oppositional cast to human cognition and behavior. The author's Logical Learning Theory is offered as an example of theorizing that is amenable to genuine human agency thanks to its central reliance on oppositionality. (shrink)

While recognizing its positive contributions, the authors argue both that social constructionism is based on faulty assumptions and that it has far more kinship with objectivism than is generally acknowledged: it repudiates the possibility of universally valid knowledge while holding as universal truth that human nature is socially constructed; claims to have overcome a Western scientific view of the world while failing to recognize its own distinctly Western and parochial character; rejects an objective epistemology only to embrace its subjectivist (...) mirror-opposite. Finally, it presents the "self" as a reflection of cultural frameworks, thus failing to attend to personal experience or to account for creativity, and overlooks humans' relationship to nature, thereby sustaining objectivism's dichotomy between the social and the natural world. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

It has been much debated whether epistemic relativism in academia, for instance in the form of social constructivism, the strong programme, deconstructionism, and postmodernism, has paved the way for the recent upsurge in science denial, in particular climate science denial. In order to provide an empirical basis for this discussion, an extensive search of the social science literature was performed. It showed that in the 1990s, climate science was a popular target among academic epistemic relativists. In particular, many STS scholars (...) used it as an allegedly clear example of claims by natural scientists that should be treated as mere social constructions, rather than as reports on the actual state of the natural world. A few connections between social constructivists and corporate science denialism were also uncovered, but the extent of such connections could not be determined. With few exceptions, the stream of criticism of climate science from academic relativists has dwindled since the 1990s. One reason for this seems to be that the contrarian position lost its attraction when it became associated with corporate and right-wing propagandists. (shrink)

Examines the assumption of hedonism that lies at the core of many social constructionist accounts of human interaction, and illustrates how it precludes an adequate understanding of agency, morality, and intimacy. The implications of such a hedonism are discussed, and a possible alternative to this hedonism which would allow for a more adequate account of agency, morality, and intimacy is briefly explored. It is argued that if social constructionism is going to come to grips with morality and agency it (...) must abandon explanations that invoke the necessary causation of metaphysical abstractions such as hedonism. In order to successfully accomplish this task, social constructionist accounts of human motivation and action must take into account the moral obligation to others that is intimately associated with becoming a person. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Context: The article discusses design strategies for infusing constructionism and creativity into widely recognised media such as e-books. Problem: E-books have recently included constructionist widgets but we do not yet have creative designs for readers who may want to both read and tinker with an e-book. Method: The generation and study of a community of interest collaboratively designing e-books, with a strong constructionist element. Results: Some first examples of social creativity in the collaborative design process are discussed in the (...) article, showing the complexity of fusing reading with constructionism and the importance of the designers’ own ability to exchange widgets meant for the book and at the same time use them as boundary objects to communicate with each other. Implications: Social creativity in such design processes is considered as key for spreading and democratizing design for constructionism and creativity. (shrink)

Could emotions be a uniquely human phenomenon? One prominent theory in emotion science, Lisa Feldman Barrett’s “Theory of Constructed Emotion” (TCE), suggests they might be. The source of the sceptical challenge is that TCE links emotions to abstract concepts tracking socio-normative expectations, and other animals are unlikely to have such concepts. Barrett’s own response to the sceptical challenge is to relativize emotion to the perspective of an interpreter, but this is unpromising. A more promising response may be to amend the (...) theory, dropping the commitment to the abstract nature of emotion concepts and allowing that, like olfactory concepts, they have disjunctive sensory groundings. Even if other animals were emotionless, this would not imply they lack morally significant interests. Unconceptualized valenced experiences are a sufficient basis for morally significant interests, and such experiences may occur even in the absence of discrete, constructed emotions. (shrink)

Lindquist et al. argue that emotional categories do not map onto distinct regions within the brain, but rather, arise from basic psychological processes, including conceptualization, executive attention, and core affect. Here, we use examples from cultural neuroscience to argue that psychological constructionism, not locationism, captures the essential role of emotion in the social and cultural brain.

It is common to note that social environment and cultural formation shape mental disorders. The details of this claim are, however, not well understood. The paper takes a look at the claim that culture has an impact on psychiatry from the perspective of metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Its aim is to offer, in a general fashion, partial explications of some significant versions of the thesis that culture and social environment shape mental disorders and to highlight some of the (...) consequences social constructionism about psychiatry has for psychiatric explanation. In particular, it will be argued that the alleged dependence of facts about particular mental disorders and about the second order property of being a mental disorder on social facts amounts to a robust form of constructivism, whereas the view that clinician–patient interaction is influenced by cultural facts is perfectly compatible with an anti-constructivist stance. (shrink)

Volume "Social-Constructionist Epistemology" brings into the readers' attention the most important developments that were made around the transmodernity paradigm. During its eight chapters we intend to emphasize the close connection between areas such as: communication and semiotics, transmodernity, scientific authorship, epistemology, social constructionism, philosophy, ethics, quantum metaphysics, and appreciative inquiry. This paper is based on identifying the cultural models and cognitive patterns that make possible the comprehensive opening, in the meaning of rethinking ethics in terms of transmodern paradigm. The (...) base of this research is represented by a methodology that we called fractal constructionism. This concept is a paradigm taken from the sociology of communication, which tells us that reality is a construct "made by symbolic interacting of maps of the world of various individuals." In this sense, the idea of fractal implies a fundamental structural element and a generating law. The human being is "designed" to succeed and his success is produced thanks to the evolution of world, and most of all, thanks to development, creativity and understanding. (shrink)

Lindquist et al. present a strong case for a constructionist account of emotion. First, we elaborate on the ramifications that a constructionist account of emotions might have for psychiatric disorders with emotional disturbances as core elements. Second, we reflect on similarities between Lindquist et al.'s model and recent attempts at formulating psychiatric disorders as networks of causally related symptoms.

The phrase ‘social constructionism about race’ is so ambiguous that it is unable to convey anything very meaningful. I argue that the various versions of social constructionism about race are either false, overly broad, or better described as anti-realism about biological race. One of the central rhetorical purposes of social constructionism about race has been to serve as an alternative to biological racial realism. However, most versions of social constructionism about race are compatible with biological racial (...) realism, and there are some race scholars who endorse both positions. Going a step further, David Reich has recently defended both social constructionism about race and racial hereditarianism. While Reich’s defense of racial hereditarianism is unconvincing, I show that most versions of social constructionism about race are indeed compatible with racial hereditarianism. I argue that we ought to replace the social constructionist “consensus” about race with the view that there are no races, only racialized groups. (shrink)

The thesis of social constructionism is that emotions are shaped by culture and society. I build on this insight to show that existing social constructionist views of emotions, while providing valid research methods, overly restrict the scope of the social constructionist agenda. The restriction is due to the ontological assumption that social construction is indissociable from language. In the first part, I describe the details of the influential social constructionist views of Averill and Harré. Drawing on recent theorizing in (...) psychology, I suggest that their fixation on language makes these approaches inadequate to the analysis of the social construction of human emotional experience. In the second part, I extend the argument to other species, suggesting that these social constructionist views are incapable of accommodating the fact, ascertained by primatologists, that animals have cultures, and that part of animal culture concerns the social molding of their emotions. I conclude that a reconstructed social constructionism should be regarded not as inimical to, but as part and parcel of, a nonreductive biology of emotions. (shrink)

The thesis of social constructionism is that emotions are shaped by culture and society. I build on this insight to show that existing social constructionist views of emotions, while providing valid research methods, overly restrict the scope of the social constructionist agenda. The restriction is due to the ontological assumption that social construction is indissociable from language. In the first part, I describe the details of the influential social constructionist views of Averill and Harré. Drawing on recent theorizing in (...) psychology, I suggest that their fixation on language makes these approaches inadequate to the analysis of the social construction of human emotional experience. In the second part, I extend the argument to other species, suggesting that these social constructionist views are incapable of accommodating the fact, ascertained by primatologists, that animals have cultures, and that part of animal culture concerns the social molding of their emotions. I conclude that a reconstructed social constructionism should be regarded not as inimical to, but as part and parcel of, a nonreductive biology of emotions. (shrink)

Context: There is a movement to change education so that it is adequate to social expectations and uses the full potential of technology. However, there has been no significant breakthrough in this area and there is no clear evidence why. Problem: A potential issue explaining why education falls behind is the way educators focus on education. There is a possibility that a significant step in the learning process is routinely neglected. Method: Two different approaches to using IT in education are (...) tested in two different environments: a university level course based on constructionism and IBL projects for secondary school students. Results: It is possible to apply constructionism in education, but there are still problems. They are not related to how students construct knowledge, but how they deconstruct knowledge. Implications: The most significant problem of deconstruction is that it requires creative skills. This makes it very difficult to formalize it and to provide effective recommendations for its application. Constructivist Content: Deconstruction is a prerequisite of construction, thus deconstructionism deserves more attention and study. A proper application of deconstructionism will make it possible to reconstruct education in a way that is impossible with the current approaches. (shrink)

Harding’s aim in Science and Social Inequality is to integrate the insights generated by diverse critiques of conventional ideals of truth, value freedom, and unity in science, and to chart a way forward for the sciences and for science studies. Wylie assesses this synthesis as a genre of social constructionist argument and illustrates its implications for questions of epistemic warrant with reference to transformative research on gender-based discrimination in the workplace environment.

The constructionist approach argues that communication is central to language learning, language use, and language change. We argue that the approach provides a useful perspective on how autistic children learn language, as it anticipates variable outcomes and suggests testable predictions. First, a reduced ability and interest in tracking the attention and intentions of others should negatively impact early language development, and a wealth of evidence indicates that it does. Secondly, and less discussed until recently, a hyper-focus on specifics at the (...) expense of generalizations, common among people on the spectrum, should also negatively impact language development, and recent evidence suggests this is also the case. Pace Kissine (this volume), it is unsurprising that children can learn some second language from watching videos, and it is unclear how an appeal to “innate” language-specific knowledge could explain the range of outcomes of individuals on the autism spectrum. (shrink)

The Politics of Constructionism presents a broadranging and critical overview of the many themes of social constructionism and its relevance to contemporary social and political issues. Clearly structured and bringing together leading international contributors from across the social sciences, it offers an invaluable may through this rich body of literature. Major questions and topics explored in its critique and application of constructionist ideas include the theory and practice of scientific method, the development of social and political policy, the (...) use of social science statistical methods, self-identity and the politics of collective identities, and technological advances in reproductive medicine. Drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, politics, philosophy, cultural, gender, and social studies, The Politics of Constructionism links the discourse of constructionism to the wider social and political world and offers much to suggest that, contrary to the final impoverishment claimed by some of postmodernism, social science is witnessing the beginning of a new enrichment. It will be essential reading for all students and academics interested in social constructionism and contemporary issues and debates across the social sciences. (shrink)

A seemingly unitary appeal to history might evoke today two incompatible operations of historicization that yield contradictory results. This article attempts to understand two co-existing senses of historicity as conflicting ideas of historical change and rival practices of temporal comparison: historicism and constructionism. At their respective births, both claimed to make sense of the world and ourselves as changing over time. Historicism, dominating nineteenth-century Western thought and overseeing the professionalization of historical studies, advocated an understanding of the present condition (...) of the human world as developing out of past conditions. Constructionism, dominating the second half of the twentieth century, understood the present condition as the recent invention of certain ‘historical’ environments, without prior existence. As competing ideas of historical change, they both entail a comparison between past and present conditions of their investigated subjects, but their practices of temporal comparison are irreconcilable and represent two distinct ways of historicization. (shrink)

A sociologist who has to confront him/herself with social change cannot avoid running into subjectivity, which is seen as a clear indicator of the most recent tendencies that are going through contemporary society. The demand for subjectivity, generically considered as self-consciousness and the need for self-fulfilment, is undoubtedly a distinguishing feature of our age. The central role this concept has gained within recent sociological literature, however, coincides with the rise of a postmodern sociology, which tends to put forward a precise (...) image of subjectivity that I would call ?minimalist.? Through its call for subjectivity, postmodern sociology intends to celebrate indeed a radical freeing from the ethical, social, and relational constraints that would have oppressed human beings during modernity, which was characterized by a high degree of sociocentrism. Although I share all the contentions that aim at underlining the positive achievements of subjectivity over the constrictions and the de-personalizing forces that distressed the so-called homo sociologicus, I think we need nonetheless to distance ourselves from this new reductionism, which levels out subjectivity to its postmodern conception, and to underline instead the existence of a dual aspect in contemporary subjectivity. As a matter of fact, along with its minimalist and disengaged aspect, conceptualized in the homo psychologicus, another possible expression, called ?significant subjectivity? is emerging, which is a typical feature of the kind of human I propose to define civicus, a human who distinguishes him/herself because of the ability to become the bearer of an authentic form of responsible freedom. Consequently, we can identify two different aspects, at least, in contemporary subjectivity, notably a minimalist and a significant aspect. (shrink)

Various scholars argue that sexual desire is socially constructed. There is, however, little agreement surrounding the nature of social constructionism. Vance contrasts social constructionism here with a cultural influence model and distinguishes between degrees of social constructionism. There are, however, problems with this classification. These problems can similarly be found with Foucault whose arguments fail to support his claim that sexual desire is a social construction. Difficulties also appear in Simon and Gagnon's scripting theory of sexual desire, (...) a theory that is commonly applauded as establishing a social constructionist account. This is because scripting theory depends entirely on theatrical metaphors. But there is much inconsistency involved in applying such metaphors to everyday life. This does not, however, imply a biological essentialist view of sexual desire must be true. For there is the further alternative that sexual desire has its origin in existential features of human awareness. Sexual desire arises simply because we are aware of both our own gender and the genders of others, and that gender phenomenologically presents itself to us as something in need of completion. This awareness is something that is fundamental to the human condition and thus has little to do with social construction. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} The constructionist approach of philosophy includes an epistemic dimension and a pragmatic emphasis on the interdependence between knowledge and action in the social areas. Appreciative approach to philosophy is based on the work of David Cooperrider on “Appreciative Inquiry”, which is a form of pragmatic discourse that substitutes the focus (...) on the problem with the focus on successful elements of previous experience of individuals, groups, organizations or communities. This experience can be integrated in the philosophical discourse starting from Plato's dialogues and maieutic method promoted by Socrates. Hermeneutic of the real seen as a philosophical reflection on the daily positive experiences falls into tradition of philosophical search of the ultimate meaning of reality. The appreciative speech starts from a postmodern view by a constructivist and constructionist approach, through which reality itself is a social construction generated by successive negotiations on accepted interpretations. Appreciative philosophy is centered on a semiotics grid that seeks positive qualities of existence and its strengths. Appreciative theology reveals a collaborative process between humanity and divine that catalyzes transformations in human being giving them life including eternal life. The communion human-Divinity is seen as a divine-human co-creation. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is traditionally a conservative project. It analyses the virtues that humanity has been relying on since antiquity. This conservatism unduly limits the potential of virtue ethics to contribute to moral progress. Instead, we should pay more attention to constructionist virtue ethics with the help of conceptual engineering. I will argue that revising and ameliorating the virtue concepts which a community uses directly and indirectly leads to a change of the virtues that exist in this community. By revising and (...) innovating virtue concepts, we can re-make and improve the virtues that we have. (shrink)

This essay concerns itself with a detailed presentation of the contents of two works on the construction of reality in society. One is Berger and Luckmann’s well-known book ; the other is the somewhat less known book on the same subject by Holzner. These works deal with the social construction of shared symbolic and cognitive universes of meaning, and partake of the same theoretical sources, namely, Symbolic Interactionism and Schutz’s phenomenological sociology. They differ in their theoretical pursuits, however. Berger and (...) Luckmann deal with what is necessary for the construction of a shared symbolic world, as society is endowed with both an objective and a subjective reality. Holzner is more interested in the social distribution and control of reality construction, and in the different types of reality constructs. (shrink)

The major emphasis of the "sociology of scientific knowledge" has been on the natural sciences. Recently, however, the field has taken a reflexive turn. I examine the relation between this kind of reflexivity and that in the history of the sociology of knowledge generally with an eye to assessing its place in social theory. Although reflexive adequacy, like other criteria for choice of theory, is not an absolute and overriding cognitive good, reflexive considerations often are critical in assessing the prospective (...) claims of a research program and in evaluating the intellectual honesty and seriousness of these claims. (shrink)

Theory in Action starts by detailing how social theory is commonly understood, practiced and abused. It follows by proposing alternative ideas of the active and knowledge-generative use of social theory, and demonstrates, by providing examples, a variety of theoretical operations.

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. (shrink)