Concept
Social construct
Overview
A social construct is any category or thing that is made real by convention or collective agreement. Socially constructed realities are contrasted with natural kinds, which exist independently of human behavior or beliefs.
Simple examples of social constructs are the meaning of words, the value of paper money, and the rules of economic systems. Other examples, such as race, were formerly considered controversial but are now accepted by the consensus of scientists to be socially constructed rather than naturally determined. Still other possible examples, such as less empirical and more abstract concepts which underlie particular scientific theories, remain the subject of ongoing philosophical debate.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
But in the course of time, the process of the metamorphosis of commodities which produces the different forms of money, transforms also the owners of commodities or changes the character in which they appear before each other in the community. In the process of metamorphosis of the commodity the guardian of the latter changes his skin as often as the commodity changes place or as the money assumes new forms.
Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
States what Social construct is; the author is tied to Social construct in the knowledge graph.
But while the production of commodities and the exchange of commodities compel the society resting upon them to take this roundabout course, they are impelled to a shortening of the process. They separate from the mass of commodities one sovereign commodity, in which the value of all other commodities can be universally expressed, a commodity which is the complete incarnation of social labor, and, against…
Friedrich Engels, Landmarks of Scientific Socialism
Close in meaning to Social construct; the term itself is not named.
Throughout the judgment-process there is a correlation between the movement whereby the socially current object develops into the adapted means and that whereby the socially current type of conduct develops into the defined and valued purpose.[152]
John Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory
Close in meaning to Social construct; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Reification (fallacy)
- Natural kind
- Word
- John Searle
- Karl Marx
- Max Horkheimer
- Scientific theory
- Racism
- Race (human categorization)
- Theodor W. Adorno
- Peter L. Berger
- Thomas Luckmann
- György Lukács
- Methodology
- Citizenship
- Economic system
- Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy)
- Convention (norm)
Place in the tradition
Part of Aesthetics.