Ep. 227: What Is Social Construction? (Hacking, Berger) (Part One)
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2019
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Ian Hacking’s The Social Construction of What (1999) and Peter Berger's “Religion and World Construction" (1967).
Guest Coleman Hughes from Dilemma joins us to survey the types of social construction arguments: the "culture wars" (e.g. race, gender) and the "science wars" (scientific findings are not read off the world but emerge from history). Something can be constructed, yet still be an objective truth we have to deal with.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Parsley Xamon Life depends on your support. |
| 0:02.6 | To find out how to do that and ways that are cheap or even free, |
| 0:05.6 | go to ParsleyXamonLife.com slash support. |
| 0:16.2 | You're listening to the Parsley Xamon Life, a podcast by some guys |
| 0:19.2 | who at one point said on doing philosophy for a living, but then thought better of it. |
| 0:22.4 | Our question for episode 227 is what is social construction? |
| 0:26.9 | And we read the first two chapters of Ian Hacking's The Social Construction of What? |
| 0:31.2 | From 1999, Peter Burgers' Religion and World Construction, which is the first chapter of his |
| 0:36.4 | book, The Sacred Canopy, from 1967, and the Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy article, |
| 0:41.6 | Naturalistic Approaches to Social Construction by Ron Mallon from 2008, revised in 2019. |
| 0:48.8 | For more information, please visit ParsleyXamonLife.com. |
| 0:52.7 | This is Mark Linson-Meyer A. Nomick and Madison-Wisconsin. |
| 0:56.4 | This is Seth Paschand, externalizing in Austin, Texas. |
| 1:00.9 | This is Wes Allen trying to stay nomic in Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
| 1:05.2 | This is Dylan Casey erecting an edifice of nomic bricks to keep out the potent alien forces of chaos. |
| 1:11.6 | This is Coleman Hughes with the Painfully, Simplistic, and Straight Forward Introduction from New York. |
| 1:19.6 | Welcome, welcome. |
| 1:20.9 | Yeah, welcome. Thanks for coming on. |
| 1:22.8 | Thanks for having me. |
| 1:24.0 | This started because someone tweeted to the ParsleyXamonLife and to you at the same time saying |
| 1:30.8 | that we should have you on, and I had actually read some of your work and admired it. |
| 1:37.0 | So yeah, you've been writing about politics, and I know you're still an undergrad in philosophy, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mark Linsenmayer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Mark Linsenmayer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.