Social Construction and the Possibility of Emancipation

In this dissertation, I attempt to accomplish two main objectives. First, I attempt to clarify what social construction amounts to in contemporary analytic philosophy. Research on the social construction of social categories has done some work to delineate and clarify varieties of social constructionist projects, as well as varieties of social phenomena. However, little research has been done to examine the meanings and tractability of the notions that social constructionists employ. As a second objective, I therefore take on the task of making clearer the meanings and implications of non-inevitability and amelioration. Both objectives involve attending to the programs of various social constructionists and attempting to merge their programs into a single coherent account. In so doing, I put forth my own construal of what social construction amounts to, as well as what it means to say that something is a social construction in both the institutional and non-institutional contexts.

I provide tractable and plausible, if coarse-grained, accounts of what social constructionists might have in mind when they cite the notion of non-inevitability in their projects. I also explore the plausibility of social constructionisms ameliorative or emancipatory potential, asking whether or how modifying our social categories and concepts can have ethical and political implications and asking what those implications might be. I defend social constructionist programs, especially those of the ameliorative variety, from the possibly vitiating forces of the status quo, as well as from relativism concerning what or who counts or should count as some social kind X and the issue of what determines or what should determine Xs extension. Related to these issues, I explore the nature of the difficulties involved in changing aspects of the social world. Difficulties related to the possibility of change and amelioration include the complexity of multiple coexisting ideologies, the problem of how to isolate ideologies and their source(s), and the non-volitional character of beliefs.