The Social Construction of What? Review

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The Social Construction of What ReviewThe Social Construction of What? marks Ian Hacking's first book-length foray into the pitched battle over the nature and status of the natural, medical and social sciences. It's a truly stunning work: elegant, analytical, insightful. It also represents a useful introduction to the various themes which characterise the collected work of arguably the greatest living philosopher of the Western world.
For the most part I endorse the thoughtful review sent in by the reader from London. I want to make a gentle amendment to her/his careful characterisation of the book. I'm not so sure that Hacking is 'Clearly on the side of the constructionists'. To put it thus is, of course, a useful corrective to the absurd implications of Daniel Johnson's review of this book in the New York Times Book Review. There Johnson tries to portray Hacking as sharing Johnson's own contempt for social constructionists, which Hacking clearly does not. But I see Hacking as doing something more than simply siding with one group against the other.
In this book Hacking carefully disentangles the various arguments being made by both parties in the culture/science 'wars'. Unlike those who indulge in knee-jerk scepticism about constructionism (a.k.a., many believe, 'postmodernism'), he finds much of value in the consciousness-raising motivations of social constructionists. He also applauds their attention to historical detail and their treatment of intellectual/theoretical pursuits like the natural and social sciences as ongoing social activities, with important, often unintended effects on our everyday lives. On the other hand, Hacking suspects that much of the current vogue for the language of social construction is simply a case of bandwagon-jumping, and explicitly states that he has seldom found that language useful in his own work. He does not hesitate to expose certain claims made by both sides as 'tomfoolery', but is careful in so doing to point out that there is an important kernel of insight in the reasoning of thinkers as starkly at odds as Steven Weinberg and Bruno Latour. As Hacking makes clear in his chapter on the natural sciences, there are important intuitions buried in the metaphysical convictions of scientists and constructionists. When it comes down to putting his money where his mouth is, Hacking's self-evaluation puts his own commitments squarely in the middle. He scores himself a 2, 3 and 4 out of 5 on the three 'sticking-points' that are at the heart of the disagreement over social construction in the sciences.
But is Hacking just sitting on the fence? I don't think so; in fact, I think he offers us a third way, so to speak. You get a taste of this third way in his discussions of 'interactive kinds', 'forms of knowledge', 'styles of reasoning', 'self-vindication', 'making up people', 'looping effects', and other unfamiliar concepts. These make up part of Hacking's own attempt to grapple with human knowledge, and they are subsumed by neither social constructionism nor mainstream analytic philosophy -- which isn't to say he hasn't drawn a lot from both.
A word to the prospective reader: be careful when interpreting Ian Hacking. His clear and polished prose can be deceptive. His own views are so sophisticated and fine-grained that it is easy to pigeon-hole him into irrelevant categories. But don't let that stop you from reading him yourself -- with some patience, you will find your efforts well rewarded.The Social Construction of What Overview

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