Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction

by Kenneth J. Gergen

Book Overview

Recent attempts to challenge the primacy of reason--and its realization in foundationalist accounts of knowledge and cognitive formulations of human action--have focused on processes of discourse. Drawing from social and literary accounts of discourse, Kenneth Gergen considers these challenges to empiricism under the banner of "social construction." His aim is to outline the major elements of a social constructionist perspective, to illustrate its potential, and to initiate debate on the future of constructionist pursuits in the human sciences generally and psychology in particular.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674749316
• ISBN13: 9780674749313
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Important work for Social Constructivism

Another fine work by one of the world's leading post-modern theorists out of the social constructivist school. Gergen focuses on nature of interpersonal relationships in the modern day era in a book that equally intellectually stimulating and eminently readable. Readings on social constructivism are not for everyone. However, Gergen is worth experiencing in some way. Those who are familiar with him remember Gergen (Duke, PhD - Yale) as a prominent and highly cited social psychologist in the 1960 & 70s at Swarthmore College before moving into more theory in the 80s and 90s. His work is truly brilliant, accessible on most levels to the undergraduate but complex and insightful enough to make a Foucault or Virilio scratch his head momentarily before saying, "Ahhhh." The Saturated Self and Realties and Relationships are two of Gergen's most easily accessible yet deeply complex works on the nature of the modern world.