Product Code Database
A social construct is any category or thing that is made real by convention or collective agreement. Socially constructed realities are contrasted with , which exist independently of human behavior or beliefs.
Simple examples of social constructs are the meaning of , the value of Banknote, and the rules of . 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. (2025). 9780309700658, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. . ISBN 9780309700658 Still other possible examples, such as less empirical and more abstract concepts which underlie particular scientific theories, remain the subject of ongoing philosophical debate.
Others, such as György Lukács, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer built upon the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx to argue that a fallacy of reification is responsible for the practice of treating socially constructed facts as though they were natural—a phenomenon Lukács referred to as "phantom objectivity".
More recently, biological anthropologists and Public health have determined that, while race is a social construct, the persistence of racism has objectively demonstrable negative consequences for the health and well-being of marginalized groups.
|
|
