Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction - Hardcover

Gergen, Kenneth J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674749308 ISBN 13: 9780674749306

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Western culture has traditionally celebrated the individual mind as the locus of reason and, thus, of knowledge. According to Gergen (psychology, Swarthmore College), meaning derives less from the single mind than from interdependent relationships. Revisiting standard areas of inquiry in psychology, he examines what forms of theory, research, and practice result when the human sciences are guided by a constructionist perspective. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

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 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. Realities and Relationships not only integrates the many voices of anti-empiricist criticism, it positions us to consider alternative conceptions of knowledge, new vistas for human science, and transformations in cultural practice.

About the Author:

Kenneth J. Gergen is Gil and Frank Mustin Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College. He is the author of The Saturated Self and Toward Transformation in Social Knowledge.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0674749308
• ISBN 13: 9780674749306
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368